In praise of older women (and men) …

I’ve got aging on my mind right now.

There’s a birthday in my not too distant future. And everywhere you turn somebody’s bringing it up (age, not my birthday.) The presidential race seems to have become about Marco Rubio being too young, Bernie Sanders being the oldest candidate ever and how, to all the experts’ surprise, Hillary Clinton’s not connecting with young women.

One of this year’s Screen Actors Guild Award nominees is nine years old. Had he also been nominated for an Oscar he

Promise you won’t tell … ?

Looking to numb my brain for a bit last weekend I turned to the TV and started channel surfing landing, eventually, on Big Bang Theory.  Are you familiar with it?  It’s a terrific show, actually — a sitcom (which I usually don’t like) now in its eighth season.

There are five main characters.  Two geeky physicists, Sheldon and Leonard, who share an apartment … Penny, a waitress, who lives across the hall (who Leonard lusts after, with varying degrees of success) and their two equally geeky friends, Howard (an aerospace engineer) and Raj (an astrophysicist).

Anyway, in the episode I watched, which happened to be a re-run of an old show, Sheldon, who is my favourite character, was angsting because Penny had shared a secret with him and asked,

Day 21. Who’s Lonelier?

I have another WordPress blog — one where I talk about my day job as a writer, marketer and strategist.  About six months ago I wrote about how, just by looking around and being observant, a writer can find inspiration anywhere.  And everywhere.

One of the examples I gave was about a couple, having dinner a couple of tables away, from my then-boyfriend and me.  I spotted them the minute we sat down and I have to confess that I couldn’t take my eyes off them.  I was riveted.  They were married.  And there they were, at a small table for two.  But as intimate as the space they shared was, they might have been in different countries, let alone tables.

They said nothing to each other.  Not once.  Not even when they ordered their meals.  They never looked at each other.  Not once.  Although they were sitting directly opposite each other, they were ‘positioned’ at a slight angle away from each other.  So their bodies were facing in slightly opposite directions.  I’ll bet anything they were totally unaware of it, too.

They didn’t seem angry.  They didn’t seem upset.  There were no red faces, tear-filled eyes, longing looks, frowns,  sneers.  No clenched fists.  No negative body