Retirement's just around the corner

First, I have to tell you about my bizarre experience yesterday at the post office. I’ve been told I have an indeterminate, “soft” accent, and I’ve been asked if I’m Australian twice, as well as whether I’m from New Zealand, Ireland, or South Africa. Anyway, the postal employee asked if I'm Scottish (!). I said no, that I am in fact Canadian. The otherwise prim and proper-looking woman burst into alarming laughter. She said, “Canada! Ah, love it, great stuff, West Coast, great vibe …” etc. etc. while miming what I, in my innocence, can only assume to be the smoking of a joint, and nodding at me excitedly in a “wink, wink, nudge, nudge” way. In front of a long line of people waiting to post letters. I laughed nervously, agreed that, yes, the West Coast is great, and then apologetically explained that I’m actually from Ontario. She dropped her hand, grimaced, and said, “Oh. I don’t like Toronto.” And then she stamped my TV license and told me to have a nice day. It was surreal.

I don’t know what it is about school uniforms, but they make primary-aged children so darned adorable. I think it must be the juxtaposition between ties, crisply pleated skirts and pressed slacks, and the cowlicks, missing teeth and mischievous grins. When I came home today I heard someone shouting at me and looked up to see two boys leaning out of the skylight of the next house. Normally when children shout at me I assume they’re making fun and become paralyzed with self-consciousness. For all their cuteness, kids are a bit scary. But today was a good hair day, so I spiritedly yelled hello right back. They responded, endearingly, “This is MTV Europe coming at you! Taking your requests!” I tried to think of the most boring, middle-aged, repulsive-to-preteens song imaginable. Correctly, I guessed something by James Blunt, and was rewarded by a duet of fake vomiting noises. It made my day.

Last night I attended a talk on careers in publishing. I hadn’t realized that it was intended for Oxford undergraduates until the third or fourth incidence of someone saying, “I mean, by the time you’re THIRTY,” followed by snickers and knowing glances among my fellow attendees. Apparently by the time you’re thirty you need to have had at least three publishing jobs, to have worked for at least one large “blue chip” publisher to prove you know “best practice,” and to have established your exact area of specialization. So, yeah, I’ve pretty much done everything wrong. And now I’m over the hill! Hah. I enjoyed the look of astonished pity on the face of the nineteen-year-old undergraduate I befriended when I announced I would be thirty in two weeks. At least I must not outwardly have appeared to be TEN YEARS OLDER (ouch!) than everyone else in the room. This is the secret of eternal youth: wear Converse sneakers.

I wanted to justify my advanced years by explaining that I didn’t enter university until nineteen (not uncommon in Ontario back in the day), and that undergraduate degrees are four years in Canada, not three, and that I did a master’s degree so I didn’t even START work until I was nearly twenty-five … but what’s the point. Some of my long-suffering law-student friends will gnash their teeth upon hearing that there are twenty-three-year-old lawyers here. And yet, Oxford undergrads seem to be under a lot of pressure. That second-year student I met told me she was stressed because she had been told by her college to start figuring out when she wanted to get married, when she wanted to have kids and how many, and how she would incorporate that into the career she should be choosing right now.* At not even twenty years old! How can you even begin to know those things? I STILL don’t. And, my god, I’m practically THIRTY!



*Do they tell male students to consider marriage and children, I wonder?