Gravity

In case you haven't figured it out...Diane Keaton doesn't wear those ubiquitous scarves around her neck to make a fashion statement.  (But she does wear a lot of white and I think that may be a fashion statement). She wears them because her neck looks like a wet sock that fell out of the washer and dried crumpled up on the floor.  A woman's neck is one of the first places that gives away her age.  You can't really fix it.

The  topic of necks was covered in an essay, in riotous detail, by the late Nora Ephron. In fact, the title of the book was - "It's a Shame About My Neck" . And , take it from me, it IS a shame.

My own personal neck has begun to show signs of wear and tear.  At this point it looks like the Sta-Puft marshmallow man.  Follow my marshmallow rings upward and you reach the skin under my chin.  I don't have a true wattle...I think you notice those most on heavier people or turkeys.  But I do have a neck issue.and the skin under my chin is loose and possibly considering life as a wattle - just not yet.

Botox and fillers cannot touch this. When I last check there was no surgery that really worked well. Turtlenecks and scarves can hide it.  My mother had a temporary fix for it.  Several years into her dementia and on the day of my niece's christening, she pulled me into the bathroom, pointed to her neck and said. "Look. Look what I did."  What she had done was take several strips of clear scotch tape, attached them to both sides of her neck and pull it taut in the back, under her hair. She had also attached tape to her jawbone on both sides and pulled that skin back to eliminate the little pouchy things that happen as your face begins to sag.. It was her version of a facelift.  Even though there was a lot of tape bunched up in the back of her neck it sort of worked  if you didn't get close enough to see the shiny reflection of light off of the tape.  From far away that looked wet - like she'd been crying and the tears had rolled in an odd direction. In hindsight I should have recommended Magic Tape because it has no shine.

Earlier this week I snapped a cell phone shot of myself to send to a friend who begged and begged me to let her see my silvery hair.  I took 19 pictures. Each one revealed this neck issue. I never sent the picture.I don't know who that old lady was but it couldn't have been me.

Maybe I have that disease where you can't recognize faces.  Brad Pitt has it. So does Oliver Sachs.  Why not me?