channeling marguerite duras

no, i haven't turned french. neither have i become an alcoholic. but ever since i got my copy of duras' The Lover (the les editions minuits version, with archival photos of her younger self wearing a fedora much like the one worn by the young girl in the novel), i've been obsessing over how to procure one for myself. that was two years ago. i finally got one recently while shopping at technomart with asmarani. the day before our field trip to nami island, we were supposed to buy just picnicky stuff but ended up buying sweaters and hats as well. no regrets; one of my best buys ever.

as you can see, i am starting learn the fine art of posing for the camera, also known as trying to look cute. been learning from a master for about a month now and i must say, i've made some progress. photos by siege using my casio 6 megapix digicam and bad fluorescent lighting courtesry of room 201, crimson house. taken april 13th. below you can see me and the hat in action at nami island. if you look very closely, you can spot a bit of nami island greenery between the hatband and that bit of dyed brown hair in the upper left corner of the photo below.


anyway, back to duras... seems she had a thing for younger men, too. when she was an old and ravaged writerly lush (around 60 or 70, thereabouts) she took a much younger man as a lover. he must've been a fan, an art student, i think, in his 20s or 30s. the age difference in that later relationship is as mind-boggling as the quasi-fictional one in The Lover. here in korea, it is customary to cause women pushing thirty a measure of anguish with the addition of one or two years to her real age, what they wittily call here "korean age." and so, even in this foreign city, i am forced to play the older woman because they count the months you spend in the womb and you have to grow one year older with everyone else at new year. quibbling over little details like that sucks.