Looking Like Your Mother

But It's Her Voice I'm Worried About

OMG, people are shocked. How could she be so ur-skeletal. (Via US Magazine.com)  The already perfect mother of two had to get downright skinny to play the Bob Dylan as "Jude" part of the wrapped by unreleased I'm Not There. Let me see. How is getting to bone done`?

Drugs is one way. And getting off them, well, that can be more difficult than anticipated;

Control freak insanity (a/k/a anorexia) is another. Getting off that personal power trip is an altogether different problem; or

Pure professionalism. And any second now she is going to dive into a bag of Lays potato chips cause she wants to.

Enjoy the chips, Cate.

Antlers

Yes, yes. Antlers are so in. Unfortunately, the last time I saw it done right, I was in a restaurant in Austria. Everything about the place was sleek and open. High above the tables, however, was a mass of interlocking antlers that ran along the ceiling. It looked more like a modern art piece and it worked. Put those things anywhere else and add all the other hunting lodge accoutrements and all I think about is dusting and sneezing. I mean, does any interior designer ever have to do the actual cleaning? An antler lamp doesn't have one main section to dust, it has a bunch.

Neo-surrealists, neo-rationalists, I can live with them. Heck, I'll embrace them.

But not a lot o' hunting lodge, please, and no grandmotherly basement styles, either. Both are drafty and full of mold and dust mites, at least in my imagination. And sometimes, that is all that matters.

Glitter and Golf

I keep forgetting to use my Aveda tourmaline charged radiance masque.

I'm not sure how the tourmaline boosts skin's energy. I figured at best the masque would leave behind tiny little jewels that reflected light. The same with all the other products contained gold, silver, emeralds, and rubies, the new glitter.

I have lots of the old glitter, too. Well, my daughters do. I sample it, and then I have glitter in my eyebrows and maybe a fleck on my upper lip for - oh, I don't know - days longer than I really want because it doesn't seem to wash off. The last time I took a glitter wand to my face one daughter almost tackled me in mid swipe. "Mom! What are you doing? You have a plane to catch tomorrow," she scolded.

It's always a proud moment, when child becomes parent, parent becomes child.

I was thinking of putting some on for my graduate school reunion last weekend. I can't say that I was excited about going. I was kind of quiet back then. But I was also a little curious because it seemed like such a blur. For 1/3 of a second I thought of waving the wand of sparkle glitter all over me before I went. The thought made me smile, but I passed.

Sorry I didn't load up on the stuff because the first person I met as I walked into the cocktail party was the female student who had mocked the jewelry that I had worn to my first post-graduate job interview.  "Oh, are we wearing that sort of thing nowadays?" she had said to me way back then.

"Hi," I said to her, this evening. "How are you? Gosh, I think of you every once in a while." Because I do. Who knows what she would have come up with if my face were shining like a prism.

The woman at the reunion registration desk told me to wait near the bar until I was given a number. Once I had a number I could go out and join the ranks of the rest of the class for the group photo. One by one, people got their number and left the room. I walked around and could not place faces. It was a bit startling. I eventually drifted to the photograph table. A tall Town & Country woman stood next to me, putting her finger on top of her husband's face on the photo sheet that had all of our pictures from the first day of class. Her hair was only two stages removed from Lady Bird Johnson's. "Oh, our kids would just love to have this picture of their daddy," she said.

"Would they?" I thought. Do you really think your kids would simply adore having this postage stamp-sized image of their father? Everyone was smiling and holding a name card was under their chin, like a Ken Delay mug shot. The man she pointed to was a Harvard undergrad. I know because he had always worn his Harvard sweatshirt to class. I looked harder at the photo spread. My photo was not there. Neither were there any images of people whose last name began with the 1 letter proceeding my own or the 3 letters after. We had been omitted. Then I heard a click and a cheer from out in the hall.

The photo had been taken. No one had given me a number, so I was still in by the bartender and spouses looking at photos wondering what happened to a large chunk of the class alphabet. The organizer of the reunion came back into the main room, saw me still there, and threw up her hands in disgust.

I thought that this might be a good time to slip out. This night had teen-age movie written all over it, the kind that pits the quiet nerdy girl against the bitchy cheerleaders. I stood by the back elevator trying to make an escape when one of the Adonis boys came over. No lie, he was 6'3" with curly blond hair and I seemed to recall that he had been a friend of daddy Harvard. Hollywood was surely mocking me.

"You know, I was going through the yearbook at home with my kids and I asked them to look at the pictures and pick out which boy was the best looking and which girl was the most attractive."

I held my breath. Did he really give his kids that assignment? Please, please, hurry elevator.

"They didn't want to play that game, but I did," he continued. "And I thought you were the prettiest."

Wow. My graduate school photo had been a source of amusement in the office for years. I've heard things like, "What were you thinking?" and "What kind of hairstyle did they call that back then?" but never anything close to this pick up line. Part of me was smiling ear to ear because, well, hell, I got a pick up line and the other part of me was smiling that wide because what he said was so preposterous.

I thanked him for the compliment, probably told him I thought he was dreamy too - just to be polite - and then he asked me about a particular type of work I was doing. It sounded at first as if he was interested in the same line, and I offered to help him get started. Then he interrupted. "No, I'm doing ok. If you ever need any help, call me. I know a couple of big guys in the industry. We golf."

Then the elevator door opened and I stepped in, holding his business card.

Break or Break Neck

I have a 48 hour deadline on five articles with photographs that are all in some degree of readiness or not, and I am so tired of this blue banner and the pearls already. I want to create a new look, and I shot at least 3000 images at the last Fashion Week so there should be something I can filter up some fun with in my library, but if I start messing around with images and then trying to remember how I manipulated it all into the banner in the first place, I will not be making my deadlines. Still, priorities, you know? Appearances, you know? Decisions, decisions.

While I am busy not sleeping over the next two days I will post a few things that have been most recently published.

Little Kathy Richards Hilton

Now, when someone told me once upon a time that Paris Hilton's mom had been on Family Affair, I figured that since she couldn't have been the Buffy actress (that little freckled, pig-tailed actress died of a drug overdose three years after losing out to Linda Blair for the captive role in The Exorcist), she must have been the older sister, creatively-named Cissy character, the one with the bulbous cheeks and the nauseatingly cheerful disposition who didn't do much except to give an occasional incestuous peck on the cheek to her TV uncle and the stuffed shirt Mr. French. So, of course, every time someone mentioned Paris Hilton and a sex tape or a feud with Nicole Richie, damn if my mind didn't go to Family Affair.
Life is cruel.

Of course, it only got worse once I stopped long enough to check the facts.

Cissy, or Kathy Garver is not, of course Kathy Richards Hilton, although Kathy Richards wanted so much to be a star. She did make it to a guest shot on Family Affair, but most of my research led me nowhere, such as this quote from Answers.com: "Kathleen may have made mistakes in her life, but she also performed many charitable acts of kindness. citation needed."  Wow, Answers, that was cheap, damning, and useless. Do you write for National Enquirer in your other life?  A much more helpful factoid comes from one of my favorite databases, IMBd that tells us that Kathy was the first runner up for the Jan Brady role. Oh the tears. (Something tells me the show would have been edgier, the jealousy scenes with Marcia, Marcia, Marcia more clawing had Kathy won the role, but we will never know.)

But all this is just a long way to get to this warning. If you get really, really rich in life, or really really powerful, or even none of the above - stay away from a lot of alcohol and whatever it is that puffs you up and wears you out because you tell me which star - Kathy Hilton or Dana Delany was born in 1955 and which in 1959 and if you go on looks alone you would be dead wrong. In fact, Hilton looks like Delany's mother in this picture. So many things go into a personality that screams "Still hungry for life!" and a pulled, mannequin looking face and matronly clothes and hats won't do it. Ew, ew, ew, ew, ew, Kathy, come on, you are too young to appear this ridiculously old. I mean, in this next photo of you and your daughter, you remind me of the Queen Mother on methamphetamines for goodness sakes.

You don't look young, with your thinning hair stringing out from under the hat and your over-priced at any price day-glo white shades and matching crunchy hat. It's nice that the pink parasol matches the pink trim on your horrible - yes, yes, yes, I'm sure I could never afford thank goodness - top, but (heaven help us I can't believe I am about to say this but) take a tip from your daughter and think simple. Sunscreen. A thin but long sleeved UVA UVB protection top that covers those forearms. And a natural color straw hat that matches your hair color, with more subtle shades. You are making your daughter look sane and that is, well, so wrong.

All this, from a 1960's sitcom and a misunderstanding. Someone give me something important to do.

Oh, and way to go, Dana.

Up For Air

February is my favorite month. Yeah, right, Valentines. No, it's because it is the month when I sink the lowest, and I never remember that it is the month that I sink the lowest. Somewhere around the third week, moisturizer no longer works, I am unicolor dull, and I internalize to my core that the concept of smiling is so last year. 

At some point in March I realize that I must reverse the downward pull to the abyss and start swimming to the top or succumb, but March doesn't win the prize. March is when the realization, planning, and hard work starts. February is the point of the end of the cycle, which in turn suggests the new cycle; and it is in the aspect of having a life cycle at all that everything seems right again.

I suppose that at some point I will stop feeling so good about the turnaround moment, the walking so near the edge, the need to remember that the year has its seasons that I have experienced and therefore I have a life in continuum. At that point I will probably move to Florida or Arizona or Italy. (Please, please, oh, reverent being, let it be Italy, with breads and olive oil and pesto and plain black dresses and simple black shoes for the old women you still respect. No golf carts, no lime green, no flamingo earrings and shelves full of conks.)

Where was I?

I have an appointment to see Chanel's Spring color line. I am getting a makeover. I haven't had one in at least nine months. Makeovers are funny. I always think I will look like a cover girl instead of the person that I am, and today is no exception. Plus the cost of the product I will inevitably buy will put me into shopping anxiety. All in all, a guaranteed let down. So why so giddy?

Because of February.

The Experiment

I'll fill you in on the beginning of the story later, after deadline, but this part is too good to let float. As part of an ongoing test on the power of The Diamond Necklace, I loaned it and a wrap knit dress from a French designer to a forty-something lawyer friend of mine. She wore it to some lawyer event. I did not hear from her the next day, or the next. On the third she returned the dress and the necklace to me, and handed me a note card. It read:

"Dear Deborah,

Once again, I must apologize for the other evening. I hope our paths cross again in the courtroom where I am most certain you will get an opportunity to put me in my place.

Sincerely . . ."

"He thought I was John's secretary," Deborah grouched, not at all amused over being considered an assistant to a colleague.

"It's not you," I told my friend who feels most comfortable in Brooks Brothers. "It's the necklace. Things happen in that necklace. Now, who else can we try this with?"

I felt a tingling near my hip bone. Some internal part was buzzing. An ovary? A fallopian tube? I wondered if cancer sends a signal like that.  I thought I was dying. Then I remembered I had put my cellphone in my suit pocket, on vibrate.  I don't know why I default to a horrible wasting disease. 

I need therapy.

On the newstands on Tuesday morning I caught a glimpse of Rosa on two papers.  The Times reported on Rosa Parks death with a spot on the bottom right of the front page.  They showed a cheery photo of a late-in-life woman. The Daily News ran her mug shot down the entire front, and in white lettering against the black page framing her photo said simply, "She refused to give up her seat to a white man and changed America Forever."  I didn't notice anything on the cover of the Wall Street Journal. I don't think Newsday readers even know who she is. 

I bought a copy of the Daily News to show my kids.  They were the rightest.

FIT, FAT & Effen' What?

Hmm, Father messaged me about a recent media piece on Forth &Towne. It's around here someplace.   

He reminded me of the Snark Hunting post, where I eventually commented, coming in at 54th, last, months late, and the least funny. Go here, and read down the list of comments. A petrie dish of characteristics: smart, silly, catty, resigned, resolute, carefree, outraged, trashy, demure.

A true collectors item.

Birthday Bash

"Oh, for crying out loud. Is that what I look like? I thought I was doing so good lately!" I moaned as I squinted into the camera viewfinder at pictures my daughter had taken of me at a cafe brunch.  In each shot I looked either mad and serious or balding with grey mash-potato features. 

"No, Mom.  You look great, really. I don't know what it is. You don't take good pictures. But you don't look like that. Honest. I see guys check you out all the time.  Its gross that they do it, you know, but they do."

So many messages. 

Every year my husband takes me away for my birthday. This year we thought we would invite the kids because it has been kind of a disjointed, separatist kind of fall.  We needed to unite.  The method remained the same, however:

We get a great hotel and never see it.
We walk and explore, exposing our guide books, maps, and cameras as if we were misplaced birdwatchers.
We spend every spare moment planning the next two hour meal, with nothing selected until five minutes before blood sugar drops dangerously low. This is inevitably followed by "We can have a table for you in 45 minutes." 
He asks me what I want to do. We do something else. 

He loves me. He is a guy, though, and guys are one strange animal. It took control freak me this many birthdays to earn a duck's back, but I think I have one now. No potential irritant is getting in under my skin anymore. Life is short and I don't look so good when I am annoyed.

Which is why, I guess, I don't get it that I looked so uptight in those photographs. I thought I was the sea of calm. 

I looked at a lot of faces this weekend. People really were the thing to do.  I sat in one bar not enjoying the taste of a $17 cocktail, when I realized that the lighting was set up so that everyone's nose was highlighted in an orange glow from above.  There was no side or underlighting capable of offsetting that overhead. I started to imagine how my face looked, but stepped aside in my head just in time. It didn't matter.  It did not matter. I was alive for another birthday, and still quite capable of doing something as dumb as ordering a $17 cocktail. 

We walked by outdoor seating full of thirty-something women.  I noticed the lines around the mouths and the droopy hair and the less than vibrant skin and realized that magazine gloss and 17 year old glow is impossible to maintain or regain, no matter how many particles we sandblast into our dead dermis. Period.  I did not cry, though. I did not come close to thinking my career was at an end.  I already knew that what we get in exchange, to wit, an appreciation for humor, an ability to multitask on 3 hours sleep, and a strange, never heralded, sense of fortress, is far more valuable.

Actually, there were two sad moments. 

My husband nodded throughout our escape dinner in an unidentified walk-up cocktail lounge we thought was such a hip find.  I could not keep him awake with any form of body contact or completely fabricated story. Then this epiphany washed over me. I was so familiar as to be boring, or more kindly put, not so exciting. I felt awkward, alone, and obligatory.  I wanted to run very far, very fast, but instead it seemed the waiter would never come with the check, forcing me to shift my focus between the black and white Fonda western playing on the bar TV and a tiny, hairless, old alcoholic couple three tables over.

Sitting for a brief moment in a gallery of modern art, I looked across a vast expanse and spotted a big-boned woman with mousy brown curly hair, wearing a blouse with a delicate floral print, blue jeans, and a fanny pack. She sat up against a stark wall, resting an ankle on her knee, leaning forward. Her fingers kept working at her sock, as if she had worn deep blisters into her sole, or maybe suffered from uncooperative hose. Her eyebrows sat straight across her forehead. There was a strength in her eyes that suggested she would rescue a child from a burning building and just as soon die in the process than do nothing at all. Now, here she sat, decidedly looking at no art and waiting for people who never came, people who never asked her what she wanted to do, people who expected her to follow.

Who knows.  Maybe this is the stuff that shows up in my photos.  The Francis Bacon part of my brain is visible on film.