Less chick; more chic

Along with other Baby Boomers, I had no expectations of growing up or growing old. But, one can’t pretend that the indecency of ageing has not been visited upon us. We (especially the guys) look ridiculous in reprised Biba dresses, rock-chick gear or kaftans. Those days have gone.

Recently, I disposed of a leather motorbike jacket which for years I had been pushing up and down the wardrobe rail, but never taking out for a ride (on a bus). I thought, you know what, I can’t carry that off any more. The pinched face collared in a brooding black leather looked pathetic. What that face needs is something flattering, colour-endowing and softening. Not a fucking leather-biker-chick jacket. So, I gave it to a 15-year old Goth.

My purge resulted, also, in the last of my nostalgia stilettos taking a walk. I don’t say it’s slippers for me, but anything toe-mangling and/or balance-disturbing is out. And, don’t get me going on arch supports…

Mirrors and moths

You’ve got to laugh. It’s like being on acid without the nasty side effects. It’s, well, okay, it’s loony.

The other day, I grabbed a book and slapped, with a good deal of venom, a moth. My intention: to kill the moth. I have moths like some people have dust motes. They are everywhere. The moth, instead of being flattened and leaving a dirty smear, plopped onto the floor. And stayed there. I found a pair of middle-aged glasses to check out the deceased moth. It was a sunflower seed.

I laughed. When I made the acid analogy to my daughter, she looked at me weirdly. Or did she? What you see with matured eyes is not always what’s there which in the case of one’s own visage is fine.

Recently, I spent five days away from home. New vistas, new mirrors. Wonderful vistas, but the mirrors were a little shocking for they revealed wrinkles hidden from me by my usual complement of kindly-lit mirrors. I was quite glad to return to my old version of me and to forget the other one I’d spied on holiday.

Synthetic seconds

As you grow older, your relationship to time alters. You’re a bit slower and not so much in the whirl. At the weekend I needed to source some picture frames. I spoke on the phone to four people, all young, working in shops. ‘Bear with me a second’; ‘I’ll put you on hold for a second’; ‘Just a second’, and ‘Can you wait a second?’ In none of these scenarios did a second play out as a second. I remember, stroke of greying beard (no, I don’t have a beard, only in a metaphorical sense), when a minute was more the currency of time.

It’ll take a minute, I’ll see you in a minute, etc. Now it’s speeded up to seconds. But, not real seconds: synthetic seconds. Elongated unreal nonsensical seconds.

Okay, since I’m on this tack. The ubiquitous phrase intoned by every drone you phone: ‘Bear with me’. I mean, where does that come from? What does it mean? What together are we bearing if not more nonsense?

One last dig at phrase making. Going forward. Have you noticed how we’re all ‘going forward’. Politicians and business spokespersons are for ever ‘going forward’. Will we know it when we get there? Or is it a case of perpetual motion?