My gray hairs

If you've hung out with me in person over the last month, you're no doubt groaning about the title of this post. Because you've heard it. You've seen it. You've practically communed with it. But if we're just online pals then you're still sweetly innocent and an open book upon which I can paint my woe.

I. AM. GOING. GRAY.

{sad face}

I'm not just talking one stray hair somewhere, I'm talking about a broad smattering of silvery-white hairs, speckled throughout my head.

Now this may elicit nothing more than a shrug of the shoulders from you. Which I kinda get because us women tend to obsess about the aging process all the time. We see every little wrinkle, every little blemish, every little hair out of place and then we run out and purchase expensive creams that we are convinced will reverse the aging process when, in fact, we could probably rub a jar of Vaseline into our crow's feet and get the same effect.

Going gray is kinda like that. You see a gray hair, you freak out, you color it, you move on.

I'm not moving on.

I have tried.

For some reason, this is a BIG DEAL to me. I am wholly disappointed in my body.  I'm not exactly the world's most physically vain person. It's not like I'm a girl who can't have her husband see her without make-up, or won't leave the house without mascara. I live in yoga paints most days, rarely wear make-up, and have given up heels except for parties. So, I consider myself pretty down-to-earth and, these days, practical about this skin I live in. But, still... I am not ready.

In my 30s I expected the beginnings of crow's feet, frown lines, a more squishy physique, some aches and pains, a lesser ability to survive a night on the town... I realized all of these things would creep up on me. And they have been creeping. I've noted the change. I'm not surprised.

Yet I was not expecting gray for at least another 10 years. I mean, what woman in your 30s do you ever see running around with gray hair? Ok, maybe one in those third-world countries where they've got sun-leathered skin, been through civil war, and endured starvation. Clearly, not me, however.

My point is: it's much too early.

And too much, too fast.

One minute I'm examining this odd, shiny hair catching the light at the top of my scalp, the next minute I'm staring at a bunch of them appearing throughout my hair, no matter where I part it. It was literally within the course of a few weeks that this change occurred. Literally. I do not exaggerate.

Of course, I am going to color it out. None of that box color, either. I don't want this left to chance. I need a professional and I'm off to my hairdresser next week to take care of it, don't you worry your pretty head. I just wonder what would happen if I let it grow out naturally. I mean, would I be completely gray by 40? Yikes, maybe sooner?

Part of me is curious to find out, in peculiarly masochistic way. Perhaps I could start a trend?

Yeah, ok, I'm not much of a trend setter these days. Plus, I would likely punch out the first woman who asked me how old my "granddaughter" is. (People say the most bizarre things to you when you have a kid, so I would not be surprised. I've already been asked if Daisy is adopted because she's blond. SERIOUSLY!)

No doubt, after posting this, I will get a slew of comments from women telling me all about their gray hairs in an attempt to make me feel 'normal' again. (Or not, in which case, reason to panic.) Yet, the thing about that is: if it's so freakin' normal then why am I so unprepared?

Perhaps it's because almost everyone colors their hair these days. Who really knows what natural hair color is under those highlights? Perhaps it's because the aging process is an almost taboo subject for many women? Who knows. But nobody and nothing prepared me to go gray this early.

I am sideways about this. Completely sideways.

I will put this in the box of life experiences I plan to better prepare my own daughter for. I've got a list. I'll share it some day.

Rolling and strolling in Chitown

I have had as much sleep, total, over my two days in Chicago as I normally get in one night.

Last night, after vowing to turn in at a respectable hour, I was peer-pressured (yeah, I know, boo hoo) into downing a shot of something or other and, shortly thereafter, lacked the will-power to say no when cajoled into heading to a club at 1am.

You read that right: I went to a club. And danced. Gawd, it's been a while.

I arrived back in my hotel room at 4:30 this morning which is normally when I wake up on a Friday to go to the gym. Since I had a 10am appointment at my exhibitor table, this meant I only got 4 hours of sleep. Ouch. It's 4:40 in the afternoon as I write this and I am still woozy from lack of sleep. Thank goodness I had the presence of mind to slow down on the libations after midnight or today could have been a lot worse.

Yes. It was fun, though.

I made it through this morning's meetings and then attempted to nap but, it wasn't to be. My body just doesn't like naps. I layed there for 45 minutes before resigning myself to feeling like I'd taken an overdose of cold medication all day. There was only one thing left to do: SHOP!

I switched my leather computer case out for a hand bag, threw on my walking shoes, and walked to Chicago's Miracle Mile - the equivalent of New York's 5th Avenue or London's Oxford Street. (Ok, well, it's not as cool as Oxford Street but then I am just a tad bit bias.)

I first went to Nike Town and bought a pair of cross-trainers I've wanted for a while, now that I have begun a more rigorous training regimen with my physical therapist. As luck would have it, the $120 shoes were reduced to $50. Score!

Then I meandered around various women's clothing stores, missing my shopping partner, my mum, and generally marveling at the price of things. It's been so long since I really shopped anywhere but Old Navy, so I had a bad case of sticker shock. Couldn't resist some purchases in "Zara", however. Not for myself but for Daisy and my niece, whose 4th birthday is coming up. Man that store has cute clothes for kids!

Then, as I was walking down N. Michigan towars the water and, evenutally, the hotel, I passed a "Corner Bakery and Cafe" and had to go in for a shopping break. Corner Bakeries have hands-down the best soups, salads, and sandwiches and, when I lived in Southern California, they were all over the place. Not so in Sacraghetto so a pit-stop had to be made for Roasted Tomato-Basil soup with their yummy croutons. Slurp!

Refreshed, I continued my meandering down the street and toward the water, fishing out my point-and-shoot to take pictures along the way. Here are some of them but you can see all by clicking here.















Below is Trump Tower, Chicago.


This is The House of Blues. Across the street is my hotel, the Westin, and one of those windows about 11 floors up, is my hotel room.

A sad story about Richard Gereis

There are moments in life that crystalize for you that you are no longer as young as you used to be; that you're no longer the hip, young generation. In fact, you're one of those respectable folks that teenagers would think are grown-up or even, God forbid, old.

Usually these moments are brought on by things like an aching back after a night dancing like a fool at a club too young for you, listening to the DJ and not knowing who the hell recorded half of the song sor why on earth they became so popular, and then the hangover that never now seems to last for the entire week afterwards.

Today, however, Hubby and I had one of those moments in the most bizzaro way. We were at a Starbucks and it involved Richard Gere.

Well, let me explain. Richard Gere wasn't actually there. (Shame, I know.)

We were at a Starbucks in a Target to be exact. We were there doing very adult things like purchasing formula and yet another Congratulations card for a friend who just had a baby. Truth be told we go out after work with Daisy just to get out of the house. We both have about a ninety minute time-limit on how much time we can spend watching her walk in circles around the living room, picking up and walking with the same toys. We're impatient and we hate to do housework on work nights, so we go out somewhere, anywhere, just to avoid all those mundane, responsibility-type things. (Yes, this is why my house does not look like a model home. I'm over it.)

But I digress...

So, we're ordering our mochas and lattes, when the pimply-faced boy at the cash register stopped and asks us if we know who "Richard Gereis" is. He said it exactly like that: Gere-is.

"Do you know who Richard Gereis is?"

It stopped Hubby and I in our tracks, not sure how to respond. Was this some kind of competition, I wondered, where, if we could get the right answer, we got a free latte? You know, sometimes they have those "Question of the Day" chalk boards with a different piece of a trivia for customers to guess? I actually looked for the chalk board but couldn't find one.

"Gereis?" Hubby repeated, being sure to get this "is" part in, for clarification. Of course, we had immediately jumped to he of Pretty Woman fame but, at the same time, were both wondering together, yet without collaboration, if there was some new alternative rock-band or extreme snowboarder who had come onto the scene under our radar and didn't want to appear "out of touch" by admitting our ignorance. So, we hedged our bets. Well, Hubby did, I stayed silent for the same reasons he sought clarification: I didn't want to look stupid.

"Yeah, you know, he's an actor. What movies has he been in?" the Pimplehead asked us. Again, we both looked at one another a bit puzzled.

"Do you mean Richard Gere?" Hubby said now, more confident in putting himself on that limb because the guy had at least verified that the mysterious Mr. Gereis was a movie actor.

"Um, yeah, I guess. Do you know of any movies he's been in?"

I still thought that this was some kind of quiz for a free latte, so I dove in with gusto. "An Officer and a Gentleman!" I almost yelled, determined to save my $3.50. Pimplehead looked at us with a blank expression. I realized with growing horror that he had no idea what I was talking about. "Pretty Woman??" we both offered-up, less enthusiastically.

It took him a moment but he finally seemed to have a flash of recognition. "Oh yeah, I think I remember the guy in that," he said.

You think you remember "the guy"??? Seriously? I was so stunned that it took a while for my old, slow brain to realize that, not only did this kid not know who Richard Gere/Gereis is but that iconic movies that were indelibly inked into my teenage psyche, didn't even exist for him. It was almost as though he was inquiring about some long-gone movie star from the silent era and, worse still, he thought that Hubby and I looked suitably old enough to know who the ancient Mr. Gereis is (or, presumably from pimplehead's perspective, potentially even "was!")

So, there it was. No free latte prize. In fact, the reward for our knowledge was somewhat unwelcome: a sinking feeling that we were old, unhip, and outdated; the realization that someone we considered to be "contemporary" is actually now so virtually irrelevant in popular culture that the "younger generation" (gulp) have no idea who he is.

If you're wondering why he was asking, by the way, it was because a customer before us (presumably someone of a similar age) told the female barista that she had eyes like Richard Gere (which she didn't.)

And why "Gereis"? The only conclusion I can reach is that the customer in question asked the girl if she knew who "Richard Gere is" and she, in all her youthful ignorance, had heard "Richard Gereis".

Sigh... Wasn't Pretty Woman like, just a couple of years ago or something?

Turns out, not so much. Pretty Woman was released a wopping 20 years ago, which explains why pimplehead missed it - he was probably just getting out of diapers. In fact, if I am off on his age by a few years, it's possible that he hadn't even yet been conceived. Worse still, An Officer and a Gentleman, is now celebrating the (gulp) 28th year of it's release.

Hubby and I are somewhat shell-shocked, although we did joke on the way home that it was probably just as well we didn't ask the kid if he'd ever heard the story about the gerbil...
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2/3/10 - edited to add

Hubby bought a burger at Carl’s Jr today and the chick working the register commented that his picture on his debit card didn’t look like him. He said “I know, I’m getting old”, and she laughed. Then he said “a young kid asked me who Richard Gere was yesterday”, and she said “who’s Richard Gere?”.