Graduating to a new decade

Washington Square Park, May 2001. Before war and temp agency time cards.

There's a lot of "you're screwed" letters to the Class of 2009 floating around. Here's actually a really funny one. Hahaha, the environment and Wall Street are head to head in the race to hell, there's no jobs, there's no loans, and Teach America is now turning people away. You can't even get a job teaching math in the South Bronx. Congratulations, you're all assholes Class of 2009. Now give MTV another reason to make a new season of "My Super, Self-entitled, Classist, Materialistic Sweet 16." I would argue that Class of 2001 was the first of the Millenials to be handed the shit end of the stick along with our diploma. For those 1979 babies turning 30 this year (for me, May 29, there better be a shitload of Facebook wall writing next week), let's reflect on our 20's:

• During college we saw the Internet grow and explode. I spent senior year in NYU being able to order spring rolls, tampons, and the director's cut of Doom Generation for delivery from the same website. The world was our oyster! Remember all those messenger bags with cutesy, quirky names and logos floating around the city?
• The first presidential "election" we could participate in was also our first defining Supreme Court case.
• 9/11 happened four months after we graduated, right when our summer internships ended and we began signing up for temp agencies, because all those Internet start ups that were supposed to make us rich went out of business.
• Iraq.
• Our second presidential election showed us Jesus will be beat out science, reason ,and lots of dead soldiers.
• Evidence of torture.
• Hurricane Katrina.
• We're still watching thousands of our generation die needlessly in stupid fucking war but we can't get jobs on Wall Street or mortgage companies and no one knows where Cindy Sheehan is anymore, so who cares.
• Actual torture.

So here we are at 30. We get to buy acne products and face dwindling reproductive options all at the same time! But I'm psyched for 30. It's the new 20. It has to be. Our parents had a mortgage, ten years into a job, two cars, and a family at this age. I'm sitting at my dining room table 11:30 in the morning warning fellow underemployed college graduates that their delicate self esteem will slide into oblivion if they allow themselves to get sucked into daytime television.

Any thoughts on 30? Please share your comments and I'll compile them on my birthday next Friday.