When I was in Cologne, my hotel had a very bright bathroom. My apartment’s bathroom is particularly dark (leading to occasionally embarrassing makeup mishaps), so I was duly appreciative of the change.
The hotel bathroom had a magnifying mirror that I used to tame the overgrown jungle my eyebrows (at that point, technically eyebrow) had become.
I had apparently been walking around in public, looking like Michael Dukakis for weeks.
Anyway, I was pluck, pluck, plucking—CNN blasting in the background—when I saw it. An age spot. AN AGE SPOT. Unmistakable. I nearly started retching and did an Elvis right there and then.
It’s on the right side of my chest, the décolletage, as they say.
Maybe it’s a mole…you ask? Maybe it’s always been there?
Oh no, children. Of all places on my body, THAT is one of the most familiar to me, having gone from totally barren to huge/saggy/distended to compact and somewhat numb within the course of five years.
I had a reduction, did you know that? Now you do. For the sake of my poor mother, I should also mention that I’m very happy with the results. At least she won’t wonder. She might however wonder why in the Sam Hell I’m mentioning my tits online.
No idea.
I used to have a very cute mole on my right nipple (itself very large and totally white), which ended up in a biowaste bin squished beneath four pounds of skin and fat. I used to have a direct nerve line from my nipples straight up to my jaw, which could be overwhelming to the point of being unpleasant.
That’s gone, too.
Perhaps this loss of gland tissue cut down my estrogen levels, creating the odd post-surgical emergence of…shall we say…fuzzies?
Do you remember that scene in Teen Wolf when Mikey finds that first six-inch hair in the middle of his chest?
I’ve been there. I’ve since become a fucking tweezer ninja.
Still, I digress. There is an age spot on my chest. Not a mole, not a scab, but a real life liver spot. I think it was a picture of Ginger Rogers at age 90 that I saw once—her over-tat skin looking like a weather dispersal map of sub-Saharan Africa.
Hello Ginger.
I could deal with the crows-feet. I thought it was a fair exchange for not having laugh lines or wicked forehead creases yet. The sallow, thinning skin? I guess I had convinced myself that I’d brought it on myself by smoking too much and never sleeping…like it’s not age when it’s self-imposed. I could almost even forgive the grey hairs that stick out like crinkly weeds. At least picking them out gives me something to do.
And salt and pepper seems to look so good on men. Bullshit, a load of. Well, they’ll get ear hair, won’t they.
In any case, I was talking to Tommy about this stuff last night and he said, in so many words, that I’m being ridiculous. We’re twenty-seven!
And, lo—an argument—?
Think about it. Do you remember ten years ago, when a headache after a night of partying ONLY occurred had you also managed to fall down three flights of stairs during the festivities? When a double all-nighter didn’t cause you two weeks of jet-lag? When perfectly-applied eyeliner didn’t immediately turn into mountain tributaries crackling down your puffy violet bags? When wearing rubber-soles out in the evening seemed unthinkable? When regular pooping seemed more a right than a privilege?
Okay, sure, there are plenty of things I don’t miss about ten years ago. Culottes, for example. Bulimia. Ace of Base. Colleen McTigue. Boone’s.
Still, at an age where my freckles are finally fading, I’m just not sure I’m ready for them to relocate.
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