Category Archives: Uncategorized

My aunt called this morning to wish me happy birthday and give me my semi-annual Why aren’t you getting married? talk. What else are birthdays for, right?

These talks have a pattern; they start with a series of rhetorical questions that may or may not be intended to make you feel like a passive oaf: Are you doing anything to find a boy? Have you ever even tried on-line dating? Don’t you have any friends who know someone for you? Whatever happened to so-and-so (insert name of latest Indian boy whose bio-data, or marriage resume, was sent my way)?

Phase two is the lecture part. Usually a line or two about how it’s my duty as a daughter to stop making my parents worry. Oh – and then the classic you’re already old enough that it will not be easy to find a husband. Of course, this phase would not be complete without reminding me that there are a lot of intelligent men in India that I could go and meet (for a drive by wedding – to be explained in future post) if only I wasn’t so snobby about, well, Indian men.

By now I’m only hearing blah blah blah, and only saying, yes ok yes while secretly watching The Daily Show on Hulu.

The final section of the talk consists of unsolicited advice. Usually it’s about how I should join Shaadi.com and/or email that guy that some auntie’s daughter’s friend recommended again even though he didn’t reply the last three times. But today, I got a new piece of advice – fasting!

Apparently, if you really believe in (insert Hindu God of choice) faithfully, and you torture yourself by fasting every Thursday, then in six months you will be married. It’s that easy! And the best part is that the “fast” is pretty benign – I can eat any fruit or vegetable. And as many as I want. I can even have salad dressing.

“Just no tofu,” my aunt said. Apparently, Hindu Gods don’t appreciate soybean curd.

Well, I guess I did learn something from today’s lecture.

A well known concept in science, and in medicine, is the half-life. It’s defined as the time interval required for a substance to decay by half of its initial value. Recently I can’t help but think how much this applies to getting older. Rather morbid when you consider that it’s an exponential decay.

Next week I am turning 32. So the next few years will roughly be the half-way point in my life, if I’m lucky enough to make it to the average age of 70-something for women. That might be wishful thinking, as I have almost been run over by the M34 bus twice this week already.

Last year, I tried to avoid my birthday by hiding in Barcelona. I had this fear that it would be different now in my 3os, like some biological half-life in which each additional year would make my body feel like it aged faster than the last year. 30 going on 35. Then 35 going on 45. That every passing year halved the chance that I would find Mr. Right. Or even Mr. Close-enough. Or that each year the likelihood of some major career success would diminish. Optimists would say anything is possible. But is it probable?

See why I ran away to the land of Gaudi and pan con tomate? It didn’t work, though.

But this year I’m changing my attitude. Starting with a big party to bring in 32. Embrace being a 30-something woman in the city. Confront that exponential decay head-on, armed with a dirty martini in one hand and some anti-wrinkle cream in the other.