The Mirror
Every now and then I like to spice up my looks by applying a bit of mascara and eyeliner. No false eyelashes or Cleopatra eyes for me, just a spruce up of the peepers. After poking my eye and leaving mascara streaks on my reading glasses one too many times I decided that at the ripe old age of 50 something I ought to have a makeup mirror. I bought a cheap one at Walgreens (good thing, I’d hate to think what I might have seen with a really good one) and that is where the good vibes crashed to a halt.
“Mirror, mirror on the wall, who is the freaking old hag looking back at me?” What lovely, ignorant bliss I had been living in. I had no clue that the Metropolitan and Central lines of the London subway system were imprinted over the whites of my eyes. Yes I had seen the “concern” wrinkle between my eyebrows (OMG-my eyebrows; they may be blond, but they’re like unkempt Nordic mustaches), but I had no idea that it had gotten so pronounced. It’s as if overnight my “concern” wrinkle had become the Deep Valley of worry over the fate of the world. Above my, now-I-realize, much in the need of trimming eyebrows, live the transmission lines of my expressions. Hidden much of the time by bangs they went from little electric lines on the outskirts of civilization to overgrown air-conditioning powering suburban buzzing power ropes overnight! And when did I start growing peach fuzz on the fringe of my face?
At 3Xs power, the “little” bags that I thought were only present after a particularly big night of drinking, I now know are permanent plastic bags of cantaloupes parked under my crows feet. The little dark red freckle on my nose, under 3Xs power, is actually a flashing magenta neon sign advertising that the bar is “always open.” And pores!? I always thought my skin was pretty smooth and relatively free from big-pore-syndrome. I have craters. Here’s what our friends at Wikipedia have to say about mine: “pit crater, a crater that forms through sinking of the surface and not as a vent for lava.”
My buddy John always used to say, “the time to get work done is before you need it. That way people will always just think you’ve always had a youthful look.” He may be on to something. John has always had a youthful look, although now he tends to look surprised all of the time. Still, perhaps it isn’t too late for me. It would be nice to elevate that saggy area over my eyelids before I can’t even open my eyes more than a slit. I wouldn’t mind just going back to the way I used to think I looked. Yet time marches on and my only real hope is that my memory will fade. Or I could figure out where I’ve put one of the eight pairs of reading glasses that I own are and get out the yellow pages and look under cosmetic surgery. Or miracles.
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