That Awkward Age

Getting Botox May Raise a Few Eyebrows ... But They Won't be Yours

I've joined the ranks of former Hollywood starlets who are now pimping their stay-young-forever-wares on QVC.  I am Botoxed.

I didn't do this for the sake of vanity, not that I don't have a healthy supply of that. It's just that if I had an extra $2,000 to spend on my face, I'd use it to locate my former neck, not on a shot to paralyze the muscles in the forehead. No, I got Botoxed three weeks ago as treatment for chronic migraines, which seems to be helping.

Having live botulism, one of the most potent neurotoxins known to man, injected into your body on purpose can give you pause. You have to wonder what that scientist was thinking when he started playing around with this stuff. I'll bet it had nothing to do with producing something that would make Joan Rivers look freeze dried.

In case you're curious, it feels like having several spools of duck tape wrapped turban-style tightly around your head. Except for blinking, nothing above the bridge of the nose moves without great effort. It's impossible to wrinkle my forehead quizzically, and raising my eyebrows is as strenuous as pumping iron. 

That means when I assume the standard mascara application position -- mouth in an "O" to stretch the cheek down, forehead and eyebrow up, as if surprised, to get the eyelid out of the way -- nothing much happens. The eyebrow flexes a little, kind of like me trying to do a push up, then drops back into flat-line position. This means there's no room to work the wand, and I end up with black smears all over my eyelids. 

Oh well. At least it distracts from my frozen forehead and droopy neck. 

Photo by ben pollard

Accident of Nature

My teenage son insists ugly, stupid people

shouldn’t have sex: too great a risk of repetition.

I tell him the world rejected that 

Nazi notion half a century ago,

but I look at my own anomalies 

and wonder if he has a point.

If Darwin’s premise of natural

selection is precise, what

accounts for my size-11 flat feet?

Bad back? Presbyopia? Smithfield 

hams for thighs, underzealous metabolism? 

Migraines, TMJ, inability to find 

filed receipts at tax time?

Who peed in my genetic pool?

I Google family names, retrieving generations 

like lost memories. Was it you, Rhoda Duncan, 

my father’s mother’s mother, who made 

my knees bend backwards? Did you, Delphia 

Arenia Shew, my father’s father’s mother,

send me high cholesterol? And what about 

you Millers on my mother’s side – 

are you to blame for acid reflux 

and flatulence? Should the Campbells

claim my orthodontia bills?

Lowes and McClures, Martins and Crawfords,

Swifts and Babingtons – had you

known about dominant and recessive genes, 

would you have played DNA roulette,

tangoed in Paris or spooned in June?

Maybe more of you should have opted 

for cold showers, feigned 

headaches, slept in separate beds.

Glitches in my body’s design confirms

love to be a messy DNA matchmaker.

But, here I am: alive, thankful, most days,

to be an imperfect leaf clinging to the family tree.

(Another poem pulled from my archives from several years ago -- written in a poetry workshop from my MFA classes.)

Photo by: Sudhee

Ode to My Chin Hairs

 Come, let us celebrate that which we cannot avoid,

the age of reason, or is it the reason of age,

fraught with estrogen depletion and orgiastic heat

rising from the pillowed belly of the soul.

Cherubim and seraphim of menopause,

they do mock me with moods and cravings.

Acne finally conquered, only to be replaced

by flaccid skin, parentheses from nose to mouth,

eyelids too heavy to be sultry, stiff exclamation points

sprouting from my double chinny-chin-chin.

O that my vision and tweezered aim were sharper,

that I might pluck these bristly blights from my sight!

My mirror magnifies their claim upon my jawline.

Would that I could tolerate the zipping of wax,

zapping of laser light, to kill -- or at least wound --

these prolific follicles of fate. Should I lather and shave?

Would the stubble return -- thornier, more resolute?

Would they double like dandelions plucked from the lawn,

only to re-seed and re-weed in defiance?

Surely I shall glorify my whiskers,

for they are ornaments like merit badges,

earned for enduring adolescence, my own

and that of my children, a husband’s mid-life crisis,

shitty diapers and vomit in the middle of the night,

sitting on sidelines of baseball and football games despised.

O, but for a rock opera proclaiming thy splendor!

I could make my New York stage debut,

hiding my privates behind the veil of tresses.

Or, failing that, I could run away from home

and join the circus as the bearded lady.

Verily, I shall pamper and pomade my chin mane,

adorn my beard with beads and bangles

and color-coordinated barrettes and bows;

whisk my whiskers into complicated comb-overs,

French braids and chignons, dreads and pony tails,

cornrows, beehives, bouffants and spikes.

I shall mousse and gel it, blow-dry and hail it,

for the blessing of its curse endures forever.

(I dug this out of the archives. It was written for a poetry class several years ago.)

Photo by: goingslo's

Why Oh Why Should I Improve the Y? -- THREE REASONS I'M SOOOO GLAD TO BE A GEEZERETTE:

Count this as reasons number 1,2 and 3 for why I’m GLAD TO BE A GEEZERETTE  – otherwise known as a woman over 50 – I’ve now got better sense than to deforest, decorate and display my lady parts in underwear smaller than dental floss.

Can you imagine if men were asked to get THEIR pubes pulled out? Most (i.e., my husband) won’t even get vasectomies with anesthesia, ice packs and a week off from work! 

As if that isn’t enough, we’re supposed to get vajazzled??? After yanking the pubes, we’re then supposed to get little Swarovski crystals glued to our vajayjay -- as Oprah likes to call it -- in cute little patterns, as Jennifer Love Hewitt does.  

I’ve got a question for her:  Do you think they’re going to say “no” if it’s Plain Jane? Well, I think I’d rather wear my jewelry around my neck where I can show off my matching earrings and bracelet, thank you very much. 

Then, to add insult, we’re supposed to wear little strings called “thongs” rather than real underwear. Though I suppose if you’re all vajazzeled, you aren’t going to wear any at all to spoil “the effect.” Just eeeeuuuwww to that. 

Though come to think of it, why bother if you’ve got to dig that little string out of your butt all day? Wedgies happen often enough while wearing granny panties. Is there anything worse than pretending that you’re straightening your skirt, when you’re surreptitiously attempting to hook your thumb around a wedgie?

No, my privates have served me fine for 50+++ years in their natural, unadorned and well-pantied state. I've always preferred the Everglades over Las Vegas.

Pick up a fork and save the planet – make your own biodiesel fuel!

 Between performing CPR on my kids who are laughing so hard they can’t breathe without snorting and intercepting my husband’s attempts to have me committed, I’ve begun reading up on what you have to do to train for running a marathon. 

Being the kind of person who learns stuff from books (at least this is the lie I tell myself to justify all the money I spend and extra stress I put on the weight-bearing walls on the house), I did a search in Amazon and discovered that there are 727 books about running a marathon. Apparently everyone who has ever run one has felt compelled to write a book about it. 

Who knew there was so much to know about running? After all, humans have been running since, well, before we were human. Then I realized that it wasn’t really the “running” part I needed help with. It was the “not dying while trying to do it for 26.2 miles” part. 

So I stumbled upon the title of what seemed to be the perfect book: “The Non-Runner’s Marathon Trainer,” by David Whitsett, that takes old, out-of-shape non-running sofa surfers and trains them to run a marathon in 17 weeks. Since I’m giving myself a full two years to get this thing done, I figured that even though I’ll be 60 and probably more of a non-runner than even Whitsett could imagine, this was the book for me.

Dr. Whitsett is a professor at the University of Northern Iowa, where he began teaching the “marathon class” in 1985 as either a three-credit psychology or PE class. It’s obvious why running a marathon would qualify as PE class, but what may not be as obvious is the mental/psychological component necessary in getting yourself across the finish line. 

Even if you have no desire to run further than to the corner store (in the car) to pick up Lotto tickets, I highly recommend the book for the psychological techniques Whitsett teaches. These include creating “mental video tapes” of yourself running a successful marathon (I’ve already got the “Rocky” theme song uploaded in my iPod), and exercises to increase mental focus, such as studying your running shoes for micro-differences such as scuffs and wear points. (I think the last time I was able to concentrate on something that insignificant for long periods of time I was in college and experimenting on herbal home remedies . . . but I digress). 

But then I read a section in the book about having “hidden agendas.” Some of the hundreds of people that Whitsett has successfully trained add comments to the book, including anecdotes about their running experiences. A woman named Tange, who was completing the running schedule very successfully, confessed to Whitsett that she was discouraged that, after running for about a month as much as 17 or 18 miles per week, she wasn’t losing any weight. 

And here I am, reading this, thinking, “Yes, yes, Dave! I’m discouraged, too! I’ve been running since January, and I’m not losing any weight, either! I’m running my buns off and yet; I’m NOT running my buns off! I haven’t lost anything! What’s up with that?”

So then Dave tells Tange (and me) that she shouldn’t have these “hidden agendas” – she should just be out there training for the joy of running a marathon. And, he tells her, there are a lot of reasons why she might not be losing weight, such as her body composition shifting from fat to muscle and muscle weighing more than fat – as we all know – and  -- now here’s the really depressing part – because YOU HAVE TO RUN AN ENTIRE MARATHON TO BURN ABOUT A POUND OF FAT. 

Can you flipping believe that? You have to train for weeks and weeks (and this is a SHORT training cycle, mind you – I’m stretching it out for months) to work up to running a distance that burns ONE FLIPPING POUND?!? 

Stated another, even more depressing way:

“The average 150-pound male runner who may be 12-15% body fat would have 13-18 pounds of fat available for energy which translates into 53,000-73,000 kilocalories, enough to cover 530-730 miles of running. A typical female runner weighing 120 pounds with 20-25% body fat would have 10-16 pounds of accessible fat accounting for 41,000-65,000 kilocalories, or enough to cover 546-866 miles of running.”

Word!

Seeing as how I’ve got a good 30 pounds I’d like to part with, I figure I’m storing enough fat to run from New York to L.A. without taking a tuck in my pants.  Now, if someone can just figure out how to create electric current from my thighs rubbing together, I’ve got the answer to the country’s energy problems right under my own Spanx. And no pesky oil spills to worry about! 

(FYI, the bowl of ice cream that I’m about to eat will later be used to light up Manhattan. Or to run to the moon and back.)

Photo: sashafatcat

Big Thighs Give Me a Leg Up on a Long Life

When they were passing out body parts, they ran short on boobs, so I was given extra helpings of thighs and feet.

Thunder thighs--and big feet--run in the family.

Even when I was momentarily a size 8, I still sported a couple of well-packed duffle bags in the pants. I was in college before I realized that most women didn’t regularly get a rash on the inside of their thighs from friction caused by walking. You’re supposed to have a space between your thighs. Who knew?

So today when I read that large thighs may protect your heart, I was gleeful. According to the results of a 10-year study published in the British Medical Journal, men and women with thighs over 60cm (23.6 inches) in circumference have a lower risk of heart disease and early death.

The advantage remains, even when body fat, smoking and cholesterol levels are taken into account. Researchers theorize that the risk of narrow thighs could be associated with too little muscle mass, leading to the body not responding to insulin properly. This increases the risk of diabetes, and eventually, to heart disease. 

But--and get this--the good news is that you Twiggy people can fix this problem so you won’t die from skinny legs. You just need to go to the gym three times weekly and lift weights with your legs, and in three months, you’ll increase your thigh size by 6 to 10 percent.
 
You won’t find me at the gym. For once, I’ve got the perfect body part without exercise or plastic surgery. Besides, I’ll be at home putting baby powder on my rash.

* Photo by Fiona Henderson. 

When it Comes to Swimsuits, More is More

I’m looking for a swimsuit with a turtleneck, Capri shorts and three-quarter-length sleeves. And no, I’m not Amish.

I’m never gotten too excited about taking my clothes off and prancing around on the beach half naked, and I’m even less so now. It amazes me how many women over bikini age with unbikini bodies still waddle on the beach without a care.

I envy them almost more than those Bay Watch-types wearing suits that contain as much fabric as dental floss. Seeing them reminds me of what Mom always said when bikinis became popular way back in the ‘60s. “I’d need two of them – one to cover my face.”

I have to believe that is the reason several weeks ago that a woman in a well-televised incident led police on a high-speed O.J. Simpson-type chase down the freeway, running into several cars before she was nabbed. When they pulled her out of the car, this over-50 woman with a serious case of the jiggles was wearing a string bikini and was visibly inebriated.

No thanks!

I can just imagine what she was thinking when she saw the cop’s lights in the rear view mirror: “I can’t let him see me in this thing! I only put it on because I lost that bet to Harold. If only I had known that last Jeopardy question, it would be him driving to the drug store to pick up KY Intense His and Hers in a Speedo rather than me having to go to the 7-Eleven in this thing to get beer for him.”

And with that, she put the pedal to the metal and starting popping the tops. I can see that.

Every spring I get the Lands End swimsuit catalogue, which gratefully looks nothing like the Sports Illustrated swimsuit edition. You can forget trying on swimsuits in the store, unless you wake up one day and say, “Oh, my self esteem is way too high today. I think I’ll go try on bathing suits at the mall and look at my past-prime body under florescent lights while the clerk yanks back the curtain and says ‘Come out here, dear, so you can see better in the three-way.’”

No thanks. I’ll just stay at home and shop where I can have a nice cleansing sob, should that become necessary.
 
I study this catalogue for hours, trying to find one that will fill out my bust without making them look like torpedoes, hold in my stomach, and lift and separate the buns. These things are engineered like armored tanks, with secret panels and power mesh guaranteed to make you look 10 pounds thinner and keep you safe from WMDs, as well as that chocolate chip cookie you ate two weeks ago.

Other than not being able to breathe, the problem with these structures is that they don’t cover enough. That, and they really only displace the fat, moving it up and over the suit to puff out of the top and bottom. The marketing would have you believe that the suits are like those plastic garment bags that you can attach a vacuum cleaner hose to and suck out the air so that you can cram three times as much stuff into the closet. Instead, they operate like a battleship. The ship goes in, the water goes up. Same principle with fat and the “Slimsuit.”

Even if they defied the laws of nature and squished it in, what good is it to look svelte in the middle while you have Smithfield-ham thighs protruding on the bottom and upper arms that look like globs of melting marshmallows-on-a-stick just before they fall into the bonfire at Scout camp?And the neck – just how many chins does one need? I’m having hard enough time keeping the hairs tweezed out of the original, much less all the bonus ones.

Magazines such as Oprah or the former Most, supposedly geared toward helping the woman over 45 feel better about getting older while showing “average” women like Christy Brinkley on the cover, show lots of before-and-after remakes of women in various suits, telling us how to make the most of our figures. Camouflage the flaws and accentuate the positives, they tell us, and you, too, can look more like Christy and less like Angela Lansbury.

Just tell me this – have you ever seen a solider effectively camouflaged wearing half a yard of spandex? And their solution to heavy thighs is not to cover them (or even to smear green paint on them), but to wear a suit with legs cut up to your waist to “make your legs look longer.” Well, I’m sorry, but showing half of your butt in addition to your fat thighs just makes both your thighs and your butt look bigger.

And we won’t even talk about the indignities of what you have to do to yourself to wear a slingshot like that. Besides the problem of trying to look elegant while constantly digging the thing out of your crack, let’s just say that a Brazilian wax would not work for me. It would leave untamed too much of South America’s rain forests.

Yes, you can buy suits with wider shoulder straps, little boy legs, a swim mini or even a swim dress. I’ve probably got two of each that I ordered in hopeful moments of self delusion, none of which have ever been worn beyond the bedroom.

No, I’ve decided that what I need is more in keeping with what ladies wore in the 1890s – those suits that come with pantaloons and parasols. As a nod to fashion, I’ll skip the little ruffley hat. I never was much for swimming caps anyway.

The nice thing about these suits is that they still reveal the best aspects of my figure. Those would be my wrists, ankles and ear lobes.

    Yes!

 

***
Author’s Note and Wifely Mea Culpa

So after reading yesterday’s post, Bob was P.O.ed. I figured it was the libido crack – the whole assault on the masculinity thing. But no.

“Nah, I don’t care about that,” he said. “You made me sound incompetent.”

‘How did I make you sound incompetent?”

“By saying that I’ve had the computer in little pieces for two weeks,” he said.
“I’ve told you a million times never to exaggerate.”

So for the sake of accuracy, I went back to look again. And I was wrong. It’s not the computer that he’s got all over the floor. It’s all the junk he had to take off the top of the computer and desk to get to the computer inards. But truthfully, it has been two weeks he’s been messing with it.

But I’m sure he just didn’t recall how long it had been. I can’t hold that against him, since he only got his memory delivered yesterday. I can’t wait to see what the UPS man brings today.

Feeling Bad About Your Saggy Body? Just Wing It!

I wish Michelle Obama would go put on a sweater. I’m getting very cranky about her arms. 

It’s not enough that our bodies are compared to movie stars, but now we have to hear about how buff Michelle’s arms look when she’s attending a state dinner?  You mean there’s yet another body part I’ve got to add to list of things I need nipped, tucked, sucked, perked or plumped?

We’re supposed to have Angelina Jolie’s lips, Dolly Parton’s boobs, Beyoncé’s booty, Jennifer Aniston’s waist, Catherine Zeta-Jones’ eyes, Brooke Shields’ teeth and Tina Turner’s legs. But that’s only the baseline.

We’re also supposed to be a domestic goddess like Martha, earn as much money as Oprah, be as smart as Sandra Day O’Conner, as talented as Meryl Streep, as funny as Tina Fey, as motherly as Jackie Kennedy, as spiritual as Mother Theresa, as sweet as Mary Tyler Moore, as sexy as Sharon Stone, as liberated as Gloria Steinem and as stand-by-your-man-ish as Tammy Wynette.

And the advice we get? “Just be yourself.”

It makes me want to take a nap.

Still, the media make it hard not to compare yourself to other women. And there is one woman with whom I have something in common: Heidi Klum.

Now, before you tell me you are ROTFLMAO, as they say in Twitterville, let me explain. I have wings – just like Heidi – with one tiny difference.

While Heidi’s wings are fluffy and pert, standing up behind her like a bird or an angel ready to take flight, mine are kind of lumpy and webbed and hang down under my arms. Like Heidi’s wings, which are constantly changing from white feathers to red sequins or black diamonds to match the clothes she isn’t wearing, my wings are also changing.

Mine are getting bigger and flabbier. Don’t tell me to lift weights. I’ve been doing it for two years and it doesn’t work.

At first, I had only the jiggly lunch-room-lady upper arms. Then one morning when I was getting dressed, I felt something under my arms. I thought maybe some socks had gotten caught in the sleeves in the dryer.

On closer examination, I discovered that I had big wads of back fat that hadn’t been there before. Apparently the same fairy that brought gray hair, a saggy neck and droopy eyelids decided I needed Heidi Klum wings.

I suppose I shouldn’t complain. I’ve been waiting my whole life to develop enough to fill out a B cup, and now I can. The only problem is that I can’t find a bra with cups that go under the arms.

I wonder if Heidi could talk to Victoria's Secret about that.