It's about nothing

It's "Au contraire". Not "Oh, contraire!"

It's "correct me if I'm wrong". Not "current me if I'm wrong."

It's "for all intents and purposes". Not "for all intensive purposes".


February 04, 2006 at 10:45 AM in Complaints Department | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
It's about nothing

I'm 30. Thirty. Thir-dee. Three-oh. Trente.

When I was 20, I rather looked forward to turning 30, because I looked young for my age and nobody took me seriously and my "superiors" condescended to me all the time. One of my professors actually literally patted me on the head when I ran into him at the library, while I was on a leave of absence (I was going through a Bad Time). Can you believe it? He was my Creative Writing instructor, and this is what he said to me as he patted me on the head:

"Conrad didn't publish anything until he was in his thirties."

Well, I'm 30 now, and I still haven't published anything worth mentioning. And I still look young for my age. Actually, according to one Smug Married woman I met a couple of months ago, I "look really good for 30". Which I think - but I'm not entirely sure - was a back-handed compliment. A polite, gentle, genteel, well-bred way of saying, "You're definitely in Old Maid Country now, but you just might be able to fool some unsuspecting male into marrying you and impregnating you before you end up with the expired yogurts and the day-old pastries. Have you tried Botox?"

So anyway.

And people still condescend to me, maybe because I look young, but also, I'm a woman and I work in a "customer service" role and I smile a lot and I don't wear suits, so obviously I have very little power or authority or brains.

So. Not much has changed. Well, I have a lot more money than I did when I was 20 - no complaints there. And I have two degrees, and back then I didn't have any. And I have my own apartment, so while it's technically smaller than my shared apartment when I was 20, it's actually bigger because it's all mine. I'm certainly more content than I was then. And I can do things that I couldn't do when I was 20, like run two miles a day and swim thirty laps without stopping. I was skinnier then but I was in terrible physical shape.

Roll on 40!