man, am i out of it!

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Like I say, I'm on the mend at last. Hormones of various flavors, essential vitamins and some goddam oxygen to my brain at night. The gawdawful bleedy spots all over my body are healing. The vexing fullness under my chin is almost gone. My hair is much less like straw and a lot more like hair. Heck, I just swept off Trish and Scott's back deck! And I cleaned their kitchen last night. Their thousands of cats turn out really only to be three. Who knew?

It has been noted over the course of my life that I am "like a finely tuned high performance vehicle... with a loose steering wheel" and it is a fact that I have marveled over the power of hormones many's the time. In my late thirties, I would fight urges to pull my geriatric dentist into the chair with me when I was ovulating. My brain may not have wanted kids but my body was a sociopath behind getting her "needs" met. My brain won... but it was mortal combat every month.

Oh! Have I mentioned that they never devised birth control that could defeat my body? Vasectomy is the kindest way anyway. So. Well. Of course, menopause would not be mild. Nossirreebob. Ms. 100% Natural ran into the women's health center one day, literally bellowing, "Help! Help! Help! Help me!" Gynecologists came pouring out of examination rooms with their prescription pads at the ready. It must have happened before.

Well. I thought all that was behind me. Eh-vidently not. Seems the skinbag will not do without. I'm feeling so much better but my face is desperately dry... to the point where it hurts.

I used to make my own skin care products. Some never determined substance that is common in frufru things and soaps makes me break out in whole pastures of billions and billions of yitsy bitty bumps. You can't even see them they are so small, but they drive me wild and they feel awful. So I don't go there. Well, strictly speaking, I never went there anyway. Girlfriends were always trying to use me as a test subject for their big ideas, and treating me as though I were a charity case in the makeup department. So when my skin started yelling for a little help somewhere in my forties, I started fooling around in my kitchen, throwing things into the pot that I knew were good for your skin. I had this stuff I made with beeswax and bergamot I called my Terrible Beauty Cream. The neighbor ladies kept angling for more batches.... They were hollering for me to start my own business. I said, "Well, give me the seed money and you have a deal."

Now I find out someone's made a big honking international sensation out of pretty much my bag. L'Occitane. They're everywhere! While I was trying to accomplish as many as I could of my little mandatory chores for trips to the "real world" yesterday, waiting for the fear to creep into the stonewallers at the Honda dealer's, I went to the Village Shopping Center nearby. You never know what new outlets of ultimate chicdom will await you there. They come and they go. Nordstrom, Macy's, Williams-Sonoma, The Gap and Banana Republic are about all you can rely on as constants at that shopping center. The rest is a kaleidoscopic array of ultra-hip designer boutiques and now they even have a walk-in laser treatment spa there. That's where a clerk put me onto the possibility of 100% natural face cream at l'Occitane.

They were having a promotional gig. I got some good goop, and they threw in a skin toner spritz and some eye cream in a cute little canvas bag for free. Such a deal. I was grumbling to myself as I left the store that if they had any decent health food stores where I live I could be doing this myself again... but pretty much enjoying the little canvas bag anyway.

You understand, this is about the tenth or twentieth multi-billion-dollar business I dreamed up myself before someone else went out and actually made those multi-billions.

This is yet another way my wealthy gentleman would not be sorry to have me. Problem is: a socialist might not be very interested in this aspect... but... the fallback quietly-capitalist gentleman could not help but love it....