Rode Hard and Put Up Wet!

Well, for pity's sake, I'm 56 years old, so there's wrinklage.  And, the wrinkles morph and move around my face.  They are now attacking my neck!  I'd run for my life, but I know they'd catch up with me, like Indians shooting arrows as I circle the wagons.  The wagons are filled with my other midlife gal pals, and we're under siege, shooting blanks back in defense.

When we grew up in the fifties and sixties, the doctors were still smoking cigarettes so they weren't about to tell us to stay out of the sun.  They just called those brown spots brown spots and moved on with their examinations.  So, we'd leave their offices and go baste ourselves with baby oil and turn over when we were sufficiently roasted, crackling and broiled on one side. 

SalGal and I were competitive swimmers in our youth, so we always looked like we had on white tank suits after we took our actual tank suits off, because we were deliciously tan everywhere but the outline of that suit.  People were more prone to notice our green hair however, from all the chlorine in the pool water.  We thought we were pretty as peacocks and almost as colorful!

I'm sufficiently paranoid now about our bad behavior back then to have regular appointments with my dermatologist.  He's got white hair and a soft voice and knows EVERYthing there is about skin.  I've heard the word, "pre-cancerous" a time or two regarding some skin irregularity or other, and he's frozen off lot's of bad patches.  All I can do now is to sweep up after my young self's bad behavior. 

The tan I have now is solely on my left arm.  That's what I call the ‘driver's' tan because, well, I have to drive, and the sun has to shine in my car window on that side, so that's the arm that I extend in a wave or handshake because it just looks better.  My legs, on the other hand, look as if I'm wearing white nurse stockings or that I have two flashlights at full power glowing from my hips!   But you know what, I have so many spider veins down there now that I wear slacks to any event...kind of like Katherine Hepburn.  NO one is going to see these legs except Sal or my next boyfriend, and especially then, I'll use proper low lighting.

But, here's the thing...the yung' ns are still basting and roasting or sitting in the tanning caskets for way too long.  That's part of the definition of being a yung' n, isn't it though?  Beauty Knows no pain...or future?!

While I'm confessing sins here, actually I have a CRUSH on my dermatologist.  I like his white hair, soft voice and perfect skin.  I bet he has perfect skin underneath that white coat...oops...excuse me, I digress.  So, now Sal and I wear hats, walk in the shade and moisturize with SPF-113.  By Gawd, we may not be pretty things, but we may live to be 120.  Yikes!

Read SalGal's response blog, where she claims she looks like Lyle Lovitt and a flesh-eating zombie!