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More Common Annoyances of Older People

The Invisibility Cloak: The invisibility problem may start shortly after your first face lift starts to sag and/or when you lose your hormones and you find that your dewy good looks are replaced by the unattractive look of the arroyo-laced Mojave. Along with this comes the perceived notion that men are looking through you, not at you. This invisibility happens pretty exclusively to women, not so much to men, witness old, wrinkly (rich) men like Hugh Hefner marrying nubile young women who are spewing fountains of estrogen. The Old Boy's Club seems to protect men from experiencing the invisibility problem because we all know and have tacitly agreed that men possess that special organ for thinking, wheel making, tool using, going to The Home Depot and catching the attention of young things while the older ladies possess only empty storage units.

For the ladies, the Invisibility Cloak consists of feeling unseen by younger men or even worse, being gently and kindly treated with a creepy unctuousness by a clerk at The Home Depot. Say you are looking for Phillips head screws for that board on your back deck that sticks up and trips you headlong into your grill. Finally, that someone with special sight at The Home Depot miraculously pierces your aging Invisibility Cloak and notices that you are wandering, lost, in aisle 10 amongst a million screws which, by now, are all blurry and you are panicking. You then realize that he is treating you like a very old dog.

This overly solicitous attention, number one, feels almost feebleminded, and, two, it's the psychic equivalent of being petted roughly on the head, like the aforementioned very old dog, and the energy coming at you from this patronizing and creepy niceness feels like a dark swirling miasma orchestrated by Darth Vader. You find yourself looking at the clerk with the wide-eyed, unblinking, cocked and bobble- headed questioning mien of an alien just out of the spacecraft and looking upon Los Angeles for the first time. This uncomfortable energy practically blows you off your feet and into the paint roller bin. And yes, now you certainly do look old and unhinged.

This whole encounter is not a pleasant thing for you and you think longingly about the green-jacketed older men at McGuckin's who seem to be retired and work there because they want to. Furthermore, there is one every time you turn around and that's nice. You make an about face out of Home Depot without the screws for the deck and go straight to McGuckin's where the screws will be twice as expensive but all the older gentlemen in the green jackets are much kinder to you and don't look through you. And they actually engage you in normal conversation.

Or: You are an attractive woman. You used to turn a head or two even in your thirties and forties (not that you cared). You took this adulation for granted. Now you are older and now you are invisible. You turn no heads anymore (not that you care) and when you do  like when you are in your car with your windows up and are 50 feet away - the first glance from the cute man will be one of interest, like it used to be, but by the second glance you notice that the initial interest suddenly turns into an obvious WTF situation and he quickly looks away. Not that you care. Then you remember how old you are and become pathetically grateful for this unexpected if not ill-begotten gift - like an amuse bouche offered at a fancy restaurant - because the young male adulation was nice for a 1/10 of a second. Not that you cared.

Reflection Angst: Sadly, this is the one place where The Invisibility Cloak is not in operation. You accidentally notice your reflection in the store window. First of all you wonder who that old person is, the one who is wearing your pink Vail visor. After you have recognized that the old person is you and have wiped away your tears, you then tell yourself to throw those shoulders back! Stand up straight! Squeeze the lemon between your shoulder blades! And suck in that stomach! Also, you vow to stop holding your hands in that funny weird praying position on top of your stomach.

Maybe we should talk now about keeping our skin as healthy and as youthful as possible and for as long as possible. My readers are smart, so you already know that huge amounts of expensive creams slathered on your face plus a facial a week will not be nearly enough to retard the ravages of aging. It all starts with your diet. Plus great gobs of water. Here are some foods to concentrate on, all of which are great for the skin: Apples, Pears, Blueberries, Grapefruit, Avocados, Olives, Coconut, Cinnamon, Chile peppers; Flax, Pumpkin, Sunflower and Sesame seeds; Dried Beans, Buckwheat, Low Fat Greek Yogurts, and all Veggies, the more colorful the better.

Here are some wonderful supplements for your skin, most of which I take: Alpha or R Lipoic, tocotrienols, Q100, minerals, ascorbyl palmitate and the omegas. And, let's not forget carnosine, the Adele of the nutritional supplement world. But unlike our latest pop stars and their 15 minutes of fame, this new supplement is here to stay as it is already backed by tons of research. (Newsletter, June 5, 2012). Carnosine is a great anti-aging supplement in that it keeps your skin supple and reduces fine lines and wrinkles. It is also great for your eyes and your mind.

Many of you have asked how I deal with my skin - other than the diet and supplements I have already mentioned - so here is the regime I use on my aging, dry-ish, Irish-y, kind of freckle-y skin. Skins are different, so you may not have the luck I have had with what I use: I have used Hauschka Cleansing Cream forever, maybe 5 days a week in the shower. Then Perricone's Gentle Cleanser soap and his Toner after that. I always put on SkinCeuticals C E Ferulic Serum right on my clean skin, and currently I follow up with Crème de la Mer Moisturizing Cream. Actually, I have a few moisturizers that I rotate. You guessed right  most of these are not organic and most contain chemicals. I have tried all of the organic, healthy creams and they simply do not do the job for me. Vanity and the occasional amuse bouche wins out with this one.

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