BEg2 chapter 3 - 30 something?

[Michael Bailey]

What is the number we think of for Maxine’s age?

I’m ready to be embarrassed if it’s in the text (-;

She was already established in a career when she met Horst. In fact, their
business relationship spawned their personal one.

As I read it, the tantamounthood of her accepting his “consultancy
contract” with an enthusiastic “Hey, anytime“ is as close as they get to a
romance.*

This hearkens waaaay back to Rachel Owlglass in V., whose characterization
 - I think, admiringly - as an exemplar of a cohort of Jewish girls who are
allowed and expected to have sexual dalliances plays off in V. against
Benny Profane’s multifarious haplessness.

Here, in Bleeding Edge, Maxine’s adventurousness/experience/self-assurance
is somewhat overwhelmed by Horst’s mechanical acquisitiveness - the
financial balance of power being so much in his favor that he hadn’t broken
out of the notion of buying her favors piecemeal - including her silence,
not realizing that the real treasure is her input.

He’s not a schlemihl, Horst, but at this point he hasn’t fared much better
with Maxine than Benny with Rachel.

Hmm, well 2 kids isn’t totes epic fail, is it?

But at this point I want to think that Maxine is 36. Maybe 40? Anyone?
Bueller?

Now, Heidi has achieved tenure, for which the average age is 39 per this
source

https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/171391/what-is-the-average-age-at-which-professors-receive-tenure-in-the-us

- this source which looks more recent says 37.

https://www.eui.eu/programmesandfellowships/academiccareersobservatory/academiccareersbycountry/usa

(“The average age for obtaining a PhD in the US is 37 years (mainly due to
its structured nature, which prescribes upfront two full years of research
training).”)

But Heidi still weeps and wails occasionally about Evan Strubel, as if that
fiasco is relatively fresh in her mind. A-and she’s somewhat of a force of
nature, so I like to think she got tenure at around that same age, 35 or 36.


* this reminds me of a joke I saw on Saturday Night Live I think, a long
time back: the woman is saying how it’s so sexy when your mate is a race
car driver to say, “Burn rubber on me!”

But if he’s an accountant, what do you say?
“Audit me, Murray?”

Mutates mutandis for Maxine and Horst, of course.