Sideburns
The past several weeks I wrote too often about nature. I’ll admit it right away. Spring fever had broken out in my depressed winter musings. My faithful readers waited patiently for better times, newcomers have probably taken off again for good, confreres wrote me sweet but cautioning mails: ‘Darling, go down to your wine cellar and do your writing there from now on.’ Well, not a bad idea really, were it not that our ‘wine cellar’ is a smallish wine cupboard, plus it is not very wise to put me next to racks full of exquisite wines. Someone else wrote, ‘How often does this buzzard keep landing in your yard?’ and I realised that I had gone too far. Laptop under my arm, I proceeded to my paltry study, where Gerbrand Bakker, Kluun, Wislawa Szymborska and Ewoud Butter, softly whispering to me, provided the coverage I needed. Here I would write from now on, a blind wall as my panorama. I thought so long about my first ‘new subject’ that uncertainty began to knaw holes in my normally profuse current of ideas. ‘Just stay close to yourself,’ a girl friend mailed, but I warned her about the consequences of this well-intended advice. For close to myself a vehement midlife crisis is raging. Close to myself men slide by, automatically it seems, along an inspecting yardstick. Close to myself ‘the subject’ is, to put it mildly, rather one-sided. Strange enough I don’t hear a single female friend in my surroundings talk about this female midlife crisis. All the more about the midlives of their men, who try to rein in their hormones with expensive cars, motorcycles, gadgets and trendy outfits. Is the female midlife a taboo perhaps? Embarrassing? Or am I the only woman with this sort of crisis? Suddenly I have serious doubts about my hormones who, unasked and at the most inopportune moments, show their approval of ‘delicious men’. Even my own husband – who has had me around for a while – looks up surprised now and then. Will this ever end? My God, I hope so! And quick please! Awfully tiring, those strange provocative urges. Not that I immediately pounce on gorgeous men. No! I look. A tiny advantage: my field research provides unique information. I have noted, for example, that many ‘tasty’ men walk around without socks in their shoes. The insteps that I see are too white, too lumpy, too hairy, furnished with thick varicose veins, the start of plump ankles or, instead, scrawny twigs. These are not feet that you would want to see in full. And I’m not even talking of all that sits and hangs above these feet. I suddenly realise that poor dress is a handy gauge anyway. After all, I never wonder what hides under short shirtsleeves, three-quarter trousers with little strings in the hem, or a designer rain jacket. Saves lots of time, because most of the male population wears these. That applies also to sideburns, by the way. Not every man gets away properly with those mutton chops. They might be trendy, but here too the rule is, they need to match the face. Just ask your barber if you have the head for it. Without a word he will probably get out his razor and conjure up an old-fashioned little triangle under your carefully trimmed sideburns. And hopefully rid you at the same time of that five o’clock shadow. Wildly attractive, that nonchalant facial growth. Provided you look like Clint Eastwood or one of these 100 sexy men!

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