You're Not Getting Better, You're Getting Older

I'm getting sick and tired of film reviewers describing the hero of the movie The Forty-Year-Old Virgin as "middle-aged." And on top of that, a novel I just finished reading, Cut my Hair by Jamie S. Rich, featured this description of a character: "Laugh lines appeared at the corners of his mouth and around his eyes, the only real sign of his age. Lenny was pushing forty or so, yet none of us would have dared to call him old." That had me checking the mirrors for a few days. Well, according to his biographical blurb on the inside back cover, Mr. Rich was born in 1972, so he'll find out in seven years what it's really like to be "pushing forty or so."