Catch me if you can!

The other evening I travelled from Paris to Basel for my job.

There was a strike of the air-traffic controllers in France, so the plane landed at the airport quite late at night, around 9.30 pm. I had organized a car to pick us up but, since sometimes drivers get confused with the arrival of private planes (yes, sometimes I’m so lucky that I travel that way!), so when we arrived nobody was waiting for us. My boss was already late for an event and he decided to take a car which was at the terminal by chance, but I had to stay, because apparently our driver was somewhere there, lost but present, and I had all our baggages to collect.
So there I was, waiting, doing nothing, just enjoying the good weather and the bright sky.
I was chatting with the two women working at the entrance of the place when a couple of black limousines arrived. I was hoping one of the two was my car, so I turned my head to see if that was the case. But it wasn’t.
I sensed a bit of stress on the two women. They stood up and said: "Oh, they must be the passengers of the next fly...". And they put on a funny face.
I looked at the passengers: five or six young men were approaching, they had that unmistakable aura that rich and famous people sometimes have: a mixture of coolness and awareness of the world around them with just a hint of “Yes, we are famous, we have a special life, we know it and we can’t be bother less by other people, especially if they’re not famous like us”.
Among them, there was French actor Gaspard Ulliel. 

Tall, slim, elegant (even in a casual attire), black sunglasses, he was the perfect choice for the last campaign of the Chanel parfum pour hommes. The spot was absolutely ridiculous, despite the fact that was signed by Martin Scorsese (why famous film-makers keep making these stupid ads? well, ok, I can imagine it is for the money, and I hope we’re talking about a lot of money here, otherwise I just can’t understand):

The women at the entrance looked at me: "Did you see? It was good for you to wait, after all..." They were so excited, though, that I couldn’t believe it was all because of Gaspard, who, let’s admit it, outside France is not exactly the most famous guy in the world. It was then that I spotted a familiar face, and I recognized, under a grey beret, Leonardo Di Caprio. 

Once they passed, we all run to the window to see them leaving.
They were there, few meters ahead of us, patiently waiting for the plane to position. Leo was smoking an electric cigarette (you gotta be kidding me, right?) and looked a little bit bored. I guess he was thinking: "Oh, ok, another private plane to take..."
The plane was actually enormous to be a private one, but I guess this is what you have when you are the most famous actor in the world. When the mini-Boeing was ready, he nicely shook hands with the airport people, and he and his friends (who secretly kept looking at us smiling with smiles having subtitles: Hey, did you notice with whom we are going around?) got inside the plane. 

It was fast, but it was intense, and very funny.
The other night I went back to the same terminal to take another plane and I found the same two women behind the desk.
"Hello!"- I said - "Anybody interesting to wait for, tonight?"
"No, but Leo called today: he wanted to know who was the gorgeous woman seated here at the entrance when he arrived, yesterday". 
We all laughed.
Catch me if you can, Leo! 

Sister Act

Gillian Anderson as Stella Gibson in The Fall (BBC 2)

I have always been accused to be too straightforward with men.
And I can’t deny it.
I sincerely don’t understand why, if I like someone, I should wait ages before announcing it to him.
I basically live following Don Drapers’s principle: I’m living like there is no tomorrow, because there isn’t one. 

In a couple of occasions, I made love declarations and/or indecent proposals after few hours I met the object of my desire.

This approach isn’t always working, I admit it.
As per the First Rule of the non-written Law of Seduction, men prefer hunting instead of being hunted. And as boring as this could sound (at least to my ears), and regardless of the fact that we are now in 2013, it looks like this is still - and quite sadly will always be - the case.
Most women are horrified too by this approach. I envy them. I wish I could feel the same way. I wish I could be like them.
In movies too, it is not that frequent to come across female characters who clearly express their desires.
In this sense, TV series have always been ahead: I mean, even if it is not one of my favourite series, it is a fact that, before Sex and the City, nobody had the guts of talking in such realistic way of what sex/love/relationship really mean for women.
Last week-end, I’ve seen a new TV series (5 episodes in total, the last episode still to be broadcast) called The Fall. 

Set in contemporary Belfast, The Fall follows in parallel the life of a serial killer, Paul Spector, and the one of the Detective Superintendent who’s trying to track him down, Stella Gibson. Played by American actress Gillian Anderson, Stella is one of the most refreshing characters I’ve ever seen on screen. Stella is forty-something, independent, self-confident, ironic, single, a bit tough and diffident (almost glacial, sometimes), and more than straightforward towards men.

In one scene, she did something that really thrilled me, and made me feel like a novice compared to her: at a crime scene on the street, at night, Stella noticed a good looking police-man, detective sergeant James Olson. Stella asks the colleague who’s in the car with her, to be introduced to the man. A second afterwards the presentation, she said to Olson, who looks at her in disbelief: "I’m staying in this hotel, room n° 203". 

The following scene shows, of course, the door of room n° 203. 
Somebody is knocking at it. Useless to say, it is James Olson. The door opens, Stella looks at him. 

"I wasn’t sure what you meant when you gave me your room number", the man begins.
Stella moves the sign Do not disturb from the inside handle to the outside handle.
"This is what I meant", she answers, bringing the man into the room.
Wow! I was so admired. And what a relief!
At least on screen, I have a sister who acts like me.