I am so happy to learn there is a Facebook page called "Intelligent, Classy, Well-Educated Women Who Say Fuck A Lot."

It is nice to have company.

I never used to say "fuck." Never. I am of Dutch Reformed stock. We are a reserved people. We don't even say "golly" or "heck" very often.

But then I had children. And you know, there are just so many maternal moments when only a good curse word or a string of profanity will do.

But even so, I held the fucking in check. (I mean, the saying, not the doing, not that there was a whole helluva lot of doing either, once the kids came along.)

Until menopause. Motherhood may have breached the levees but menopause swept them away entirely. These days, profanity and curse words gush forth from my lips without plan or permission. I don't think this development is good or admirable but it's rather like the sagging of my boobs or the thinning of my hair--I hate it but it just keeps happening.

So, it's nice to know there's a Facebook group that I can join. And I may be way off-base here, but I'll bet that many in the sisterhood of intelligent, classy, well-educated women who say fuck a lot also find that their boobs have lost their bounce and their hair suffers from anorexia.

Just a hunch.

Zoe smiled at me!

Over two decades ago, shortly after I gave birth to Owen, a friend sent us a marvelous baby gift--what must have been the first book of collected Baby Blues comic strips (I believe there are dozens now). Nothing else quite captured the confusion, exhaustion, bewilderment, the sheer "what-the-fuck-have-we-gotten-ourselves-into" of those initial weeks of parenthood. In the strip, Darryl and Wanda's first month with colicky baby Zoe are just hellish (but hilarious), and then comes The Day: The first three frames show Darryl going through his normal routine but he's walking on air, he's floating, and he has this permanent goofy grin.The final frame includes the text balloon: "Zoe smiled at me!" 

I thought of that comic strip yesterday. I got my haircut in the morning and then had a hectic but totally unproductive and unsatisfying day. I came home feeling cranky and stupid, and then I caught a glimpse of myself in the mirror with my short, short hair, and I thought, "Oh god, I've turned into one of those haggard academics with the what-the-hell hair." I turned around and there was Hugh. I'll be honest: despite my cheery "Hi honey! How are you?", inside I was cringing. Hugh is 17 and therefore brutal. "You're not wearing that, are you?" "Don't you think it's time you updated your shoes to at least the 1990s?" "No offense, but you look really fat in that." "No offense, but your gray roots are totally showing." "No offense, but those leggings are for someone wayyyyy younger, you know."

I waited for the put-down.

But then, well, Zoe smiled at me:

Hugh: "You got your hair cut!"
Me: "Ye-e-e-s."
Hugh: "You look really good!"
Stunned silence.
Hugh: "You look just like Anne!"

Anne. My fiercely fit, uber-urban, totally trendy, gobsmackingly gorgeous 30-something niece.

I walked on air, I floated, all evening long.

A Miracle for 2013

So here's The Question: Do we trust Dr. Oz?

I ask, because Dr. Oz has identified the Keranique Hair Regrowth System for Women as one of his "13 Miracles for 2013."

The thing is, I'm not actually sure who Dr. Oz is. But my hair is definitely thinning, so I clicked on this ad alongside my Facebook messages today, and voila, it tells me that Dr. Oz says, here's a miracle.

I'd like a miracle. Science is so boring. I'd like some whipped cream-like substance that I can rub around my scalp and then squirt on top of my ice cream and a few days later (I don't need instant gratification; I can wait a bit), yes! I'm back to my normal head of thick, frizzy, unruly curls.

Normal, of course, is the key word here. It is normal for me to have lots of hair. This thinning hair stuff, this horrendous skin-like substance now peeking through, this is not normal. Dammit. This is Not Allowed. I signed no permission slip, no invoice, no receipt. I am not asking for Julia Roberts' hair. I just want my hair. Normal hair.

Oh dear God. When did I become abnormal?

Still, there's always Joan Rivers. Yes, indeed: The Joan Rivers Great Hair Day Fill-In Powder. Evidently, on those days when you need "Great Hair" (aka Normal Hair), you just dust on this powder. And hope it's not a windy day, I imagine. Or wet. I would think the powder would just clump up, which  wouldn't be great or normal. But I guess if you're Joan Rivers, you don't have to think about rain or wind.

But I don't know. Can Joan Rivers really guarantee Normalcy?

Lousy 50s

Head's been itching for three days. Driving me crazy, stark raving looneytunes insanely bonkers.

And of course I'm thinking, "head lice."

Don't be a dope, I tell myself. Women in their 50s do not get head lice. But of course they do. Why not? What do the lice care? A head's a head to a louse. I really doubt that lice find the sign of grey roots a turn-off. Yet somehow it seems like the only adults I know who've had head lice contracted it from their grade-school-aged children. But, really, what do I know? Maybe retirement homes are teeming with head lice and they're just not talking about it. I mean, why would they? It's not like the home head nurse can call you up and tell you to pick up your elderly father, douse his head with chemicals, search his hair with a nit comb, and keep him from contact with other elderly folks for the next 48 hours. Or maybe she can. What do I know?

All I know is my head really really itches and the last time it felt this way was many many years ago when Owen had a bad case of head lice that we didn't detect for ages because his hair was so thick, and by the time we did detect it, the lice had colonized me and Hugh as well. That was our first encounter with the dreaded louse. Many more were to come, especially once we moved to England. The Manchester Health Authority, concerned by the health risks posed by overuse of head lice-eradicating shampoos, had banned their sale and instead mounted a massive campaign in schools and community centers to teach parents to nit-comb their kids' hair every night. Every time I picked up or dropped off a child I had to run the gauntlet of posters featuring giant-sized lice and the cheery slogan, "All It Takes Is A Comb!" Right. And in the event of nuclear war, just make sure you've got a lot of duct tape and all will be well.

The campaign, needless to say, was a tremendous failure. All It Takes, actually, is one parent who's too sick//busy/ overwhelmed/ distracted/ drunk/ stoned/ ignorant /depressed, and one non-nitcombed kid, and you rapidly have yourself a whole lotta lice. By our third year in the city, the Health Authority had admitted defeat and lice-killing shampoos were back in the chemists' (aka drugstores). Which put an end to my short but successful career as a Nit-Rid shampoo smuggler (trading on my connections back in the U.S. where of course it's one's God-given right as a Free American to pour lethal brain-destroying chemicals on one's offspring as often as one wants to).

I think I finally threw out our massive collection of nit combs a few years ago and I remember I actually felt a wee bit nostalgic as I did so. The thing is, while the lice were disgusting and my throat still constricts just thinking about the horrid smell of that shampoo, the nitcombing routine wasn't all that bad. I'd get 20 or even 30 minutes with each boy, sitting on my lap, as I went through his hair, strand by strand. That closeness, that physical expression of our relationship, was already so rare by the time the boys were only 7 or 8 so, weirdly, I actually didn't mind our nit-picking sessions. And since, by the time I threw away those combs, the boys were well into their teens and had prohibited all physical contact except in cases of extreme emergency, I don't think the nostalgia was completely mad.

And now I have no nit comb. My head itches. I'm in my 50s. And I'm lousy.

Queen for a Day

I came home from teaching, threw my bag in the corner, and shouted, "If I were Queen of the World for a Day, I would ban all straightening rods, straightening creams, and straightening blow-outs for all time!"

Keith looked at me, nodded, and immediately left the house.

Pitiful, isn't it? What sort of person chooses hair straightening as the thing that must be eradicated to make the world better? Not hunger? AIDS? Malaria? The Tea Party? Glenn Beck? And really, truly, I'd get rid of all those first, if I were Queen. Absolutely. It's a promise.

But I've had it with straight hair. For years now, I look out at my classes, and all the white women look absolutely identical. Same shoulder-length straight hair, seat after seat after seat. Absolutely utterly the same. It's weird. Creepy. Downright Orwellian. When I first started teaching, lo, these many decades ago, I had trouble tellling the white guys apart. They all wore baseball caps and sat in the back row and threw down their pens whenever I used words like "patriarchy" or "gender" or "femininity". The women, however,  were easy--some had short hair, some long, some in between, in a wide range from downright nappy to board straight. Jennifer stood out from Jessica; Alison could never be mistaken for Emma. Now the women in my classes look like they've all been cloned by some alien mastermind out to take over American universities. There's the occasional rebel with a variety of piercings and tattooss--but even she sports that same damned straight hair. I can't stand it. How am I supposed to tell Taylor from Dakota from Hannah from Jordan from Katelyn from Michelle from Holly? And good lord, what's wrong with a little curl? the occasional spontaneous bounce? even, God forbid, a wee bit of frizz now and then?

Scarlet Letter

I'm an adulteress. I've been unfaithful to my Hair Guy.

He's a great guy, and he's been incredibly good to me. Time and time again he squeezes me in that very day when I, frantic and fed up with the tangle atop my head, call and whine. He constantly tells me how great my hair is and how cute I am. I'm 51. I am no longer cute, but sitting there in that chair, he makes me believe it, for a few minutes at least. And, when he heard that we were having to send Hugh to boarding school, he gave me a free cut. "I know the budget's tight," he said. "Consider it my contribution to Hugh's future." This is the amazing Hair Guy that I have betrayed.

But, well, my hair hasn't been looking so good, you know? Not a lot of excitement. Same ol' same ol'. It seems like Hair Guy no longer understands me. We've grown apart. I just, I just want something more out of my hair. Is that so bad? so wrong? Is that too much to ask?

No, of course not, I told myself, but Hair Guy and I will work it out. We just need to spend more time together, work on our communication skills. We've both invested far too much to end it all now. So I told myself.

Until last week when I went to pick up a cafe' au lait at the coffee shop on Chimes Street just outside of campus--and just down the street from Eutopia Hair Salon.  In a moment of madness, overcome by my passionate hatred of my hair, I veered off the sidewalk, rushed up the steps, threw myself inside, and blurted, "Do you take walk-ins?"

One mid-morning caffeine-deprived loss of self-control. Oh, the self-loathing. The regret. The "if only" and "I wish" and "if I just would've"s.

Except I gotta say, I've got one funky cool haircut. I really like this cut. I may well love this cut.

I've booked my next appointment at Eutopia. So the question is, does a really great funky haircut distract from the scarlet letter on my chest?

High Maintenance Chick

Yesterday I turned 51--guess I should re-name this blog something along the lines of "Fumbling thru My 50s." Looking back on this last year, I'm not sure I've learned much to guide me through my next five decades. I have, however, changed. I have become a High Maintenance Chick.

I guess I took my first faltering steps toward high-maintenance chickdom a decade ago, when I first started coloring my hair. So it begins. A moment of impulse, a sudden desire for a bit more vibrancy, and there you are, committed to a lifetime of horrendously high beauty salon bills for roots touch-ups, highlights, lowlights, middle-of-the-road lights, plus of course all the necessary accompaniments like gels and waxes.

I might, however, have confined my maintenance to the region above my neck had it not been for my niece. It's all her fault. It was Anne who lured me on to the fast lanes of the high maintenance road by convincing me to join her for a spa pedicure. Pedicures are the crack of Chickdom. Once you've looked down and caught sight of your toes winking colorfully back up at you, callouses all filed away, heels glowing softly, you're done for, caught, addicted. From regular pedicures to weekly manicures is hardly a jump, more of a quick hop, really. Your toes look so good, it dawns on you that the time has come to stop gnawing on your nails and nibbling on your cuticles; you long to present to the world a hand not adorned with bleeding stumps.

It was also Anne who convinced me of the delights of bikini waxing. Once you've endured the hot waxing of Down There, slapping some more of the hot stuff on the brows and chin just seems, well, required. And what's the point of sporting shapely brows if they're so blonde no one can admire them? One must book a brow tint. And as long as one is having one's brows tinted, well, why not dye those long, thick, but blonde eyelashes as well? Suddenly, freedom from mascara seems a right rather than a luxury.

And that's it. If you're having your eyelashes tinted, that's it. You are officially a High Maintenance Chick.

Or at least, I am. Somehow, much to my surprise and discomfort, I find that I'm a 51-year-old HMC. This was not in The Plan. But the thing is, so many things have happened that were not in The Plan--some of them terrific, but many of them Decidedly Not--despite my best efforts to be Very Very Good. So now I'm not being good. Instead, I'm just feeling good. No plan. Just a lot of maintenance.

The Problem with Bicycling

I've been bicycling to work, a fact of which I am ridiculously proud, considering it's only a 2-mile ride between home and the university. On a bike path. Along a lake. In the flatlands of south Louisiana. Still, temperatures are already in the upper 80s down here, so I do sweat. And thus have the right to feel proud.

I thought that the sweating would be the huge problem with biking to work, but there's still enough of a morning coolness and a light breeze that it's ok. So far, at least, I don't walk around all day smelling like a pile of dirty gym clothes.

But I do walk around with Really Bad Hair. This, I had not anticipated. If I wear the helmet, I look something like a tonsured Gene Wilder. If I decide to risk brain injury for the sake of my vanity and forego the helmet, I show up looking like the mad scientist in the Back to the Future movies. Today it was so bad that I actually stuck my head under the faucet in the ladies' room before I went to class. It didn't help things much. Instead of looking like a crazy old lady, I looked like a wet and crazy old lady. Ah well. It all keeps my students amused or, at least, bemused. The Batty Bicycling Prof. You know, the one with the hair.

Bad Hair Day

How much does hair grow in one night? I mean, really?

It's Sunday. You have normal hair. Even attractive, if slightly funky with a tendency toward frizz, hair. You're happy. You have a satisfying career and a charmingly insoucient adolescent son. Life is good.

It's Monday. Your hair has grown exponentially. Flips, waves, cowlicks, erratic curls, bizarre bumps, and random poofs now adorn your head. You face a bleak and pointless future. You wonder why you ever dared have children.

I'm friggin' 50 years old. I thought I'd be better than this by now.

And I will be. Tomorrow. After a haircut, color, and highlights.

Calvinettes

On Wednesday I colored my roots. On Thursday a box of clothes and a new pair of boots from J.Jill arrived by FedEx. On Friday I got a manicure,today a hair cut. On Monday I am having my teeth whitened.

Perhaps it's not surprising, then, that I can't get the Calvinette motto out of my head:
Grace is deceitful and beauty is vain,
but a woman that feareth Jehovah,
she shall be praised. (Proverbs something: something)

Yes, Calvinette. I was a Calvinette. In the Dutch Calvinist immigrant sub-culture in which I was raised, one could not be a Brownie or Girl Scout or Indian Princess. One might get tainted by the secular world. So instead we had our own uniformed sex-segregated child movements: Cadets and Calvinettes. It seemed so normal then. It was only when I grew up and realized there were no Lutherettes or Loyolaettes or Wesleyettes that I first thought maybe we were all a bit odd.

One progressed up the Calvinette ranks from Gleaner to Reaper to Something to Sower (what would come between sowing and reaping--Waterer? Weeder? Fertilizerer?) by earning badges in skills and achievements ranging from Bicycle Repair or Water Safety to Reformation Heroes and (my personal favorite) Old Testament Women.

Apart from the Bicycle Repair badge, little that could be described as "feminist" appeared in Calvinettes. Certainly conformity rather than competition structured our troop. There was no sense, really, in mimicking my brothers' quest for as many Cadet badges as possible. In Calvinettes, our counselors (mothers dragooned into service for a year) made sure we all earned enough points to move up the ranks in step with our age group. We learned to sew and to embroider (or at least we were supposed to. . . I failed miserably but got promoted to Reaper all the same); we had lessons in how to sit down properly after singing the hymn in church (you smooth your skirt as you are sitting; you do not sit and then half-hop up and pull out the wrinkles); and best of all, once we hit 8th grade, we no longer had crafts and Bible study under the watchful eyes of the mothers but instead "Charm Course," in which two single women in their late teens taught us such important life skills as how to perk up limp hair with a lemon rinse and where to sit in the front seat when on a first date (in the middle). Even at 13 I thought it somewhat ironic to recite "Grace is deceitful and beauty is vain" and then to spend the next two hours learning how to apply blush and lip stick. (Yes, I was the sort of 13-year-old who knew what "ironic" meant.) Still, anything was an improvement over embroidery; moreover, by age 13, a regular-church-going child is already an expert in negotiating ambiguities, inconsistencies, and contradictions. The Bible was full of them; the adults at church, even more so.

Here I am, an aged Calvinette, with my painted nails, my new clothes, my about-to-be-white teeth, and my freshly colored and cut hair (not in the least bit limp or in need of a lemon rinse). Grace is deceitful and beauty is vain. They do, however, make life a bit more livable. I don't think Jehovah minds, really.

In a funk

I'm in a funk.

Could be a menopausal funk--the gloom brought on by increasing quantities of facial fur--matched only by the decreasing volume of head hair--and the pounds that seem to fly on and stick to my stomach like flies on a dead squirrel and the ever-decreasing libido that makes me feel like the Frigid Bitch of the North.

Could be a generational funk--the fear that I've failed to realize my potential as a scholar, the sense that my students regard me as this sometimes amusing historical relic, my longing to Do Something or Be Someone Important.

Could be an existential funk--the doubts about meaning and truth and purpose, the growing restlessness with going through the motions,the impatience with answers that used to satisfy and arguments that once seemed convincing.

Dunno.

Just know that I lay in bed last night and thought, "Life is just a bunch of orifices, just a matter of in and out." You eat, you drink, you poop, you pee, you have sex, you listen, you repeat, you smell, you sneeze. . . hydration, consumption, defecation, urination, copulation, communication, organization. . . all just a matter of in and out in and out in and out. . .

in and out in and out again and again on and on and on just life in the lower-case no capitals no highlights no need for punctuation and the more you go on the more the highs and lows level out and it's just this vast plain this tundra and the colors all fade and the whites turn dingy and the blacks lose their vibrancy so it's all the same dreary grey grizzle and you can't hear the laughter or the screams just the low ceaseless moan and the monotonous buzz buzz buzz of fake lighting and soon itjustallcollapsesinonandtheresnothingintheuniversebutfakepolitepeopleataneternal cocktailpartywithwatereddowndrinksandpackagedtastelesssnacksandsoyoubegintowonderififif

So. I'm thinking, brownies.

It's really ok

The summer after my first year in graduate school I worked as a nanny for my brother and his wife. Nancy was a stay-at-home mom, heavily pregnant with Baby #5, and heavily weighed down with doctors' appointments and medical tests for Toddler 4, a charming, curly-haired, chubby little charmer born with a host of "issues," as we say when we can't figure out what's going on. (Like when the specialist told me I had what the experts call "sore arm syndrome." Seriously. That's what they call it. It means, as the specialist went on to explain, "we see there's a real problem and we haven't a clue how to help you." I liked this guy.)

Anyway, back to my shortlived nanny career: in the course of that summer, my sister-in-law Nancy said something really important: "I love all my children all of the time, but I don't always like all of them all of the time. Sometimes, you know, you just don't like a kid for awhile."

She said it casually, as we were scraping a concoction of melted Legos mixed with Skittles off the just-refinished wooden floor. But this casual comment has helped me immensely.

In the short term, it helped me see that no, I was not crazy, my mom really didn't like me, but that was ok, she loved me, which is all one can really expect, and hey, I didn't like her too much at that point either. And that was ok too.

[OK, Transparency Moment: it took me many exhausting hour-long sessions and many shredded Kleenexes in neutral-toned offices with neutral-faced therapists to be able to type "that was ok". ]

In the long term, damn, absolutely, you love your kid but holy cow, sometimes, you just don't like him (or her--but I never had a her, sadly) very much. Or at all.

Take the last two days, for example. I love Hugh absolutely and unconditionally. But over the last two days, I haven't liked him at all. Because he's been a colossal shit.

(I know, I know, he's 15 3/4; he's supposed to be a colossal shit. And I'm supposed to be colossally [is that a word? doesn't look like a word, does it?] annoyed. We're both playing our parts. But it's just that he's sooooo good at his part.)

Hugh was furious with me because I came home tired from work and wouldn't immediately jump in the car and drive him to the library (a 20-minute drive, btw). For the last few months, he's met once a week or so with some friends at the library to "study biology." And I've driven him there and Keith has picked him up. But Keith was out of town and I was tired and I wanted a glass of wine (ok, yes, several glasses of wine) and I didn't want to drive for 80 minutes back and forth, back and forth. So I said no. Am I a Bad Mom?

Personally, I think it's a structural/societal problem rather than a parental issue. Why do I have to drive this child to the library? Why can't he walk there or take a bus? Must I really shoulder the blame and the consequences for the many many many wrong-headed, wrong-hearted decisions made about taxation and urban planning and mass transit?

Hugh could care less about the societal/structural issues. He sees things simply and clearly. Simply and clearly, I'm a Bad Mom. And so his response to my "no, not this week, honey," was to punish me. Over the next two days, I became acquainted with my shortcomings as a housecleaner, a cook. a pet owner, a laundress, a driver, a gardener, a wife, a teacher, and a friend; I learned why my clothes, my hair, my jewelry, my toenail polish, and my taste in tv shows were not only inadequate but an insult to humankind; I was forced to see that the way I walk, blow my nose, sleep, remember family vacations, pronounce various words, and chop onions all threatened the future of civilization.

So, I'm grateful to Nancy. Because of her, I know it's ok not to like a kid for awhile. I'll always love him. And sometimes I like him. Some time soon, I'm sure, I'll like him. And that's ok. It's all one can expect. And really, it's ok. Really. OK.

What-the-hell hair

There's a certain "what the hell" freedom in being in the latter half of one's allotted lifespan. This week, for example, I paid more for a haircut than I have ever before (and, I imagine, than I ever will again). I won't tell you how much; suffice it to say it was in the three figures, and the last two were not zeroes. And I did it with no consideration or planning whatsoever. One moment I was finishing up my coffee in a Dublin Starbucks (may I just say to opponents of globalization that I would have far preferred to be in a locally owned coffee shop, but Starbucks offered free wi-fi and the locals did not; sadly, practicality trumps principles almost every time) and the next I was bent back over the shampoo sink in the chi-chi hair place across the street.

I had flown off to Ireland a month earlier with what I thought was workable hair--no blowdryer, no straightening rod or curling iron, just wash and go. So I washed and went, for a month, with Really Bad Hair, hair that looked as if it resulted from the mating of one of those string mops and a clown's wig. And the thing is, despite being in the latter half of my allotted lifespan, I have yet to learn to be "what the hell" about my hair.

I have, of course, honed a number of coping strategies over the years, all of which I relied on regularly over the past four weeks in misty moisty blustery blowy Ireland: I reminded myself that I am an intellectual and a deeply spiritual person, someone who is really above bothering with something as trivial as hair. I contemplated barrettes and pondered headbands. I tried different side parts. I applied copious amounts of Product. I combed it all backwards. I brushed it all forwards. I avoided mirrors. I wore my hood a lot.

But still, Bad Hair is Bad Hair, and so, in one impulsive moment in Dublin, I chopped it all off. That is, I gave the incredibly sexy, 30-ish, cutey hairstylist guy the liberty to do with my hair what he would. And he chopped it all off--with the most amazing attention to detail, precise technique, and gentle patience. I mean, if this guy does sex like he does hair, well, golly.

And then he told me what the cut cost.

What the hell.

It's a good cut. I now have Good Hair. And life is better. Of course, I'm also at this moment sitting on a stack of pillows alongside my husband on an enormous bed in an "Exquisite Boutique Bed and Breakfast" (so the advertisement) in a Norfolk seaside village. That helps too.

I have seen the future

For the past two days, my left eye has been twitching.

And, starting about a year ago, but with an exponential increase in severity over the last few months, my left toe and the top of my left foot has been hurting/aching/throbbing, to the point where walking is becoming a tad problematic. I did see my regular general practitioner/family practice doctor about it, and she warned that if anti-inflammatories didn't work, I might very well have arthritis. Anti-inflammatories don't work.

Twitching. Arthritis. Geez. Add 'em to the list: chronic insomnia, daily headaches, vulvadynia, anxiety disorder. And a tendency toward Bad Hair.

So, as I look ahead to my 50s, I'm seeing me: an arthritic, twitching, crazy-haired, exhausted old lady looking anxiously over her shoulder, one hand clutching her burning vulva, the other massaging her forehead, while she limps slowly in a fruitless hunt for a cool, dark place of absolute quiet.

Wine. I need more wine.

Look before you leap

So I've gotten a really short disastrous haircut and the rats have returned. There's a causal connection there somewhere.

Hair first. I was in need of a trim. It was a lovely spring morning, cool, the hint of the warmth to come, flowers ablaze in aching glory, the last day of spring break--a time for leaping. And New Haircutter Guy was in the mood for radical cutting. So, I leapt. He cut. I now look like an old lady with an erratic perm. Liberated by the short cut, my hair is doing what comes naturally: sprouting in odd curly combinations here, sulking in a fit of straights there, sticking out at random points in anarchic conviction throughout. It is not an attractive look. It does not bespeak the playful promise of springtime that New Haircutter Guy dangled in front of me like a chocolate cupcake.

What it evokes, nay, what it uncannily duplicates, is my grandmother the morning that I surprised her with a visit. Turned out it was her cleaning morning. When I sprung upon her, she was on her hands and knees dusting the crevices of an upturned kitchen chair. Usually immaculately coiffed, rouge carefully applied, pearls resting gently on her Marshall Field's blouse, Gram was in a duster, with bare legs and ankle socks, and her hair--her hair looked just like mine right now. She was horrified to see me seeing her crouching in that kitchen. Much like I am horrified to see me seeing me right now.

Much like the rats, actually. I thought we had defeated the rats some months ago, using a combination of poison, rat traps, glue trays, and, I dunno, human resolve, esprit, determination. But no. Putting away some suitcases in the attic late yesterday afternoon, I heard the telltale rustling and the rhythmic tat-tat-tat of little feet. And today, when I went down to the basement to get a packet of veggie burgers, I was stopped short by the sight of a rat, stuck in glue, right in front of the freezer.

It's all our neighbor's fault. He chopped down an ailing tree that, it turns out, housed an entire city of rats. But these rats do not act like poor refugees. No, they are rodent Republicans. They have Made It and moved to the suburbs. Freed from the packed confines of urban tree living, they embrace the wide open spaces of our human houses with great gusto. I keep expecting to find rat-sized Weber grills and built-in swimming pools, rat-marketed cul-de-sacs with names like Little Gnawing, rat versions of the tennis club. Big and sleek and well-fed, these are rats with really good health insurance plans. They Have Arrived. And they do not intend to leave.

So, I'm an old lady with crazy hair and rats. I always knew it would come to this.

Fashion Revolution

The time has come, the walrus said, to talk of many things. . . actually, just hats and gloves. And I'm not really the Walrus. I think that was John Lennon.

Anyway. I've been looking at my hands. They are old lady hands. Wrinkly. And there are these spots. They used to be freckles--charming, mischievous, evoking a youth spent dropping from the rope swing into the lake (there was no swing; there was no lake; there wasn't much of a youth-but the freckles didn't know that). Now these insouciant little freckles have morphed into age spots. Just like my mom's. Geez. Just like my Gram's. They (the age spots, not Mom and Gram) look like some amoeba-like aliens planning their conquest of the human race.

And then there are the fingernails. Or lack thereof. I try. I really do. And for a month last spring, I actually did have nails. A brief, shining moment of being good at being female. But then I reverted to my usual ragged, jagged nails bit to the quick, bleeding cuticles, pus-pulsating hangnails. I can't help it. Life is hard. Fingers are close at hand. I bite. I tear. I chew. I pick. I prod. I peel.

So. The solution, obviously, is a grass-roots renaissance of gloves. Not utilitarian winter gloves, which clearly would not catch on here in the Deep South. I mean, ladies' gloves. Gloves for all climates and classes. Elegant, silk-like elbow-caressing gloves. And little lacy white wrist gloves. You know, gloves. The sort of gloves I have some vague, primordial memory of my mother wearing to church. And even me, as a very little girl, in white fake patent-leather shoes and white tights and a pastel blue church dress. And gloves.

And if we're doing gloves, then we must do hats. Again, fuzzy, hazy pictures come swimming up from long ago of my mother and the other Ladies, bedecked and bedazzling up on top. Think of it. No more Bad Hair Days. The ability to put off your roots touch-up for another month. No more blowdryers and curling irons and straightening rods, no more mousse and gel and paste and wax and "Product." Just pop on that sexy little beret. A dashing toque. A demure yet ooh-la-la pillbox. A jaunty newsboy cap. A feminine, postmodernist take on the cowboy hat. Oh, the possibilities are endless.

But if the grassroots Hats-and-Gloves movement fails, then I suggest we all adopt the hijab in solidarity with our Muslim sisters. Or shoot. Given the realities of the Body Facing 50, let's just go for the fullout burka. All this time, I've identified the burka with oppression, but honestly, maybe it would be the ultimate liberation: Time to go to work? Pull on the burka and you're heading out the door, 60 seconds max.

But I've got my eye on the cutest straw cloche with a black silk ribbon, paired with lacy black cotton gloves. Maidens of menopause, unite!

Sex Cat

I had my first real haircut--as in, I wanted it and I chose what happened--when I was about 12. Given that I'm almost 50, that means 38 years of hair cuts, and let's see, sometimes I went three, even four months without a cut, but sometimes I've had quite short hair that needed cutting every four weeks, hmm, let's say 6 cuts per year on average-- I come up with 228. Let's round up to 230.

230 haircuts in my life.

Why, then, did I believe Current Haircutting Guy when he assured me that the new cut would have a "tousled, playful" effect, and that it would be a style with "lots of action, lots of movement"? I hadn't realized hair was supposed to be active; guess I've always just assumed my hair was supposed to be a couch potato. But hey, movement sounded good, so did the whole tousled, playful thing. I'd like to think I'm playful and, well, tousled. In a good way. A feminist sort of tousled.

Turns out "tousled and playful" translates, in non-Haircutting Guy-speak, as "frizzy." And "action" and "movement"? It means "straggly." It means "mad menopausal woman with bad hair."

Awhile back, ok, a long while back, when I was in my early-to-mid-30s, I went to a new Haircutter Guy, and he studied me and my hair for awhile with a kind of sad and concerned look, then sat down on his stool, and declared, "What you have here is a Schoolmarm Look. But I, I think we should go for something more like a Sex Kitten."

Absolutely. I stuck with him for years. All we ever achieved was Poofy Southern Lady hair, but hey, the promise of Sex Kittenhood was so enticing, I kept coming back.

I want to be a Sex Kitten. All right, all right, all right. Facing 50, I'll settle for Sex Cat. I want to be a Sex Cat.

And even after 230 haircuts, I refuse to give up hope. I have faith. After all, I'm a Chicago Cubs fan. And a Christian. And even a firm supporter of single-payer universal health care for all Americans. We shall overcome some day. And on that day, I will be sporting playful, tousled hair. I will be a Sex Cat.