Learning Curves Are Tricky Things

Ok, yesterday's rant may have been a little unfair.
To my fellow women in their not-so-sad late 30's.
And to Alex Turner, who after all is only a baby. And let's face it, when you're his age you do think the world owes you pretty girls, or handsome boys for that matter.Most of the time you stumble around not knowing what the fuck you want. That you occasionally still do at the ripe old age of 37.

Some people never grow old, that is to say - I have found out - they never learn. But no matter how old you are or pretend to be, if you belong to the non-learners, you will eventually run out of excuses for behaving like a brat (or prat, your choice). Hope is that non-learners forgive themselves at some point and stop thinking of themselves as failures. Rumour has it that, also eventually, you will stop to give a shit about what others may say or do or achieve or what they're better at.

I feel like a non-learner all the time. And I am still hoping for the point to come that I could give myself a break. Sometimes it works. In the Wallowing Hour. And I find myself letting go a little.
But as always, before you know it, the time's up and you put the gloves back on again and the visor goes down.

I heard someone say once, life hasn't got to be so hard.
Well, it's the way I know it.
What's hard is letting go of old habits.

Rock 'n Roll Luck

In 2011, Alex Turner, Esq. was reported to have complained at a party about the lack of pretty girls with whom to flirt. I only found out today. Gosh! HOW did I miss this?

Yup, finger on the pulse. That's me. 

But this nugget of information struck me as something quintessentially true for all the parties I went to, in company or alone - the only difference being, that in my case the handsome boys were conspicuous only by their absence. Shameless behaviour, I say. 

I am sure, Alex Turner for all his wit (and bonus material I am equally sure) should have no trouble in the flirt-department. (I mean, he used to bed Alexa Chung for crying out loud.) Alas, it seems Master Turner can only get his flirt on with a pretty girl. Sissy! We are not even talking smart, intelligent, funny. No we are concentrating purely on looks alone. Ah, the unfairness of it all!

Ha, I say. Come to my end of town and I show you what I have to put up with. 

The nasty boys, the stupid boys, the infantiles, the boys who’ll be boys, the chatty boys, the idiots, the wankers, the ones that can’t dance, the ones that won’t dance, the outright rude ones, the stalkers, talkers, the drinkers, the drunks, the bad kissers, the pests, the machos, the show-offs, the uglies, the fuglies, the loonies, the Roonies, … By Cooper, she’s starting to rhyme…

Anyway, you get the point. It’s like we’re continually out of “handsome”.  Oh, and you can forget about “smart”, “intelligent”, and “funny”, too.

It kind of makes you want to say, get a life, Alex! You’re a singer in a band, the songs you write are pretty good, too. They’re the kind that are either quietly to the point or so poetic that despite their obscurity the tug at one’s heartstrings is unmistakably felt and not easily forgotten. You’ve got that rock ‘n roll je ne sais quoi. So what exactly have you got to complain about, huh?

Oh right, no pretty girls at the party.

Well let me tell you something. Here in the world of The-Sad-End-of-Thirty, there’s no fucking pretty and there is no one flirting anymore either, alright.

At least, most of the time it seems that way. And you can “still feel younger than you thought you would by now” but what good is that in the face of time’s cruel jokes on women’s bodies. And no, my maturity did not get me over the fact that the older a woman gets the less she is seen, as in noticed and appreciated.

There’s none of that, mate.

There is, however, a time of day that’s called the Wallowing Hour. You know why? Because without it we would simply jump off a flippin’ bridge or something.

It’s in this short hour that all the frustration comes out, all pettiness, all the heartaches, the worries, the paranoia, all the insecurities and pain.

And then one gets on with it again as if nothing was ever wrong. That is after all what one does these days. Despite the fact there are no decent men in town, despite the fact that one is turning into one’s mother, and despite the fact that one feels damned inadequate and a bloody failure.

(Oh, haven’t you heard?! Yeah, teenage angst never really goes away.)

Really, get to my fuckin’ age and tell me again about “pretty”. But the sad fact is you’d probably still believe the world owes you pretty girls. And even sadder: you’d get them, too.