Ramblings on age (part I, maybe)

I went to go see "Bridesmaids" recently and I got asked to present identification.  That's something that hasn't happened to me in a while; I don't see TONS of R-rated movies but that was only the second time I was asked to prove that I was of age.  Well, actually, I tried to buy a ticket for "Love, Actually" when it came out but bought a ticket for "Haunted Mansion" and sneaked into the theater next door just in time to hear Bill Nighy drop a string of f-bombs.

I was mostly amused at being asked to show my ID, especially when the ticket booth lady didn't ask my (male) movie-going companion, who is younger than me but has some facial hair.  I'm short, and I'm Asian, which compounds the difficulty of guessing my age.  I've been the same height (5' 0") for half my life, and about the same weight (137 lbs) for almost as long (well, with the exception of my freshman year in college).  I look back at old pictures and can tell that I've aged, that I look markedly older; also I feel markedly older, if not from experience but at least for having lived more years and met a wider variety of people.  Compare me to a bunch of teenagers and I look like a crone, but in the general scope of general people I guess my age is a bit nebulous.

When I went to Nicaragua I was taken to be 16 years old.  But that's a different matter, and a different culture.  I met more young (teen) mothers there than I have in the States.  But then again, where I live I don't see many young mothers; maybe it's more prevalent in the southern states...

I have a friend who used to work at the counter at a drugstore, and her personal policy when it came to carding people was to ask for identification for anyone who looked 25 or under, or around her age.  As a tall, athletically built woman she's been mistaken for older than her actual age, so she also evaluates if the customers look her age or younger.

The protagonist of the Hunger Games series, Katniss Everdeen, starts out as a sixteen-year-old.  The actress cast to portray her, Jennifer Lawrence, is twenty right now.  I'm optimistic about her ability to embody the series' tenacious heroine, but one of the issues that many have against her casting is that she's too old.  The other major actress who was vying for this role, Hailee Steinfeld, is fourteen.  I'm sure that both actresses would do a find job, actually, but I don't mind that Lawrence is older.  She can pass as sixteen, and considering the hardships that her character goes through it makes senses that she look older than her age, since challenges can cause one to physically age.  There are a lot of other issues surrounding her casting, actually, but I just wanted to briefly touch on the age part.