Be Like Barbie

Since I can’t afford plastic surgery, I’ve come up with my own inexpensive and highly effective recipe for an anti-aging mask. 

Are you ready to write this down?  I have brewed up a formula for a mask called CHRONIC NON-EXPRESSION.  It would be far simpler to whip up some egg yolks and avocado.  However, this recipe calls for a rare mix of dedication, composure and feigned nonchalance.  Remaining inexpressive is extremely difficult for me.  As I’ve been told multiple times, I have a “very active” forehead.  This is a beauty euphemism for the fact that I raise my eyebrows when I’m excited or telling a story, I squint in the sunlight, and I frown when concentrating or reading.  

Consequently, I have vowed to be a stone face.  Don’t react to any situation.  (I might add that this particular beauty tactic overlaps nicely with my teenage parenting strategy – keep calm, don’t overreact) 

“Mom, I backed the car into a snowbank and dented the fender.”   

“Mom, I have no clean clothes, I’m late and it’s all your fault!”  

Instead of using hundreds of fragile facial muscles to exercise my displeasure and probably create an unnecessary scene at home, I simply take a deep breath, relax my face and say,

 “That is unfortunate, please take the car to the body shop and determine how much this accident is going to cost you.”   or

“I am sorry that you are late and that you have to go to school naked, please get in the car at your earliest convenience so you don’t get a tardy slip.”  

Of course, if I didn’t have a teenager and a tween, I probably wouldn’t need the mask or the plastic surgery.

I blame most of my image issues (as you can tell, there are many) on time spent with Barbie when I was young.  Oh how I loved Barbie and her many wardrobe changes.  I was especially enamored with the Barbie airplane and the Barbie dream house that my neighbors owned and about which, I could only fantasize.  We spent hours dressing and undressing Barbie, making her kiss and dry hump Ken, and creating a variety of edgy hair styles using nail scissors.   I didn’t realize that throughout this seemingly benign play, I was secretly internalizing the perky, hard breasts, narrow hips, toothpick legs, one-inch waist, cancer-causing tan, long blonde extensions, and generating an impossible icon of perfection in my mind that I would strive to achieve for the rest of my life.  Come to think of it - I’m quite sure that Barbie’s single smiling expression contributed to her flawless, wrinkle free - almost plastic looking skin.

They do have a new Barbie feature that I spied in the toy store last week that might just suit my 40ish needs - Swapping Heads Barbie!  If you’ve had a crappy night’s sleep and bags under your eyes, just swap heads with another Barbie!  Get a bad haircut?  Choose a Barbie head with refreshed locks!   Botox gone wrong?  Simply choose a younger Barbie head!  I knew that Barbie would solve all of my problems one day.