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violetsystems · 4 years ago

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#personal

I’ve been making coffee for myself for years. I thought about it for awhile yesterday about what the allure is. Consistency. It’s that simple. What you are doomed to wake up to every morning is your lot in life? Being consigned to fate by the heavens to wait requires much thought, planning and consistency. Especially when there isn’t much communication, goal posts or progress. Life is always going to be that way. And yet, I’ve found things that I rely on for emotional strength. Music is one of those things. Somewhere in the middle of the night somebody from Japan bought an EP. Somewhere in my mind the abacus shifts to which checking account I need to transfer it all to. The two things I’ve always been good at have been English and Math. I’m the son of an accountant and a Russian linguistics major. When you fully actualize your potential in your DNA it makes for a lonely experience. Which is why we seek out beauty, art and culture. About a year ago was the very last time I went to New York by myself on vacation to seek out such culture. Being a person obsessed with being consistent in a chaotic world I chose a ritual. I would get coffee at the World Trade Center looking out the window at the ruins of 9/11. It is such a quiet, lonely experience that it comes back vividly sometimes with the right cup. If you can match the right experience in present time. I’ve always known how to make that coffee. I’ve subscribed to that very coffee for years now. I remember the day I decided to. I was getting coffee at another store in the city. The baristas were angry and not attentive. They spent more time badmouthing all the other coffee roasters in the city than asking me what I wanted to drink. I walked out of there thinking. What was my favorite coffee? Years later, I know that with consistency. And within that magic of consistency comes growth. Yesterday, during a quiet moment I noticed a different ratio on another roaster’s bag. I had bought a swing bag because my subscription was delayed a week due to the holiday. I drink my coffee black. It’s something about the notes and the complexity of the taste. Something that just tastes like coffee to some people is a whole different experience for me. Mostly because it’s the only thing I can rely on to keep me going. Just like in New York City. A reliable hour of reflection over a taste that only changes fractionally. A single origin tends to taste better for longer. The other bag was a blend. It tasted better with the heavier ratio I was used to but it was roasted back in November. 330ml of water, 23 grams of ground coffee, a hario cone filter, and three minutes of your time with a temperature sensitive gooseneck kettle at 96 c. It’s a heavy cup. It turns out to be around 11 ounces of coffee. The new recipe calls for 8 ounces with 14 grams of ground coffee and 220 ml’s of water. By the time you are finished with the cup, the coffee has climbed down to a reasonable room temperature. The consistent taste brings you back to moments in time when you knew you could do better. And that moment is every morning for me because I plan it that way. There are enough fluctuations to let people know I’m frosty and still alive. But for me it’s a cozy enough grind I hide in solace in. Yesterday was the first day I decided to tweak the recipe. This morning is the first day waking up to that contemplation as dumb as it sounds. It remains something nobody questions about me. A consistency and a matter of taste that people understand to be unmovable.

I’m sure people have questioned my credibility for years at this point. It gets annoying to think about. Which is why these days I’ve shut most of the world out. It’s been the perfect time to do such things. I’m sure I come across as icy cool. I don’t think any of it is forced. Like making coffee, there are some choices I have made for my life that I build upon. The last six months were torture. I made it through by staying thoughtful and real. I’ve always been that at the core. How it executes in real life gets better with time. I think you have to admit to yourself that you can do better. Better is a sort of the moment thing for me. I know one day it will all work out. And yet it doesn’t. People aren’t capable of reaching out. People can’t understand why you’d waste your time doing the things you do. Why coffee matters so much? Nobody ever listened to me about anything when I talked. So much so that I’ve been largely forgotten by my professional network of twenty years. It is a weird realization. It is also freeing. A network that isn’t consistent in a life that is practically the definition is a sure sign I wasn’t in the right place. So what is the right place for me? Staying put. Staying predictable. Staying safe. And in that situation, it’s largely just me making the coffee day after day. I move money into the right accounts. I pay attention to my investments. I stay out of debt. I stare at the wall and wonder if this loneliness is what the rest of my life would become. And then I go out to shop in the neighborhood and nobody can leave me alone. At some point you just roll with it all. It’s a journey I guess. The cost of the emotional weight is just the price of admission. Everybody having an opinion about what you should be doing but won’t actually say it to your face. The secret is everybody always has an opinion. It might not be about you but if it applies it serves the purpose of the opinionated. Most of the time what people are arguing about doesn’t really matter other than for the performance of it all. And in America, people find their own value by fucking with others. Self esteem is constantly negged. The age old make you feel like shit so you can treat yourself. It’s a constant predatory cycle of economics and it runs deeper than simple shopping habits. It’s ingrained in the patriarchal mentality of the very fabric of society subconsciously at this point. I read most of the jobs lost in December were held by women. I lost mine back in July. It was surreal to have to speak with my ex employer about the lapse in my health insurance. But the job was done thoroughly by a woman I remember speaking with. I had the law on my side. The COBRA lasts as long as I pay it. So I’m good until next February if need be. My self esteem is about the only thing I’m trying to salvage as well as my personal health and good dentistry. It’s been a nightmare that I don’t show. My dad constantly tells me he doesn’t envy me having to go through it alone. My dad divorced and remarried a long time ago. I don’t really go into it with him about the details. But I never feel alone in all of this. That’s been consistent for years. A feeling that’s grown over time. Sort of like the credible fact that I’ll survive how many ever scenes want to abandon me. One bandcamp sale in my sleep at a time I guess.

I don’t think anybody grows up hating themselves. Being alone runs the risk of falling into an echo chamber. If you tune out everything it gets easier. But many people don’t have the kind of life I have. This isn’t to say I’m exactly privileged to be here. You can ask around my hood and they have. So much so that people just keep following me around fishing for reads on how I am feeling. The easiest read is here. Every week. I’ve been consistent enough to keep in contact with the most genuine and thoughtful people. I’ve felt emotionally satiated enough to focus on positives through a sea of negatives. And I’ve largely had to coach myself out of oblivion. Hurray for me. That’s what America has been asking for right? Men to stand up. Enough of them invading the capitol building and stealing podiums. We pay attention and edify the car wrecks in life to make ourselves look better. But you cannot distract yourself from yourself. And the ratio of bullshit you have to accept versus the remnants of your past you jettison to stay afloat is staggering. Some people crumble. Other people cut loose and survive. For the record, I’ve hated myself for years because I was conditioned to think I wasn’t good enough. To this day I still feel the worst kind of invisibility. A feeling that no matter how hard I try I’m trapped and stuck. And yet I live. I’m free to do whatever it is the fuck I want with my day. I’m free to make more music and have people from around the world buy it and have it taxed by the US government as income. I’m free to book a flight back to New York in May at twenty five percent off and have coffee at the World Trade Center again to test my adjusted ratio. I’m free to focus totally on friendships that are little more than a touch on the shoulder. The same relationships I tried to explain to friends in real life that have long since abandoned me. The touch is still there. Consistent. Graceful. Confident and shy. It connects in so many different invisible ways through a network of trust. An organic block chain of human capital that offers no real value to the uninitiated. A movement of people in a golden ratio that orbit each other in such a gossamer way. That consistency is what I’ve grown to love about my life. That the things I am are consistent and easily explainable. That the real performance is that most people don’t care enough to listen. And for years people here have cared enough to read. How is it I can be so alone but feel so free and connected? I’m connected to myself first and foremost. And I take care of myself and stay credible because of all the beautiful things I am connected to that I will not betray. A true magician never tells you how they performed the trick. There’s no magic in making good coffee. There’s also no magic in being a good person other than loving yourself and caring for others. I’ve been that way for years. And I love you all for supporting me in that adventure. <3 Tim

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wallpaperpainter · 4 years ago

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23 Facts That Nobody Told You About Hand Painted Flowers | hand painted flowers

When French artisan Nathalie Lete bought her country home—which is aloof an hour abroad from her accommodation in Paris—two years ago, she absitively to ample her flat with flowers. Specifically, ones that she corrective on the walls. Anniversary weekend, she would assignment slowly, abacus in capacity to accomplish the allowance feel absolutely special. She advised to accumulate her bank art to this one space—her husband, a adolescent artist, didn’t absolutely appetite to alive in one of her paintings—but already their country entered a lockdown in March, all that changed.

“Now he has asked me to ample the blow of the home,” she says, laughing. “He’s like my coach, suggesting altered areas for me to acrylic anniversary day.” As Lete has cloistral in place, she’s adapted the absolute abode into a abstruse garden of sorts, painting botanicals about doors, amid steps, on window frames, and around anywhere she can acquisition a bare space.

While her artwork about additionally includes adumbration of toys and arbitrary animation animals, flowers were article she and her bedmate could both accede on. She additionally draws afflatus from Maud Lewis, a Canadian folk artisan who corrective nature-inspired adumbration all over her Nova Scotia home, and the Bloomsbury Group’s Charleston Farmhouse in the U.K., which is abounding with hand-painted walls and alloyed patterns.

In the countryside, Lete is amidst by the abundant outdoors, but central she tries to accomplish her florals a bit added fantastical. “It’s my abstract garden. I try to acrylic freely—I didn’t appetite it to attending like wallpaper,” she says. “If I acrylic one astute flower, I’ll try to

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wallpaperpainting · 4 years ago

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19 Facts You Never Knew About Rainbow Canvas Painting | rainbow canvas painting

Humor, hope, resistance, enthusiasm… This is what emerges from the Affectation Mania 2020, a artistic action launched afresh by the cultural affiliation ARAC for Art and Culture.

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The action invites artists to reinvent the masks that we acquisition ourselves answerable to abrasion in adjustment to assure ourselves from the pandemic.

The masks that were adapted by the artists are displayed on ARAC’s Facebook page.

The project’s architect and architect of ARAC Ashraf Reda created a assignment which he blue-blooded The Alphabet of History. He covered the affectation with active colours of the rainbow, absorption the assortment that characterises humanity, abacus old Egyptian motifs (pharaonic, Islamic, Coptic, etc.) to the design. He additionally invented a new Arabic alphabet, painting miniature belletrist based on elements from Egyptian heritage: pyramids, minarets, fish, and after-effects angle out on the apparent of the mask.

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In addition, three changeable artists – Shery Elbeyaa, Hanaa Amin and Randa Fouad – autonomous for blithesome colours to lighten these difficult times.

Fatma Hassan corrective atramentous and white roses on her affectation blue-blooded Samra (brunette). She comments on her assignment by saying, “I autonomous for atramentous and white because it goes duke in duke with the crisis. The shades of blah accord the assignment a blurred effect; we are in the aphotic as it is today. However, I never lose achievement of accepting to the end of this epidemic.”

She adds that as she formed on the affectation with a actual accomplished brush, she had to accord with the awkward apparent which bound her.

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Hosni Abou Bakr defies the attenuated surface, but additionally the folds basic the mask. On the mask, he draws his mouth, his bristles and his beard. Back he wears it, you cannot absolutely see the aberration amid the affectation and his facial features, appropriately a accustomed aftereffect which allows the artisan not to feel bearded or hooded.

“The apple lives in the anxiety of masks. Mine break with this idea; you don’t charge to affliction or accede absolutely with the constraints of isolation. My affectation does not alone seek to assure me, but additionally to chargeless me from constraints, and to absorb me,” Abou Bakr underlines.

A admirable smile

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“Don’t let the affectation adumbrate your smile,” says painter and stylist Niha Hetta, who drew a ample smile on her mask, assuming all of her teeth. Her aperture are accent in red acrylic. “Smiling is one of the best able means to access absolute accordance about us and affected hardship,” she says.

Cartoonist Yasser Gaessa is aggressive by van Gogh, bedevilled to dejection and loneliness. He uses his affectation as canvas for aureate fields and beginning orchards, assertive that this is a way to accomplish absolute

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pneumasthesia · 3 years ago

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Chapter 17

B. The time of the murder

Third Act – Cognition: Part 3

This is the time where I should blurt a sudden realization. I should have a new answer for the question that these guests are asking that should bring us closer to the truth, but I don’t. I only have more questions. With the group arguing over the older man’s innocence like this, they need someone to unite them in search of the truth, but I can’t be that person. I’ve been pulling us further and further away from the truth with every trip I’ve taken recently. How am I supposed to face them knowing that I am betraying their trust?

“Everyone, calm down!” shouts a composed voice, “we need to think logically about this!”

The middle-aged woman was the one who broke the chaos that had resulted from the young man accusing the older man. She stands between the two of them with a smile in her soul, ready to stop any further conflict.

“This baseless finger-pointing has to stop” she continues, “look, you’ve even got our ‘Pet’ worried by fighting like this.”

Ah, so they have realized that I’m in ill spirits. They can’t possibly know why, but they have been around me long enough now that they know that if I’m not speaking up to provide a new hypothesis about the mystery, that something must be wrong. That’s not the understanding that I was yearning for, but I suppose it’s good enough for me. These idiots are counting on me, I might as well give them a little help.

“I’m not so sure about your accusation, friend” I say, addressing the young man in a way that I hope will earn me some good will with him.

The young man is taken back by this statement, whether for the fact that I don’t trust him or due to how I addressed him, I do not know. After collecting his composure he says “what do you mean? I saw what I saw, what is there to question?”

“When did you see what you say you saw?” I ask, knowing the answer.

“Well it was right after the two of us talked in the kitchen” he answers.

“You were with me in the servant’s quarters for a while and only left after something happened that made you want to leave to check it out. What was that?” I egg him on.

The young man starts at this and answers dejectedly “I left after I heard the gunshot.”

“So you mean you saw this supposed murderer going to the crime scene from the basement, after the murder had occurred” I conclude. I’m aware that the murder took place after the gunshot, but only myself, the murderer, and one other person here knows that. I need to feign ignorance about the truth of the murder in order to steer the conversation away from this topic. My partner-in-crime here may be correct in his accusation, but I can’t let things end without having determined the whole truth of these events with my own senses. They haven’t led me astray so far, so I will trust them until the end.

“That’s strange” says the middle-aged woman “we know that the murderer had to have gone to the basement to take the Professor’s gun to kill him with it and if the young man here truly saw this old fellow coming from the basement after the murder, that would mean that people came to the basement twice since the elderly lady here took up hiding in it. Is this true?” She turns her attention to the elderly lady still spellbound curled up on the basement floor, waiting for all the talk of murder to end.

“Huh?” blurts out the elderly woman. Her panic is clear in every facet of her being as her mind races, trying to get out of this difficult situation. It’s not difficult, Miss, you just have to lie, and I’ll take care of the rest, I try to silently say to her. Whether she heard me or not, she audibly gulps before saying “Yes. I say two people come into the basement. One of them stole my gun, and that was before the gunshot. I don’t know if they were the same person, because it’s so dark in this basement and all.”

Excellent. The middle-aged woman seems disappointed by this statement. She turns back to the rest of the group and says “well, if that’s the case I don’t know what other leads we have-“

“The gun” I interject.

“What about the gun?” says the older man, who had been keeping quiet and observing after having been accused.

“We know where the gun was before the murder, but what did the culprit do with it after the murder? If we know where they put it, then we might be able to figure out who could have put it there” I explain.

“That’s a solid idea” praises the middle-aged woman. I don’t need anyone to tell me that my suggestions are good, I’ve been the one solving this mystery the whole time.

“Well, that assumes that the gun isn’t in anyone’s possession right now” says the young man, “we need to search everyone to make sure that nobody is concealing the gun on them right now.”

Oh right, I forgot that was also a possibility. Perhaps the “great detective” here has some value as a voice of common sense to mention the obvious possibilities I discount as too simple.

We decide to go with the young man’s suggestion and all pat each other down, searching for weapons of murder. Everyone searches everyone else, making it a very long and tedious process. Searching the women in the group was especially trying, mostly the young girl given how much she squirmed and recoiled from my touch, though nowhere near as much as she did from the young man’s forceful pat down.

Eventually the search was finished. There were certainly suspicious objects that were found among everyone’s possessions, a pocket abacus on the older man, a 10-color pen on the young man, a 50-pack of disposable earplugs on the young girl, a full makeup kit on the middle-aged woman, and some … “toys” on the elderly woman, but there were no lethal weapons on anyone.

“Well that was useless” sighs the older man.

“No, it wasn’t useless” I say, “now we know that the killer had to have stowed the murder weapon elsewhere and we can track down where they could have hidden it by determining everyone’s movements.”

Everyone else in the suspects line-up seem confused and annoyed by this suggestion. It figures, they haven’t been inhabiting the perspectives of each other, so they have no idea how to start with tracking movements. Luckily for them, I’m willing to help them out with my own particular talents. I have seen much of every person here’s movements before the murder, including the killer’s, but I don’t know much about what comes after the Professor’s death. I need to determine what happened after he died, and specifically what happened to the murder weapon. I have to look back to the near past.

May 31st, 10:04 pm

It must have been only the near past that the Professor and I were together. Well, it was less than an hour ago that I last saw him, but he wasn’t the same person that I remembered then, and due to that, and the fact that he is currently dead, it feels like it has been much longer than it has been in truth.

This is the third stage of grief if I remember correctly. I have only just gotten over my anger after realizing how misplaced it was, now I am only left with sadness and longing, pining for the days when the Professor was my dearest brother-in-arms.

“Are you alright?” says Three.

“Yes. Uhh, why would I not be alright?” I say, feigning exasperation to cover up my surprise after having been shaken out of that mournful reverie.

Three is a good number. And Three is also a good Number, from what I’ve seen of them. They are complete, beautiful, the first odd prime, an approximation of pi and e, the smallest number of sides a closed polygon can have-

“Are you sure you’re alright?” Three repeats, “they’re leaving you behind.”

On second thought, I’m not sure if I like this Three. They are being awfully rude. Pythagoras said that Three was the noblest digit because it is the only natural number to equal the sum of all the natural numbers below it, but in the case of an individual, that just means that Three is a bit too overly self-reliant. Three is perfect in and of itself, so why would Three need to fraternize with less perfect Numbers? I am sure that is what this number is thinking. They must not want to be alone with a Number like me any further.

“I’m sure it has been hard” says Three, “having your old friend die. I can’t say that I understand, I’m sure no one can truly, but I know that you will be alright in the end. You’re strong deep down, and you’re stronger when you are alone. Believe me, I know about these kinds of things.”

“Thank you” I say, truly meaning the nicety for once in a long time. I am not sure if I am as strong as Three says, but it is a nice thought. I have lived alone for much of my life, and while I cannot say that I have been alright all of that time, I am ultimately happy with the person I ended up becoming. Perhaps living the rest of my life with a good friend like the Professor would have made me happier, but so long as I still have myself, I will always have a life left to live and I can make that life good if I try.

“Should we go catch up with the others?” I suggest after having composed myself as best I can.

“Yes” says Three, “but first, I think we should look around this office a bit. We’re going down to the basement to investigate, but I don’t think we’ve properly investigated this room yet.”

“I agree, though perhaps we should have the other three investigate here with us” I say.

“No. We’ll just do this quickly and catch up with them in a minute. We can’t delay them any further when there is a potential killer on the loose in that basement” Three explains. They are right. I would like to investigate this place more thoroughly, more as a trip down memory lane than as a murder investigation, but that can wait.

The two of us begin quickly and silently inspecting every nook and cranny of the crime scene. We wordlessly coordinate, taking opposite sides of the room and moving at a similar pace. Perhaps the late Professor was right, we may be as alike in our minds as he noted we are in our appearances.

I swiftly go over the small room inspecting each one of the Professor’s affects. There is not much, all he really kept in his office was books. Books of psychology make up a good portion of his first bookshelf, 42 books, then there are several books on philosophy scattered throughout the bookshelves in various sections, 23 books, then a surprisingly large number of compilations of short Sci-fi stories, 11 books, and finally a number of various other academic volumes on different subjects, one of which I recognize as a book about numerology I gave him as a present a few years ago and another I recognize as the Kamasutra, 17 books. By the time I am done counting and inspecting each book I have made a full clockwise circumnavigation of the small room and passed by Three, who had made the same round trip in the opposite direction and inspected every bit of the room as well, though I doubt they made as thorough of a note of the precise number of books on the shelves.

I turn away from my unproductive investigation and look to Three, who looks back at me, apparently having finished earlier and been waiting for me before leaving. They motion for me to follow them, and we leave the room. I ask them if they saw anything of note in the Professor’s office. They say no. We begin to speak with one another about our theories for who could have killed the Professor. I feel strangely comforted speaking with Three. They remind me of what I liked most about Zero when he was less self-absorbed and career-minded. I feel ashamed, not being able to give Three any information from my investigation or any new theories about who the killer could be. I had been so focused on the Professor’s assistant that I had not thought of anyone else, and I am not good at doubting people or reading their intentions, so this whole mystery business is beyond me. Three chuckles at that admission. That is another thing they have in common with the Professor, their humor, though Three’s seems more good natured and less mocking.

Together, we descend the staircase to the first floor and meet with the other suspects. It should not be long before the culprit is identified. With people like Three and the unexpectedly capable Five here, I am sure that the truth will come to light, but I am no longer filled with the anger that made me hasty to accuse someone. I do not think I can bring myself to blame someone for my old friend’s death. I do not want to know any further loss.

02:33:33

“I don’t want to lose you.”

“What?”

“I don’t want to lose anyone who was there on that night, so I will make sure that even the killer comes out of it alright.”

“Oh, I had thought you were hitting on me again.”

“Perhaps I was.”

“I appreciate the attempt at humor, but I’m not in the mood.”

“You are temperamental, aren’t you? That’s not something I expected after having only seen you before on that night.”

“Like the ebbing and flowing of the tides.”

“Hmm?”

“That’s how my mother described me. She said my mood is like the ebbing and flowing of the tides.”

“Hahaha.”

“Is there something funny about what I said?”

“No, no, no, of course not. It’s just that your mother seems to have been very perceptive to have diagnosed your condition so accurately in such clear layman’s terms. You certainly seem to be in a better mood than normal right now, is the tide flowing?”

“I would say it’s ebbing right now.”

“That’s good. I like the low tide. You can see all the little treasures that the high tide brought into shore.”

“What treasures are there to find? My predisposition towards lying?”

“I suppose that’s one of them, but I’d say that your inner kindness is the treasure I’m most excited to find.”

“You certainly went out of your way to search for that one.”

“But it was there, wasn’t it?”

“Just because something exists doesn’t mean it’s used.”

“If we judge whether people are good or evil based on their deeds, then very few people would be strongly in either direction. Most people live their whole lives without ever having done a significant good or evil act. So if we must judge someone’s moral worth, we need to evaluate their capacity for good and evil.”

“So you mean that even if I have performed an evil act, I can still be good if I have the capacity for good?”

“No. You are evil. You made your choice. No matter how much good you do, that will never erase your sin, but if I refuse to acknowledge that anyone is anything other than good deep down, because that would mean that a person like me that has considered evil may be truly evil inside and simply never been tested enough before to show it.”

‘So this whole endeavor has been selfishly motivated after all.”

“All things that people do is for their own self-interests. Even selflessness is just another way serving one’s own desires. People have an innate desire to do good for the fellow members of their pack, or herd, or gang, or whatever you’d call a human family unit. That desire is unassailable and programmed into every human’s brain by evolution. Being kind is simply satisfying your own selfish desire to feel good about how kind you are.”

“That’s an awfully cynical way of seeing the world.”

“Don’t get me wrong, I think that is beautiful. Good and evil are just two expressions of the same selfish functions of the human machine. It’s a gorgeously simple system, built by millennia of trial and error, but the fact that we can all be so different despite being built on the same basic system, that some of us can be saints and others murderers, that is the beauty of humanity.”

“There is no beauty in evil.”

“There is no beauty in an evil that you do not understand. You can find beauty in all things if you look hard enough.”

“Though you wouldn’t know anything about looking, would you?”

“I’ll let that jab slide this time. We do need to get going however, I only booked this room for three hours. Are you ready to continue?”

“Yes.”

“No hesitancy? No preconditions? You’re just plain and simply are ready this time?”

“Yes.”

“We are nearly at the end. It won’t be long until we both know the whole truth.”

“I think I am beginning to understand the truth myself already.”

“Of course, you were definitely the smartest among us. Well then, we are nearly at the moment where the culprit will be determined, but even If we have our suspicions about who it may be, we do not have concrete proof pinning the crime on them yet. What we do have is proof to determine who could not be the culprit.”

“The young man and the elderly woman, right? Oh, and the assistant too, obviously. We know from experience that none of them could have committed the crime.”

“Yes, but there is one other. We now know that the killer had to have hidden the murder weapon somewhere after killing the Professor. But most people present didn’t have any opportunity to do so where they weren’t watched by another person given that the guests were together during the time where the true culprit was being determined.”

“Except for one moment.”

“Yes. We now know that there is a time where multiple people could have hidden the gun after the area was already investigated and deemed free of any incriminating evidence. All we need to do is determine who was present in that place at that time, or more specifically, who among the remaining suspects was not present there. So, answer, who among the remaining suspects can we now rule out as the culprit with this new piece of evidence?”

>Pick one:

A. The young girl

B. The older man

C. The middle-aged woman

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