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I've been pondering recently — why do people attribute so much to physical age? On one of my messenger profiles, I had to resort to saying, "please don't ask me my age" — not because I care if people know my age or not, but more so that I was sick and tired of being asked, especially 5 seconds into a conversation with someone new. So often, "How old are you?" almost surely means "Can I coax you into bed with me?" (the more brutal version, of course, "Can I fuck you?") But on the other hand, people seem to want to know your age before they decide whether they could fall in love with you, go out with you for dinner, or in extreme cases — talk to you.
I remember a 16 year-old boy who sent me a message out of the blue one day, who was afraid of revealing his age because he found that most people don't want to talk to him once they find out he's only 16. He was rather lovely — nice, polite and pleasant, and I think we'd even discussed law and politics.
And I remember a 60 year-old man who was so sure that I wouldn't want to talk to him because he was 60 and I appear to be much younger.
So what is it about age? If I tell you I am 26, what value would that give you in knowing what kind of person I am? Does it tell you how mature I am, if I am intelligent, or eloquent with my speech? No. Would that tell you how many partners I might have had, what TV shows I watch, and what I might do for a living? No. Being 26 means I have lived 26 years, but it does not tell you how I have lived those years, and how my years of existence has shaped me as an individual. It does not tell you what I ate for dinner, whether I went to a rave party on the weekend, if I am married, in a relationship, have children or intend to have children — yet it seems the majority of people I meet think that age can somehow shed light on these things, and as if these things about oneself matters. Does telling you I'm 29 tell you that I am "wife material", or indeed that I am looking to marry?
Okay, I am really 36. What does that tell you? That I should be married, have two kids at the day care and have a career? Have we come to live in a society so obsessed by demographics, and the idea of needing to be in "serious" relationships that we forget how to meet and get to know people as they are?
Well, I'll tell you that I'm old enough to be a cynic and young enough to lighten up, that's all.
Posted by sniffles at 03:30 PM | Comments (21)
Fresh Antipasto: Ashes.
He said, "I'll make you some green curry."
I said, "Ooh. I can make you some red curry. And if we make blue curry and add to the other two, will we have white curry or black curry?"
Posted by sniffles at 10:44 AM
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Back from two weeks in a forest in Normandy, Montreal seems so noisy. I have to shout more than usual to hold a "normal" conversation. At 3:30 am on Sunday, some "kids" in the parking lot were yelling for someone and beeping their car horn. Downtown, music blare from shops, in the kitchens, cooks bang their pots, and I wake up to the periodical drone of machinery (I think it's the generator) in the building just behind mine, and for the last half an hour, a tractor has been busily rolling backwards and forwards, beeping occasionally. Rather different from the chirping of birds, the knocks of the woodpecker, the buzz of bugs, bees and bluebottle flies, and the occasional unseen gazelle. It doesn't help that jetlag feels like a hangover that won't go away.
Apart from the noise level, I'm glad to be back. Montreal has a young zest of life that even the most grey, wet weather can't dampen — like mobile boom-boxes cars blasting music rolling down Sainte-Catherine ... ok, I stop. ;)
I haven't done very much, except I caught "La Grande Séduction" last night — a most cleverly written and wonderfully humorous film, even as it addresses a serious problem in country towns all over the world today. I tried out shopping on Ikea online, and can't help thinking that the experience was so much like playing The Sims.
Posted by sniffles at 07:29 AM | Comments (3)
In the heat of the mid-afternoon, I noticed a dragonfly was circling the garden so I went outside and watched it for some time. It has been a fascination for me these few days; I love watching them dart and hover. This particular dragonfly was hovering more than usual, but it wasn't until that I came back from stumbling through the forest (otherwise known as "a walk"), getting nicely scratched by thorny and poisonous plants, that I found out why.
The shadows had stretched longer in the late afternoon, but it was still hot and very sunny. I was in the kitchen getting a drink of water when I saw that the dragonfly was still in the garden; it was hesitating, hovering, periodically landing on the unweeping willow, the garden table and the lounge chairs, curling its "tail" from time to time. Eventually, it settled on a piece of wood that was part of a former bonfire. After I slowly inched close enough to see, I realised that it was actually laying eggs into a hole in the wood.
Why it chose to do so in the garden is a bit of a mystery; as far as I know, dragonflies lay their eggs near water. Egg-laying seemed an exhausting and long process — I think the dragonfly remained on the wood for more than an hour. I'd watched her for about thirty minutes, and went inside to help make dinner. By the time dinner was ready, she was gone.
Now, I know next to nothing about dragonflies, so I found the British Dragonfly Society FAQ an interesting read. It seemed that I might have managed to photograph a dragonfly common to a European family. Aren't I a lucky gal?
Posted by sniffles at 11:12 PM
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Fresh Antipasto: Thoughts atop a cliff.
Posted by sniffles at 08:25 PM | Comments (4)
It was great to meet-up with some French bloggers in Paris yesterday evening, in particular Daniel Glazman, Laurent, Castor (who gave me an idea for a project, stay tuned on that), Delphine, Matthieu and Eve (even if briefly). There were so many people that I didn't get to say hello to everyone properly (and my shyness got the better of me).
Leaving France on Saturday ... and we ought to arrive in Montreal at round about the same time we would leave!
Oh and by the way, Charlie has his own page now.
Posted by sniffles at 08:03 AM
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A dragonfly appears with the breeze of the evening, darting about the garden. It investigates the rose, then the lily, then buzzes away towards the other side of the yard just underneath the maple tree. And then it does the entire circuit again, varying sometimes the height, the speed, the flutter. Then comes a second dragonfly, who shows at once that her interest lies in the other side of the garden. She is careful to look at every flower, every tree, as she dances gracefully across the heaven of green.
Suddenly, they switch flight paths. Perhaps they are exchanging their individual experiences? Checking out what each other has seen, comparing notes? Verifying that all data is collected and correct?
So they dart, fly, and flutter, hovering above the grass and beneath the unweeping willow, drawing mysterious patterns which might determine tomorrow's weather, which flowers might bloom in the morning, or maybe the cloudiness of next Sunday's sky. When their job is finally done, they zip around the edge of the garden, and promptly vanish from sight.
Posted by sniffles at 11:21 PM
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Marie Trintignant, a French actress, was beaten into a coma by her boyfriend last weekend. She died this morning. On the news, the announcer said that 6 women in France die every month from being beaten. Today we hear about one particular woman because she is a star. How many women don't we hear about, in the rest of the world?
See too L'enquête nationale sur les violences envers les femmes en France and statistics of women abused by an intimate partner (United Nations, 2000).
Declaration on the Elimination of All Forms of Violence Against Women and other documents.
Posted by sniffles at 09:38 PM
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In the forest, the trees lean out in greeting, the undergrowth stretches and tugs at the seams of your skirt. The afternoon sunlight takes shelter beneath the unweeping willow, a butterfly shows off its vibrant wings. A spider finishes its web and rests in the middle, finely-spun silk swinging in rhythm to the breeze.
Posted by sniffles at 07:22 PM | Comments (2)