Ego, Deflated

There comes a time in a woman's life when she has to decide how to deal with the aging process. She can either fight it ferociously, getting nipped/tucked, bleached and plucked, or she can just accept it gracefully and think about more important things like, I dunno, drinking.

I have chosen the latter course. Not for me to be one of those ladies whose face looks like they're trapped in a wind tunnel. Nor do I want to be one of those ladies who look like a petite young bottle-blond from the back - then they turn around and they're seventy years old if they're a day, and scare the bejeesus out of the horses.

Since I've been working with my friend Lisa in her glass studio, most of the time I'm covered in muck or burnt, my fingernails have been ground down to the quick by the diamond saw I use to cut beads, and my cuticles are permanently black from the coolant. I wear ratty old t-shirts and baggy sweatpants, and my hair is covered in glass dust. But don't get me wrong, I still like to dress up on the odd occasion, put on some makeup, shave my legs. I think I still scrub up pretty well, all in all.

But the older I get, the less I really care about such things..... or so I tell myself. However, this was put to the test recently.

I was at work in the gallery with a young colleague. She's 24. She sat and stared at me for a spell and then said, "You have really good skin." I immediately puffed up, and was going to tell her my skin-care secrets (i.e. stay out of the sun and hope you have good genes) when she continued, "I hope when I'm old, my skin looks as good as yours."

BAM! Oooouch.

I laughed; then I slapped her silly. Haha, just kidding, I made her clean the customer toilets!

Actually, I took it as a compliment and hoped to God that I wasn't as tactless when I was her age.

Gotta go, I have moisturizing to do!