Ania spends an hour getting ready for school every morning. I know it won’t be long and she’ll be bringing up dating. I’ve always been a single mother, and it’s been years since I’ve actually been involved romantically with anyone. In a sense, I’m probably mentally prepping myself for the future possibility of dating the same way my daughter preens herself each morning before leaving the house, except she looks fantastic and I look old. When Ania imagines dating, she probably conjures up all kinds of romantic thoughts from reading all those novels and teen mags. She’s approaching this with a youthful, naive energy. What sweet bliss. Her teen magazines paint such a glamorous picture, except for that one magazine that always has some horrible report about a teen who ended up dead because she either had bad luck, bad karma, or just didn’t pay attention to the magazine’s earlier articles about things to watch out for when dating. Hard to find those warnings buried beneath all the cosmetic ads, sex appeal IQ tests, and pictures of sexy boys with tag lines informing female readers of the classy characteristics they look for in a perfect girlfriend.
I need to look for a teen mag for boys. Do they have them? Aren’t those called hunting magazines, and they’re not usually looking for the perfect girl but the perfect buck. Surely that’s not the same thing to a teen boy. It goes from hot rods, rifles, to Hustler. Teen girls get endless fashion mags, dating mags, then the magazines are basically the same thing, except they are geared for slightly older women, and eventually those same magazines turn into housewife magazines that have the occasional sex fantasy next to a recipe. Do these boy magazines have endless articles on acne? Venison stew recipes that have the same power as an aphrodisiac?
Here’s the joke about all this. I would hate to read a magazine geared for women my age who are horrified they accidentally grabbed their love handle instead of their bike handle while riding the bike. Whine whine whine. Or, about fifty year old women getting in perfect shape, looking and feeling better than they did when they were twenty. Brag brag brag. No wonder I just read left-wing political zines. Those leave me feeling depressed about our current role in society not about my current rolls hanging all over my body.
Last week while I was sitting at the computer writing, Ania came up behind me and plugged in her new hair straightener. “Let me just try it. Your hair is so frizzy. You never look neat. Feel my hair. See how soft it is? My friends can all tell the difference with this straightener.”
“Fine, go ahead.”
Afterwards, I looked in the mirror and thought my hair looked like I had sat in the backseat of a car with the windows open soaring down a freeway. “It looks better on me,” Ania sighed. “Your hair is hopeless.”
I remember another boyfriend from my pre-motherhood days who had suggested that a little make up may help. “Just a little lipstick. Some eyeliner,” he added appraising my face. By this point in my life, I was tired of cosmetic suggestions from boyfriends who wished I was more like the woman they felt they should be with. I’d rather have a hundred one night stands than a lifetime with a lover working on improving my looks. One-night stands know better than to make such a suggestion or they’ll end up a one-minute stand. Perhaps this explains why I’ve never married and why I haven’t had any sex in so many years. No one seems able to refrain from making such glamour suggestions.
If only I could put on one of those too snug dresses, use a large diaper pin to hold the gaping buttons closed, and leave the house humming, “The bigger, the better, the tighter the sweater…” For once, I fit that description, maybe not the “better” part, but two of out three is an improvement since high school when I dreaded hearing that chant in hallway. The diaper pin would say it all: I am one of those women who pins her dress shut. A man would be a fool to suggest beauty tips. It’s obvious that I’m beyond repair. This is it. Diaper pin and all.
If only I could muster the courage to leave the house, diaper pin affixed (daughter nowhere in sight), then maybe I’d quit ordering those potions, and maybe even find myself undressed, and………..well, let’s just say, there could be so many possibilities.
I should look on the bright side. The stomach is flabby, the breasts sag, but I’m still strong and energetic. Surely, that has to count for something.
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