How To Get Old

1. Have kids.

Bing! You're done.

Katie turned 18 today, which brings the number of legally adult children I've brought into this world to two.

Do you remember becoming legally an adult? It may be a ways back. Do you, nonetheless, secretly suspect there may have been some mistake?

Certainly I do; but what brings it home for me tonight is not the fact that my second-born is six days short of being able to vote straight Democratic in the upcoming midterm election, dammit. No, it's that her brother, my oldest, who is twenty, came by with his girlfriend to help with the cake.

I'd like it if my adult son had a job to go with the girlfriend, and a household that the two of them were maintaining on their own, but they are not. They are living with my first husband's mother. This is scary because my son is the age that I was when he was conceived, living under the very same roof, with the very same matriarch upon whom he and his girlfriend now depend. Plus ce change...

I talked to him about that a bit tonight, and he assured me no such thing is going to happen with him and Marty, although (as I did point out) nobody ever, ever, ever thinks it is going to happen to them, while much of the continuation of the human race is contingent upon the eternally unexpected.

But do your kids have to make you so old?! It had been a long day with Katie - I took her shopping at the outlet malls; and she was tired too, there's a lot of walking, not to mention the draining salesmanship of a couple of very young guys who are much more profoundly dedicated to the mission of selling you a pair of $165 Uggs than any human being should rightfully be.

But I'm tired, and Katie has gone off with my ex, and there I am with my son and his girlfriend, listening about how they perform in a shadow cast for an obscure movie whose title I won't bother to look up so I can type it out here, and they've eagerly disregarded a few gentle hints I've thrown out about how tired I am and how tomorrow is a work day and so on, until I finally say - and it's not rude, if you think of both of them as my kids: "Well, listen, guys, it's late, and I'm pretty wiped out. How about we all call it a night?"

The girlfriend says okay, and they make their way to the door - to go back, I guess I should add, to my ex-mother-in-law's house - and we all say goodnight. And I hug my son, because I love him. And I hug the girlfriend, not because I love her - I barely know her - but because she's a nice girl, isn't she, and my son loves her, and it's polite, and whyever shouldn't I? And I'm struck by how surprised she is, how unexpected the friendly gesture seems to be.

And this is selfish, but as they leave, I feel with renewed force how I am not twenty anymore. I know - without ever having become aware of learning - how to behave in a way that puts younger people more at ease, that assures someone else that socially, everything they've done is okay. When did I get THAT power?!? Last time I checked, it was all I could do to eat dinner in company without covering myself in spaghetti sauce. And now I am calling an end to an evening and easing the social awkwardness of uncertain youth?! Who the hell died and made me 41?!?!?

Which reminds me, I'd better track down my voter registration card soon.

And So It Begins

Katie and I stopped by the AT&T store yesterday. For about a month, I haven't been able to send text messages, though I could still receive them. It takes time to get yourself worked up to do something, okay?

I explained the problem to the friendly rep by the door and handed her my phone. "Oh, your mailbox is full," she said. "There's not enough memory to send or receive messages when you have that many in your inbox."

"I don't think that's it," I objected, "I can still get texts, it just won't let me send." But I emptied my inbox. "Here, let me show you the error message I get," and I composed a test message to Robbie and hit send.

"Yay!" Robbie texted back, because texting is one of our primary means of communication. The AT&T rep was very nice, and waited until I had left the store to laugh at me.

Katie insisted on loitering a while to play with the iPhone on display. She wants one, which means I get one - I can't very well buy my teenaged daughter a fancier phone than mine - but I found the touchscreen keyboard incredibly difficult to use, and kept missing and hitting the wrong letters with clumsy thumbs, and it doesn't work if you try to press with the tips of your fingernails. "Oh my gosh, I can't use this," I wailed, though Katie (who has a certain vested interest here) kept insisting I'd get used to it quickly.

Someone I once knew said he'd know he was old when a popular gadget came out that he was unable to make heads or tails of. "You know," he said, "like your grandparents with the VCR forever blinking 12:00. When something new comes out and I can't figure out how to work it, like that, I'll know... but I can't wait to see it!"

I hope the iPhone is not that gadget for me, not already, not yet, I'm too young!

Friday I visited a dermatology "medical spa" to have a mole removed, and while there I asked the doctor about how to offset the very beginnings of fine lines around my eyes that I'm beginning to notice. "I've read about retinoid cream, and how it lessens wrinkles by accelerating skin cell turnover," I said, "and I found some at the grocery store, but is there a brand you recommend?"

It turns out there is, indeed - in prescription strength, and they sell it for $83.00 a tube (but with a 20% discount it's only $66!), but the dermatologist, without half a moment's hesitation, cheerfully recommended Botox. "Look," he said, handing me a mirror, "smile, and I'll show you." He put his fingers beside my eyes and stretched the smile-crinkles apart. "Botox will just relax the muscles that squinch up your skin like that."

"I think I'll get the cream," I said, because (1) I think I'd rather get wrinkles than lose the ability to smile with my eyes, and (2) forget my incompetence with the iPhone, thinking of myself as a person who gets Botox would really make me feel old.

Holy Fucking Shit! I'm 40!!!

Holy fucking shit! I'm the mother of a 19-year-old!!!!

Here's that model of maturity with his 16-year-old sister, taken last night:

On today's agenda:
1. Pick up new contacts
2. Shop - need some new earrings, an ankle bracelet or two and some toe rings
3. Spa! Full-body massage, manicure and pedicure. Thank you Jim and Katie!!
4. Happy hour with Robbie, Kevin, Thomas, Diane, and a bunch of my other most favoritest people in the whole entire world!
5. Party like a rockstar!
6. Corpus!! Party like a particularly immature rockstar!!!
7. Come home, go back to work and grow old.

Haha! Just kidding. I did want to mention that, seeing as how my twenties were way better than my teens, and my thirties were way better than my twenties, I'm feeling very optimistic about this new milestone.

Of course I couldn't resist taking a 40th birthday vanity shot in the bathroom. I got a few miles left in me yet!

Life Goes On, Yeah

If there's one thing I've learned over the past three years, it's that you should never go anywhere without a camera.

Thank goodness for friends. I have some great ones, and there are times in your life when you realize how badly you need them, how heavily you rely on them, and how terribly lost you'd be without them. Last night I went to Tony's for movies and champagne. We watched Fool's Gold, not exactly the greatest movie ever made, but quite nice for drifting off to sleep on your friend's shoulder.

Robbie came down today in some hopes of buying a new coffeemaker at IKEA. We had thought of going last weekend as well, but never quite made it: it's too crowded there on the weekend, and if Robbie's driven all the way down to Austin to hang out with me, why would he drive me all the way back up to Round Rock, then drop me off down here again, then return to Georgetown? It's a lot of driving, even for a normal person.

I had a dream about another friend of mine, one I love dearly - I guess I should say a former friend. We've had a falling out, probably irreparable I'm afraid, and are not speaking now. I dreamt I asked him, anxiously, if he were seeing some other girl (since I've been accustomed to considering him as my own personal property). He hemmed, he hawed, he was evasive. Finally it came out that he had indeed met a girl and the relationship was quite promising - except she lived on the other side of town, and he didn't like to drive that far out of his way, so it wasn't going anywhere. In my dream I was jealous and upset. Once I was awake I laughed until tears were streaming down my face. That's exactly how it would be! Dreams are not supposed to be quite that realistic.

Robbie sent me an email week before last. "We need to go to IKEA," he wrote. "I need a fresh prince. I leaned down too hard and the glass broke, and ever since that I've been supporting Starbucks."

I was confused, and for several minutes pondered typing, "IKEA sounds good. What the fuck are you talking about?!" Then I remembered that a fresh prince is what we call a French press.

Bed Bath & Beyond has them, but they cost three times as much as they do at IKEA (although they might be more durable). So we gave up on that, had lunch, got Robbie a new iPod nano (ooh they are pretty!), picked up some coffee from Dominican Joe, and spent a couple of hours at Little Stacy. Someone's placed a cement Buddha there by the creek, which just goes to show that an afternoon spent with Robbie is always a religious experience. But a picture taken with his phone didn't come out well enough to post here.

We're starting to talk about another Corpus trip, over Memorial Day weekend. That Friday, the 22nd, will be my fortieth birthday. Forty! My God! That's, like - well, I don't know. It's forty. It's hard to pretend you aren't a grown-up when you hit that age.

But as God is my witness, and with the help of all the friends I can muster, I damn well intend to try. And there will be pictures.

Dressing the Part

Some months ago, as we were milling around aimlessly at work (as is our wont), one of my friends commented, "I'm not afraid of dying. I'm afraid of growing old, though, because old men always wear those pants that come way up to your chest."

"You wouldn't have to do that," I said.

"Oh yes, I would."

The lady who lived in this house before us was older and quite respectable, which is a shame because it means that I don't get any good clothing catalogs in the mail. The combination marketed towards older women is a bit befuddling: the clothes are simultaneously butt-ugly and much more expensive than anything I would ever consider buying. Trousers are high-waisted and loose-fitting. Well, every item in the catalog is loose-fitting, except of course for the (ahem) foundation garments, which were still called girdles when I was a young lass. The colors are vivid and jarring, there are lots of busy fripperies like ruffles and beading and fringe and embroidery, and there's not a peep of cleavage to be seen. These clothes are not designed to draw attention to your best features - they're designed to hide and distract from as much of you as possible.

The models in the pictures are not older women, and do not seem to be particularly in need of girdles. You can see in their eyes that they're only dressing like this because they're getting paid.

At the other extreme, the previous resident in our apartment was apparently a gay man, which was great because I got International Male catalogs for a while. There's nothing else like looking at pictures of well-oiled, tightly-muscled men clad only in leopard-print spandex thongs and the occasional mesh tee - and, unless you're really good at suspending disbelief, a few pairs of rolled-up socks - to give you a fine appreciation for the nuances of fashion. But for some reason I don't think I noticed what the prices were.

My friend recently left the agency for a job in the private sector. I'm not sure if that will hasten or slow down the aging process. You'd think working for the state might preserve youth - sort of like being in suspended animation - although, looking around, I have to admit it doesn't seem to have had that effect on some of the old-timers.

I can't say much for their fashion sense, either.