Pushing Past Seventy and Looking for Love

  LEARNING TO LOVE THE ARMS I ONCE HATED   When my daughter was 12 years old, her best friend said “You know, I really really hate my thumbs!” Hopefully she was kidding, but you never know. On that day I could not have predicted that eventually I would end up hating my arms. Those super strong and useful, once beautiful arms, have ended up as these skinny things that are wrinkly, crepey, cellulite ridden with batwing like tendencies. The emotions generated by this sorrowful state of affairs have run the gamut between fury, misery, and despair.   At the root of it all is the fear that no man will ever want to touch these monstrosities.   However in my efforts to become a tad more mature about my sense of urgent need to fix everything about myself, I have learned I can choose to be happy I have this particular challenge, as New Agey as that might sound.   And not only is my issue a “first world problem”, but   also there are supremely healthy acti...

    PLEASE DON’T LET MY DAUGHTER READ THIS   I have a shit ton of boyfriends and I’m not even kidding. The best part is that some of them even appear real. I mean, I’ve actually heard their voices on the phone. And one I’ve met in person. I call him Guy in Elevator. The dating app I now use is Tinder. Many say Tinder is only for “hook-ups”. Who really knows? But at the end of the day, isn’t that the end goal of all dating? We date, we mate. So, apart from Guy in Elevator, there is Sexy Bulgarian Architect, or Hit Man, not sure. But since communicating with him, it appears that some viruses have infected my phone. Bulgarian men are dissected on www.onlineforlove.com, with many positive attributes discussed. The website says Bulgarian men “…might look strong and rough, even dangerous sometimes, but this is just physical and deep down they have good hearts and are good people”. My Bulgarian’s accent and hesitant use of English is endearing. And yet, possibly, he ...

  Love and Danger in the Wild Wild West  A few years back I lived in Scottsdale Arizona, a beautiful crazy ass place that is a biological Ecotone. A place continuously witnessing transitions between different communities: human, plant, animal, geographical formations, and so on. Once a desert town, Scottsdale is now replete with palm trees, golf courses, swimming pools, and hot tubs. My home was within striking distance of wonderfully named places such as Paradise Valley, Cave Creek, and Surprise. A variety of men with unusual personalities abounded on Match.com. But none was more unique than the outlaw dentist Dave I briefly dated, although at least two came a close second. I’ll start the story by telling “y’all” that multitudes of dentists work in Arizona without licenses, many of them having to go on the run when the law tried catching up with them. Dave, my dentist friend, slept four hours a night and looked as if he struggled with anorexia. He told me he hiked C...

  A NOT SO BEAUTIFUL OBSESSION I want to marry my plastic surgeon. Ooops, I mean my friend’s plastic surgeon. I’ve never had any work done, of course, apart from a little lift under my eyes, which was medically necessary. Too much fluid had accumulated in my eye bag area. There was concern the skin would burst. No, really, that’s a thing! My friend is the beautiful LeAnn, who, at a young age, had a benign brain tumor. The tumor removal left one side of her face drooping. Her surgeon, Dr. H, specializes in restoring facial movement for patients with weakness or paralysis of the muscles of the face resulting from cancers, strokes and tumors. These weaknesses result in patients not being able to smile or close their eyes. I took LeAnn to her first consult with Dr. H. All kinds of people were pouring into the waiting room (which, in itself, is a work of beauty, with its stunning floor to ceiling windows overlooking Boston’s Charles River). Some of the patients had faces that were all b...

  The Ever So Human Infatuation With Beauty   Is this infatuation a design flaw or planned obsolescence?   Does beauty truly serve as a deciding factor in positively moving the species forward, is Mother Nature actually that shallow? Or is our fascination just a huge evolutionary mistake? After all, physical characteristics denote nothing about capabilities or inner qualities. So if natural selection is selecting the wrong traits, what does this say about us as a species?   Many people get stuck in thinking they are not good looking enough, some people get stuck in thinking their looks will open any door, regardless of skill or effort. Thoughts and feelings about physical appearance have ripple effects. One woman I know pushed her adopted daughter into modeling because she, herself, had never felt pretty or popular and wanted to experience these through her daughter. My friend was smart, funny, and a talented writer and business woman, but still her early teena...

DOES YOUR DAUGHTER KNOW YOU ARE GOING OUT DRESSED LIKE THAT Out and about pandemic style, I’m wearing a four layer mask (two coffee filters squished into a double cloth mask). My eyes are extravagantly made up, as in false eyelashes and liquid eyeliner. Meg, my voluptuous two dates per weekend friend and I are visiting the local watering hole. As we pull up to the destination, we noticed that snow is slowly accumulating. Getting out of the car and heading inside, we think safety, not sexy. Meg’s arm was in a sling, thanks to a recent fall.   And I was using a cane, having had a fall two weeks ago that gave me a concussion. We walked, holding onto each other for dear life, and cackled. Cackled, not laughed or giggled.   None of our children or grandchildren would be happy with what we were up to, but they also would not be surprised. Once inside we commandeered a socially distanced high top and ordered drinks. I ordered a Mom-Tini, a weak martini in a very tall glass with lot...