Are You Gonna Eat That?

If I say, “It’s too fucking hot,” I’m not telling you guys anything new, right?

It’s too fucking hot.

Never let it be said that I won’t beat a dead horse. I won’t beat a live horse, because they’re scary and can kick my ass. Ponies. Ponies are scarier than horses. I love both, but I’ll be damned if I don’t know one of them could take me out in a second.

Anyway, it’s muy caliente here in the Southern US of A, and everywhere, and we’ve been stuck inside for months. Really. Remember how much fun I was having in April when we got an “early summer?” Yesterday a carpenter bee apparently smacked himself into the house, knocked himself out cold, and then fried hisself in the heat.

At this point I’m convinced that a Hell Mouth has opened, and the humidity is the souls of the damned walking among us. I can think of no worse punishment for sins than spending eternity in a state of sogginess. I’ll bet they smell like onions.

Also antiseptic cleaners.

So here’s what’s going on. My face is dry. Winter dry. It amazes me that my skin can be so dry when it’s constantly assaulted by moisture, but what happens is that the heat sucks the water from my skin and adds it to the Damnation Dew, and I brush my teeth and look in the mirror-

And I have wrinkles.

I’m a big fan of wrinkles on people. I love the character they give to features, and one of the things that got me so interested in my husband was the perfectly arranged assortment of crows’ feet around his eyes. Wrinkles convey the fact that you’ve lived your life instead of hiding indoors, covering up with a ski mask upon going outside, or walking around under a parasol so you can’t even hail a cab correctly (mad gesticulations while leaping up and down) lest your sun shade blow away.

The problem is that, well, I wasn’t expecting to see them so soon. They are in fact starting around my eyes. According to commercials for overpriced snake oil these are called “laugh lines” since I’m female, but you know- I know they’re from smoking. The smoke dries out and pollutes my skin, and a smoker has a tendency to squint to keep smoke from entering the eyeballs.

I squint a lot.

I used to be a freak about wearing my sunglasses outside, because macular degeneration scares the piss out of me, but lately unless I’m driving I forget to wear them. Most of the time I end up looking like Dirty Harry.

(Pardon me. I’m out here watching my kid play in the pool, and while I sit on an Igloo cooler and type the Mississippi River of sweat is running down the inside of my shirt. Did I mention it’s too fucking hot? Oh. There it goes down the back of my underpants. Be back in a few)

(Ok, in the past hour I tasked myself with hosing down my husband as he pushed the mower past the deck, ran him bottles of Gatorade, hosed down my kid, hosed down myself, and finally gave in and laid down in her pool with her with my legs and head hanging out because I don’t fit. 108 in the shade at 10am is no way to go through life, Sun. [see what I did there?])

Anyway, where I was going is that for a few days, as I brushed my teeth I would notice that the elasticity under my eyes was rapidly disappearing. So, being who I am, I made as many faces as I could at myself to see what shapes I could manipulate the skin into. Unfortunately I then found myself paying attention to Diane Lane every time she started squawking at me to buy Neutrogena so I could look as awesome as she does.

Didn’t buy any, but I did pay attention.

Here’s the deal. I’ve always admired those lines on other people, yet they were making me feel… old.

I’m not old.

I’m 39. Some of those lines are from laughing, and some of them are from sobbing into pillows. Some of them are from anger, and some of them are from spending time outdoors. Some of them are The Badge of Stupidity brought on by cigarettes.

Those are my life. Right there.

So, I think I’m not going to do anything out of the ordinary, here. Wash my face. Use lotion when I remember. Watch my husband’s face when he’s talking to me, loving the lines on it, and realize that I deserve to show my past as well as he does.

I like my face. It’s not spectacular, but it’s mine. And my face deserves to change with me.