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My Profile
Retro-retrospection - 2008-10-06
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12:42 p.m. - 2003-08-02
A while back Simply Red sent me WONDERFUL 5 Questions. I open the file and mull them quite a bit, but haven't yet gathered my thoughts and completely recorded my answers. I was going to this morning, but... Red, darling, I'm getting there, because really you asked me some dynamite stuff, but I’m too dippy and chipper today to do them justice. Here’s why. I'm not really good with hair styling products. This is odd really because I'm like the heir of Max Factor with the other girlie goos and potions. Such a deft hand with a contour stick that I could give a bowling ball cheek bones. I love make-up and am good with it, but with my hair it's always been about having the proper cut and color rather than making a great hair-do with some mousse and a curling iron. When my hair was long I usually wore it braided in some way or kept it off my face with an Alice band or some side combs. The page boy years were easy enough, a blow-dry with a round brush. When I was a punk my hair stood up in fashionable tufts and points simply because it was too short to do otherwise. My punk and New Wave friends would go nuts with mega-gel and even wood glue to achieve their London Calling/Flock of Seagulls hair and I'd just towel dry my candy colored buzz cut and go. Right now my hair is pretty short, chopped and razored across the crown and clipped tightly along the back and sides. Left on its own, the cut dries in a soccer mom layered job. YAWN! I am definitely too cool for soccer mom hair. I am teaching myself the intricacies of hair “sculpting”. Zee’s shown me some and has passed on several weights and types of hair junk, and I’ve been experimenting on my own. It’s still mostly hit and miss on any given day whether my head looks good though. About half the time I end up trudging back to the can and wetting the whole mess down and combing it tidy. But sometimes luck is with me and I achieve a spectacular Madame Hooch ‘do. Last night was such a one. I wanted to see “American Wedding”, the last in the “American Pie” series. The first two reduce me to helpless giggles every time. Gross, juvenile, stupid, degrading, asinine, tasteless, apply any and all of these as you will, they’re true, but I love the “American Pie” movies anyhow. Maybe even BECAUSE they are so lowbrow. If I’m going to visit an intellectual slum, well then, baby, I’m gonna hit the slummiest. “American Wedding” was pretty bad and missed the mark on the gleeful, yet somehow innocent sexual high jinks of the previous “Pie” movies, and not once did anyone say, “And this one time at band camp...”, but seeing Jim and his dad again was nice. Mike’s favorite guy is Stifler and he was happy because this third installment might have been subtitled “Stifler Steals the Show”. And not since “Pink Flamingos” has eating dog crap figured so prominently in a feature length film. Yeah, “American Wedding” stooped to such drastic gross-out lows. I knew we’d have to get to the mall early to get tix. Opening night is always a frantic scramble for admission, especially for something aimed at the teenage customer. I chivvied Mike into getting ready quickly and was pleased as punch over how great my hair came out. I dressed to match my hair, eschewing the dumpy frump clothing and donning my tightest hip huggers and a slinky clingy long sleeved tee. Mike actually whistled when I came out of my room. Yeah, it doesn’t happen often anymore, but sometimes I still got it. So it was with a light heart I set off with my honey for a movie date. We bought the tix and had about an hour to kill before the show. I wanted to make another raid on FYE’s video section and Mike played bearer boy while I loaded him down with a stack of $4.99 and under goodies. At the check-out the girl asked, “Aren’t you Wolf’s parents?” Startled me. Had my little Wolf become so notorious already? Had he made such a scene during the field trip that afternoon that even the clerks at the FYE (which is across from the food court) knew him by name? But then how did this young woman know he belonged to us? Turns out that she is one of the classroom assistants in Wolf’s summer school class and the gig at FYE is a second job. She recognized us from a visit Mike and I had made to drop off snacks. (Parents take turns supplying the afternoon snack a week at a shot. For our week we brought in a bag of apples, a huge tub of Goldfish, and a case of juice boxes. Not great, but nutritionally sounder than the Kool-Ade and miniature Snickers sent in by another kid’s folks. Yeah, yeah, I’m a food Nazi Mom.) The young woman had many nice things to say about Wolf and a couple rueful ones about the new dynamic duo of Wolf and Justin. It seems these two have become quite the pair and are giving the teachers and monitors fits with their antics. And they are equally to blame, I’ll fess up and admit my youngin is no innocent led astray by a bad companion. Wolf is Trouble with a capital “T” when he wants to be and having a partner is crime just makes him all the more obnoxious. She also gave us an unconscious compliment when I asked if she was returning to college soon and when she said yes, I told her about Alex leaving for campus too. Her eyes got round and she gargled, “Wolf’s brother is old enough for college? Wow, I’d have never known it from seeing you two!” Heeeeee! And that wasn’t the only compliment of that sort I got last night. Just as we left FYE a guy stopped Mike to say hi. Someone Mike used to work with, they shot the shit for a few about the old job and “What ever happened to..” stuff. During the convo the guy’s wife joined us. Intros all around and she and I made wife talk. Yes, we have two boys, a 6 year old and an 18 year old. Again the round eyes and a remark about how I must have been a child bride or something. A thousand kisses on your fair brow, m’lady. A far kinder thing to hear than the one I got the other day about how adorable my GRANDSON (Wolf) was. This has happened several times and it’s only the rule of law that keeps me from smacking people who say it. Those grandchild “compliments” depress the shit out of me. Just another reason I continually struggle to have cool hair. The grandchild remarks inevitably come when I’m frumped out in my baggy jeans and soccer mom ‘do. Before and after the show I was hailed several times by youngins in the crowd. “Hi, Mrs. Sage!” “Hey, Mrs. Sage, how’s it going?” “Yo! Mrs. Sage, it’s me, Andrew!” I know I sound like a big headed jerk, but I couldn’t help but be tickled. Each time I overheard muttered sidebars like, “Yeah, can you believe it? That’s Alex’s MOM.” and “Dude, who’s the MILF?” What can I say? I’m a compliment whore. When you’re fair, fat and 40, being thought a babe is a rare and treasured thing. I spend so much of my time these days being a cripple or just another faceless blob, an invisible cow frau, that a good hair day can perk me up for weeks. Riding high, ~LA
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