ICYMI: Come write with me! We recently launched a No Country for Old Women writing group with daily writing hours! I’m leading several sessions a week at an array of different times (working on my new book while I do) and will be offering workshops on topics like writing book proposals soon.
At the beginning of the year, I started answering skincare questions with a Monday Mailbag column, then I abandoned it for no real reason except that life was really fucking with me from summer ‘25 - summer ‘26, messing with my heart/head/schedule enough that I couldn’t come close to the calendar blocking/tomato timing required for my ADHD brain to get anything done with any consistency (ASK ME ABOUT MY CURRENT CALENDAR COLOR CODING), but this morning I realized I want to bring it back.
I once talked with the great Alexandra Auder about how aging seems to go in weird waves, like you look the same for a while and then all of a sudden you spot yourself in a mirror and what you see appears MUCH OLDER than what you remembered seeing just yesterday and you temporarily freak out but then you settle into that new face until it happens again.
In the freak-out moments, I always fantasize about dramatic interventions; I pull my face this way and that, watch 400 plastic surgery before-and-after Reels, search “non-invasive neck lift without facelift possible?”
But then I remember I actually want to be a person who’s OK with watching myself age — and that most of what I’m doing is just slowing the process down enough so my self-acceptance can catch up with this innermost desire. Usually, during this time, I book a laser appointment, which temporarily enlivens/youthifies my face to just the degree that I forget about it for a few months.
Probably like you, my feelings about aging are not only complex but constantly shifting. Perhaps unlike you, at this point, I’m essentially a scholar on what works and what doesn’t on human skin once our collagen and elastin levels fall off a cliff.
And I want to share! Send me your questions (in the comments, over DM, or on this here —new! — thread) about balding brows/sagging jowls, brown spots, thinning hair, undereye bags, and the like (or about publishing/shopping/whatever!)
I’ll start answering again next week.
Happy Monday, everyone. Hope it’s off to a good start.
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