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May 25, 2008
Another Reason to Do CR...
[WARNING: Whiny, self-indulgent post ahead. You may be better off making my squash pizzas.]
I just discovered that NPR's Ari Shapiro, who is one of my favorite NPR reporters (yes, I do listen to NPR. Yes, I did vote for Obama. Yes, I hate Dunkin Donuts coffee.) graduated from Yale in 2000. I graduated from Yale in 1996. I am four years older than the NPR announcer. Where is Daniel Shore when you need him?
I am feeling old. I always liked getting older, until this year when I started to feel like I was rapidly aging but not getting any wiser. Usually, when I feel this way, I call Anna and she cheers me up. I think that the impact of spending almost 24/7 with three young, beautiful, stylish organizers who (though they manage to hide it well) are pretty convinced that I'm over the hill, is starting to get to me. Back when it was just me and Edward (who is twelve years older than I) I always felt young. In fact, I was annoyed at how young I felt at times, battling the twin problems of being both young and female. Now I get a ton of respect. Now I miss being cute.
Obviously it's the chronic stress talking.
MR is convinced that I am beautiful and slim and youthful and nearly perfect in every way (especially now that I've gotten very good about keeping up with washing the catfood cans for recycling.) He is wonderful that way. But all you girls out there know how it is when you have those days when you just don't feel as attractive as you maybe once did. Shallow, yes, I'm sure. I should care about nothing other than my one true love and the vast number of nurses I've organized. But I am shallow... I want to be one of the cute ones!
I think I need to find someone in his fifties who thinks I am young and beautiful to flirt with. Not to do anything with... I am quite well set on that score, thank you. Just to flirt with. Any takers?
I was whining last week at six in the morning to Asparagus-Phobe (the guy I work with who is afraid of asparagus) that no one ever hits on me anymore. Another of our co-workers, who really is one of the most beautiful women I know, had just suffered through a dude trying to pick her up at the Dunkin Donuts at 6 am. "Well, April, you're kind of an imposing character." I suppose that's true. Asparagus-Phobe gets hit on all the time. He is a successful single male in his early forties who looks younger than he is and has a good job. This sort of thing doesn't work for women. It was always a big negative for me, in my twenties, that I had a great job and a successful career. That's why I mostly dated older men. They could handle the fact that their girlfriend had her own money, and cared about something other than going out and getting wasted. Now don't get me wrong: I am a huge fan of going out and getting wasted... though I don't do it much anymore. But I was a VERY SERIOUS PERSON in my twenties. Very, very serious.
I'm really lucky that I found MR. It's amazing that someone out there is willing to put up with my hours, my inattention to housekeeping at times, my preoccupation with organizing, and the little dramas that seem to be constantly erupting amongst my closest friends, and still love me and not run screaming out the door. And he thinks I'm cute, even in my Hello Kitty t-shirt and gym pants.
Another funny story about how I am no longer cute: I was at the gym this morning working out and noticed that a lot of guys were checking me out in a rather more interested way than usual. I was quite certain that this could not be attributed to any attractiveness on my part... I had my hair up, hadn't showered, was looking like a big dork. As one is wont to at the gym. Anyhow, I puzzled at this attention. Then I realized: I was wearing a tank top with a GIANT Hello Kitty on it. Not only was there a Hello Kitty, but Hello Kitty was wearing a giant pink bow in her hair, and the bow was affixed to the shirt in plastic from the outside, so it stands out from the shirt. It was a Mothers' Day gift from my mom, who knows that I love the Hello. That explains why folks were curious indeed.
Ari Shapiro is younger than I am. By a lot. Wow. I could handle it when I discovered that the salesgirls at Express were younger than I was. I could deal with it when nurses started to be younger than I was. I could even handle it when I hired someone who was born in 1980, a year in which I distinctly remember wandering around a Hallmark store in Rocky Mount, North Carolina, contemplating the fact that a) Reagan was evil incarnate b) someday I would be friends with people who were being born RIGHT NOW!
But Ari Shapiro is younger than I am. He started at Yale the year after I finished. I was in North Carolina knocking on doors of workers who didn't want the union because the white workers thought the union was just for the black workers, and Ari Shapiro was hanging out on Old Campus having a great time. Younger than I am. Et tu, Ari? Please just tell me that you weren't in a singing group.
So onto CR... if I'm going to be older than Ari Shapiro, I may as well look younger than I am. So I must do CR. And I am working out like crazy because it relieves stress and makes me feel better. Lifting weights. Lifting weights dramatically improves my self-esteem almost instantly. I want to maintain the strength and flexibility I have now for the long term, and I know i can do that if I continue to work out and do CR.
What if Ari Shapiro discovers CR and looks younger than I do for the rest of our lives? What then?
At least Ira Glass is older than I am. I think.
[Post-script: MR says, "Ari Shapiro is my absolute favorite NPR broadcaster. He is a genius."
This coming from a man who listens to NPR, the BBC, and the CBC approximately 16 hours a day. Apparently, we are the Ari Shapiro fan club. Should we make up t-shirts?]
Posted by april at May 25, 2008 8:30 AM
Comments
Dammit, girl! Be glad you're not 58, 5'4" tall, feeling lazy and 176 lbs as I was three short years ago. Talk about feeling "old"! Now that I've lost 48 lbs, I'm actually enjoying being 61, 'cause I now like what I see in the mirror as well as feel pretty happy that I am who I am. You are tiny, curvy, beautiful, smart, healthy and full of piss & vinegar, as well as damned cute. You are also a cooking genius and an organizing goddess. And I'll bet you big money that those guys at the gym were NOT staring at you because of the goofy Hello Kitty tank top! :-)
Posted by: Judith at May 25, 2008 11:57 AM
if this is any consolation, Murathan Mungan, who is a very productive and very attractive turkish writer in his mid-fifties, once answered a question whether he feels old thus: "I don't and I never will because I take care of myself, pay attention to my appearance and never graduate myself from anything. For example, I go to the gym 3 times a week, I dance at least once a week and this year I started learning spanish". I think not letting yourself to graduate from life is the key here. The curiosity to learn something new is one of the most potent youth elixirs. The guy looks like he is 40 at most! To follow his path, I am starting modern dance this fall.
Posted by: zeynep at May 25, 2008 12:38 PM
April, I felt this way alot before I started changing my lifestyle. Of course now I'm bummed because if you don't get hit on what chance do I have?
Posted by: Little Annie at May 25, 2008 6:00 PM
Now let's put this into perspective please. You are approximately a third of the way through your life (in Walford years.) This makes you a fluffy teenager by my reckoning.
If you need to feel young, rich, gifted and beautiful again, go find SC. Youthful feelings guaranteed.
Posted by: Lindsay at May 26, 2008 1:42 AM
Agree with zeynep. The key to staying young is to never stop learning (and do CR, of course).
Oh, and Ira Glass is 49. Steve Inskeep is about 40. Renee Montagne is in her late 40s. Robert Siegel is 61. Melissa Block is 45. Michele Norris is 41.
Posted by: Katerina at May 26, 2008 2:55 AM
She who plays with mice and men,
Knotty would she be with them.
Escaping time, denying fate,
Dramatic dalliance just pro tem,
To make the now exceed the then,
Before time's up and comes too late.
Posted by: CRWilliam at May 27, 2008 1:05 PM
I'm sorry, what does NPR have to do with Dunkin Donuts?
Posted by: Emma at May 30, 2008 8:41 AM