NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!

Nooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!!!!

A Few Minutes More

Ladies and gentlemen, we are now less than one hour away from zero hour.

I'm having a glass of wine. Tonight I went to south KC to listen to a fellow singer/songwriter who was playing at a gallery. Simone met me there and afterward, we went for coffee. She gave me a some gifts - a pair of Indian Woman/Native American Storyteller earrings and a sage torch to light and rid myself and my house of any negative energy. We hashed and rehashed this 50 thing over lattes.

One thing that she said and I agreed with 100%, is that there are certain things you just can't "pull off" any more. For example, there are certain fashion looks that - once you pass a certain age - you can't pull off. Consider Cher. At some point, all that leather strapping underpants stuff just looks a tad ridiculous. Nobody wants that to happen. It is important to move gracefully into ..... age without throwing in the towel.

If you're gathering from this that the hour is late and I still don't have all the answers - and that I'm still not okay with this, you have gathered correctly. But midnight will come and I will be basically the same person I was a day ago. It's only that, according to one frame of reference, I will have moved into a different decade, a different life phase, a different group. I will be a member of a different club. Whether I attend the meetings or not, I will still be a damn member.

So here's to tomorrow -- it will be here in 10 minutes now -- and all the tomorrows after. Cheers!!!

PS: I am still in disbelief!

Some Poems For the Final Hours

Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Though wise men at their end know dark is right,
Because their words had forked no lightning they
Do not go gentle into that good night.

Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright
Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight,
And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way,
Do not go gentle into that good night.

Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight
Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

And you, my father, there on the sad height,
Curse, bless, me now with your fierce tears, I pray.
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
Dylan Thomas


To the last, I grapple with thee; From Hell's heart, I stab at thee; For hate's sake, I spit my last breath at thee.
Herman Melville


Bring tea for the Tillerman
Steak for the son
Wine for the woman who made the rain come
Seagulls sing your hearts away,
Cause while the sinners sin,
The children play
Oh lord how they play and play
For that happy day,
For that happy day
Cat Stevens


Ass Ode
Oh my ass you have expanded
In inches exponential
Realized your full potential
I cry tears torrential
Laura Batchman

The Things I Do For Love

I’m spending my final day as a forty-something as normally as possible. Because, by now, it’s all over but the shoutin’. I had a revelation this morning. I have a birthday so that others may have a birthday. Yes, that’s right. I, Laura, control birthdays all over the world. Because when I love someone, I want them to keep having birthdays, because I want them to be here. The only (legal, moral) way I can stop someone from having a birthday is to stop having my birthday which would stop birthdays all over tarnation. Little children would be sadly disappointed, because they would not get to blow out birthday candles or have obnoxious birthday parties at places like Chuck E Cheese. Young men and women on the verge of 21 would just never get to be 21. They would stand outside bars and liquor stores forever. No admittance for you, sorry, you are only 20. This entire planet would come to a screeching halt if I didn’t have a birthday, basically.

So, I will magnanimously go ahead and have a birthday. It is not for me that I do this. It is to preserve life as we know it.

You’re welcome.

Coming Back To Center

The pendulum has to swing, you know.

It has to make the trip from one extreme to the other.

Then and only then can it find peace in the middle.

This is what I advise my friends and my children when they tell me they are acting crazy and they don’t know why, or when they tell me their lives are nuts, just nuts.

I’ve been all over the place this month in terms of my processing of this – AGE thing -- but we all know that my day is coming so it’s time to try to come back to center.

How will I do this?

Perhaps I will run a bath filled with Epsom salts, and light some candles, and drink a glass of wine while reading one of my very favorite passages from The Life of Henry the Fifth, Act III, Scene I: “Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more!” It has been one of my favorites since High School when we had to shout it as loudly as possible from backstage as an exercise in speech class. God I love that piece. I may shout it in my bathtub.

Perhaps I will shop for new underwear. How can a woman feel centered with raggedy old underwear – I ask you! No, a woman needs new and matching underwear.

Perhaps I will observe a day of complete silence….... Perhaps not. The point is, whatever it takes is what one must do. One must do what one must do.

But I think I will save my centering for Saturday, the 30th. On Saturday, I shall also reset my odometer. That’s right, you heard me. I’m rolling back the odometer and I am going to be ageless, timeless, and unaffected by such trivialities.

But until then… I'm swinging all over the place.

Hatin' Rant

This is how I feel today:
I hate the thought of turning 50.
Hate it hate it hate it, hate that I don’t get a say in it.
I am pissed pissed pissed about getting older.
I hate that I can’t stop it.
I hate that I get junk mail from the AARP.
I hate that I have to wear different clothes, wear my hair different, because I don’t want to look foolish and don’t have the body for it anyway anymore.
I miss my swimsuit body.
I miss my energy.
I hate being welcomed into “the club” of old people. I’m being SUCKED IN – that’s what.
I hate the fact that I am just going to get older, older, older and then die.
I hate having to give a crap about what I eat.
I REFUSE to get a FLU SHOT.
I hate bunions and corns and calluses and cricks in the neck.
I hate this one way street I’m on!
I hate that I care that I ended the last sentence with a preposition!
I’m mad as hell!!

Goodbye, Old Friend - Goodbye!

When I was fifteen, someone told me that if you hang your face over a mirror you can tell what you are going to look like in 10 years. Sit in a chair, hold the mirror in your lap, and bend over until you can see your face in it. About every 10 years, I give this another go. Actually, it has turned out to be a pretty accurate method. (Note: It doesn’t work with your breasts, only your face).

But today, I’m looking back, not forward. As I pause in the middle of this road, I cast a wistful glance over my shoulder at my forties, which are all but behind me. I love you, my 40s! You have given me so much and I’m sad to leave you!

Some decades haven't been that way for me. I kicked my 20s to the curb without so much as a by your leave. My 30s are cloudy and muddled, and chock full of turmoil. But in my 40s I came into my own. My words and my opinion seemed to suddenly carry more weight once I passed 40, I think. And it is still sexy. 40 is the new 30!

My forties were also a catch-up decade for me in terms of things I feel I should have known or realized much earlier. For one thing, I finally got breasts in my 40s. Who knew? Who could have predicted this interesting “development?” And in my forties, some things I learned better late than never. I had to reach my 40s to find out things like:

All the major north-south highways are odd-numbered and all the east-west ones are even-numbered.

Most women dye their hair to get that color – even the young ones

How to eat to “peel and eat” shrimp

You really do have to try clothes on before you buy them, because you can never, ever know how they will fit.

With 100% certainty how to spell “wiener” and “weird” without spell-checking

That you should buy yourself really nice quality socks (I just learned this one)

How I wish that I had written them all down so I could list them now. Of course my 40s also brought to my attention the importance of finding your truth, whatever it is, and standing up in it. I became aware of the lovely concepts of the authentic self, and synchronicity. It is in my 40s that the Bubble of Love was born in my brain.

I learned that I always need a creative outlet, just like I need oxygen.

I learned I am not materialistic but I love clothes and SHOES, and I don’t feel guilty about it.

I discovered the importance of down time. …………........


So I don’t want to leave my 40s, but the road takes me forward, away away away from them.

Today I honor my forties, for all that they have given me. Fifties – you have a lot to live up to.

Secret Dreams and Heart Ponderings

I started to do a blog about all of my deepest, craziest dreams and desires – all the things I would like to do but just don’t have the nerve to talk about. Things I’d secretly like to do but don’t have the time, money, resources, fame, élan, hutzpah, drive, ambition, vision, knowledge, or opportunity to do. I thought -- Hell, I’ll just put them on out there.

But I couldn’t do it - for a lot of reasons. For one thing… what if I never do them? Does exposing them to air cause them to suddenly disintegrate? Maybe we get that feeling partly from the old custom to never tell a wish or it won’t come true. Maybe it’s biblical: “But Mary treasured up all these things and pondered them in her heart.” Luke 2:19. So we learn on some level to keep them under wraps, these dreams. As long as they remain unspoken, they are every bit as real and possible as the things we have done.

Is there a safe room where you can go and announce your heart’s desires and get a good reading on the outrageous meter? For me, I think it would be scarier than going to confession, which, let’s face it, is one of the darker childhood memories, I would think. I’ll bet there is NOBODY out there who has fond memories of going to confession. I hated it with a passion.

Sometimes, I think it’s important to say things out loud, or they never get a chance to happen. I have been a firm believer that speaking your goals aloud helps you accomplish them. However I recently read an article that made the case for not telling everyone all your plans, goals. I think it was saying that sometimes you get ahead of yourself and then just peter out, that way. Telling other people my dreams and aspirations is hard for me. And while I’m being honest here, I may as well admit that a lot of times I don’t want anyone else’s input or encouragement. I know, I know, that’s crazy. Non-productive. Self-defeating. Blah blah blah. But true.

These are the steps I am going to take to address this:


Sometime between now and January 30, I am going to post here – on this very site – ONE of my secret dreams. As for the rest, I am going to make a list and maybe tie it up with ribbons and treat it kindly. Perhaps I will burn some sage and dance in a circle around it, chanting and drumming -- who knows? But if only by making that list, I am going to honor all the secret dreams.

Hello, Laura, This Is Your Mortality Calling

I'm sorry but we must talk about it...

So I’m trying to get my head in the right place, and actually, it is getting a little better. I know that I only have a few more days left to come to terms with this. “Come to terms with this” – as if it’s a terminal illness or something. Well……in a way we are all walking around with big fat T stamped on our foreheads. As difficult as it is to hold in my brain for more than a few seconds at a time, yes, this is partly about giving the nod to inevitable mortality.
When I was a kid, I tried to picture what I would look like at 18, 25, 30, maybe 40, and then maybe said things like “when I am 80” which had about the same sincerity behind it as “when I make my first million dollars.”

I don’t ever remember trying to picture how it would be when I was 50 because it was NOT interested and I felt I had more pressing things to worry about. In my mind, reaching 50 meant the beginning of BLANDNESS and – yes, Mich – invisibility. Skin gets pale, hair gets pale, eye color fades, you get shorter, weaker, and much more middle of the road. Even people who are revolutionaries have to change their diet at some point and cut out the rich foods because they just can’t take it anymore.

Now I am almost 50. At best, 50 is seen as a midpoint. 50 is a half century. Half a dollar. 50% -- half of a whole. Is it half of a whole life? Most people probably feel it’s more than half, because they cannot fathom living to be 101 years old. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out that when you reach 50, you are most likely half or more than half way down the road. So I look back over my shoulder at everything – and it’s a lot – and I wonder what can possibly be next?

50 is the wakeup call. 50 cannot be ignored. 50 IS HUGE, in my book. There are no more excuses at 50, because you really are old enough to know better. If you don't know better, you can easily fake it. And hadn’t you better know –at this point – what the hell you are going to do with the rest of your life?

Ignorance Is Bliss

Yesterday something awful happened. It stopped me in my tracks so effectively, I wasn’t able to sit down and write anything. A set of real life, middle-aged jowls appeared – a matching set – one for the left side of my face and one for the right. I know I’ve cried wolf before in the past but I think maybe this is the real deal. How can I be at peace with this?

Like every other big change in my life, it seems, these jowls didn’t come gradually. From some other dimension they crossed through and just instantly manifested on my face. Did I manifest these jowls? Did the Universe somehow mistake my constant bitching about jowls to mean “I want jowls! I want jowls! Give me jowls!” instead of “In the name of all that is holy, please do not send me any jowls!” It’s a scary thought -- that somehow I might have caused these to appear.

Be careful what you wish for. As a matter of fact, be careful what you wish against – avoid any mention of the subject AT ALL unless you want to invite something unplanned, unbidden. Go ignorantly amid the noise and haste, my friends. Yes I realize this contradicts advice I have given in the past. Go blithely and blissfully and do not look to the left or the right. If you pretend that you don’t mind getting older, or better yet – that you are UNAWARE of it – then it will not happen.

Oh, now I see the error of my ways.

What Does 50 Look Like?

What look shall I choose for my 50s?  What person will I be? It is up to me and people like me to define what “50” will look like in the 21st Century. I’ve been looking around at my options. I’ve been trying to figure out my image for the next 50 years. With the exception of my lovely sisters, here are some of my observations/options:

Suddenly Old Woman: this woman turned old overnight. She has made a conscious decision to let go and she has embraced middle age with gusto. She wears “mom” jeans and track suits and large, chunky necklaces with matching earrings and bracelets paired with ensembles from Christopher & Banks, sporting leaf appliqués. She wears sensible shoes – she’s given up heels forever. She wears a HAT in the winter time.

Metaphysical Woman: If you look in her closet, you will find at least one caftan, and many pairs of vague, shapeless pants with natural bamboo fiber composition, long, sweeping vests and sweaters and funky Birkenstock sandals. Her wardrobe could be described as “flowing” and she is very much “enlightened.” You can see the peach fuzz on her face because she doesn’t do much to hide it and she is often sans makeup. She eats a lot of hummus and veggie burgers and she always wears a calm, peaceful smile on her face. She is writing a book of poetry and in her spare time she throws clay pots.

la femme de Bohème: Ahhh…do you smell that? Did Ahmed park his camel nearby? No, no, it is just the little old bohemian woman over there. She’s earthy, musky, and she doesn’t shave her armpits. She wears a long tie-dyed skirt and a leather ankle bracelet. You can find her in the organic section of your grocery, or more likely, shopping at an all-organic market. Her hair is long and pulled back into a low pony tail. She likes to attend folk festivals where bathing is optional.

la femme de Bohème is sometimes mistaken for Biker Mom, for they are similar in appearance and their social circles can intersect, but Biker Mom usually wears jeans, sneakers, and a t-shirt with a skull on it.

Gypsy/Obea Woman: Here’s one I’ve been considering. You get to have wild, long hair, wear lots of chunky jewelry, your clothes don't necessarily have to match, and people fear you to some extent – with good reason! You spend your free time dancing around campfires with dark, swarthy men or giving people the evil eye.

Power Woman: Her $500 suit is exquisitely tailored and there is not one mark on the toes of her patent leather heels. She’s had her boobs done, and they are strategically displayed so as never to offend, but only to make her unforgettable. Her nails are perfectly manicured and her hair doesn’t blow in the wind. She is formidable.

Scary-Clinging-To-Her-Youth-Woman: If you see her from a distance, you think she’s 25 or so. Have you ever been in line behind one of these women? Her hair, her clothes, her shoes – everything suggests that she’s just a young thing. But then she turns around and it’s like, WHOA NELLY. I am gonna have nightmares about that! Why doesn’t somebody clue her in? Does she really think that looks good? There are so many variations of this look. I would say it’s the #1 fashion crime and I’m sure that I have been guilty of it myself, LEST I GO down that other, distasteful road. But this woman has taken it to the extreme. She is obviously living in a fantasy world.

Today, by the way, I am She-Who-Defies-Convention-Under-Her-Clothing Woman, as I wearing the loud, striped socks that Mich sent to me for xmas, paired with black pants and a BURGUNDY sweater. That’s right – THEY DO NOT MATCH. It’s a statement I’m making. On the surface, I am mild-mannered office lady. But just under the surface simmers a wild and crazy…….clown lady I guess.

I think I am going to shoot for the Sophia Loren/Ann-Margret/Julia Ormond type:

sexy,

curvy,

ageless.

Ali Baba and the Chain of Fools

I'm inching along the narrow ledge, staring down into the abyss. My back is against the unforgiving rock wall. There are no handholds to grasp, no way to get purchase. One misstep and I will plunge into what looks like oblivion, for I can't see the bottom. So I continue along, thinking there must surely be a way out at the end. Unbeknownst to me, the ledge will drop off sharply as I round the last curve. I'm going down, though I don't know it yet. I'm exerting all my energy to work my way along that ledge.

Fool! - me and every other fool who walked the ledge before me and who will attempt it after me. There is no way out of this except to go down into that hole of hell. All that time and energy expended inching along, when I could have been trying to figure out a way to remain mostly intact on impact, or at least make a graceful descent -- complete with a flying forward one and a half somersault and finishing with a half twist, or,  at the VERY least, leave a beautiful corpse.

Is resistance futile? Or is resistance the only thing that separates us from sheep? Are we marching like lemmings for the edge? Are we fools for fighting -- or fools for giving in? This, oh THIS is the question of the hour, my friends. Where is the honor in going gently into that good night? And at what point do we become ridiculous?


It’s a narrow ledge I’m stepping on here. The line is thinner that you might think between polyester and tie-dye, my friends.

January 11 - Grounding Day

I am having a bout of hives. I get them from time to time, a true affliction of mystery. I can never really find any common denominator. And you know, it could be every fiber of my being screaming resistance to turning 50. Could be. I AM ALLERGIC TO TURNING 50!

 I've been wanting to take a day off, and I figured whatever is causing these damn hives, it is probably making me tired. .. I might need some rest. I might need a break. So I took the opportunity and called in sick, made a doctor appointment, confirmed I have hives, came home and made some chicken salad. Puttered. There was pure silence all day long in the house.

Being alone in my own house is a tonic. (It's way better than showering). I just let the silence settle around me, like a blanket. I listen to all the sounds that happen every day while I am gone: the sounds the house makes as it breathes, the birds and squirrels outside, cars on the street.  Somehow, it helps me come back to myself and feel grounded, at peace. It  seems to be especially effective when everyone else is at work and I am not, as if I have somehow truly stopped time and stepped out of that workday picture for those few blessed hours.

I want to add a Grounding Day to my calendar about every 3-4 months. They are way too few and far between and so, so helpful. So this year, I declare that it will be my Grounding Year.

Be Brave

Today is Sunday, and counting today I have 20 days of my forties left. On Sundays when I can, I go to Lawrence to visit Cindy, who's living in an assisted living facility there and dealing with Huntington's Disease. I've known Cindy a long time. Though we grew up a mere two blocks away from each other, we didn't become friends until High School, when something just clicked, the way it sometimes does, and we were basically friends for life, though we didn't know it at the time.

These days when I visit, we go for a walk. Cindy holds my hand for balance and we walk for about an hour. I think she would walk longer if I would just keep on walking. Today it was way too cold and snowy to walk, but I wanted to go because it's been a while since I've been to see her.

No matter what else is going on, Cindy always asks me how things are going. She remembers that I am approaching my 50th birthday. I said to her, "It doesn't seem possible that I am going to be 50 -- FIFTY!!" She smiled and said "I know." She can't believe it either. These are the times when we are just two old friends, getting older and disbelieving it. She thinks it's pretty funny that I am so wigged out about being 50 but she also understands, and she tells me that her birthday is in May so she has a few more months before it's her turn. Neither of us can believe that suddenly we are facing 50. And I think she is getting a kick out of the fact that I am older than her. I think it is going to make her smile when  I reach the big FIVE-O ahead of her. She still has the same playful sense of humor and she's been teasing me that I should have a big party, because she knows I really want it to pass quietly and without notice.  I told her noooooo -- we will wait till HER 50th to have the party.  If my turning 50 before Cindy can  makes her laugh even a little, then that is one reason I will be more than happy to turn 50.

In her room, she has pictures everywhere of family and friends. There are notes written on post-its with things she needs to remember. One of them taped to her lamp says "Brush teeth and use deodorant every day." On a piece of notebook paper, she has scrawled the words "BE BRAVE" in all caps. It's taped above her television. I'd seen it for a long time before I asked her about it. When I saw it, I thought, "yes, this struggle with Huntington's disease -- she does need to be brave."  But when I finally asked her about the sign, she told me, "I wrote that when I was giving up caffeine."

When I turn 50, it will be for the right reasons. And for the next 20 days, I will be brave.

The Canadian Connection

Simone and I were talking one day or it could have even been an email conversation. I don't remember who brought it up but she told me she had heard about Preparation H and how it was supposed to improve wrinkles and I think, possibly tighten some areas. I said Yes! I, too, had read about this quite a few years back and always wanted to try it. But I didn't want to be seen buying Preparation H, so I never did it. Then Simone told me that she had read that the Preparation H you can get in the US is no longer effective, because they had changed the formula. However, the PrepH you can buy in Canada supposedly still has the good stuff in it that will do the trick! Ever since then, we have been plotting and scheming a way to get someone to go to Canada and buy up a supply for us.

I guess this is an example of how you change from year to year, as I can tell you I would have no qualms now about going into a store and buying Preparation H. I must have still been living in Hays at the time, where everyone knows everyone and runs into them at Wal-Mart. At any rate, I can remember that the very idea of making such a purchase was just unthinkable to me.

I found a couple of things on the web about this magical product. This link tells about the Canadian PrepH.
http://www.prep-h.com/

I copied the excerpt below from the Yahoo Answers site. Someone somewhere posed the question: Does Preparation H help with wrinkles on your face?  This woman's answer was posted as the most popular answer and frankly, I think we should all try it when we finally make our Canadian Connection. If you want to be amused, read on.......

"If you want to banish wrinkles from the start get yourself a tube of Preparation H. Preparation H is normally for Hemorrhoids but it can also be used for wrinkles. It is cheaper then a face lift and not as painful.

You do not have to buy the name brand either, buy the generic form of it. It is much cheaper and has the same thing in it. I would not advise using a suppository but if that is the only thing that you have around it can't hurt.


How do you use this on your face? Well you squeeze it out of the tube and apply it to the wrinkle. You should apply it to the wrinkle where the wrinkle is starting. This will stop the wrinkle in its tracks. If you have only a suppository then squish it with your warm finger till it turns to goo.


With age there comes wisdom, I am sharing this with you. You too can look 10 years younger. At the Clinic picnic one of the medical assistants daughters asked her mother how old I was and did not believe her. Is this because I do not act my age? No, this is because I treat my face like a giant Hemorrhoid. You should too.


O.K. Now that I have gotten that out of the way, While you are treating yourself to the hemorrhoid treatment you should relax, sit back or lay back and put a cucumber on each eye. This will reduce the swelling around your eyes. It will feel wonderful. Don't put the Preparation H, around your eyes. That is dangerous. Try not to get it into your mouth also.


When I do my Preparation H treatments, I use that time as my pampering time. Just to relax.


Sometimes I go and soak in the tub and sloth the skin off my feet. The dry skin. Off my heel that is. Not my whole foot. That would be gross.


I know that this might not paint a pretty picture of me soaking in the tub trying to get the dry skin off my heels but hey someone has to do it. Alligator heels are ugly and very unattractive.


O.K. so you have laid there and you have done the cucumber treatment and the skin slothing off your feet. Don't take the Preparation H off your face yet. It is not ready. Leave it on longer. Go and write an epinion about a pain medication or one of your pets. Or you can listen to music. Just don't do anything stressful. You will be defeating the purpose of the Preparation H treatment.


You can chant while you are just relaxing. Do leg lifts and arm lifts. This is a great time to tighten up the flab under your arms. If you are cursed with chin hairs, this is the perfect time to pluck them out of thee.


O.K. The time has come to take the preparation H off your face, Get your husbands unscented shaving lotion and wash it off with that. Pat your faces dry. It will feel like a babies bottom.


Haven't you ever noticed how soft a man's face is after shaving with shaving cream? That is because the cream makes it soft. You have to try it. It is wonderful. You may never give the can back to him.


If you already have bad wrinkles, then get busy and start this right away. Time is of the essence here. If you don't have any yet but there is a history of it in the family then start it now.


Let me know how well this works for you. I am sure you are going to be amazed.


I hope that I have at least helped one person here. If only one person benefits from this, then my job has been done."

Now if that doesn't make you want to run right up to Canada, I don't know what will.

All The Dirty Words

Fifty
Fifties
Nifty Fifty
Middle Age
Middle-Aged Spread
Mid-Life Crisis
Menopause
Menopause the Musical
Spare Tire
Love Handles
Muffin Tops
Loaf Pans
How About Some Coffee With That Roll
Frying Pan Ass
Anchor Ass
Lard Ass
Turkey Neck
Jowls
Crows Feet
Facial Hair
Nose Hair
Thinning Hair
Blue-Hair
Gray Hair
Hair Dye
Varicose Veins
Creaky Knees
Popping Ankles
Thunder Thighs
Buffalo Butt
The Jimmy Legs
Arthur-Itis, My Old Friend
A.G.E. Syndrome
C.R.S. Syndrome
Old Fart
Old Fartess
AARP Special
Colonial Penn Life Insurance
Depends
Ben Gay
Preparation H!
Prostate
Estrogen
Hot Flashes
Osteoporosis
Osteo- anything
Getting Up To Pee In The Middle of The Night
SAS Shoes
Velcro
Bifocals
Decaf
Dentures
Fixadent and Forget It!
Fiber
Old Crone
Hag
Coot
Codger
Over the Hill
Over the Shoulder Boulder Holder
Older and Wiser
Older Than Dirt
Old Enough to Know Better
Older Than You
Younger Than Me
When I Was Your Age
In My Day
Young People Today....
I Can't Understand a Word You Just Said
I Can't Read This Without My Glasses
I'm Just Resting My Eyes
Gravity
I've Fallen And I Can't Get Up

Bargaining

I cannot think about it right now!

In deals cut long ago on some dark, desperate nights, I gave up my thighs to my forties. I have forsaken them in favor of areas more easily held and managed. I started buying knee-length shorts and Capri pants and just lived with it. Lately I’ve been in talks again with my body. I want it to stop annexing territories and erecting huge flabscrapers that are blighting my landscape. I feel an urgency to get these deals done before the fifties become a reality. I know it’ll be that much harder – not one YEAR from now, but 23 DAYS from now. Down to the last, I am still working it, still cutting deals.

Suddenly I find myself saying, Okay, I have a bigger butt. I HAVE a bigger butt. I am now a bigger size. I’m okay. It’s okay. This is doable. This is very doable I can do this. I can make this work…...as long as it stops here, I can really do this. I guess a certain amount of change is inevitable. Even good -- freeing. I can be okay with this. And then, muffin tops pop up and I’m a freakin’ Pillsbury Dough Girl and I say, Okay. This has to stop. What do you want from me? I have to eat, don’t I? Just … leave me some semblance of a waist. Leave me some shape in my arms. Okay, FINE, I’ll take a full head of hair and all my teeth………..

……….please?

It's All About Me, Really

I dunno….. am I too self-absorbed these days? Is it too much about me? I woke up this morning feeling crabby and exhausted from contemplating my life to the nth degree. Really. I tried to clear my head but little vignettes “from my past” and other places kept rolling past on the insides of my eyelids. Does the thought of the energy it is going to take to get out of bed and attend  to everything and everyone needing your love, your grace, your kindness, your interest, your acknowledgement – does it ever just make you feel nauseated? Do you feel overwhelmed? I would say that “overwhelmed” describes my state of mind a good 50% of the time.

And all the while, I know I should think more about World Peace, the State of the Union , whatever, but I just really CAN’T because I am in flux. Yes, that’s it – I AM IN FLUX, PEOPLE. When you are in flux, you cannot be expected to assign any real energy to other people’s issues. It is all you can do to keep it together, lest your molecules begin to vibrate so violently that you BURST into a billion pieces and sprinkle down over the floor where someone comes along and walks on you. And you, you no longer exist. FLUX is a delicate, delicate time. It’s tricky – and have I mentioned that it’s exhausting? Today, it seems to be.

Bleh. Maybe I should just go and have a little glass of wine to go with my whine. This is something I allow myself now that I am "older." I give myself permission. And, when you're in flux, wine is a stabilizer. Didja know that? Probably not.  The good thing, I guess,  is that being in flux, it's anybody's guess how it will all turn out. I think I ultimately get to choose how it turns out. That is what my little glass of wine is telling me. I have now completed Day 24, and I am heading pell mell into Day 23. Join me, won't you?

I'm a Singer, Not a Winger

Somehow between now and January 30, I have to get a handle on this. I have to get me a plan. So far I haven’t come up with much. Last year, I proclaimed a Winter of Scarves, and I began wearing scarves almost daily to help me keep warm. As I closed in on my 49th birthday, that was my revelation. A Winter of Scarves.

This year, the only thing I have so far -- it’s gonna be my Year of Showering. I have suddenly discovered that a quick extra shower can really recharge me. I had to be almost 50 to figure this out. Okay I don’t mean I plan to do this every day. I’m talking about another little shower that gets squeezed in somewhere, if you have to go out, for example. It makes me feel like I’m starting over.

A Year of Showering isn’t much of an ambitious plan. I need a Big Plan. Every year, in fact, I plan to have a plan but I don’t do it – except for these mini declarations about scarves and showers. I feel I must have one to drive the rest of my life forward and make the most of every day. It’s not that I’m thinking I don’t have many more days. It’s that I can look back and see so clearly now how many of the days I just blew – pfffft. Those days just flowed through my fingers like water. I guess I still feel that there I things I am meant to do, but it seems like if I don’t get it figured out by zero hour, everything will disappear, and I’ll be surrounded by a pumpkin on wheels and a clutch of little white mice. And the clock, she is ticking, my friends. I have 25 days counting today.

The Late Hour

If I’m living my life backwards, as I suspect, then maybe reaching 50 won’t be so bad. If so, then maybe I AM destined for greatness, even at this late hour. Maybe things are just now beginning to unfold.

Somewhere in the back of my mind, I’ve held 50 as some kind of cutoff point – as some kind of late hour, when time has almost run out and the day is closer to over than to beginning. I only just realized this as 50 began looming on the horizon and I mean LOOMING. Truth be told….somehow I’ve had this idea that after 50, I won’t be as viable. Common sense tells me that is rubbish, folderol, BALONEY. But…this is the little fear that I’m confessing today.

What if I’m out of time? What if whatever was supposed to happen has happened, and the ensuing years are just going to be a long, slow, slide into oblivion. Like Venice, I’m slowing sinking. When do I stop fighting?

TIME, you heartless bastard – why can’t you stop running, running, running out the door? Can we just stop for a second so I can get my bearings? I need to know what is the most important now. I have to prioritize. I have to go through the closet of my life and throw out everything that no longer fits. I want everything to fit now. I want everything to be cashmere. Why shouldn’t I have cashmere?

Well I guess if I’m living my life backwards, I have a lot more living to do. God knows I didn’t do that much of it when I was young – hence my heretofore well-preserved carcass. Maybe I haven’t challenged myself enough. Maybe the challenge is to challenge yourself when you don’t particularly feel driven to do so. 26 days and counting down.

Every Time a Snowflake Falls, I Grow a Bigger Ass

There are things they never tell you – probably because you wouldn’t have believed it at the time anyway. One of these things is the existence of the secret programming housed within your very being that has predetermined your butt to start growing once you reach your late 40s. I’ve been fighting science for about the past 2 years and losing ground every day. Days like today don’t help: I can’t get out and exercise when it’s 10 degrees and snowing. I can feel the pounds settling on even as I sleep.

Of the many things I’ve been trying to come to terms with lately, weight gain is a big one. It’s not the biggest or the most important, by any means. But I feel like I’m in some time-lapse-slow motion horror film in which this fat blob slowly encases my body. That’s how I picture it. It started just above the knees and it’s TRYING to get all the way up to my chin. I am literally fighting for every inch. I’m trying to maintain the territory but this blob keeps encroaching on lands formerly held solely by me. If the fat makes it all the way to my chin, how will I live with myself? I’m already alternating between disbelief and disgust on a daily basis.

To say I will not go gently into that good night is an understatement. I have been bitching, moaning and wailing about this for the past two years. I am shocked! I am consternated! I am aghast, appalled, astounded, amazed. I have forsaken bread. I rarely eat chocolate (shocker!!) anymore. I don’t snack. For every tiny step forward I make, I go back 3 steps (lbs). It’s horrible! And it’s not just my butt, actually. It’s the arms, the legs, the MIDSECTION – hence the term “Middle-Aged” I suspect.

Only 27 more days to go…………..I think I’ll go make some popcorn……………………………………

Denial Ain't Just a River In Egypt

Somebody threw the gauntlet out there and said I should write a blog about the final days of my 40s. I NEVER thought I would be here, and for those of you still blithely frolicking among the flowers of your 20s, 30s, and 40s --take heed. For it is coming.

Yes I can see that it's coming but I haven't really been ready to face it. The magnitude of everything it means to me is just too much I tell you -- too much! Like a 7 foot man with size 15 shoes, like the world's largest ball of twine, like a plate of chicken & waffles with mashed potatoes, gravy, syrup and butter on the side, like a 5-day visit from a long lost friend, like sitting through a 30-minute set of Jim Abel songs -- it is JUST TOO MUCH!

I've been struggling with this, I realize, for the entire past year. To tap into the wellspring of regret, despair, and disbelief and DENIAL that lies just under the surface - I don't know if it's going to help anything. I don't know if you, dear reader, can take it!  But the fact is, 2010 has arrived and now I have to face it........in 28 days and counting down..................