Say 33

Being 33. Being 33 in Brooklyn. Being 33 in Brooklyn and single. Being 33 in Brooklyn and single and a freelancer. What a fun year this is gonna be.

[say33please]

While I'm young

Once, a guy named Noah B made a move about being 27. It was called Frances Ha and was basically telling the story of my life at 30. He just made another one about being a 40 yo documentary maker. The hero is 42 and has been working for 10 years on his project. He keeps meeting younger people who are less obsessed than he is about perfection, or just more driven, and just ask themselves less questions and get things done instead of talking about them. This guy, this is me in a few years. Or, I really need to be making this documentary about being 33. (And I will include Noah B in the story of course.) The fun part of this post : my neighbor in the theater had a hat and black and transparent glasses. Just like Ben Stiller in the movie, until he's told he just looks like "an old man with a hat". My neighbor was old but did not take this personnally. He kept the hat and the glasses.

[say33please]

It's growing off me

I'm leaving Austin with no boyfriend but a severe hangover and 8 extra pounds (of luggage). Also a very strong observation : 30 yo texans wear a huge beard and very often long hair and a baseball hat. They look like williamsburg hipsters on a rough hangover Sunday morning that would last something like 3 years (the time to grow the hair). I seriously made a video of a Texan bar where every guy in the room had a huge bushy beard, or was desperately trying to grow it (poor Asian guy in the middle of the shot). And so, as a result 1/ they all look the same and you just don't see their real face. Unless you have very very pretty eyes (I met one who was giving away free hugs I will probably talk more about that) I don't see the point. 2/ my coworker had the brillant idea to grow a hipster beard too ! At the end of a long day I would almost automatically yell into a perfect stranger's ears, mistaking him for another bushy beard. 3/ also I wanna add that even if you're cute and grow a beard it can reach a point of total uncomfort. My former yoga teacher was cute as hell (and the hero of a mumblecore movie where he killed a deer and had sex with 5 different women- after that I never went back to his class) (he should have thought about that when he said yes to the script- the audience of the movie was clearly overlapping his yoga audience)) And at a point you could not see his mouth anymore. I wonder if he had to open his mustache as a theater curtain to be able to put food in his mouth. He probably did not eat anymore at this point. Also, I wonder what could be done of all this hair on people's face when the fashion is gone. One of them will probably come up with a start up idea about that soon enough.

[say33please]

I’m at SXSW

That might bring me some more followers, just by hashtaging. I’m so new to it I’m almost scared of it.

Anyway physical following seems more than encouraged. Just being at the airport I made eyecontact with more guys than within a week in NYC.

Will I make it to the SinglesXSW meetup ? The attendance being 33000 geeks it might be a litle crowdy...

Will I configure my phone so that I can make friends on SXSWSocial - the local social network ?

Will I get more friends just because I’m a lucky bearer of a Platinium badge ? I’m trying to wear it in a sexy way, even though this is really ugly.

I hope next year I will make a talk about being 33.

[say33please]

Whenever I hear that someone successful is younger than I am, I feel like I'm losing the race "

My friend N. over dinner discussed age and the way he systematically checks out other people's age to compare himself.

Now I feel almost everyone more successful than I am IS actually younger. Almost as if it was a criteria for success. 

[say33please]

Life is a pinball

French singer Corynne Charby sang in 1987 that she felt like a pinball ball. After a night of pinball challenges and a few moments of grace (my friend N. achieving the status of "Underboss" at the Sopranos pinball by hitting the boat repeatedly, and not the safe, or me getting my ball back by hitting the right angle of the machine) I came to the epiphany that Corryne Charby was actually a great artist and visionnary. When you think of it, life IS a pinball. 

You never know how many bumps and jumps and extra balls you'll need to go to the next level. You see a light, aim at the opportunity, and sometimes it works, most of the time it doesn't, but you keep trying, you desperately try not to let the ball hit the bottom. The only way you can make sense of all this is by using your imagination.

[say33please]

Today I met the man of my dreams (2)

So I finally made it to the theater where I had planned to indulge my solitude by watching two movies in a row, each of them followed by a discussion with the filmmaker.

The first question after the first movie comes from behind me. I turn my head around, and I'm face to face with the man of my dreams again !

Just the fact that we find ourselves facing each other twice in a single day, being total strangers in this crazy city with 8 million people, isn't it a reason to talk to each other ?

There is absolutely no question he saw me. We got out of the room next to each other. I don't know why I didn't say anything. He didn't say anything. End of the story.

Maybe he's a psychopath. Maybe he's not even nice. Maybe he's an egomaniac. Maybe I am just lost for the human race, to be so shy when I'm able to ask questions to filmmakers in front of a full audience but not to say hi to a complete stranger ?

[say33please]

Today I met the man of my dreams (1)

He was sitting in front of me in the subway. He was just exactly my style, looked a little messy - hence was probably French or Italian, definitely not American.

He was looking at me when I was looking elsewhere and at his feet when I was looking at him.

I remember I listened to one song on my ipod to give me strength, and then made the conscious decision to remove my earphones. To be available just in case he wanted to talk to me. We never know, maybe he had questions about why I was wearing a torn jeans, or why I had chose the perfectly awful color assortment of red bag, burgundy coat and yellow scarf. Or just maybe he wanted to discuss the weather, the shitty week he just went through and the last episode of House of Cards.

Our subway stopped on a platform and there we had a moment of hesitation, looking for information. He did not talk to me, our eyes met and he looked a little panicked, then went out of the subway. I looked at him going away. He was probably going to meet his girlfriend, or his wife, and their 3 to 5 kids.

I sighed, put my earphones back on and took the next local train.

[say33please]

You know those people (in French we say vieilles filles) who change seats when they see a baby coming to the table next to them ? I've become that kind of person. What does a baby do in a Brooklyn coffeeshop ? Full of macbookpros and roasted coffee smells? Since when are hipsters able to reproduce ?

[say33please]

Blueprint

I listened to the best radio show on French radio ! maybe not "the" best but in line with what I'm trying to do being 33... it's called "A ton age" and the person interviewed was 44. She talked about her, what she learnt in her life and what she wants from life now. It was pretty personnal. She sounded like she almost cried a few times. I liked the way she said she was drawing a blueprint of her life (that was in fact a blueprint of her mom's life) until her mom died a few years ago. She was in a permanent state of failure because she compared herself to her mom at the same age, and her mom had 5 kids and was happily married. Now she doesn't make big plans any more, she's just trying to enjoy it as it is. I'm probably in that situation too, drawing a lot of blueprints, trying a lot of things but not sure what to choose yet.

[say33please]

Power of poop

Also we talked about being a poop giver/receiver. Which reminded me of Miranda July's film but also made me want to puke.

I'm so happy to have this kind of friends here even if I have to say I was doubtful until I checked it out myself here. 

I was looking for information to give in this blog post, because you WANT to learn things about poop giving now, don't you ? I can't be a donor myself for reasons I won't disclose here of course (let's not get too personnal even we're talking about that yummy subject please), but maybe you can do it. For that you'd have to use the Bristol Stool chart  - which is presented here ON A MUG.

What kind of person has a stool chart on their mug ? What kind of mug company sells stool chart mugs ? Let's stop having this conversation NOW.

[say33please]

Two blocks away ! Running ! The road was sooo icy !!

You know how you share your guilt when you're late and you don't want the friend who's waiting for you to hate you. Yesterday my meditation friends with whom I spend one hour a week just sitting and listening to each other's hungry stomach told me I was doing that a lot, when they could just enjoy life and conversation without even noticing I was late. I noticed that French people when they're late always blame something else (the train, the traffic, the weather), whereas they are truly, just, LATE in the eyes of the people waiting and there is no excuse for that. I embrace their honnesty and swear to reduce this guilt texting to the minimum. You're not late until you get there, right ?

[say33please]

This week I decided to get up

Instead of staying in bed I decided to be an active freelancer. In the last 7 days I did very different things, from reading comic books in French bookstores to starting a snapchat account to meditating twice to eating octopus while editing pirate stories to opening secret cabinets in a renouned artist's studio to crosscountry skiing on a frozen lake. But of course that's not the hardest. The hardest was that I finally decided to be honest about something with someone. No matter the amount of amazing things I did after that, it's like everything is a question, nothing really settles the way it used to. The absence of answer fills my hope, when I should instead acknowledge the dreadful truth: no answer most probably means no.

[say33please]

Hate

Also today I received both my first fan email (through my website) and my first hate comment (on FB of course). After one month of being tech-and-social-media-enthusiast, that's quite a result. Not sure what to think though. The hate comment is pretty violent (and I keep having nightmares involving the person who posted it).

[say33please]

Blue

The Nasa scientist turned out to be my first cyber punk encounter ! He had very bright blue hair and I felt like in a Sci fi movie. Also he said "I think I'm 34 but not entirely sure, when you reach that kind of age you forget about it". Which I think is true, except for 33. I need to talk to a numerologist about that.

[say33please]

conversation starter

Tomorrow I'm meeting a sexy Nasa scientist. (I don't know about how sexy he really is, but just being a Nasa scientist IS sexy to me)

I'm definitely not going to try the no-shampoo bacteria yet. Even if that would be a good icebreaker topic.

[say33please]

It's so so so cold.

It's now normal for me to get out with two pairs of jeans and three pairs of socks and very dirty hair (I don't own a hairdryer). 

i try to keep my hat on all day long, like I'm a cool skater/hipster woman and why not wear a woolen hat even if it's very warm inside.

And then I sweat a lot, usually just before going out again, and then I'm so so so cold again, and I regret not to have washed my hair in the first place. 

By the way I'm really into biohacking bacterias these days, and I learnt that a few people created this bacteria that cleans your body and allows you not to shower ever again.

I don't think I'm ready yet.

[say33please]

Profiling

When I'm in the subway and I want to sit down to read my new 800-page book - which is great but requires my glasses to be fixed because it's written in very very small-, I know that if I target a row with only Chinese-speaking people at least of them will get up at Canal St. I feel so racist when I do that and so close to the NYPD cops. But the truth is it usually works. 

I also try to do this with hipsters. Usually they get off at Union Sq to take the L. But it's less reliable, they're everywhere now.