The wrongness of my mom.

[mrissa]

sensational was unaware that my birthday is in one week and one day. Clearly, I have not mentioned it enough: I will be 28! On my birthday! Which is in one week and one day!

And on that topic, my mom and I had a Discussion, prompting me to make a poll:

[Poll #772721]

This came up because of our house-painter's behavior (NO, my mom is not here -- I AM THE HOMEOWNER!), and also because of the kid in the drive-through when I was getting food for timprov (that is not even legal, sonny!!!), and also because of my mom's new neighbors (NO, I am not home for the summer, I am home all the time because home is where I live!). But looking older or younger is a value-neutral thing for me -- if you say that I look way older than 28, I will say, "Hah, so there, Mom and lydy, I TOLD YOU!" and not, "Oh woes I look like a shriveled hag of [lower age than the average age of my friendslist]! All of youth's pleasures are lost to me forever, wailie woe!" And if you say I look way younger than 28, that's okay, too, except that you will be wrong like my mom and lydy. But other than that it'll be fine. I won't be mad at you for being wrong. I'm wrong, too, sometimes. (I am being silly here, but I seriously do want to know.)

Comments

[timprov.livejournal.com]

It's also your Bert-day!

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Happy Bert-day to me!!!

[songwind.livejournal.com]

I've never been very good at the art of quantifying the differenced inflicted by hair styles and clothing. Maybe I'm too fixated and the face (and in appropriate circumstances, body shape) of people.

I have on many occasions been told by my partner at the time, "I don't look pretty, my hair's a mess." Or something like that. But to me, you don't look unpretty, you look like a pretty girl with messy hair.

Ditto for the "makes you look older" thing.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

I recently acquired this skill in an internal direction -- I always had it in an external one. I used to look in the mirror when I was tired and think, "Oh, ick, ugly girl," even though I never would have thought that of my tired friends. Now I look in the mirror when I'm tired and think, "tired pretty girl." It's a vast improvement internally at least.

[tanaise.livejournal.com]

I judge you to be in about the same age group as me, but perhaps I'm just lucky that you are actually, and aren't 4 or 5 years younger than me.

My theory about the 'older with hair up/older with hair down" thing is that whatever you usually do, people will say the other makes you look older. Cause they're not really trying to say you look older, they're really trying for saome value of 'different' but older is the closest they could come up with. Of course, there are some differences in hairstyles that are clearly older or younger--I wore my hair in side pony tails (they look like cocker spaniel ears when I do that!) and got carded at the liquor store that had never carded me before, even though I'd been standing there discussing hard cider with the clerk for a bit.

[flewellyn.livejournal.com]

I just checked the silliest answers. I have no idea how old you are.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Silly Flew, that's why I put it on there at the top: I will be 28 in one week and one day.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Yah, putting my hair in pigtail braids is...umm. Well, it's not something I do unless I'm going swimming, because it pushes some buttons I'd rather leave left unpushed, for some people, especially combined with little summer frocks and sandals. But it's really superior for swimming, superior to leaving it loose but also to a single braid.

[(Anonymous)]

Happy Birthday, Mris!

I noticed you didn't include the answer "like Mris's age". I would probably put you around grad school age, which to me means somewhere between mid 20's and early 30's if I didn't know anything. I wouldn't be surprised if the responses you are getting from the painter and from your parent's neighbors is due to the average age of the respective neighborhoods and not to how old you look. I've only had one person ask me if my mom was home, but we don't get that many sales people and our neighbors might be closer to our age than yours are to you. Also, I think that short hair and hair that is pulled into a bun or French twist usually makes a person look older, probably due to the fact that many women cut their hair when they have children for convenience.

At any rate, I hope you keep feeling well.

Heathah

[flewellyn.livejournal.com]

Forgive my not noticing, I'm kinda sick right now.

So, you're a few months older than me. Okay!

Happy birfday, Mrissa!

[pentacon.livejournal.com]

Honestly I would judge you to be in your mid 20's, certainly not under 18. From the few times I have been able to talk with you, if I were the painter, plumber or some such, I would assume you were in charge of the house.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Thanks, and feel better soon.

[kokyu.livejournal.com]

a larger photo might help. Maybe a bunch of them.

I don't suppose you have a stewardess outfit? No, ok, nevermind... just a thought.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

I should have included "like no one to be trifled with; that is all you need know" as one of the options. "The Princess Bride" improves most polls, I suspect.

[zwol.livejournal.com]

I can only assess people's ages within about five fuzzy brackets ranging from "young enough to trip over" to "could be my grandma". You're in "roughly the same age as me", which category includes people whose actual ages are from 20 all the way up to 40.

[zwol.livejournal.com]

Also, this assessment is based on having met you in person - I wouldn't know at all from your lj default icon (well, I wouldn't put you in "could be my grandma" ;)

[ellameena.livejournal.com]

You will always be Mom's baby. I've never met you, so I can't answer the poll, really. People are famously wrong about these things. A couple of times medical people that are taking care of my mother have mistaken me for a teenager. One of them once asked if I was over 18, as I was taking my mother on an outing from the nursing home. As flattering as that is, it's also stupid. Another time, I was doing training for eucharistic minister at church. One other young woman was training with me, who happened to be a high school student. Some other church person thought we were being trained for altar servers. Okay, I know we have girls for altar servers these days, but when the girls are grown up and have husbands and sons gray hair and stretch marks, we like to replace them with fresh, new girls. How silly!

Probably this just reflects the fact that it's hard to estimate age in adults. Too many factors come into play including your health, your genes, and the eyesight of the person making the estimate.

[cakmpls.livejournal.com]

How old people "look" is really weird. I am quite an "old" mom to have a 15-year-old, as I am 59. I think I look, more or less, 59. Most adults who express an opinion seem to think I look about my age, maybe just a little younger because they expect more wrinkles on someone closing in on 60.

But I would expect R's friends to think I'm really, really old--some kids her age have grandmothers my age (and a few times adults have taken me for her grandmother). However, to my surprise, she frequently tells me that her friends don't believe it when she tells them my age. Maybe that just reflects teens' thinking that anyone my age is truly ancient, and I don't look quite ancient!

[barondave.livejournal.com]

You look as old as your hair.

I don't know what that means either. Happy birthday.

[dd-b.livejournal.com]

I don't think I've seen that hair-and-clothing combination on you, but I believe it would do just what you say.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Nothing unusual in them, but my pictures are <a href="http://www.marissalingen.com/pictures.html>here</a>.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Time travel makes many things possible, but probably not this one.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

That didn't work: here (http://www.marissalingen.com/pictures.html).

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

That's very odd, because I'm far older than my hair.

And thanks.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

That's backwards from what I'd expect, too -- not just because you look your age or thereabouts, but because I wouldn't expect people of my generation or younger (I would say "younger," but some people would put R and me in the same generation) to have a much younger/healthier idea of nearly-60 than previous generations could. My grands are starting to get old now at 78 and 74.

[ckd]

But I would never describe you as "no one of consequence".

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Wise man.

[callunav.livejournal.com]

I have been thought younger than I am ever since I was in college and started noticing. In my early twenties, I was still being offered the option of buying the high-school discount bus tokens in my home town. Straight women, younger or older than I am, all seem to think I should be pleased when they think I'm six or eight years younger than I am. Pointing at my head and saying, in an anguished voice, "I have WHITE HAIRS!" doesn't impress anyone. They always know someone younger than I am who has more white hair than I have.

The last hospital I worked in, all the (straight*) (female) nurses and counselors, whenever they found out my age, would invariably say with great surprise, "Oh, you look MUCH younger than that!" The straight (as far as I know) male counselors generally made no comment. The 100% Made In America Gay attending psychiatrist, when he found out my age, said with great surprise, "Oh, you act MUCH older than that!"

I was still beaming about that days later.


* I don't mean to harp on the straight thing, but it really *does* seem to skew that way. I can't think of any bi or lesbian friends or colleagues who have indicated that they thought I should be pleased to be thought young. That doesn't make it a universal rule, obviously, and there *must* be some straight coworkers I've had at some point that didn't do so, but none immediately come to mind, and it seems to be, not a rule, but a definite trend. Of course, some people may have been queer and just not seen any need to tell me about it, which would be entirely understandable.

[callunav.livejournal.com]

And happy birthday, definitely.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Thanks! I'll be going on about it more when it's actually my birthday, because I love birthdays.

[dichroic.livejournal.com]

It's also good for backpacking, regattas or anything where I really need my hair to get out of my way and stay there without further attention. (Split ends and breakage mean that even when it's long, pieces escape from ponytails.)

But generally those are cases where how I look really doesn't matter and I can expect not to meet too many people who will respond inappropriately.

[dichroic.livejournal.com]

I don't remember who sang it, but I have heard a song that goes, "I Like Older Womyn!" As you can probably tell from the spelling, it was sung by a woman. I can't think of any equivalent in het culture, except maybe for the epigrammatic reason for bedding older women ("They don't yell, they don't tell, they rarely swell, and they're grateful as hell.") which is very far from the same thing.

[callunav.livejournal.com]

Well, there is "Mrs. Robinson." That's fairly definitive.

[dichroic.livejournal.com]

I haven't actually seen the movie so don't know - Is its message that age isn't necessarily a factor in attractiveness, or is Mrs. Robinson herself presented as an aberration to the normal pattern?

[callunav.livejournal.com]

...although, now I look at the lyrics, not explicit out of the context of the movie. (And, of course, no unambiguous in it.) Ah, well.

[callunav.livejournal.com]

It's been a LONG LONG time since I saw that movie, and when I did, I was too young to get most of the point, so I hesitate to interpret. Someone here must be able to say better than I could. My impression was that it was simultaneously an older woman being somewhat predatorily interested in a young man, and a young man getting unbelievably lucky to fall into the lap of this experienced and sexual older woman, who gives him his initiation. Which may be somewhat disturbing and bewildering, but must nonetheless be positive, because it's SEX. What a thing of joy it must be to be socialized male in America.

I cheated.

[kokyu.livejournal.com]

I am really bad at judging ages. I just wanted to see more pictures of you.

You're a dish. If I had to guess your age based on the pictures I'd say 25, but again, I suck at this and I might judge differently if I saw you in person and saw how you behaved.

[adrian-turtle.livejournal.com]

Ack. I found two braids the worst possible hairstyle for swimming. I'm not sure if it's really so much worse than completely unrestrained hair, or if it just seems like it. When I was learning to swim, my mother braided my hair like that...each braid wrapped around one of my upper arms to trip me every time I started making progress.

It might not be so bad now that my hair is shorter, relative to the size of my arms. (And now that I don't swim crawl.) But I'm still not going to try it again.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

My braids have been that long, but never that...flexible, I guess? They sometimes hit my arms but never could actually wrap around.

Re: I cheated.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Well, thanks; I've never been called a dish before, at least not to my face.