The Maintenance and Upkeep of a Thirty-Eight Year Old Mother
Tomorrow I turn the ripe old age of thirty eight, which I think qualifies me for middle age status. (Don't argue with me. Bruno Kirby just died and he was only 57.) I'm knockin' on 40's door! Pushin' 40! Nawww, just 38 and feelin' great, people. 38 and feeling...
Sob.
With age comes wisdom as well as gray hair, thinning hair, and hair in places you don't want hair. I realized a couple of weeks ago that I am slowly adding more and more procedures to my life just to keep up his facade of "natural" beauty. You with me?
The first procedure involves the hair on my head. Every four to six weeks I kill a few more brain cells with a generous application of Clairol Hydrience #06. A color which, by the way, those A-holes over at Clairol decided to discontinue. Why do they do this to me?!?! I have two boxes left. I have more to say about this betrayal -- perhaps enough for an entire other post.
The second procedure involves the hair I want off my head. It took many years of resistance, but I now am addicted to regular, good haircuts. And also to the relationship I have with my hair stylist. I like her. We chat and gossip. I like the beauty parlor and all of its cliche'd glory. Today with my birthday haircut, I bought a giant silver purse from my stylist that matched the one my she had. I couldn't help myself; it matches my silver ballet flats from Target. Hee. And it makes me giggle.
The third procedure involves the hair on my chinny chin chin. Suzanne Reisman of CUSS (Caution: mildly NSFW if your boss doesn't like you reading about snatch at work) wrote about this recently on BlogHer. About chin hairs, people. About plucking and tweezing the hairs on our chin. Those things your grandma had that made her old. Now I've got them and I pluck them whenever people start looking at my chin instead of my boobies when I'm talking to them. When the chin hairs are the main attraction, they've got to go.
The fourth procedure involves my toes and my newfound girly shoe fetish. When all I wore were motorcycle boots, I didn't care what my toes looked like. Now that I'm a pampered suburban housewife and I am out of the closet with the fact I love cute shoes, I care a lot about my toes. I like my toes. When I was postpartum after Thomas, my toes lost the weight first and I would gaze at them in happiness and hope. Forget navel gazing; that's just depressing. Especially when your muffin top flops over your navel and you can't see it anyway.
Anyway, this past January I had my first pedicure and those things are like crack! Now I go every month or so and I love it. Can we call me high maintenance yet? At least I don't have toe hairs I need to pluck. Yet.
The fifth procedure is my daily or every other day fitness routine of running, crunches, and push-ups. No big deal; I'm usually done in under an hour. Working out is addicting, too. If I go two days without breaking a sweat, I start to feel yucky and I want to hurt somebody, usually Mike. So I work out, and when I'm faced with one of the obstacles of motherhood, for example, no elevator in a two-story building and I've got my kid in a stroller, I am happy that I can overcome it without collapsing in a heap or asking some guy for help. Being healthy and strong rocks.
So as I turn thirty eight, I am pleased to say that I am healthy and happy, and just, oh, three or four procedures more high maintenance than I was five or ten years ago.
That's not so bad, is it?
***
Technorati tags: birthday, maintenance, grooming
Sob.
With age comes wisdom as well as gray hair, thinning hair, and hair in places you don't want hair. I realized a couple of weeks ago that I am slowly adding more and more procedures to my life just to keep up his facade of "natural" beauty. You with me?
The first procedure involves the hair on my head. Every four to six weeks I kill a few more brain cells with a generous application of Clairol Hydrience #06. A color which, by the way, those A-holes over at Clairol decided to discontinue. Why do they do this to me?!?! I have two boxes left. I have more to say about this betrayal -- perhaps enough for an entire other post.
The second procedure involves the hair I want off my head. It took many years of resistance, but I now am addicted to regular, good haircuts. And also to the relationship I have with my hair stylist. I like her. We chat and gossip. I like the beauty parlor and all of its cliche'd glory. Today with my birthday haircut, I bought a giant silver purse from my stylist that matched the one my she had. I couldn't help myself; it matches my silver ballet flats from Target. Hee. And it makes me giggle.
The third procedure involves the hair on my chinny chin chin. Suzanne Reisman of CUSS (Caution: mildly NSFW if your boss doesn't like you reading about snatch at work) wrote about this recently on BlogHer. About chin hairs, people. About plucking and tweezing the hairs on our chin. Those things your grandma had that made her old. Now I've got them and I pluck them whenever people start looking at my chin instead of my boobies when I'm talking to them. When the chin hairs are the main attraction, they've got to go.
The fourth procedure involves my toes and my newfound girly shoe fetish. When all I wore were motorcycle boots, I didn't care what my toes looked like. Now that I'm a pampered suburban housewife and I am out of the closet with the fact I love cute shoes, I care a lot about my toes. I like my toes. When I was postpartum after Thomas, my toes lost the weight first and I would gaze at them in happiness and hope. Forget navel gazing; that's just depressing. Especially when your muffin top flops over your navel and you can't see it anyway.
Anyway, this past January I had my first pedicure and those things are like crack! Now I go every month or so and I love it. Can we call me high maintenance yet? At least I don't have toe hairs I need to pluck. Yet.
The fifth procedure is my daily or every other day fitness routine of running, crunches, and push-ups. No big deal; I'm usually done in under an hour. Working out is addicting, too. If I go two days without breaking a sweat, I start to feel yucky and I want to hurt somebody, usually Mike. So I work out, and when I'm faced with one of the obstacles of motherhood, for example, no elevator in a two-story building and I've got my kid in a stroller, I am happy that I can overcome it without collapsing in a heap or asking some guy for help. Being healthy and strong rocks.
So as I turn thirty eight, I am pleased to say that I am healthy and happy, and just, oh, three or four procedures more high maintenance than I was five or ten years ago.
That's not so bad, is it?
***
Technorati tags: birthday, maintenance, grooming
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