Forty, Flirty and the Hottie

This year I will turn forty. I didn't notice my twentieth and the thirtieth barely notched a raised eyebrow. But this approaching birthday and all the jokes, stereotypes and baggage that it brings is giving me the pre-menopausal equivalent of hot flashes.

So what's the big deal about forty anyway? It's not the beginning of life regardless of what diehard optimists might claim. It is not the end, 'coz believe me, the way medical research is going, we are going to be extending this long miserable yet exciting experience called life by many decades. So why are my panties in such a bunch? Is it because for the first time I am looking back at what I have done and how much I managed to leave undone? Promises I made to myself that have been kept and those that have been cast aside with some self-placating excuse? Is it the fact that even if I starve for a whole day, and I mean real starving, without a morsel of food, I still don't look model thin the day after, like I used to in my 20's?

Dickens would have liked that previous sentence. Whatever. The point is, I have been feeling real blue. Restless. As if fun and excitement and real accomplishment is passing me by and I'm just twiddling my thumbs. So I pick up after the kids, yell "dinner time" or "breakfast" at different hours of the day and wonder, is this all there is?

Dear reader, if your mind is wandering in the midst of all this self-pity, fear not. I'm about to tell you the flirty and hottie part. As you know, we were in Miami on vacation and I crashed the set of a tv series. After hanging around like a teenage groupie, I managed to get a photo with the handsome lead character, played by a true hollywood hottie.

I pride myself on looking for substance, not the glitter of outer beauty. But damme if I wasn't all flushed from a close encounter with the hottie kind. Of course, all that hormone activity probably killed my brain cells. Because after the photo, all I could think of saying to this actor was "did you know there's a really good restaurant right behind your set"? So much for oratorial brilliance. He's going to remember me forever.

So there's my story. Still forty, hopefully a hottie though rather rusty with the flirty part. How do I get to Carnegie Hall? Practice, practice ;-)