Age is more than just a number...

One of my most amazing feats these days is being invisible. You’d think that would qualify me as some sort of superhero, but actually quite the opposite is true: I am an ordinary female in my sixties, which means I occupy space yet am virtually unseen.  I truly believe I could publicly disrobe and turn zero heads, except in winter when I might get on the news for braving the elements. I am still visible to my cats, especially first thing in the morning when I enter the kitchen. 

I do not feel personally persecuted; after all, women my age who are a whole lot better-looking than I ever was continue to disappear. A good indicator of this trend is People magazine, that public relations rag wherein young actresses display their latest tattoos, designer duds and diet secrets. Gone forever from its pages are Goldie Hawn, Jane Fonda, Cher, Bette Midler, Sally Field, Glenn Close, Meryl Streep and Anjelica Huston, replaced with I've never heard of any of them. 

Why is this? I have reduced it to an easy-to-comprehend mathematical formula:  FOD + LOM = SS, which means Fear of Death plus Love of Money equals Sex Sells. From the moment you get up in the morning, talk of sex dominates, and I don’t just mean at my house. With the temporary exception of the political scandal of the week, naked bodies and pierced navels jump out at you from the TV, Internet, or newsstand, along with ads for Viagra and Cialis and my personal favorite, Extenz, a penis-enhancement product “guaranteed to grow several inches on a certain male member.” Sexiness is a highly valued commodity in our society, and flashing your Medicare card just ain't that sexy.

Many of my peers are fighting the inevitable desiccation on the way out. For example, one just had injections of some “plumping liquid” that will allegedly stimulate collagen growth so her wrinkles will fill out, at least until she laughs or cries. Several others have had face lifts, making it difficult to determine how they really feel about aging, but despite their smooth faces, those flashing, neon "I'M MENOPAUSAL" signs above their heads render them invisible too.

So what’s the big deal? Well, while I’m not an aging movie queen clinging to an adoring public, it would be nice to command a waiter’s attention without having to stand on a chair, or have a salesperson offer to help or even just take my money, or get a response to a job application; my age on paper makes me invisible as well. Once upon a time I was regarded as a witty and somewhat off-the wall artiste, popular with all three sexes. But as I age, there are fewer offers coming from more people, and this is even with coloring my hair; God only knows what life is like for all those white-haired ladies.

I guess if I had grandchildren they would adore me, since I would shower them with gifts and affection, but since I screwed up the natural course of events by becoming a mother late in life, that won't happen anytime soon. My son, who is way past the age of needing me, often doesn’t acknowledge my existence even when I'm right in front of him. So I write my blog. Since cats can't read or write, your comments are greatly appreciated.

Old Friends Die Hard

My wise, old (dead) shrink told me this: "Notice the expression on someone's face when you first meet them; what you see in the first ten minutes of knowing someone, before they are trying to impress you or seduce you, is what you eventually will get, for good."

I am thinking about this because of Anonymous, a reader of this blog who leaves comments which I delete, sparing my readers his unpleasantness. I think Anonymous is my ex-best friend Richard. Although we were the closest of friends for more than 35 years, for 20 of them he hid the fact that he was gay, not from everyone but from me, instead allowing me to feel sorry for his being alone when all the time there was a guy in the closet with him. I found out the truth when a mutual friend laughingly said, "of course he is gay!" Yes, Richard reluctantly admitted it-- but what was I thinking to remain in that relationship after such duplicity?

Last year our friendship ended abruptly following a four-day visit, during which Richard described our time together as "delicious" and saying it was "the best time he had had in years, with anyone." Then silence-- no explanation, no phone calls, no nothing. And now blog-stalking.  I am racking my brain trying to remember how he looked in those first ten minutes, but alas, 1970 is a long way back.

Sur la Plage

Yesterday my husband and I drove to Old Orchard Beach seeking an old-fashioned beach experience, even if it was 60 degrees and threatening to rain. Still, in Maine, if it's not snowing it's summer, so off we went. We were not disappointed.

There it was, the beach town in America circa 2011: Colorful kiddie rides, police cruisers keeping the peace, towels hanging in shop windows reminding you where you are, tired-looking smokers collapsed on benches, overflowing trash cans and the occasional three-legged dog. Down at the pier people of all shapes and sizes lined up for pizza, fried dough, French fries, hot dogs, nachos, corn on the cob, fried clams, lobster rolls, sodas, ice cream and more. Despite appropriate beach attire being quite revealing, by the time you're there it's too late to do anything about your body so caution is thrown to the wind and dieting is forgotten. Hence there was not one health food stand or V-8 bar to be found.

Shouldering past all those temptations, we went for a walk on the actual beach, marveling at the few brave souls in the water who were almost all teenage boys and the one determined kite-flier who achieved modest success at last. Next we wandered through the arcades and enjoyed several rousing games of Skee-Ball, finally arriving back where we started and getting down to the real business of summertime: eating.

I bellied up to the bar and purchased French fries from two different vendors, one right after the other just as a quality control experiment, and ate them all by myself although Mitch, who is a saint and much stronger than I owing to his membership in an exercise cult that has toughened his resolve as well as his calves, did his fair share of sampling. The fries were ridiculously good, although the ones from the first place were so much better than the ones from the second place that I almost went back for another batch, but by then I was fairly nauseous.

You might be thinking "Quelle cochon!" and who could blame you, however I believe I deserve kudos for not ordering poutine, the latest Canadian import invading America: fries smothered with sausage gravy and cheese. To be honest, not that many people were ordering those. Nevertheless, the nation of France must be thanked for those fries, if nothing else.

Straight Talk on Gay Marriage

This morning all the gays in New York are thrilled that they can now get married legally, which, speaking as a married person--for the second time in fact--mystifies me. I've always fantasized that the gay lifestyle offered unlimited personal freedom and the ability to explore one's options as an individual, like being able to cook salmon for guests when it is so easy to prepare and is one of your specialties, except you never can because your husband is allergic.

Our marriage, now in it's 25th year, is probably among the better ones: Mitch and I actually respect one another, share an esoteric sense of humor which our only child also understands, and have rarely plotted the other's murder.  My husband never beats me, except at Scrabble and then only sometimes. We sleep in the same bed which is surely comforting, although when he's out of town I do enjoy tossing and turning with abandon without hearing, "What's going on, I have to get up at 5 tomorrow."

Truth be told, until or unless you need surgery, at which time a spouse comes in quite handy although a mother is better, i.e. Shirley MacLaine in "Terms of Endearment," I'm not sure what the draw is for so many people. But congratulations and party on all you New Yorkers, just don't come crying to me when you want a divorce, which by the way is an extremely unpleasant experience and almost makes getting married to begin with seem downright silly.

The Fear Factor

This morning I Googled "fear of death," mostly because my blog post of May 11 contained those words and continues to top my all-time list of readers; every day there are many more, in countries as far away as Singapore, Norway, Australia and India, making me think that it's quite widespread. 

Personally I do not have that particular fear, but I have plenty of others, believe you me, and can ill afford one more. My latest is "fear of hip replacement surgery," or more specifically, "fear of terrible pain following and catching a horrible infection during and having it go badly and needing to do it again, which does happen often enough to have a name and is called hip revision surgery."

I wondered if this were a common fear, at least among members of my generation, so once again I searched the Internet and found all sorts of interesting lists of fears that are common to mankind. One list in particular claimed to be global in scope and was called The 110 World's Worst Fears. Besides the top four fears which are quite popular --#1, snakes, #2, heights, #3, flying, and #4, public speaking, there were some surprises, such as the fact that neither "fear of dentists" nor "fear of getting stuck in an elevator with the ladies from The View" was on the list, making the whole enterprise suspect. Nevertheless I mention some of the odder ones here:

#31, fear of babies

#54, fear of numbers

#64, fear of long words

#95, fear of lakes and rivers

#100, fear of Monday mornings

#105, fear of dark shadows

#106, fear of sharp or pointed objects

I also stumbled upon some free advice about how to overcome the irksome fear of death that afflicts all but a few of us. The solution is so easy to incorporate into one’s schedule, I repeat it here verbatim: "Live life the way you're supposed to. Don't waste your time worrying about death. Instead, fill each day with as much joy as possible, and don't let little things get you down. Go outside, play with friends, or take up a new sport. Just do anything that will take your mind off dying, and put it on living.” Now why didn't we think of that?

Man's Continued Evolution

Say you need a few things for that fabulous spaghetti sauce you're making for dinner: Parmesan cheese, bread crumbs, maybe a can of tomato paste. You run out to the supermarket and grab the necessary items, basing your choices on price and brand familiarity. But wait--now there's another way to help you choose: The vanity barcode.

At last that seemingly unimportant stamp, born in the late 1970s, that allows stores to track their inventory and change prices without re-labeling, has finally gotten the attention it deserves. Starting immediately, you can find barcodes that are elegant or quirky, that look like waterfalls or butterflies, or maybe even something more complicated like the New York City skyline.  In today's Wall Street Journal, the co-owner of Vanity Barcodes, a design shop in New Jersey that wastes its time doing this nonsense, says one of her favorites is "a hand mixer that looks like the barcode is mixing up the numbers." How adorable is that?

The article reports two additional facts that reinforce my decision to quit being a graphic designer years ago: First is the admission that "adding a vanity barcode can be expensive because new packaging is needed," causing one to wonder how happy that makes the consumer.  Second, the newly designed, fabulous and quirky, elegant barcode that looks like something else is not always functional, but is often merely a design element used to drive up sales; the simple rectangular barcode is still on the back of many items.

Here Comes Summer

Today is the first day of summer, and if you grew up on the Eastern seaboard, you know what that means: Bugs, sunscreen, sweating and traffic. Sweating in traffic. Sweating on the beach after being stuck in traffic. Falling asleep on the beach and getting a sunburn. Barbecues, fried food, corn on the cob, buttery, greasy, more bugs. Bees and ants. Sand in everything, especially your bathing suit. Watermelon pits. Sunburn at night; peeling skin. Trying to sleep with that droning air conditioner. Sticky sheets. Can you tell it's not my favorite season?

So I was surprised to read the following concerning the arrival of the solstice in an online column called "On Faith," which gives a different perspective: "Gather together with friends, share the early fruits and gather the flowers, celebrate the time of warmth and light today. And know that, just as the swelling fruit contains the seed, the growing light holds the dark, and one cannot exist without the other. At Solstice, the sun appears to stand still on the horizon. Take a moment, be still, and listen to the earth. What does she ask of us, in this potent moment?"

We are all products of our environment and our experiences. I bet the woman who wrote that solstice thing grew up in the middle of the country, someplace where summer was brief and didn't involve undertow, Noxzema and jellyfish. It must be nice to be her.

Seeking an Alternate Reality

People are so mean here, and by "here" I mean in our society in the year 2011. Nowhere is this more obvious than on social media sites like Facebook and Twitter. Today's roasted meat is a 34-year-old actor named Ryan Dunn (see photo below) who rose to prominence on a TV show called "Jackass." He died in a fatal car crash yesterday, and today the twittering public is having a field day, despite he fact that that they watched his show and made his follow-up movies box-office hits; now they have decided he was a jackass himself after all, and are using his death as fodder for jokes, never mind his parents and friends who  are mourning his loss and who can see and hear everything.

Yet within this cold culture, it is consistently considered to be way over the line to describe a fat person as fat--how dare you!-- or to chide a politician for sending unsolicited lewd pictures to young women; after all, he was just having fun!

There simply must be another place to be, somewhere they don't say "it is what it is" as if it means something, and where laugh tracks are outlawed and robots don't make phone calls saying "there is no problem with your credit card account but it is urgent that you call us back right away." Where everyone eats healthy and does volunteer work and mourns the deaths of even silly people who are just doing the best they can. I thought Maine might be it, but it's pretty much life as usual up here, except for the lobster. However, there is no traffic, which is a step in the right direction.

I Used to Be So Hip

People age. I personally am falling apart at the seams. The latest body part calling for attention is my right hip, which, after being subjected to years of running and aerobic exercise, has all but ceased to perform like a hip should. For example, turning around, bending over, sitting up, lying down, standing and climbing stairs are all things it hates doing, and lets me know in no uncertain terms. But hey, through the wonders of modern science, I can now get a brand new hip installed!

While I don't relish the thought of undergoing surgery, I balk at the concept even more; aren't we supposed to get old and eventually die? New body parts seem like cheating. In fact, this is the very subject of a novel I am currently reading called "Twenty Thirty." Written by the brilliant comedian Albert Brooks, it is neither brilliant nor comedic but is still quite absorbing and a fun way to spend time. Full of characters with names like Paul Prendergast and John Van Dyke, the plot centers around the fact that in the year 2030, people live longer because cancer has been cured. As a result, all the young people resent the hell out of "the Olds" for sapping the health care system in a society with huge debt, too many people and not enough of anything to go around. A civil war, with age the deciding factor of which side you're on, is brewing, or at least it was last night just before I nodded off after downing a couple of Tylenol PMs.

As for my possible hip replacement, I am debating whether or not it is the right thing to do. Will my selfish insistence on continued mobility be robbing someone younger of health care? Should I just hobble off into the sunset when my time comes? I'm only sure that I'm still not sure, so I'm waiting to see how things turn out for a dear friend of mine who is scheduled for that very procedure next month.  Until then, I'll get out the ice pack and finish reading my book.

A Moral Dilemma

Last week the police blotter in our local paper reported that a citizen had turned in a one hundred dollar bill he found on the street in front of a commercial establishment in downtown Freeport. This story raises several questions in the fertile mind: Was it windy that day? If someone lost it, would he or she go to the police in search of it? And finally, exactly what would the cops do about it?

Just imagine the scene as the citizen enters the local precinct and approaches the two policemen on duty:
Citizen: Officers, I found this hundred dollar bill on the street in front of Annabel's Cafe. Can you return it to its rightful owner?
Cop #1: Certainly, and let me say you are saint for turning it in.
Citizen: Thank you, but of course it's just the right thing to do. (He leaves.)
Cop #2: What a moron! (They high-five each other.) How about drinks after work?

Was the citizen a saint or a moron? What would you do?