I learned a lot from Carol Burnett

All that I was capable of learning, anyway. Saturday nights in front of her show: a family tradition. But damn it, isn't it better to look plain old old than to look old and grotesque?

New guy group

Billy Rubin and the Hepaticats

Happy Easter

From The Chalice & the Blade by Riane Eisler:

Now, perhaps nowhere as poignantly as in the omnipresent theme of Christ dying on the cross, the central image of art is no longer the celebration of nature and of life but the exaltation of pain, suffering, and death. For in this new reality that is now said to be the sole creation of a male God, the life-giving and nurturing Chalice as the supreme power in the universe has been displaced by the power to dominate and destroy: the lethal power of the Blade. And it is this reality that to our day afflicts all humanity -- both women and men.

New girl group

Polly Peptide and the Peptones, coming to a CVS near you! I bought a Maybelline Colossal Volum [sic] Express waterproof mascara today in Glam Black/Blackest Black, "7X the volume instantly no clumps," and all this with collagen too!

It is good to be alive. To be wise enough to tell the mother of a beautiful new baby girl that the medical professionals who threaten her newborn with the slur "bottle bum" because she is drinking -- oh, the HORROR -- breast milk from a bottle are, in fact, Nursing Nazis. The next day this mom told me my comments helped her get a few things in perspective. Chalk one up for middle age.

Come to think of it, "The Bottle Bums" would be a great name for a girl group.

Magic Fingers on steroids

Anyone who took a long car trip back in the 60s and possibly earlier may remember Magic Fingers: the nearly irresistible little box between the beds in the motel room. You put a quarter in the box, and then your bed vibrated with a low hum, and you drifted off to nighty night. This all came back to me when I went in for MRIs on my neck and shoulder, ordered up to determine why I can't reach high enough to get at the Nutella.

I was offered my choice of CDs, asked for opera but they were fresh out, chose Mozart, got a Greatest Hits disc. They pipe music through headphones to distract you from the extreme noise of the MRI machine blasting magnetic waves througout your being. But ohhhh, those waves. It's vibrating constantly, just like Magic Fingers. Some of it sounds like road work, but generally we're talking low tones and DEEP vibrations. With my eyes shut and the overture to The Marriage of Figaro playing in the background, I could have been in a ride at the imaginary Opera World amusement park, or a subject in a study on how the human body responds to deep notes and tones and the vibrations they cause. I've been trying for a year to find someone interested in working with me on this line of questioning. Know anyone?

Things fall apart....

OOPSY! But seriously, Yeats probably wrote this line after he reached into the kitchen cabinet for the Nutella and discovered that his arm wouldn't go that high. He went to his doctor, was told he had an impingement, got scheduled for an MRI and a visit with an orthopedist, and then was referred back to his GP to find out why his blood pressure was on the high side.

So yer right, Billy-but, they do.

Pray It's Photoshop

But is it really as absurd as it appears?

Who you calling "gullible"?

I buy cosmetics. Three times a year I meet two girlfriends, on our respective birthdays, for lunch at Big Bowl followed by a jaunt to the cosmetics uber-store Sephora. It was there I found a Peter Thomas Roth product called Unwrinkle Lip (which, may I add, is full of PEPTIDES, more than you can even believe). The saleswoman said, "I've heard this is fabulous." Naturally I bought it.

I used it, and I feel it has done, ummmm, something helpful for my lips. I used up the first batch, bought a second, and am now on my third. I liked it so much I bought another, even more expensive lip product, Spiff Upper Lip by Bliss. I use the Unwrinkle twice a day, the Spiff Upper Lip only at night. I don't know why.

I also paid for a professional make-up application lesson. I asked the young woman who made me up if she thought I was too old to wear bright lipstick. "Nooooo," she said, "you've earned your stripes." I bought several products from her too. (One product she recommended but does not sell is Revlon Colorstay lip stain -- and I do mean stain -- available at all the fine stores that sell Revlon. It sticks and sticks, and it doesn't feather. No more lip liner! I am especially fond of Nonstop Cherry which, the makeup expert advised me, "I use on all my brides.")

So there's gullible, and there's vanity, and there's doing what you need to do to feel better at any given moment. You can buy lots of cosmetics for the price of one Botox session, and it's also probably cheaper in the long run than drinking to excess, the choice my mother made.

Watch this space for a review of the PEPTIDE facial I'll be having next month.

The center will not SHUT UP

Please, no more quotes from or allusions to "The Second Coming." Ever again.

(Thanks to this guy for messing up the prissy boy.)

One more word for you

HYDROPEPTIDES

A Better Resurrection

I have no wit, no words, no tears;
My heart within me like a stone
Is numbed too much for hopes or fears.
Look right, look left, I dwell alone;
I lift mine eyes, but dimmed with grief
No everlasting hills I see;
My life is in the falling leaf:
O Jesus, quicken me.

My life is like a faded leaf,
My harvest dwindled to a husk:
Truly my life is void and brief
And tedious in the barren dusk;
My life is like a frozen thing,
No bud nor greenness can I see:
Yet rise it shall--the sap of spring;
O Jesus, rise in me.

My life is like a broken bowl,
A broken bowl that cannot hold
One drop of water for my soul
Or cordial in the searching cold;
Cast in the fire the perished thing;
Melt and remould it, till it be
A royal cup for Him, my King:
O Jesus, drink of me.

Our church choir is singing a gorgeous setting of this poem by Christina Rossetti. The music is by Craig Courtney, whose arrangements and original music we sing often. As for Rossetti, I knew nothing of her except the overworked "In the Bleak Midwinter." Found this tidbit (which explains a lot) on Wikipedia:

In the 1840s her family was stricken with severe financial difficulties due to the deterioration of her father's physical and mental health. When she was 14, Rossetti suffered a nervous breakdown and left school. Her breakdown was followed by bouts of depression and related illness. During this period she, her mother, and her sister became seriously interested in the Anglo-Catholic movement that was part of the Church of England. This religious devotion played a major role in Rossetti's personal life.

British bags

I suspect both have had some work done on their chins, and they both look pretty good. Judi might have toned down the makeup just a wee.

More is less

As I sat in the lobby during my son's ballet class -- yes, yes, young Xingu takes ballet, mainly so he can get to the part where they tap dance -- I had my first experience with More magazine, which I believe is targeted to women in the perimenopausal years. I wish I had counted the number of full-page ads promising to reduce the appearance of fine lines and wrinkles, turn back the years, deflate the puffs under your eyes, lift sagging skin, yadda yadda you know what I'm saying. Some of the ads were for surgery.

Does anyone else find this sad?

Why are so many women so gullible? I know someone who travels with such a glut of unguents that she checks a suitcase for a 36-hour trip. She has great skin, she looks at least 15 years younger than she is (a good dye job too), but she couldn't bypass the regimen for two days. Maybe that's why she looks 15 years younger than she is, and people ask me, "Are you Xingu's grandma?"

Then there was the editorial in More on how your passport photos tell the real story of "where your looks have gone."

People, we don't look like we did at 20 or 30. I for one am glad. What is wrong with looking 50? Please, tell me -- what is wrong with it?

Who you calling "dear"?

In the last month I have been on the phone with a bank manager who repeatedly called me "dear"; I have gone to the hairdresser where a woman at least my age with seriously dyed and styled hair said, "Give me your scarf, young lady," and I have been to Whole Foods where the butcher repeatedly called me "ma'am." Of the three, I like "ma'am" the best.

I can see why old people get Sick. And. Tired. of being condescended to and treated like they are effing idiots. I just haven't figured out how to respond when stupid people call me "dear" and "young lady."

In another instance, I had only myself to blame. I spent the day at a photo shoot with a bunch of 20-something creative types, and made the mistake of whining about turning 50 and feeling old. A perky as hell young woman said, "Hey, you seem pretty spunky to me, sister."

Spunky. After I punched her lights out, I determined that I would not refer to myself as old again. I slipped today, but by and large I have stuck to my guns.

And then there's Sam Ramey,

who was a hell of a bass at one time. Why oh why is he still singing? What makes it so hard for some people to quit while they're ahead? Why not teach? coach? read books? dandle the grandkids? (Or the children, as the case may be; Ramey fathered a child some years after he should have moved on to his second career.)

I'm all for parenthood, whether early or later in life. What I can't handle is a big loud singer with a vibrato wide enough to drive a Mack truck through. You're not doing us any favors, Sam.

One word for you:

PEPTIDES

"Hello, Beautiful"

"This is not just another new moisturizer. Our exceptionally nourishing moisturizer is RareMinerals-enriched to give you back the skin you were born with [which would look pretty weird on a 50 year-old body]. Thanks to its breakthrough electrolyte delivery system [am I the only one thinking of an old vacuum cleaner?], our patent-pending 100% pure RareMinerals Complex [it's always a Complex, isn't it] deeply nourishes [get it? it's nourishing] and hydrates like never before [umm, well, I thought it was new]. Its powerfully restorative and hydrating [get it? it's hydrating!] benefits deliver deep revitalization to dehydrated, stressed skin [Xanax for your outsides].

"Beautifully luminous, baby-soft skin is right around the corner [running like hell in the opposite direction]. Enjoy."

Really. As my old pappy used to say, if the baby skin has left the barn, there ain't no point shuttin' the door.

The one who dies with the most wrinkles wins.

Thought for today

Xanax is my friend.