Almost 40

My fave moment from my birthday drinkies last night was when Alice asked: "So how old are you now then? 37 or 38?". This was better than, when moaning to a work colleague about my increasing age, being told: "You don't look 40." I think I'd prefer it if I looked a bit "used" (as another friend said about my 60 year old chum). As I've recorded on these pages before, I was never told that I was a pretty little girl so I never grew up thinking being attractive was the be all and end all. But I've always been told I looked young (when I was 18, I looked about 12, which was hard for pulling anyone but perverts) and so I am really paranoid about jowls and wrinkles and grey hair. But on the other hand, maybe looking older would make me feel older with all the attendant benefits. I'm not going to do one of those wanky 40 Things To Do Before You're 40 lists (which always seem to involve dangerous sports and charity runs*) but I have now decided that I am looking forward to being 40 next year. I will legitimately be able to:

1. Stay in 6 nights a week
2. Moan about my aches and pains
3. Complain about young people
4. Not sleep on floors or settees
5. Ring minicabs rather than waiting for a bus in the rain
6. Prefer food to booze and books to drugs
7. Say I'm too old to have kids
8. Have a blanket over my knees
9. Say "It's a bit loud in here, isn't it"
10. Have a nice cup of tea and a sit down.

I will think of another 30 things before this time next year.

* talking to a friend about Facebook going public, I said I would pay for a service that filtered out words such as "10K" and "just giving"

I should probably post a super pic of my friends looking happy and drinking beer, but look, lovely things! Don't be hating me cos I got swag:

In the ghetto

An odd thing happened on the way to the bus-stop. A Jewish woman stopped me and asked me for help. She explained that she couldn't touch electricity on the Sabbath and the woman who usually dealt with it hadn't turned up and could I unplug something for her?

We've been living amongst our Semitic neighbours for 5 years and I now know The Ways Of The Orthadox Jew. Young men will dive into the kerb holding their faces in their prayer cushions rather than look at me walking past. If a small boy throws a snowball, his sister will tell him not to do that to the goyim. I know small girls are terrified of dogs. I know the lulav lemon tree in Springfield Park glasshouses is sacred to them. I know the differences between the hats the men wear and that married women must cover their hair. I know the Stamford Hill rabbi had to decide if crocs shoes were kosher or not. I know a lot of those extensions on the top of houses did not get planning permission. We know if there's a noxious burning smell, it's the start of Passover. When large sound systems are set up on our road, it's Purim. When temporary shelters are thrown up in gardens, it's Sukkot, loud singing is Lag Ba'omer. I have the same mixture of tolerance and indifference that most Londoners feel for other races and religions and know that every tribe is annoying in their own way (I find white middle class people annoying and I am white and middle class). But I've never really interacted with anyone. The men wouldn't speak to me anyhow.

I thought the woman'd just want me to unplug an iron or something, so I went in. In the living room was a severely disabled young woman in a wheelchair attached to an oxygen machine. The woman instructed me what to do: turn this onto standby, turn that off, unplug the oxygen tube and attach it to something else. All the time, the disabled woman was waving her hand around, because she was in distress or because that is what she does, I don't know. I was very anxious that I was going to not be able to do what was required and she wouldn't get enough oxygen. But I got the tube out of one machine and into the other one. The woman thanked me and asked if I wanted a drink but I said I was on my way into town.

My first thought was that I was glad to be able to have done a small mitzvah and to be part of cordial relations within the jew-gentile community. My second thought was that religion is an awful, awful thing. How long would the woman have let her daughter suffer because she was not allowed to press a few buttons? How long had she been hanging around on the side-street waiting for a shiksa to pass by (I think all the houses on the road are Jewish-owned). How does easing pain and helping people count as work? How does what was once a union-type agreement negotiated between the Jewish slaves and their overseers become so fetishisised that a button becomes more important than a human? My third thought was: I can totes use this.