Today, after the last of the exams, I did what any 40-something woman looking for something decadent and celebratory would do: I went to have a manicure.   It seemed particularly fitting as I'd just finished doing something I'd never done before, and I was headed into something else I'd never done before.  I'd had pedicures before (starting two summers ago, as I recall), but never a manicure. 

The last time I had a pedicure (in late July, as I recall), I decided to do something fun and silly to punctuate my otherwise dreary summer.  I had my toes painted different colours.  Five toes on each foot, five different colours.   I thought it was funky, and it did make me laugh when I looked at them.  And, the polish is holding up well, as I don't do a lot with my toes to chip the polish.

Today, when I was having the manicure, I decided I'd get the finger nails painted to match the toes: five nails on each hand, each one a different colour.  I know that finger -nail polish holds up for maybe a week, usually less.   (I do have uses for my hands that result in chips to the polish.)  So, it was an idea for one weekend -- a celebratory weekend, and one with more than 100 cousins, at the family reunion.  (I figure if my family decides that I'm the 'cousin with the weird nails', then they're less likely to feign interest in other more meaningful parts of my life. It's a new strategy; I'll report on how it works.)

In any case, to get to the point, at last, I asked my esthetician if she thought I was nuts; she said: "Nuts? No.  I think what you're doing is eccentric.  But then, so are you."  She meant it as a compliment, I'm sure.   And I've been called worse things than eccentric.  But it occurred to me that to my ear, eccentric is a word that is applied to "older" people.  Then it occurred to me: to her, and other of her age and younger, I am an older person!

I'm still reeling from that flash of insight.  And I'm still trying to decide about how I feel about being considered "eccentric".  It doesn't feel like much of a fit, particularly since, in my professional life, I'm pretty small-c conservative, in dress, style, and general approach to my work.  And feeling "older" doesn't feel like a fit either, as I study for my PhD, and work at bringing organizatons on the World Wide Web.  Yet, it occurs to me that both may be apt descriptions.  I just reserve the right to grow into them both.

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