NOT BEEN THERE, NOT DONE THAT, BUT STILL GOT THE T-SHIRT

According to my t-shirts, I was once:

1. A speedway champion, in 1975
2. Mountain climbing in Arkansas - do they even have any mountains?
3. In the Chicago Motorcycle Club
4. A member of a Colorado college basketball team
5. In Yokohama, for some reason, in 1968
6. In Top Gun (I can't say this without remembering the theme tune)
7. A fan of the 1965 Panama Racing Squad
8. In Rio de Janeiro for the 2014 World Cup
9. Selling Fender guitars and equipment
10. On the San Clemente Lifeguard Team in Southern California

What a life!

I don't really remember most of it though, and some of it must have happened... before I was er, born, so, you know... weird that I feel I can wear the t-shirt.

The trouble is, it's much harder to find cool-looking t-shirts that say things like: Tech Authoring Dept. Est 2012. Or Library Nerd, Reluctant Fire Marshall, or University Chess Club. Though I do have an old choir t-shirt.

At least the metalheads wear t-shirts of bands they've actually liked or seen! Sure they have names that sound like they were picked from the Gothic Dictionary of Twisted Monikers, but hey, at least it's authentic! And, to be fair, those people are some of the most authentic people I've ever met, so that's no surprise.

So, why am I wearing misleading t-shirts? Does it display to the world a kind of dissatisfaction with the captionless, unexciting life I actually lead? Am I masking a secret disappointment at not getting to go Formula racing every weekend, or that I was never (and would never have been likely to be) picked for the San Diego Harbour Patrol?

Or, am I just subconsciously toeing the fashion line? Probably that isn't it? Like all fashionable influence, it's got lodged in my head somewhere that this is how to look cool, and I've fallen for it.

Not that it's a bad thing. Actually, if it makes you happy, then the reasons for changing are diminished to the point of someone else's view of appropriateness. It's really up to us, after all.

So just for the record, even though I do have the t-shirt, I'd still like to make it clear: that I have no desire to try speedway (dusty and dangerous), that Arkansas is home to the Ozarks and they're really plateaus rather than mountains - either way I've never been; I can't ride a motorcycle, and attempting to do so in Chicago of all places, sounds like a horrible idea; I was hopeless at Basketball (a 'non-contact' sport that resulted in me being bundled to the floor of the school gym); I have no desire to go to Yokohama, I haven't even seen Top Gun all the way through (don't hate me)! I don't know what I thought was appealing about Panama or Rio, I have never owned a Fender guitar, and most importantly of all, would be utterly useless as any kind of lifeguard (I can't swim), especially one who might belong on the set of Baywatch, patrolling the bronzed, super-fit beaches of San Clemente, wherever that is.

Just for fun, I did google Tech Author T-Shirt. Predictably, they're all those generic: "Keep Calm and Trust a Tech-Author" or "This is the What the World's Greatest Tech Author Looks Like" shirts, where the job title has clearly been made into a variable by the factory, and might as well be 'Software Engineer', 'Milkman', or 'Secretary of State for Pencils'.

Maybe I should take up Speedway, after all then - if they get the cool t-shirts and the leather jackets with sewn-on badges that make you look like you're from Knight Rider or Airwolf or something. Or maybe, it's just particularly difficult to look cool and be genuine all at the same time.

Though I hope not.