Midnight in Paris

Have you seen this film?  You might not like it.  I'm a huge Woody Allen fan.  I'm such a fan I can, all these years later, forgive him for falling in love with Mia's daughter.  After all, they've been together for ages now. Either it really was a true meeting of the minds or he will stay married forever to prove a point.  Or Soon Yi has some serious dirt on Woody that requires he be her husband (he doesn't really need glasses or isn't Jewish? egads?!?)  Regardless, I'm a fangirl when it comes to Mr. Allen and his films.

And Midnight in Paris is lovely for many reasons.  Even if you forget the cute plot, the funny lines, or the gorgeous Michael Sheen, you still have the best character in the film- the city of Paris.

I'm Italian American.  I know people romanticize Italy all the time.  And Italy deserves it.  The life, the love, the passion, the food... oh the food... it's worth of a daydream or two.  But I guess because the grass is always greener I don't imagine myself walking arm and arm with my husband in Rome.  I'm too familiar with it I suppose.  I dream of Paris.  I have never been.  I have visited Europe many times but usually to visit family and since I don't have any Frenchies in my blood line I am woefully devoid of free places to stay in Paris.  I kid, I kid.

Anywho, my regular fantasies of moving to Paris and eating a baguette for breakfast each day are immortalized in my latest piece.  Don't worry, my funny hasn't left me (shut it if you think I never had it).  It's just that the dog days of summer aren't that humorous.  They leave me not wanting a joke, but a stroll on a tree lined street with a lovely view... maybe like this one?

Mid life crisis for women

I'm rapidly approaching a mid life crisis.  However, having my son at 18, I feel as though I had one early since being a parent at a young age made my life feel like it's been on permanent fast forward.  Now back to our regularly scheduled programming, I am presumably on the verge of my natural age one.  

There are so many givens for men who are having a mid life crisis.  A hot young mistress.  A shiny red sports car.  Maybe self tanner and/or hair products.

But let's dissect whether these will work for me, aka a woman.

1) hot young mistress?  No thanks.  I think the crux of a mid life crisis for women is realizing you are no longer capable of being the hot young mistress unless it's to a 90 year old man (can you imagine what an even more wrinkley scrotum must look like?)  And because I love my husband more than life itself, I'm certainly not going to take on some twenty something himbo as my, err, mistress?  Can men be mistresses?  I am hardly going to call some 20 year old douche bag with a flat stomach and bulging pecks a master.  More like moron who looks good in jeans.

2) sports car?  Meh.  I could really go for a little Fiat to drive around in.  I would wear a scarf on my head, and big black sunglasses, and pretend I were living in Rome or Paris.  But that fantasy would be ripped to shreds once I get stuck behind some big, yellow, American school bus.  You can't be continental and sexy in your little Fiat when fat school kids are making faces at you.  Nope, it's hard to be cultured when you're praying that there's e. coli all over that bus window they're licking.

3) self tanner?  I'm incredibly fair.  Self tanner makes me look like I went for a swim in sunny delight.  Hair products I could probably do for a little while but probably the humid southern summers would make that futile quite quickly.

So what is a mid life crisis for women?  What do we do?  I haven't an idea.  But maybe some things I'll test run.

1) Picking what I want on the pizza we order.  Oh yeah, take that!  There are four in my family.  No one loves what I do for pizza.  Black.  olives.  Yummy.  Now I have even more divergent tastes than that- white clam pizza anyone?  Egads!  Yummy!  I don't ask them to eat slimy fish bits though.  Just olives.  And all my gorgeous family members recoil as if I've suggested they eat fetus butter on their Ritz.  So we order two pizzas, both of which are fine with me, but not what I crave.  Well, I'm approaching mid life and I'm going to have some goddamned black olives.

2) Put some streaks of a crazy color in my hair.  Yeah, this is probably akin to the self tanner.  But you know what?  I have been wearing my hair 'normally' for all of my freaking life.  I went to Catholic school and got in trouble for having LIPSTICK on!  "Oh my God?!?  What would Jesus do?  Not wear lipstick.  What do you think Jesus was a tranny???  Get out of here you harlot!"  Okay, that's probably paraphrasing what my Vice Principal told me but still.  I'm going to say, screw it.  I didn't have blue hair in my ones, my teens, my twenties... goddammit I'm going to have it now.  And bonus, when I go to those teacher conferences it'll give the "educators" reason to treat me like a mentally challenged person instead of just doing it for kicks since I'm not an "eh-jew-cay-torrrrr" said with a stench of arrogance so thick I could smear it on a bagel and call it lox.

3) And last (what you say- only 3?  Well mid life is giving me a reason to be lazy- I'm old, I'm tired, I'm on the way out.  So 3 is commitment enough) I think I'll quit worrying.  Yeah, I know this sounds deep and shit.  But I'm really a quite complex person masquerading as a swearing simpleton.  The simple fact is, I've made it this far.  There are tons of people who don't.  They die in horrible, tragic ways long before they get to lament how their dreams didn't materialize.  I'm sure all those kids dying in Africa aren't crying about how they're not Mary Lou Retton or Madonna.  That's just me. They probably wish they were Bono.