I’m Scared. Please Pass the Moisturizer.

Tonight, my mom gave me a piece of advice that I think might change my life forever. She whispered in my ear a pearl of wisdom so special, I believe it can only be exchanged between a mother and a daugher at a certain time in a woman’s life.

Picture this: the two of us are at our favorite restaurant, drinking white wine and discussing the finer points of life, love, and the greater meaning of it all. We’ve just ordered the pear souffle (to share, of course), when suddenly she turns to me, looks me straight in the eye, lowers her voice and in a sage-like manner speaks the following words:

“Honey – whatever you do, take care of your neck.”

Take…care…of…my….(is this really what she said??)...neck? My mom then hands me a book titled, “I Feel Bad About My Neck” by the all-time great, Nora Ephron. “Read it,” my mom says.

So I do:

“Sometimes I go out to lunch with my girlfriends…and I look around the table and realize we’re all wearing turtleneck sweaters. Sometimes, instead, we’re all wearing scarves, like Katharine Hepburn in On Golden Pond. Sometimes we’re all wearing mandarin collars and look like a white ladies’ version of the Joy Luck Club. It’s sort of funny and it’s sort of sad, because we’re not neurotic about age—none of us lies about how old she is, for instance, and none of us dresses in a way that’s inappropriate for our years. We all look good for our age. Except for our necks.

Oh, the necks. There are chicken necks. There are turkey gobbler necks. There are elephant necks. There are necks with wattles and necks with creases that are on the verge of becoming wattles…there are necks that are an amazing combination of all of the above. According to my dermatologist, the neck starts to go at forty-three, and that’s that.”

At that point, I put down the book and picked up my moisturizer.  Enough said.

Wiis & Whoppers

For the last six weeks, my determined and perservering boyfriend has been on a relentless hunt for a Nintendo Wii. He’s searched far and wide, called every Best Best, Circuit City and Game Stop in the Rocky Mountain area, and spoken to numerous fellow-gamers about best strategies on obtaining this gaming system. This is not some casual errand-running…his efforts have touched 35 stores in the Denver metropolitan area. We’re talking major leagues here.

Today, I was feeling lucky so I accompanied him in his search. We hit up the Best Buy on Colorado Blvd as well as the Game Stop. If we had actually gotten the Wii today, you probably would’ve heard about it by now. Needless to say, we came back empty-handed, but not beaten.

At this point you’re probably thinking, “why is she so supportive of this game-playing thing? Aren’t girlfriends supposed to loathe Xboxes, Playstations, and the like?” Good question, but I’m completely behind my boyfriend’s passion for video games. Why? Because it’s making him smarter. Or at least that’s what Steven Johnson argues in his book, “Everything Bad is Good for You: How Today’s Popular Culture is Actually Making Us Smarter.”

Johnson asserts:

“For decades, we’ve worked under the assumption that mass culture follows a path declining steadily toward lowest-common-denominator standards, presumably because the ‘masses” want dumb, simple pleasures and big media companies try to give the masses what they want. .. To make sense of an episode of ’24,’ you have to integrate far more information than you would have a few decades ago watching a comparable show. Beneath the violence and the ethnic stereotypes, another trend appears: to keep up with entertainment like ’24,’ you have to pay attention, make inferences, track shifting social relationships. This is what I call the Sleeper Curve: the most debased forms of mass diversion — video games and violent television dramas and juvenile sitcoms — turn out to be nutritional after all.”

I like your arguement, Steven. I expect to hear a similar study coming from you regarding the health benefits of Whoppers, macaroni and cheese, and guacamole in the new year. I envision the book titled, “Don’t Feel Guilty for Cleaning Your Plate and Asking for Seconds: How The Highest Caloric Foods in Our Society Are Shrinking Your Thighs.”

(Smart man….)