Whenever someone asked my Nana how she was doing, she’d always answer, “Fabulous! Never better,” whether that was true or not. (She didn’t see the point in venting; she never would have been a reality TV star.) It’s a great response, and, I’d thought, an even better title for a book about aging.
Only problem: So far, I don’t like aging. I think it sucks. And since Nora Ephron already wrote about feeling bad about her neck, I decided to boil the years and thousands of words it would take me to write a book about aging down to two lines: The good thing about aging is getting your head together. The bad thing is that, by the time you’ve got your head together, everything else is falling apart.
Ba-dum-bum. Thank you, ladies n’ gennlemen, and I’ll be in the Poconos this weekend. Please be kind to your waitress. And speaking of getting your head together, one of the suckiest things about getting older is watching your hair get thinner. And when I say “your,” I mean “my.”
I’ve always had a ton of hair. I’ve made stylists break out in a sweat just by trying to blowdry my hair straight. My mother used to spend hours trying to detangle my tangled mass of waves. No mas, chicas. While I still have a lot of hair, some of looks like it’s been on a diet.
Brief scientific explanation: As you get older, your hormones change; your hair follicles get smaller, so your hair gets thinner. Brief scientific theory (Mom’s): “As you get older, your best childbearing years are behind you; Mother Nature gives you a mustache, thins your hair, stoops you over, and generally makes you look like hell so males of the species will procreate with females of child-bearing age, and not you. Mother Nature is a bitch.” Mom should be on Nova.
I’m not trying to lure the likes of Tom Hardy away from some pretty young thing; I’m not lying about my age. I’m even letting my hair go grey, for goodness’ sake. I just want to keep what I have the way I’ve always had it. So, it was time to call in a pro.
To be continued . . .
