It's Saturday night and what am I doing? I'm watching a Lawrence Welk rerun on PBS for pledge week. And last night, I watch a Bob Hope movie. Why am I watching all this old stuff? I'm fascinated by the 'older' people. There was a 60 something man on Lawrence Welk with badly died hair and obvious dentures. Women have gray bobbed hair. I'm seeing crow's feet and laugh lines.
Now I'm thinking back to my grandparents. One grandmother was 48 when I was born. (My other grammy was much older.) They were both gray. They both wore 'old lady' clothes.
I'm in my mid 30s and fighting gray hair. Every year, the costs of fighting gray goes up. I'm redoing my budget and know I need to keep up the battle, but I'm kind of jealous. Why is our culture obsessed with youth? Why do 30 somethings have to look like 20 somethings? When can I gray? Obviously, not before my Mom, who's still a gorgeous blonde, but when? I long for the day of elastic waist bands. Can you imagine skipping the teeth whitening? How about the highlights? I can still hide the crows feet under a little pancake, but I don't know if I can handle injecting pig botulism into my face when the time comes. Why is Joan Rivers the ideal?
I've been watching the Betty White, Valerie Berinelli, Wendy Malick and Jane Leeves show "Hot in Cleveland" and maybe that's playing into my perspective. The youngest star is 49, but the younger 3 all look amazing. Of course, Betty's prior series about 50 somethings also featured amazing looking women, and who didn't adore the Golden Girls? (Of course, they still looked a bit older than the Hot in Cleveland ladies. Enough of tonight's rant.
