Save the Moneymaker!

It's that time of year again, folks: paper writing time. Which means...expect more posts.

Tonight's topic: my skin. I'm fast approaching twenty-five (gross), and I've noticed my skin looking older. Or, at least, I think I've noticed my skin looking older, which amounts to the same thing.

More little wrinkles on my forehead and under my eyes. A sort of general mottled effect. So it begins. Old skin. It's all downhill from here.

As soon as I have the money, I'm getting a good facial. Right now, I'm drinking so much water I could practically float away. Water is very important to good skin. It gives you that hydrated, glowing look.

It kind of seems that the advice for good skin follows the rules for good health in general (example, here).

I'm freaking out here. I'm too young for this, but time doesn't seem to care. My best skin years are behind me. I'm single, and my best skin years are behind me. I will never have the skin of a twenty-three year old again. My skin was beautiful at twenty-three.

Any skin care advice would be greatly appreciated.

Almost an Addendum to Last Night's Rant...

So, it's kind of scary that there are a quite a few people in my past who I don't realize are a)Married or b) Having Kids until I see it in their profile on facebook/myspace.

And that's just wrong.

When do we give up on myspace/facebook? We're the first generation to be faced with this particular issue. Is there a time in our lives when we're supposed to say, "Nope, I'm too old for this form of communication, for this sort of awkward soul-baring. I'm deleting my account"? Or are we supposed to be eighty-two year old men and women leaving messages on each other's walls ("I need a new pair of teeth- any suggestions" or "Sorry, I can't come out tonight. The grandkids are in town")?


In other news, this is obviously the beverage of the future.

Atwood's Brilliance Continues...

I just liked that title because it's all A-B-C.

Today, on the subway en route to an interview, I started Margaret Atwood's The Tent, which was a late birthday present from a fellow Atwood-lovin' friend. I'm still working on The Glass Books of the Dream Eaters (which is HUGE and NEVER-ENDING), but I thought reading Atwood would look more intellectual, in case anyone at the job interview judged me on my reading material.

Of course, no one did.

Most of my experience with Atwood has been her novels. This is a book of short essays, illustrated by Atwood herself. I don't know how it's possible to fill so few pages with such substance, with such beautiful phrasing that it seems almost like poetry. I'm including one essay here, entitled "Encouraging the Young", that I found absolutely chilling. If you want to read more of the essays (and you SHOULD) go out and buy them or borrow them. Here goes:

I have decided to encourage the youth. Once I wouldn't have done this, but now I have nothing to lose. The young are not rivals. Fish are not the rivals of stones.

So I will encourage them open-handedly. I will encourage them en masse. I'll fling encouragement over them like rice at a wedding. They are the young, a collective noun, like the electorate. I'll encourage them indiscriminately, whether they deserve it or not. Anyway, I can't tell them apart.

So I will stand cheering generally, like a blind person at a football game: noise is what is required, waves of it, invigorating yelps to inspire them to greater efforts, and who cares on what side and to what ends?

I don't mean the very young, those who can still display their midriffs without attracting derision. Boredom's their armour: to them I'm a voice balloon with nothing in it.

No. It's the newly conscious young I mean, the ones with ambition and fresh diffidence, those who've learned the hard way that reach exceeds grasp nine times out of ten. How disappointed they are! And if and when they succeed for the first time, how anxious it makes them! They develop insomnia, or claustrophobia, or bulimia, or fear of heights. Now they will have to live up to themselves. Bummer.

Here I am, happy to help! I'll pass round the encouragement, a cookie's worth for each. There you are, young! What is a big, stupid, clumsy mess like the one you just made- let me rephrase that- what is an understandable human error, but a learning experience? Try again! Follow your dream! You can do it!

What a fine, shining person I am, so much kinder than when I'd just finished being young myself. I was severe then; my standards were exacting. The young- I felt- were allowed to get away with far too much, as I had been. But now I'm generosity itself. Affably I smile and dole.

On second thought, my motives are less pure than they appear. They are murkier. They are lurkier. I catch sight of myself, in that inward eye that is not always the bliss of solitude, and I see that I am dubious. I scuttle from bush to bush, at the edge of the dark woods, peering out. Yoo hoo! Young! Over here! I call, beckoning with my increasingly knobbly forefinger. That's it! Now, here's a lavish gingerbread house, decorated with your name in lights. Wouldn't you like to walk into it, claim it as your own, stuff your face on sugary fame? Of course you would!

I won't fatten them in cages, though. I won't ply them with poisoned fruit items. I won't change them into clockwork images or talking shadows. I won't drain out their life's blood. They can do all those things for themselves.

Margaret Atwood. The Tent. Doubleday. 2006.

Spooky Thoughts...

I was in Target today, and something terrifying happened.

I paid for my purchase with a one hundred dollar bill. I had other one hundred dollar bills in my wallet. I figured people around me were thinking, "How does she have all those hundred dollar bills? Is she a drug dealer? That cute little blonde girl?"

And then the truly frightening thought occurred to me. At some point in the near future, people will no longer think of me as a cute little blonde girl. Not because I'm dyeing my hair (which I am), but because I am growing older. I will be, undeniably, an adult. My entire identity will change!

Eek!

In other news, I've had 1-1/2 Micheladas for dinner tonight. No food.

Beer is liquid bread, it's good for you.