I found a new blogger I'm in lurve with. My other bloggie friend, Christina, turned me on to Lynda, and she is a hoot. We share some core beliefs on snarcasm, self abasement and child education. I think we would make good friends if we were not three-thousand miles apart. Lynda has a moderate following of 80 or 4,000 readers, so that makes her pretty popular in blog-land. She probably is so busy writing her next post right now to notice my little crumb of the blog pie. I don't expect she has time to read what I think and I'm counting on that based on what I'm about to say (hiding safely in my little inconspicuous corner of her territory). For I am a chicken and in no way seasoned enough to challenge this woman personally.
From what I've read and far as I can tell, Lynda and I probably don't disagree on much, except this one teensy thing. In September she posted a manifesto on acting like a forty-something and I was intrigued to read her summation on what will be expected of me during an age that will surely be the dregs of my mid-life crisis. You see, Forty is rapidly hunting me down like a ravenous beast and fast as I'm being chased by its imminent approach, running in my flip- flops (or Toms depending on the weather), I will go down thumping the forty year old monster like a scared little bunny rabbit donned in lip gloss, slightly impeded by my tight trendy jeans and sparkly low cut T-shirt. This is where Linda and I part ways. While she solemnly intends to abide by her self imposed rules for women over forty and though her vehement suggestions are all good and well for her, I could not miss the stern mother-tone in her pitch that implied the whole lot of us girls over forty ought to better follow suit. Now, I happen to agree with a few of her proposals so to save time I will just give you the bullet points to which I cowardly raise the gauntlet.
It's easy to make assumptions about people. I am a master profiler myself (hold on while I snicker smugly and flick the lint off my shoulder). I learn a lot about folks just by the way they carry themselves, and I ask questions. If you didn't already know, I'm a Realtor from nine to five, it's my job to read people and get 'in their business'. I like to think of myself as more of a noticer than nosy. It's always been easy for me to pick up on subtle nuances in tone, inflections, body language and mood patterns. Mostly because I have radar ears and x-ray vision and I can smell a secret smothered in peanut-butter and buried in dog poo. It's a gift, really. I'm always searching for what's missing from the puzzle, taking notes on what you're not doing, listening for what I didn't hear you say, generally looking for what's out of character. It's how I bust my kids every. time.
But for someone who possesses such keen sensory superpowers as I, it's taken me twenty-plus years to realize that sometimes my E.S.P. aint so popular with others. Folks pretty much don't want to be figured out, psychoanalized or dissected. It makes them kind of, "uncomfortable". I've noticed most people don't show a lot of gratitude when I'm pulling the rug out from under them either. Calling someone out is no way to get brownie points, I have discovered.
I recently returned from my first vacay out of the country. The hubs and I flew to Cancun with some friends. I took some notes and here's what I ended up with.
Upon exiting the plane, I instantly felt the tropics in my hair as every fiber of it frizzed in the warm salty breeze. We had arrived to the promised-land. I was expecting the pungent fragrance of a palm tree and pina colada nirvana, so as I drew the humid air in through my nostrils I was totally unprepared for the assault on my olfactories. Cancun smelt like a basement. Since this was our friend's fifth trip to Mexico, I asked them about the musty odor wafting through the airport and they replied something like "ahhh, that's the sweet scent of Paradise, you'll grow to love it!" Cancun didn't look much like paradise from behind the windshield wipers sloshing through torrential downpour so our friends were eager to divert our attention towards it's more positive attributes and show us the heart of downtown, roads less traveled by most tourists. A few miles beyond the hotel zone we saw why they were less-traveled.
