Don't You Just Hate It When ...

Hi Kathleen,
I'm very sorry to see how upsetting this is to you. - Email from a Princeton "Researcher"

Don't know much about geography
Don't know much trigonometry
Don't know much about algebra
Don't know what a slide rule is for -   Sam Cooke, "Wonderful World"

Graduation - When Degrees Meant Something

Women of this world - don't you just hate it when certain men - especially the younger ones who were raised post political-incorrectness - tell you that you are "upset" when you complain about some service, or lack thereof.

When you are in the right, and are pointing out an error in their customer service, be it commercial, governmental or horror of horrors, educational.

What's "upset" got to do with it? It immediately implies that you are somehow not emotionally capable of dealing the blows that some inept service unprovider has dealt.

It takes focus from THE PROBLEM to one's own private mental state. Quelle nerve!!!

Some of you might know that I have, for the past 14 years, run a website for Australian expatriates. It's a relatively low hitting-site - Australia has a population of around 22 million, and even with the Australian Diaspora of 5%,  the Aussie expat community is small. Still Australians Abroad has a loyal following, and is important to those of us who go there for information or a vent.

Recently I noticed what seemed to be a DDoS attack. A websiteDistributed Denial of Service attack is when is an attempt to makewebsite unavailable to its intended users. This is usually done bymaking multiple hits or site requests so that the site is unable to cope with the traffic.

Have a look at this graph. Itshows the rate of hits before the attack, with the sharp drop indicating when the attack ceased.


This slice cover just a few hours. The "attacks" went on for days, having the effect of putting my site over quota and therefore unavailable for two hour every day.

Anyway, enough of this techie stuff! The reason I went into it is that after much researching and posting to Google website forums, I  discoverered the offenders who were not out to be malicious but were merely inept "researchers" affiliated with Princeton University and operating out of a group called planet-lab.org.

They said so very sorry we didn't mean it the dog ate my homework blah blah. I was not amused, and now having a name to put to the source of my outrage, emailed back, "Dear Mr Wzyz, ...", explaining that these tens of thousands of automated hits were unsolicited and unwelcome.

And then it came. A return email with,

Hi Kathleen,
I'm very sorry to see how upsetting this is to you ..."

Kathleen already yet! How sweet. How sharing. How it's so nice to get to know you. How pathetically familiar!

He's still emailing me. He wants ME to try to work out how it happened  on his end. The research was meant to involve one to three hits (which the guys at planet-lab.org name a "probe" because it sounds spacey and more important) every 5 minutes. Now you and me might think that means one hit to my site from planet-lab.org every five minutes. But NoSireeBob.

What we are doing is to perform an active probe from each PL node to aussieclouds.appspot.com every 5 minutes. The burst of traffic is probably because we conduct our measurement on around 150 PL nodes.

In human-speak, that means 150 times 3 every 5 minutes. N'est ce pas?

Anyway, or anyways as they say in the States, it was enough to annoy me,. Though that was a minor annoyance compared to the inept and so non-PC responses I'm getting from Mr. Wzyz. If the unsolicited website probes were not enough, now I have to deal with his emails!

What a week. I'd barely put the mouse down when the phone rang. It was Chase fraud alert asking me did I really make thousands of dollars in purchases from Victoria's Secret and Tiffany's.

At least one place has its act together. Of course I hadn't purchased anything from those places. Tiffany's! I haven't had breakfast there for yonks. And as for Victoria's Secret. ASIF!

A mid-western gentleman once told me that Victoria's Secret is where mid-western women go to buy stuff when they want their men to give them money.

What a hoot!

Stay tuned!

Talking to Strangers

Oh I can't control myself

Oh I can't control myself
Oh I can't control myself
Don't leave me hanging on the telephone - Blondie, "Hanging on the Telephone"

Cool Girl with Umbrella, New York 1996

A hundred years ago when I first came to live in New York it was a very quiet place. You could walk down almost any street and the only sounds of people talking were made by tourists or lunatics, in most cases by the latter.

You could go for a stroll and actually be annoyed by the rumblings of delivery vans, the sirens from ambulances, police cars, fire engines, the New York car horns and the sound of air conditioners emitting whatever air conditioners emit.

Those days have long gone. New York noise has doubled in intensity. Now New Yorkers have had the finial inhibition lifted. They can talk anytime, anywhere, without being hampered by a need for the physical presence of another human.

The cell phone has brought equality to the streets of New York. You can no longer tell the loonies from the so-called normal New Yorkers.

I hadn't thought too much about the increase in New York noise. In fact I hadn't thought about it at all, until the other day when I was walking in Manhattan with one of my noisier New York friends - yes New Yorkers actually do differ in the noise level they emit - when she yelled, "Jesus! New York is so f-cking noisy nowadays!"

To be fair, she HAD to yell or I wouldn't have heard her. "It think it's the cell phones," I replied, but of course she didn't hear me. New Yorkers only listen to themselves.

Some New Yorkers still don't have cell phones, and are forced to talk to whoever is close by. Click on the play button below and you'll hear a typical New York conversation between two complete strangers.

Unfortunately I wasn't quick enough off the mark and missed recording the first bit. The woman, who is doing most of the talking had been sitting in, well overflowing really, her wheelchair, berating everyone who walked by for being New Yorkers and not talking to her. It's a short clip, and well worth the click!

Larry David Talks on Pretend Cell Phone

People talking on cell phones somehow block out all other sounds and enter a bubble of their own making. They'll talk about the most intimate things regardless of who might be listening.

I used to think they were just pretending to call and my reason for thinking that there was no one on the other end of the line was that people on cell phones in New York never pause. It's one non-stop stream of audible consciousness.

If I was pretending I'd have enough sense to pause now and then and "answer with an "Oh really" or two. Of course I was quite wrong in my reasoning. New Yorkers are talkers and not listeners. The cell phone is perfect for them. There are no talker-listener pairs. Just two talkers. And hence the huge increase in noise level.

For every New Yorker on a cell phone there are two simultaneous conversations. I've never been much good at maths but something tells me that this is - to use a favorite word of modern Americans - HUGE! And thinking of "HUGE" it occurs to me that the new use of this word makes maths irrelevant. Numbers are either huge or not huge. I think I'm on to something huge here.

But that's another story.

Greetings from the Past

What's-a matter you?
Hey! Gotta no respect.
 What-a you t'ink you do?
Why you look-a so sad?
It's-a not so bad, it's-a nice-a place.
Ah, shaddap-a you face - Shut Uppa You Face, Joe Dolce, "

Na na na na na ,na na na, hey Jude.. - Lennon/McCartney, "Hey Jude"

Memorial on NYC Sidewalk Plus Pink Flamenco

Whatever time zone your are in, whatever country you live in, wherever, when ever you are, I am five hours before you.

If you are not living in the United states, that is. I hope to catch up with you and am sure I will on Sunday August 12, for that is when the 2012  Olympics end.

American telly does not show Olympic events "live". We in the United States have to wait till England is going to sleep and Australia is getting up the next day, to see the athletes in London at the XXX Olympiad. Why? Because that time slot, between today and tomorrow is Prime Time TV here in the Devastated States of America. And that's when we get to see the past, whatever goddamned time they choose to leap run and swim in the UK.

Actually I think it is a good thing in a way. If it was in real time then I wouldn't have been half asleep when Paul McCartney sang John Lennon's "Hey Jude". Being three wines into the evening at 2 am GMT, when most of England was asleep, certainly took the edge off seeing Sir Paul trying to act young, botox, hair-dye and all. The best way of seeing McCartney has always been with eyes half-open ... and yesterday was yesterday, apt really when not only was Yesterday his only real song, but that was when I saw him. Back in the USA. Yesterday.

As a break from traveling to the past I decided to social netsurf. One tweet caught my eye.

Danny McKee @danmckee25 I didn't realize other countries played each other when they didn't play the USA.. #basketball #Olympics

Good one Danny boy! You can join Sir Paul in the back of the class. Somewhat Twittered-out I turned to CNN. Fareed Zakaria on Time to Face the Facts on Gun Control. Excellent article. I bounced down to the comments. The usual from NRA sympathizers; there's no point in arguing with them.  Worth scanning though for the amusement value.
 
Another anti Second Amendment article written by a non-American. Funny how the rest of the world knwos what is best for the greatest nation on Earth. July 29, 2012 at 10:47 am 

This by somone called Darren Gil commenting on the Fareed article. Back to the bottom of the class young Darren. Next to Sir Paul and Danny Boy.

I always wonder why some Americans think that the United States is the greatest country on earth. Invariably such people have not traveled elsewhere.

I wish they'd shut up. They are giving America A BAD NAME! It's actually quite a nice place. We don't have a grumpy Queen and Paul McCarney is miles away.

On the downside, America does have a lousy health system, and there are way too many guns.

And now,  to top it all off,  we have to be alive five hours ago!

Life in the Scary Lane

Looking at the world through the sunset in your eyes
Traveling the train through clear Moroccan skies - Graham Nash, "Marrakesh Express"

Half of Spain clambered onto the bus. People spread out fiesta-style across seats, hanging out of windows, balancing on top of each other. Talking, laughing. I half expected them to start laying out tablecloths picnic style and popping bottles of Vino Rioja.

I jolted myself back to the reality of Queens, New York. It was 112°F outside and I was on my way home from work.

Where had these people come from? They looked so happy. Could they be tourists? I was never to find out, for they had barely settled themselves when the Manhattan-bound bus stopped on the Queens side of the bridge and they all got off.  They left behind a void. A silence that was as annoying as the chatter they had brought with them.  I watched as they disappeared into the distance, as they frolicked along Jackson Avenue like the dancing travelers in the final scene of Bergman's "The Seventh Seal".

Perhaps I'd dreamed them?

I looked around. There were half a dozen of us left.  Office people. Monotony reigned.  Then, out of the blue the bus screeched to a halt and the driver stood up and SCREAMED, "Everyone of the bus! Now!"

Food queue in 1950s Kiev or Upper East Side New York? Check the flag.

Surely he couldn't mean it? We were halfway across the Ed Koch bridge in the middle of three lanes of traffic.  But he did mean it, and continued to scream.

I was first out. As my feet hit the tarmac, and with one hand still holding on to the boarding rail, the driver pulled a lever causing the door to slam shut on my hand. I thought my time had come. Was the bus going to move again, pulling me along with it, dragging me through the crazy New York traffic?

The door opened and the remaining passengers were catapulted through it. We stood there on the road, looking at each other. Silent, literally dumbstruck, as the traffic roared past on every side.

Of course eventually another bus came to our aid and we were taken safely back to Manhattan. Just another New York moment after all.

But it got me thinking. About the dichotomous nature of this city. The all-or-nothing-ness of it.

Never settled, we go about our lives lurching from one type of experience to its opposite, never - and quite justifiably never - trusting that what we are experiencing will last longer than a  New York minute.

Left Wondering

Paté escargots soup de jour
cordon bleu chic coiffure
fait accompli maison
creme de menthe
Marcel Marceau
meringue blancmange Bardot
gauche gay Paris garcon
gendarme agent provocateur - from The French Song", Divishti Rankine & Greg Champion

French Gucci and New York Taxis, Fifth Avenue

Being that it is Bastille day, I had intended to write about something French. Needing inspiration, I hunted around among my many photographs on disk. I knew I had one of a poster I saw years ago in Manhattan. I snapped it around the time that  the French were angry with America for naming their fries "Freedom" instead of "French". I can't remember why the Americans did this,  but knowing the French, they must have had a good reason.

 In 1985 the French were angry with Australians because they - the French - blew up the Greenpeace flag ship -  "The Rainbow Warrior" -  in the port of Auckland, New Zealand, to prevent her from interfering in a French nuclear test in the Pacific island of Moruroa. What chutzpah. So French! Australia stuck up for New Zealand and the French then punished all Australian citizens, requiring them to apply for visas if they wanted to visit France.

The poster photo would have been good, but I couldn't locate it. I think it was about a French restaurant and said something along the lines of, "Enjoy the French food without having to put up with all the annoying French people." I decided to do a computer search for the photo and typed "French" into the little box that comes up when you click the Windows 7 start button. You can see the result on the left.

Windows thought I wanted to BECOME French!  It was about to change my PC language. Mon Dieu!  I was reminded of my daughter when she was six. She wanted me to take her to France so that she'd have a French accent. It's a nice language, not as nice as the French think it is, but it seems even Windows 7 has gotten the francophile bug and thinks if you type "French" you want to become one.

Merci, mais pas ...

It's been a confusing week. Hot, chaotic, and puzzling.

I'm left-handed. All the best people are. And in the last decade or so, designers have started taking us Mollydookers into account. Simple things like having the power cord come out of the center-back of the iron, make us feel wanted when once we were shunned. The hand sinistre. The hand some religions use to clean their bottoms.

What did Dory Previn pen in her "Left Hand Lost" song?
 
left-handed people are impure 
they go against the grain 
left-handed children play with themselves 
and drive themselves insane

And so it was with anticipation that I read this week about Australian entrepreneur John Lambie's alternative to what he calls the "dysfunctional" QWERTY keyboard.  Not as dysfunctional as mine would have been had Windows 7 had its way and turned it into a French one full of acutes, graves and circumflexes.

Not that there's anything wrong with John Lambie designing an alternative keyboard.  As people  abandon keyboards for smartphones it may well be the time to change keyboard design. In fact it has already started. Apple has a ".com" key, and there have been all sorts of other changes including changes on physical keyboards.

But look at this John Lambie one.

The keyboard is in alphabetical order with the letters split over five rows instead of three and .... wait for it. According to the Melbourne Age, "the keyboard  is able to be flipped for easier use by left handed people."

WHAT is it we are meant to do? Does Lambie think we lefties see the world in reverse? That the 'b' comes before  the 'a' in our mirror world?.

I'm quite confused.  I thought of typing this whole blog post  in reverse character order and holding it up to a mirror to see if Mr Lambie has a point, but wisely decided against it. How does he think we have managed all these years? Does he know we read normal books normally? Or does he think we start a the back page and flip the book upside down?

It's just getting all too much. I'm having an Alice-Through-The-Looking-Glass experience.

Even the French are starting to look sensible ...
 

What's it Like to be in New York?

Hey girl what's it like to be in New York?
New York City, imagine that
What's it like to be a skateboard punk rocker?
Leroy says send a picture Leroy says hello
Leroy says keep on rocking, girl
Keep on rocking - from Anchorage", Michelle Shocked

East Sixtieth, July 2012

"I've always wanted to ride a horse. It is one thing I have to do before I die. I juss gotta get on one of them horses, but lordy if that horse done look me in the eye, I'm outta there."

What was this? I'd watched "Gone with the Wind" the night before. Had I been transported à la Twilight Zone to a stereotypical pre-Civil War deep south, and encountered Mammy?

I looked around me. No, I wasn't in rural Georgia, and unfortunately there was no Clark Gable looking suave, debonair and mean. I was on Sixtieth and Second, July 2012 waiting for a bus.

Behind me wasn't Tara, just the outside of a grubby pub selling Atomic Wings, whatever they are. Several 1950's era bicycles were stacked and chained together on a water pipe. The pockmarked concrete radiated out heat drawn in from the subways below and from the summer sun above.

The woman was still talking about the horse. I looked at her. She certainly looked like Scarlett's house-maid Mammy, though she wasn't wearing an apron.

"I once rode a horse," I answered. "Was it scary? Glory be!" Was this for real?  I was becoming paranoid. Was I the unknowing subject of some hidden camera television reality show eliciting the reactions of 21st century whites to racial-profiled character actresses? But no, surely not.

"Yes It WAS scary,"  I told her. "You are up so high and I got a fright when it moved. But you don't have to worry about the eyes looking at you. They don't look at you when you are sitting on their back."

This really set her  off. She laughed a deep throaty Mammy laugh. "Those big eyes," she chuckled, "You telling me you can't see his big eyes. You see them  BEFORE you get on that horse. You is sure funny!"

The bus driver who had been sitting in the driver's seat in A/C coolness reading "The Daily News" all this time, now condescended to open the door  to let us on. My new friend sat next to me, excited to talk more about horses. "You'll be fine," I re-reassured her. "Don't worry about it." I had hoped to be able to read my book - St Aubyn's Bad News, but didn't want to appear rude.

"I've been on a glider," I offered.

"I been to Paris," she countered.

"I've been on a tram."

"Me too and  I've been on a ship."

We sounded like two little kids in the school yard.

We chatted on about a few other things she wanted to do before she died. Anyone watching would have thought us the best of friends. Her stop was first. She got up to go and walked to the front of the bus. I looked up, following her with my eyes, expecting her to look back as she alighted. To wave. To acknowledge.

She didn't look back.

So New York. This sort of friendliness, camaraderie happens all the time. It's the way we communicate here. Who needs friends when you can just leave your apartment and talk to anyone. You don't have to actually know them. You can say anything. Or not speak at all.

It's all part  American take on "freedom".

Freedom of speech.
Freedom NOT to speak.
Freedom to have health care.
Freedom NOT to have health care.
Freedom to vote.
Freedom NOT to vote.

I'm starting to understand the land of the brave. Only took me 18 years ...

Don't Lay a Heavy Scene on me, Man

But I don't wanna live that way
Reading into every word you say
You said that you could let it go
And I wouldn't catch you hung up
on somebody that you used to know - From "Somebody That I Used to Know", Gotye, 2011

"This is the song I played while I deleted my FB." - Essjaiveille's comment (June 29) on the YouTube clip of "Somebody That I Used to Know"

A hundred years ago, 'Kool-Aid' brought to mind the Tom Wolfe novel The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test, rather than "drinking Kool-Aid" - as in  accepting an unquestioned belief.

Back then I lived in rural Australia. A housewife.

My ex-de-facto-sister-in-law  and brother were  visiting.  I stopped washing the dishes, those being in the days when I was married to the man-who-didn't-believe-in -dishwashers, when I heard de-facto ex-de-facto-sister-in-law saying to my brother, "Don't lay a heavy scene on me man!"

Perfect seventies-speak. I don't think people say that any more, except for me when I want to annoy people ...  So many lost words. But "hang up" has survived. "Don't be so hung up," we'd bleat to our parents and to anyone in mainstream society. Those were the days.

I was reminded of seventies-speak last week when I was having coffee at a Prêt à Manger, or should I say à l'Anglaise, Pret a Manger. Suddenly, breaking out from the ever-present Manhattan  hum that is a blend of traffic noises, jackhammers, A/C emissions and the babel of New Yorkers, came a complete and distinguishable sentence.

"Oooohhh that's MY song!" screamed the gap-toothed black girl behind the counter. I put down my cappachino and listened to the song that was playing. And recognised the opening bars, cords? whatever of Luiz Bonfá's "Seville". Swallowed quickly by Melbourne singer, Gotye's, "Somebody That I Used to Know".

"But that was love and it's an ache I still remember", swoon-sang the girl behind the counter, turning the volume up full blast.

Kimbra's sweet voice singing, "Hung up on sombody that I used to know."

"Somebody That I Used to Know" is the song of preference in New York stores and coffee bars this summer.

On my way out, I stopped and told Gotye's Pret a Manger fan that I was from the same town, Melbourne, as the singer. "Oh Goatee, he is so wonderful!" she answered.

I smiled and agreed, not wanting to disillusion her with the correct pronunciation of his name. After all, life's to short to disillusion people, and it has been a long hot and confusing summer.

Why, just yesterday, dear reader, I was taken completely by surprise. "Somebody That I Know", the title of Gotye's hit, applied to me! I discovered, quite by accident, that one of my dearest friends is ... gasp! ...

a Republican!

Stay tuned.

Stomping on the Level Playing Field

Well, I don't figure I'll be back
There for a spell,
Even though Rita moved away
And got a job in a motel.
He still waits for me,
Constant, on the sly.
He wants to turn me in
To the F.B.I.
Me, I romp and stomp,
Thankful as I romp,
Without freedom of speech,
I might be in the swamp. - from Motorpsycho Nightmare, Bob Dylan 1964

Corner 58th and Second

Last week I posted about old people and drinking cappuccino, at what was then, my favorite brunch restaurant - the Zebu Grill.

But as the song says, "Well, I don't figure I'll be back there for a spell."  As to why, the lest said, probably the better.

This week my interest is in economics, rationalism and "Obama care" - the name being given to the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act and the Health Care and Education Reconciliation Act of 2010  bills that could have lead America into the 21st century, albeit grudgingly.

I just don't get it. The health care "system" in America is so inefficient. Since 1986 everyone in America has a right to health care treatment regardless of citizenship, legal status or ability to pay. So the insured people are still paying for the uninsured,  just in an inefficient and round-about manner.  The hospitals providing the "free care" do not get  reibursed by the government. So it's the insured users who have to pay even more.

So this past week I decided to listen to Mitt Romney in the hope he would explain why it isn't a good idea for all Americans to have health insurance.

I tuned in to CNN and listened to Romney and his guys explaining how unfair everything was, and how China was a bad country because China can manufacture products cheaper than the US can. "We want a level playing field," one of them whined.

Huh? "Level playing field". Isn't that what Republicans DON'T want. Certainly they don't want every American to have health insurance. And what about capitalism and competition?  Not to mention the proclaimed benefits of a free market economy.

In my opinion, the Republicans are the new socialists - socialism for the rich. For the big banks. For Wall Street.

Bail out General Motors but heavens, don't provide health insurance to the poor and unemployed.

Yes a true socialist, Mr Romney is all for the workers.

According to the Sun Times, "Romney's campaign released a new ad on Friday - titled 'First 100 Days: Ohio,' where an announcer says, 'Day One, President Romney stands up to China, demands a level playing field for our businesses and workers.'"

It must be about having one's cake and eating it too. Or let them eat cake. Someone Left the Cake out in the Rain. Divying up the cake.

And as for the photo above, it has nothing whatsoever to do with health care, China or Mitt Romney. I took it because I just liked the sign. The smaller sign on the left says, "Feed a pigeon, breed a rat".

Yep, I just don't understand Republican logic.

Perhaps it's a rat thing.

No Country for Old Hippies

Carpe diem, carpe diem
Carpe diem, carpe diem
Well it’s an old cliche
Yes, it’s an old cliche
But you better make your love today
Death is a’coming in - from 'Carpe Diem', Tuli Kupferberg (The Fugs) 1965

I did a double take. I was crossing 42nd Street, having just emerged from the Second Avenue bus and a daydream.

The daydream was about the reaction to my last week's post, Rated Oh! for Old People. People had emailed me, berating me for writing about being old.

Yes they were right, I mused. Think young.
And then I saw it. A huge poster. You can see it here  above left. A poster proclaiming loudly and boldly, "Get Old".

Had I entered the Twilight Zone? Twilight years, more likely. Walking west down 42nd I saw even more posters telling us New Yorkers to "Get Old".

Some of the posters had little word-bites, meant to be encouraging. Such as, "Live longer. Live Better". And "Live long enough to see them make the same mistakes".

On and on they went, poster upon poster. Encouraging us to teach our children, to think "I told you so", but all with the same tag line, "Get Old".

"Who was putting these out?" I wondered. And then I saw in small print at the bottom of the posters. "Pfizer". I googled "Pfizer Get Old" when I got home, only to discover that Pfizer has applied for a TRADEMARK on  "Get Old". Milking the baby boomer generation for all they can get!

So much for getting the getting-old idea out of my head!

Which reminds me - I thought of another worst thing about getting old. People calling me "dear". Or even worse, "sweetie". When did this horrible thing start happening? Is is purely an American thing? Lots of people use these "terms of endearament" when addressing me.  People I know. People I've never met before.  Friends. Bank tellers. Waiters.

I have decided to counter-attack. Anyone calling me "dear" or "sweetie" gets it straight back. Let's see how THEY like it!

And so to Sunday. Father's Day here in America. I decided to go back to my favorite brunch restaurant. I was dreading it, fearing I'd see the waiter who had thought I was dead (Rated Oh! for Old People). But I decided to be brave ad venture out.  Then, oh no, I got another getting-old reminder. Second Avenue was full of old men. It should be Grandfather's Day. Old hippie men. They were everywhere. Long gray hair. Jeans. Generation X-ers in tow.

From my table at Zebu's - Father's Day 2012

All that was missing was the beads. Was that marijuana that I could smell above the pollution of the Second Avenue subway construction?

At the restaurant I took a table near the door, all the better to observe my generation on the sidewalk opposite.

The waiter-who-thought-I-was dead wasn't there. He must only work on Saturdays. And the new one, being VERY young, around ten, didn't call me anything.

Things were looking up! I started reading my new book. "Cain" by José Saramago. I love Saramago's writing. Sentences that span pages. Hardly any paragraphs. "Cain" is Genesis for atheists. It's excellent. So good I had to put it down to savor what I'd read so far.

Over my cappuccino I reflected on life. On Adam and Eve and getting old. On the wonderful Fugs. Carpe Diem. My generation.

Oops. What was I thinking? The words from "My Generation" by The Who came  blasting  their way into  my new-found short-lived moment of tranqulity.

People try to put us d-down (Talkin' 'bout my generation)
Just because we get around (Talkin' 'bout my generation)
Things they do look awful c-c-cold (Talkin' 'bout my generation)
I hope I die before I get old

My generation.

How little did we know!

Rated Oh! for Old People

Where Ma Rainey and Beethoven once unwrapped their bedroll
Tuba players now rehearse around the flagpole
And the National Bank at a profit sells road maps for the soul
To the old folks home and the college - from "Tombstone Blues", Bob Dylan, 1965

Youth and Age - Me and my Dad many years ago! 

My mother misled me.  "The worst thing about growing old," she told me, "is that your toenails turn yellow."

What a thought!  Mine aren't yellow yet though. Perhaps when THAT happens I'll agree that it's the worst thing. But not now.

I have a whole heap of worst things about growing old.

People saying I look like Maggie Smith is just one of them.

And people thinking I have possibly left this world!

Last weekend I went to my favorite brunch place - Zebu Grill. They make the best eggs benedict. I went with a book. When I first came to New York I imagined I'd make heaps of friends and have a busy social life, just like I'd had in Melbourne. That was before I knew that Americans - or is it just New Yorkers - aren't so much into friends. So I brunch alone with a book for company.

I generally go to the Zebu Grill every weekend, but I'd missed the week before. When I got up to leave the waiter said, "You weren't here last weekend? The waiter who is generally on in the weekends noticed, and asked if I'd seen you. He was concerned."

What did he mean? And then I realized.

Yikes! I went pale. He'd thought I'd carked it. Passed on, ceased to be, expired. Surely I didn't look THAT old. The feeling of enjoyment I'd had from the eggs benedict and my book, "Bring Up the Bodies"  died.  The very title of the book evoked death. The world turned gray.

Is this indicative of a new phase where people see me as something akin to the John Cleese parrot? Another worst thing! Even worse than being compared to Maggie Smith!

I am so sensitized to growing old, so obsessed, that I experience its awfulness when it isn't even there. Walking back from shopping last Sunday,  I noticed the poster on the left in the window of a laundromat. What did it mean? Where was the name of the show? I stopped, transfixed.

I must have read it through three times trying to figure out the name of the play, before giving up and assuming I was losing it. Aging had done me in! I could no longer make sense of a Broadway poster.

Perhaps what I hate most about growing old is losing the ability and the chance to redefine oneself. To imagine a different self. In my younger days I'd think things like, "I am going to change and be a neat person." Or "I am going to be more tolerant and cheerful".  Now I'm just me and stuck with it! Nothing's going to change. I've been me too long for any significant change to happen. So boring!

A bored Maggie Smith. Scary. What could be worse?

And back on the topic of Ms Smith ... I had quite a bit of feedback to my post, I Ain't Gonna Be Maggie Smith No More. Most people felt I should be honored at being told I was like her. "Such a wonderful actress", I was told by several friends. ASIF people thought I was like her for my acting ability. Clearly I was like her because of the nasty characters she played. Or her looks.  My uncle emailed, commenting on Maggie - "As my old man would have said : 'a face like a pound of tripe'". Charming!  It has not been my week!

There's not much worse than looking like Maggie Smith, having no dreams for the future,  not understanding Broadway posters, and having waiters thinking you've died when you don't have brunch one Saturday.

Unless it  is perhaps the color of one's toenails.

I daren't look ....