OH SHIT. here it comes.

the sucking sound should start at any moment. the baby boomers are starting to retire. it starts officially today. the boom generation spans from 1946 to 1964. a rather protracted length of time if you ask me. someone who was 5 years old during woodstock seems more generation X, of which i am a member. i prefer the term "thirteener."

here's how my generation is defined, in contrast to the boomers, apparently we jumped the shark after grunge peaked:

In the book Generations, William Strauss and Neil Howe called this generation the "13th Generation" because it's the 13th to know the flag of the United States (counting back to the peers of Benjamin Franklin). Strauss and Howe defined the birth years of the 13th Generation as 1961 to 1981 based on examining peaks and troughs in cultural trends rather than simply looking at birth rates.^[5] Howe and Strauss speak of six influences that they believe have shaped Generation 13.

Generation X is generally marked by its lack of optimism for the future, nihilism, cynicism, skepticism, alienation and mistrust in traditional values and institutions. Following the publication of Coupland's book (and the subsequent popularity of grunge music) the term stretched to include more people, being appropriated as the generation that succeeded the Baby Boomers, and used by the media and the general public to denote people who were in their twenties. During the early 1990s, the media portrayed Generation X as a group of flannel-wearing, alienated, overeducated, underachieving slackers with body piercings, who drank franchise-store coffee and had to work at McJobs, concepts that had some truth to them but were in many cases stereotypes.

Gen-X thinking has significant overtones of cynicism against things held dear to the previous generation, mainly the Baby Boomers. Another cultural hallmark of Generation X was grunge music, which grew out of the frustrations and disenchantment of X teenagers and young adults. The fashion of grunge music was exemplified by the bands Alice in Chains Pearl JamNirvana. The grunge of the 1990s was influenced by 1970s punk and heavy metal of the 1970s and 1980s.

The attitude of Gen X towards religion is complex. Many Gen Xers are indifferent toward religion. Some take a hostile stance toward the religion of their parents. Many Xers do in fact believe in God or at least "a higher power" and are accepting of the plurality of world religions. One commonality of Generation X's religious perspective is the noted lack of dogmatism.

Generation X grew up during the end of the Cold War and the Ronald Reagan eras. As the first of their cohort reached adulthood, they experienced the collapse of the Soviet Union and the United States of America's emergence as the world's lone superpower. Generation X has been the largest Generational Military service block in American history and the most educated military force fielded by the United States with more enlisted and officer ranked persons holding BA and Master's degrees than their World War II Grandfathers. Generation X doesn't suffer the "Vietnam Complex" fatigue of its parents and is more likely to identify themselves with their World War II Grandparents in values, morals and practical living skills.

The employment of Gen X is volatile. Gen Xers grew up in a rapidly deindustrializing Western World, experienced the economic recession of the early 1990s and 2000s, saw the traditional permanent job contracts disappearing and becoming unsecure short-term contracts, experienced offshoring and outsourcing and often experienced years of unemployment or underemployment at typical jobs, such as McJobs in their young adulthood. Many found themselves overeducated and underemployed, leaving a deep sense of insecurity in Gen Xers, whose usual attitude to work is Take the money and run. They no longer take any employment for granted, as their Baby Boomer parents did, nor do they consider unemployment a stigmatizing catastrophe.