Okay, I need to start by apologizing for my financial rant from the other day. It was one of those mornings where the oppressiveness of our financial situation, both personal and national, overwhelmed me. The concern over unpaid bills and the future for my children got the better of me. That, and the fact that some twenty year old Glamazon had left a script in our mailbox for my husband to read. And he’s an accountant. Okay, he’s not an accountant, he is in the entertainment business, but not the end that involves script reading. In the fifteen years we’ve been together I’m not sure I’ve ever seen him read a script. Never, ever. And now, with the financial world tumbling around our ears, he’s doing some script guidance for hot twenty year old production assistants. How, you ask, do I know she’s hot, having only discovered the script, not the girl, in our mailbox. Well, because I saw her photo on my husbands Facebook page. What, you gasp. Your husband has a Facebook page? Exactly. So I started to rant about the economy because it was easier than having a knock down drag out with the spouse although we got there eventually.
Which brings me to todays topic HOW NOT TO LOOK OLD. For obvious reasons I’m somewhat concerned, or, perhaps, obsessed with staying young. Like, really young. That was the subject of a Time Magazine article from a few weeks ago. The article was pointed out to me by my friend Christina who called howling with laughter while waiting at the neurologists with her husband wh’d been experiencing some scary neurological symptoms. How, you ask, could some one call from the neurologists laughing while her husband is experiencing scary neurological symptom? Did you read my opening paragraph?
The article discusses a recently released study by some doctors at Case Western who took a look at a bunch of photos of identical twins to see how they were aging. They came to conclusions, some of which seem obvious and some of which confuse me. I’ll begin with my concern about the two photos at the beginning of the article. Two sisters, side by side. One looks good, the other, not so much. But here’s my question. The one who looks good has a sly sweet smile, some pink in her cheeks, a light in her eyes. I look at her and wonder, maybe she really does look younger in real life. Or maybe she’s a woman who, just before they snapped the shot, had a nice glass of a red wine with a good friend (thus the pink in the cheeks)and had, immediately afterward , been pinched on the bottom by the UPS man delivering her package from Victorias Secret(both resulting in the sly smile). Her sister on the other hand looks at bit scary. Downturned mouth, sagging cheeks, a deadness behind her eyes. But here’s what I wonder. What was going on in her life that day? Was she jealous her sister had gotten the pinch and the thong? Had she given up wine for Lent? Had she been at the neurologist waiting for bad news or good news about her husband? Or perhaps a five foot ten, twenty year old had just left a script for her husband in her mailbox. I don’t know? I’m just saying….
Let’s talk about what the Case Western docs discovered. Okay the first one is shocking. No smoking. Duh. Smoking in your dreams, imagining you are smoking, pantomiming you are smoking or using your straw from your drink as a cigarette are okay. But no real smoking. It’s power to age trumps the happiness factor you get from doing it. Sunscreen. Use it. Although I always think a tan makes someone look younger? And then there’s this astute observation. Fatter people look younger. At least from the neck up (see Face or Ass blog). Therein lies the rub. Apparently a little fat rounding out those cheeks and naturally filling those wrinkles helps. BUT your ass will suffer. There will be no Victoria Secret deliveries by UPS men for you because they don’t make thongs in your new size. And no pinches from the UPS man because, truth be told, your ass will be too scary. And everyone will say “Too bad, she has such a pretty face.” And then won’t understand when you start screaming in confusion. Face or Ass. It’s a regular Sophies choice.
But the final point of this study made me smile. It made me think of my friend Susanna who just did the ultimate in Spring Cleaning. She unloaded approximately 150 pounds of useless material that had been lingering around her house for, oh, 24 years or so. I don’t know how to best describe what she got rid of so for ease’s sake, I’ll call it her husband. Now Susanna looks better than she has in years. Soft, rested, calm. And without an ounce of additional fat on her body but a fathead excised from her life. Which is what they discovered in the study. No husband is better than a less than great one. Divorce ages you but getting rid of a bad husband will make you younger. And never marrying at all, well, ask Christina how funny that news was. Never marry, and Christina and I both believe we’re reading this important study properly, your face will remain as soft as a baby’s bottom and you can continue leaving scripts in married men’s mailboxes until you’re seventy and you’ll still piss off their wives.
Now just to clarify a few things here. Christina’s husband did not have a horrible neurological problem. And she is, I must admit, thrilled about that. And my husband is a sweet, funny fellow who only has eyes for me. And I’m sure that he would offer to script read for anyone, even young men with coke bottle glasses who spit when they talk and women with mange who haven’t bathed in six weeks, or old people in an advanced state of dementia who write scripts that don’t have any real words, just clumps of letters or small animals who suddenly find their voice. He would script read for anyone. It just so happens that, in all his years in television, the first person who asked was twenty four, five ten, with a perfect set of bow lips framed by waist length un-dyed blonde hair and a body that seems to be unwilling to not only quit but is something of a workaholic. Yes, he’ll read your script. Just don’t leave it in my mailbox. I’m a little tense these days.