Mirror, Mirror, on the wall...

Our cable isn’t working properly.  If all systems were go, I would have scanned the cable guide and landed on some fabulously mindless reality tv – a lullaby by which to sleep.  But the cable isn’t working so I played roulette with the remote control and landed by pure accident on a movie channel playing a film a worked on early in my career.  It’s sort of famous, really, and though I almost never reference my work in this blog it would be hard to convey the shock of my night without at least pointing out that this particular film was wildly successful and much referenced. 

What was most fascinating was not watching the film for the first time in almost fifteen years – although it has certainly been at least that long since I last saw it in full.  Nor was the most fascinating thing how well the film held up – the technique and story are superior.  Nope.  What was most fascinating was how young the actors looked.  I turned to Sig Other at one point and said, “my God, look how young they are!”  And it occurred to me in that moment that if they looked young – if those men who spent thousands – maybe tens of thousands – on doctors and facialists and treatments and creams to stay young – if those men looked wildly different to me today than they did then, what must I look like?  How old do I look?  Oh my god – am I a hag?  Cuz those guys on the screen, those lovely, smooth skinned men now look really, really old and wrinkly to me.

Sig Other, in his infinite wisdom, assured me that looking the same as I looked fifteen years ago was not necessarily a good thing and in fact, some things look better with age.  And I suppose that is true.  I do stare longingly at my lemon trees wishing they had the stocky trunks and sturdy structure of those more mature.  But I’m hard pressed to think of other great examples of things that are young that I wish to grow old.  Ok, so my lemon trees.  And a bottle or two of wine in my closet.  Sig Other grows more handsome by the day.  But not my dogs, not my children and not me.  Younger is better.  Almost all of the time.