Coming of Age Story

Over the holiday, I had that coming-of-age experience that all young ladies of Dixie must have before they reach "a certain age."

Yes, my very first trip to the family plastic surgeon's office. Okay, I won't exaggerate, it was just for something called a "glycolic peel," which is really a fancy word for a facial. The plastic surgeon (who did mom's eye job, etc.) also runs something called a "miracle spa."

And it really is miraculous. Below is me before the glycolic peel (with the new kitten, the non-ironically-named Lucky, whom my parents adopted in October, and who has pretty much replaced me in their affections)...


And here's me AFTER ....

Note that this is an UNRETOUCHED photo!!! No Photoshop trickery! See? The whole process took off, like, 25 years. It really is a miracle ....

While sitting in the plastic surgeon's waiting room with a variety of women who were probably fitting in the appointment before meeting with their attorneys about that fouth divorce, I picked up various pamphlets about rejvenating procedures. I'm reaching the age where I start to think about these things.

I picked up a brochure for a product called Restylane, which featured a smug-looking wrinkle-free woman on the cover. Her expression said, "I'm sleeping with your husband, you pathetic, wrinkled old bag."

But that wasn't the shocking part.

"... Unlike rooster-derived hyaluronic acids and bovine collagen products, Restylane is free from animal proteins. Unlike rooster-derived hyaluronic acids and bovine collagen products, Restylane is free from animal proteins."

Rooster derived??? To put this into perspective, Restylane is a "dermal filler," i.e., it's injected directly into the skin to get rid of wrinkles and what-not.

So this means that legions of middle-aged women are going around injecting rooster semen (giblets, gizzards, whatever...) into their foreheads? And then they wonder why they feel a bizarre, uncontrollable attraction to mature breeding hens.

Now, I'm not categorically opposed to plastic surgery, botox, etc. When the time comes, sign me up. I may end up looking like a trannie, like so many of the Great Ladies of Atlanta or Charleston or Jacksonville. But so be it.

But please just euthanize me if injecting rooster into my body is the only way I can get any, uh, "cock."

"What are you doing?"

"Stuff."

"Well, be ready to go in five minutes."

"Go?"

"To the luncheon."

(Does anyone "luncheon" outside of the South? Don’t they just have lunch?)

"I don’t wanna."

"Of course you do! Everyone’s dying to see you."

"Mom. They don’t even know who I am."

"Of course they do!"

"They’re all 92. They don’t even know who they are."

"Put on your shoes."

"It’s 9:30 a.m. Isn’t it a bit early for lunch?"

"They’re old. They wake up early."

"When you say the Daughters of the American Revolution, you do mean the actual daughers?"

"We’re going to be late."

"Again, ‘we’ is not the pronoun you should be using."

"Right this minute, young lady!"

If you’re anything like me, from the time you walk throught he door of your parent’s house for any holiday, there’s a kind of clock that starts ticking, waiting for the moment that you scream, much like when you were 13,"I am NOT a CHILD!!!! Sometimes this is followed by foot stamping and pouting.

This time, I lasted 23.2 hours, which is probably a record.

I’m still in Jacksonville. The school where I work is closed for two weeks (the French loves them some "vacances"), so I figured I’d stay in the South a bit longer and soak up some sun. It’s 72 degrees in Jacksonville today; around here, everyone seems to think this calls for an anorak. Sometimes it gets "really cold" (50 degrees) around here in December.

It used to be colder when we were kids, or maybe it just seemed that way. But I do remember the occasional snow flurries and icy roads driving to the thousands of holiday parties when I was little. On the upside, I suppose global warming, and all the resulting Ft. Lauderdale-like weather, has helped boost the property values here in the North Florida/South Georgia area. Better enjoy it before the whole bottom half of the country is known as "Lake Florida."

The whole holiday was actually really nice, but it has been a bit exhausting. It's been one party/luncheon/dinner after another. They say that in the South, they spend half the year planning for Christmas and the other half recovering from it. I think it'll take me at least that long.

People talk about "partying like a rock star," but what they should say is, "partying like a middle-aged suburbanite." Really. I can’t keep up. It’s been pretty much nonstop.

On the first day, we head straight to my aunt’s house for an early lunch with my cousins and their spouses and kids. These being Kennedies, there’s freeflowing booze for the cocktail hour (11:37 a.m.). After all, it’s four o’clock somewhere, darlin’…

Then, we head out to mom’s best friend’s new boyfriend’s (inhale) condo for cocktail hour #2, with something called Johnny Walker Blue and another single-malt scotch called "Glenfargus," which sounds to me like the title of some lesser-known Cohen Brothers movie.

At the risk of sounding unsophisticated (and perhaps causing my great-granddaddy from Argyle to roll over in his grave) I just don’t "get" scotch. To me, it tastes and smells like something you should be using to clean the grout in your shower. But Paul loves it. He could even tell what friggin’ part of Scotland it came from, because it was so "peaty." I don’t even know what peat is, althogh I do know it sometimes ends up in a bog. But I don’t know what a bog is either, so that doesn’t clear anything up.

It’s like these wine snobs who taste asparagus and "overtones of kiwi" and "hints of turkey pot pie" in their Pinot Noir. When you think that, it’s time to put down the glass.

Christmas eve, another party. Christmas day, we head out to the beach for a champagne reception at the hotel room of a friend visiting from Atlanta. Every night since, it's been another party, with more unbelievable food and champagne and bourbon and single-malt. The folks around here take "entertaining" very seriously. Every meal is a multi-course extravaganza that makes those people on the Food network seem like a bunch of amateurs.

There's always a floral centerpice. And candles and not-dishwasher-safe china. Not to mention the festive, seasonal napkin rings for every concievable occasion. St. Patrick's day, there are the shamrock napkin rings. Thanksgiving, little turkeys. Halloween, ghosts. Hearts for Valentine's day. My mom and her friends are all still horrified to know that I don't own any kind of napkin-restraining device. As if the napkins might just rise up and walk off the table in disgust.

It's been fun, but I'm about partied out. It’s as if a person thought she could go out and run a marathon, just because she jogs a mile every now and again. I’ve gotta get back to partying with the nice lesbian rock stars in New York. They seem like teetotalers by comparison.

Why I Wish I Had a Digital Camera

ABOVE: A Great Dane and a Chihuahua, only not the same Great Dane and Chihuahua.


An Expository Essay, by Marguerite.

I wish I had a digital camera. There are many reasons for this, but one in particular.

Earlier today, I was walking up Park Avenue, on my way home from the bookstore, when I saw a woman walking a Great Dane wearing an orange fleece hoodie (yep; the dog was wearing the hoodie; it's not just poor sentence construction). The hoodie even had pockets on it -- I guess so Marmaduke will have somewhere to put his keys.

I've seen plenty of Great Danes, but this one was easily the largest I've ever seen. You might even call it a Best Dane. A grey-haired gentleman walking by looked at the dog, then turned to me and noted, in the charming way that some older people have of pointing out painfully obvious things, "that's a big dog!" My natural reaction was, "that's not a dog, that's a guy in a dog suit!"

But it was indeed a dog. A big dog.

As I got closer, I noticed that the woman walking the Great Dane also had, in her other hand, another leash, connected to what was either a hairless guinea pig or a exceptionally tiny Chihuahua, also wearing an orange fleece hoodie, an miniature version of the one worn by the Great Dane, right down to the tiny pockets. At first, I hadn't even noticed the smaller dog, because it wasn't visible from more than, say, 10 feet away.

What strikes me about this scenerio: someone put a lot of thought (and money) into creating this tableau. This ain't just the kind of crazy idea you get while drunk, and then sober up and realize, crap! I ordered a Great Dane and a Chihuahua from the 24-Hour Dog Delivery Service! It's not like a hasty 1-800-MATTRES purchase. It's a multi-step process.

This means that one day, someone who had perhaps watched one too many sitcoms said to himself/herself, "I know! I'm gonna get the biggest frickin' dog I can possibly find! And then, I'm gonna get the smallest dog. And see if they can live together in an apartment in New York! And so nobody will mistake this for an accident of fate, I'm gonna dress them in identical outfits. With pockets."

As a result of this reasoning process, these two dogs look like urban canine lumberjacks. Like they should be on pg. 69 of the L.L. Bean Fall-Winter catalog, looking at a watch and smiling ruggedly.

The middle-aged lady who was walking the dogs wore a Burberry-style raincoat, and didn't crack a smile. From a distance, she looked bored. Up close, she seemed a bit startled to find herself on the corner of Park Avenue holding two ridiculously well-matched, inappropriately dressed dogs of vastly different sizes. I don't know if they were her dogs or someone elses'. But when you find yourself in that situation, it's a sign that your life had taken a very wrong turn.

If I had a digital camera, I could prove to you that I'm not completely insane. Well, maybe not. But I could prove that these two dogs, and their fleece sport coats and all that it implies, really does exist.