THE JOYS OF AGING

I’m pushing 30. Come October, I will usher in the time I actually turn 30. As much as I feel I should dread it and hate myself for getting older, things just seem to get better with age. Granted, I’m 99% about my head and 1% about my body most of the time, so that may come as little surprise to anyone.

And, one of the advantages of being around your thirties is the clarity you get about men just beginning their twenties. Whereas once they were all powerful and soul crushing to the exclusion of interest in romantic relationships with them, now I find them cute and silly. I have become the “mysterious” older woman that they all abandon the perkier girls their own age to be “tutored” under. Granted, I have no interest in tutoring but it would appear their hope springs eternal. How adorable is that?

I was speaking with J the other day about my concern that Waffle House might actually make good on his threat to call me. Frankly, I have no interest in blowing him off but I’m certainly not about to give him false hope. And the problem with 20-somethings is they say, “I’ll call you” and, in the moment, they mean it. However, they lack the follow-through. I was explaining to J how much I hoped Waffle House lacked follow-through. Unfortunately, Simon had been standing behind me, unbeknownst to me and overhead a portion of that conversation. Clearly, his curiosity was raised.

“Who are you talking about?” He asked.

“Some 19 year old who wants to fuck me.” I answered as bluntly as possible. Frankly, it doesn’t seem like the sort of thing to be deceptive about as he can tell when I’m hiding things and frankly, I don’t want to give him reason to be suspicious. Besides, if there is a way to sugar coat that, I have NO idea what it would be, short of using my grandparents’ lexicon of “winkles,” “woo-woos” and whatnot.

He paused, snorted a small laugh and spoke. “Look at that; ask a question, get an answer. Wow.”

Then, last night my platonic French husband’s (“The Boy”) cousin (who is here, looking for a position to teach French and is 20 years old) asked me to take him home with me. He was adorably cute about it and it came up contextually but really, what could I say?

As I was leaving the apartment they share after watching “The Last King of Scotland,” the Cousin put on his hat and shoes to walk out with me. I was still puttering about collecting the rest of my things while he was clearly waiting for me.

“Where are you going? It’s 2 in the morning,” I said.

“He’s hoping to go home with you,” the Boy said.

The beautiful Cousin looked at me with puppy dog eyes and shrugged a little, “Hoping.”

“You tired of living together? You want to crash in my guest room?” I asked, still not getting it.

“No, he wants to crash in your bed.” The Boy said.

“Hoping,” the beautiful Cousin said again, still giving me puppy dog eyes.

My first reaction to that was, “But I’m in my bed and I’ve got a perfectly good guestroom.” However, I only actually said, “But I’m in…” before the light bulb went on. To which I did the only thing I could; laughed. “Oh honey, I’d eat you alive. I’d break something off you and I can’t send you back to your cousin broken.”

“It’s alright. I don’t mind.” He spoke up cheerfully.

I laughed again and it was later revealed if he wasn’t actually able to go home with me, he was going to get his iPod in the car.