When you're past your 40th birthday

IT had been a most unusual day.

I woke up rather early, at 5 am, and couldn’t go back to sleep. I watched Cate Blanchett’s Elizabeth: The Golden Age while waiting for Sis to wake up so we could have breakfast. Usually, it is she who wakes up early and eats breakfast while she leaves me alone lolling in Dreamland.

We were in Boracay with Pangs for my birthday last weekend and even before we arrived, the island had been suffering from a spot of unusual weather, battered as we were by strong gusty winds and intermittent rainshowers. Phooey!

There were hardly any people awake as we went down to the resort’s restaurant for our morning meal. We plunked down in an empty cabana, and I stared at the breakfast menu for the first time in three days since we arrived.

After giving out our food orders, we stared at the dark heavy clouds and shuddered in the cold winds. I wondered when I would ever get to swim in the beach and if the sun would ever sneak a peek from behind those billows in the sky. Then the faint strains of some groovy ’70s Motown music started wafting through the restaurant speakers, feel-good doo-wops that my older siblings were singing and dancing to back when I still toddled behind them. Sis and I were like, “Wowwww!” Suddenly the gray morning didn’t look so bad anymore.

As The Moments’ “Love on a Two-way Street” played away, we heartily dug into our bangus belly à la pobre and beef lugao. We swayed and sung along as we laughed and exchanged stories. We were amused at how these songs from our childhood, tunes from Pangs’s CD as we later found out, just put us in a freakishly good mood. They just made us feel that everything was perfect and all right in the world. Stories of Benjamin Abalos and his $130-million cut, the raging controversy on the ZTE-NBN deal, just seemed so far away. It was as if these songs held a promise of better things to come.

We were not disappointed. As soon as we were done with our meal and finished with our coffee, the pillow-like gray clouds began to part, and the sun’s rays finally broke through. Yay! The powdery white sand was finally dotted with shadows from the beach umbrellas, the tables and chairs, and the people walking. Salamat, Lord!

Still, the waters were just much too cold for swimming. I froze my hefty buns off as soon as I set them down on the water, which made me instantly leap up and run back to shore. Brrrr!

But when you get to be my age -- for the record, it is 23 forever -- you learn to appreciate the small stuff. At least the sun was out, and although shaded by a huge beach umbrella as I lounged on the beach bed, I was enjoying a mild dose of vitamin D. I read my magazine, spied on the young gorgeous European hunks nearby playing volleyball, and sipped on my cool mango shake...what more could I ask for?

I take my birthdays very seriously. It is usually a time for me to offer up my thanks to the Great Almighty above for all the blessings in the past year, as I look forward to another one full of exciting possibilities. It’s just like celebrating the New Year, as my reflections take on a more individual, closer-to-the-soul note.

Unfortunately, there are certain realities one cannot escape as one rushes past 40.

Like, no matter how my brain thinks I’m still in my 20s or 30s, there are just some days I wake up in the morning with the wind whistling through my bones. I am creaky all over and feel too tired to get up. Of course, my age is also an advantage, because this is probably the only time in my life when I can actually declare that, fudge all that! I shall stay in bed the entire day! If I were in my 20s and 30s, I’d still get up, despite a hangover or a fluish condition, and haul my carcass to the office.

I can’t hold my liquor as long as I used to. Time was when I could start drinking from 6 pm until 4 am the next morning, and still go to work the next morning. These days, three glasses of red wine is cutting it too close and the sulfites in my drink will deaden my brain right up to next day. (Again, staying in bed is usually the solution.)

My forehead has two fine horizontal lines and I have dark spots on my cheek that refuse to go away. No matter how many anti-aging creams I slather on my face, they just sit there staring back at me from the mirror. Unfortunately, my unpredictable cash flow won’t pay for any Botox injections. Besides, I’m a coward when it comes to needles and even if I had more financial resources, I will probably spend the money on traveling and good food rather than on my face.

I am now prone to allergies. For some strange reason, some food or beverages which I had no problem ingesting only a few years ago, now give me a rash or a headache. Take cheese, for example: I used to eat all my favorite nutty and intense varieties at any time and any day. But now, I noticed that as my period approaches (excuse me, gentlemen), eating cheese gives me a migraine. Added to that, the migraines sneak up on me more often than they used to.

And as I mentioned in this space two weeks ago, I am now on maintenance pills to restrain my hypertension, a legacy from both sides of my parents’ families. Thanks to mom and dad, I have to watch what I eat, making sure I stay away from Aling Mila’s lechon and Two Seasons Resort’s sinfully good Crispy Rack of Pork and Char Shiu Rice forever. I cannot afford to miss a single class of yoga, otherwise my blood pressure may start hiking up a treacherous path.

(UPDATE: Three days ago, my doc took me off the anti-hypertension meds, pronouncing me in the pink of health...well, almost. Just need to exercise more. But at least, this is one reason to feel good on this birthday.)

To top it all, I hate exercising, and any effort spent on a treadmill or stationary bike makes me feel cheap. I love my body and I’m happy with it, but somehow I still feel I need to conform to society’s standards of beauty and wellness.

I don’t have the patience to read books anymore. A bookworm since I knew how to read, I now can’t sit still through three pages of any novel, no matter how high up it was on the New York Times bestseller list, without my mind wandering off somewhere. I think of my schedule for the entire week, the recipe I’ll be using at dinner, or what I’ll wear to an interview I’m conducting the next day. Maybe it’s because I already do a lot of reading on the Internet that having pages of printed words on paper just doesn’t hold my attention anymore as staring at my computer. If I do read a book, it is usually a biography or a collection of short stories. My favorite reading materials now are magazines -- Vanity Fair, Gourmet, Travel + Leisure, Interiors.

Finally, I want someone to come home to other than the mother and the maid. It doesn’t matter if it’s a man or a pet. There are just days when you want to cuddle with someone because you are feeling awful and need to feel secure or comforted. Or just do the nasty with every night. Because Johnny Depp is already hitched to that beyootch Vanessa Paradis, I might have to get a cat instead.

But in all things, I take the bad with the good. You can’t have a happy sunny morning without going through some voluminous rainclouds first. So, thank you, Lord! Thanks for another fabulous birthday in Boracay with my best buddies. Thanks for those relaxing massages I got. Thanks for that gorgeous birthday spread and for all the lovely meals we enjoyed. To all those who remembered my birthday and took the time to greet me, Bless you all! It feels great to be alive and well, the sometimes creaky bones notwithstanding.

The ultimate reality bite: It’s the little things in life that count the most and make me happy.

(My column, Something Like Life, is published every Friday in the Life section of the BusinessMirror. Photo from BusinessMirror.)

The ‘Manang’ Diaries (With Apologies to Francine)

Something Like Life
July 20, 2007

INSPIRED by my colleague’s piece on her experience with her son’s nanny, I am moved to write about domestic help and our relationships with them. And also because we have a new girl staying with us.

I remember growing up with domestic help – we called them “maids” back then – who spoke English clearly, were clean in body and around the house as well, and had enough common sense to react appropriately in any given situation. They often stayed with the family until they got married, and had that now-elusive quality of malasakit, or concern, toward their employers and their children.

Almost everyone I know has one or two favorite memories of their family’s domestic help. Perhaps this is due to the fact that these helpers, if they stay long enough, often turn out to become part of one’s family as well. Although they perform household services, they are treated the same as one’s next of kin and, in some celebrated cases among the upper crust, even inherit more money than their employer’s own children because of their undying affection and loyalty.

(Remember how Will & Grace parodies the relationship between employer and maid with Karen and her Rosario always throwing sarcastic lines at each other, tormenting each other with their cruel and unusual treatments, but actually can’t live without each other.)

To me, the househelp were ate or manang out of respect as they were much older than me. (It was ate, as well for a gay househelp – much to the chagrin of my father whom I suspect was a tad homophobic, and also because he tired out his lungs calling for “her” while it took her forever to use the rest room out back. I remember ate fondly for wearing red shorts around the house, which she cleaned to an almost Tide-sparkling white perfection!)

As a child with parents always out of the house, one tends to be attached to the househelp. With no one around, I would sometimes sneak off to eat with them (which is how I learned to love tuyo/daing and sinangag) or hang around with them watching the afternoon soap operas or a Nora Aunor flick (which is also probably why I am an Ate Guy fan to this day). In fact, I remember bawling my eyes out after I saw the Superstar “die” then slowly walk up the steps to heaven in a swirl of clouds and hallelujah choruses. I can never live that crying fit down and to this day, I am teased by my family about this sordid episode.

Except for one or two bad eggs and the occasional run-ins with my aging grandmother who was used to overseeing household operations like an office manager, most of our domestic help, including nannies and drivers, had pleasant relationships with my family. I remember Christmas especially, because it was a big thing for all of us and the househelp were also given their presents, usually pretty clothes or bonuses, in reward for their outstanding work and loyalty to the family. They, too, would share in our Christmas feast, except for the queso de bola which most of them found nauseating much to our amusement.

But those who grew up with domestic help surely will have already noticed that the quality of those now in their employ no longer measures up to those who performed such excellent services 10 to 20 years ago.

It just seemed that overnight, there were no longer any intelligent, hardworking and caring domestic help to hire. With the economy in crisis after crisis, I assume many of these girls from the provinces turned to other employment opportunities to make a faster buck and keep their families afloat. If these girls didn’t become prostitutes in Malate and Ermita, they went on to become dancers in Japan or worked as domestics/nannies in Singapore, Hong Kong and the Middle East.

According to the owner of an employment agency for domestic help, stay-in, all-around domestic help are paid a starting salary of P3,000 a month up to P6,000, depending on their level of skills and intelligence. Some of those in the upper bracket can speak English, have worked abroad, and know their way with a computer or have taken baking/cooking lessons. She said that she even had an applicant with an international driver’s license, o ha?! I began consulting with the employment agency after I found it necessary to have someone to stay with my aging parents, considering that my work often takes me out of the house and even out of the country.

But if you think about it, what is P3,000 worth these days? It isn’t even enough to pay for a househelp’s basic necessities, much less the baon for her children if they are at school. In comparison, domestic helpers are paid about HK$6000 in Hong Kong, or about P37,000!

So I’m not surprised about the dearth in good househelp these days. The employment agency already brought in three applicants for my mother to interview and they were either DUH! (you know the kind, glazed look and all?), had a touch of arrogance for having worked abroad already, or just didn’t return.

Right now we’re trying out a new girl – the sister of a former househelp – who needs the work to support her toddler. She is an unwed mother, which would probably explain her often-unsmiling face. I don’t have any major complaints about her, but I just find her a tad depressing because of her overall demeanor.

Her sister was at least very biba and knew how to make us laugh, especially my brooding parents. Unfortunately, she can’t live with us full time as she is utterly devoted to her growing children. My only beef about her was she often took shortcuts when cleaning the house. But she was alert and had a happy disposition, and truly had become part of the family. When my father would realize that he had mistakenly blamed her for some error not of her doing, he would quickly apologize to her – and this from a family not exactly quick with apologies among ourselves.

My mother, on the other hand, is going nuts teaching her sister the rudiments of cleaning a household. In the first place, my mother has very little patience – big wow that she never became a schoolteacher. Coupled with this is the seeming lifeless response of the new girl. I try to mitigate the difficulties in the new relationship between employer and househelp by patiently re-explaining my mother’s instruction to the new girl, but I look into her eyes and I wonder whether she is actually there. Does she understand what I’m saying or is she still rueing about her future without the man who got her pregnant and had left her to her own devices?

At times like these, I wish we didn’t need househelp. Abroad, alone, I was perfectly content doing my own laundry, cleaning my flat and cooking my own meals. But I only had a 60-square-meter home then and not living in a three-floor townhouse, with other family members to think of like I am now.

Like any new relationship, this one we have with our new househelp will need patience and understanding. Maybe even more so than the usual. It will mean extreme pakikisama to make sure she will agree to stay with us for a long time. This is going to be a very looong month for me.

(My column, Something Like Life, is published every Friday in the Lifestyle section of the BusinessMirror.)

Rock on Lolo!

I watched Jay Leno the other night and he had as guests, three members of The Zimmers, a senior citizens' band formed to make people stand up and pay attention to the plight of the elderly in the UK. In situations like these, I'm glad I live in the Philippines where families still take care of their elderly at home. Seniors here are still respected for their views, and their opinions still carry a lot of weight in most families.

Anyway, I'm posting the MTV of The Zimmers, and their take on The Who's My Generation. It's really cute. I wish I had a rockin' lola or lolo. Enjoy...

(Monday bitching 2) I think I'm gonna puke!

Teary-eyed Goma bids goodbye to GMA 7 to launch Senate bid

By Fidel Jimenez, GMANews.TV
Feb. 11, 2007

Actor-sportsman Richard Gomez made an emotional farewell to his co-hosts in the weekly program S-Files over GMA Network Sunday.

Teary-eyed Gomez announced on the show that he is set to file his certificate of candidacy for senator with the Commission on Election (Comelec) on Monday.

Gomez said he will run as independent candidate to give the public an alternative choice.

(More of this utterly nauseating story at GMA News TV. Lucy please wake up your husband from his delusion! Can someone please give this guy a movie to act in? For the love of God, save this country from Goma! Magtayo nalang kayo ng sariling gobyerno ni Manny Paquiao kaya?)

Frankly, the only joker I would like to see at the Senate is Joker Arroyo. How disappointing though that he chose to run under GMA's much-balleyhooed Unity ticket. What the F! was he thinking of?! Of course he would rather not spend his own money for his electoral campaign, and instead leech off from the government coffers, paid for by our taxes no less, just like the laughable Tito "Eat Bulaga" Sotto, irritating Tessie "Dancing Queen" Aquino-Oreta, and disappointing as usual, Edong Angara. Opportunists all! Pwe!

Then again, even the United Opposition's ticket isn't exactly something to rave about. Sonny Osmeña? Politicos like him should just remain in retirement. No more dinosaurs please! And why, oh why, are you coming back Nikki Coseteng? Are you already bored with your love life? Hindi na ba exciting magtago? Tsk, tsk, tsk.



(My candidates: Chiz Escudero, Noynoy Aquino, Ping Lacson. Photos from the web.)

For my own list, I can pick out only a few outstanding senatoriables from the Opposition ticket: Chiz Escudero, but of course (I had covered his father when he was agriculture Secretary under the Estrada regime...a good man as well.); Noynoy Aquino who has a distinguished record as a congressman; and well, Ping Lacson, okay?! There I said it, I want Ping back in the Senate! I think this country needs someone like him to whip everyone in line.

While I have nothing personally against Sonia Roco and Koko Pimentel, I just wince at the efforts of people with no legislative/political experience to ride on the coattails of their more famous relatives. In Ma'am Sonia's case, her late husband Raul who many still feel would have made a good President; and in Koko's case, his father, Nene...an outstanding politician but now too old to run. (Nene should have persuaded Sonny O. to do the same and sit this one out.)

I had hoped for more people in my generation to run for senator, because I think it's about time we get rid of the Old Guard trapos. But sigh, even the young names in the Opposition ticket are disheartening. For example, Alan Peter Cayetano truly bombed with L'Affaire Mike Arroyo and the so-called German bank deposits. We've been waiting for your evidence Alan Peter. Nasaan na? And Lt. Antonio Trillanes? That mutiny was a joke! Nasayang yung issues na pinaglaban mo. Mag-artista ka nalang. Unfortunately, Migs Zubiri isn't on the Opposition ticket. He's with the administration party. That's enough reason not to include him on my list.

I don't have high hopes for the voter turnout this May. I'm sure everyone else is disappointed as I am in the candidates and will probably opt not to go to their polling precints. Inspite of this, I still hope the Opposition wins. It's time we send a clear message to GMA and her minions. We are frikking mad so you guys better watch your step!

The case for aging

As the average life span has lengthened with better health care, senior citizens continue to lead bustling lives, enjoying activities and even hobbies they perhaps never got the chance to pursue when they were younger.

Something Like Life
Jan. 12, 2007

WHO would’ve thought that the most controversial topic I would ever write about were my crow’s feet! (Something Like Life, January 5, 2007) Gee, and I thought the readers were more interested in my ruminations on illicit relationships, passionate kisses, and lustful longings across the office cubicle!

To this day, I’m still getting text messages and comments from friends swearing on their lover’s/husband’s mother’s second cousin’s dog’s grave that the anti-aging product they’ve been using has helped them keep looking youthful. One publicist has also been in touch trying to convince me to try the anti-wrinkle cream her client has been hawking.

My sister, for one, told me about this relatively inexpensive wrinkle correction cream from this ubiquitous personal products manufacturer. Her friends are raving about it and claiming it to be “better than Botox!” Now, they are the types that lap up all sorts of expensive new branded gunk on the market and have enough funds to actually get a face lift! So maybe this product is worth looking into.

One friend also talked about how a sixtyish corporate communications executive of a large beauty products maker still manages to look young just by using her company’s products. (That’s what the executive claims anyway.) I’ve met this lady and I actually thought she was only in her late 40s! Well, I’ve just bought that company’s wrinkle correction cream and I will definitely update you on whether it works or not.

Laugh lines aside, getting old really isn’t the end of the world, as more and more people are realizing.

Decades ago, when one reached the retirement age of 60, he was expected to enjoy only a few short years with his grandchildren, then probably die of a lingering illness, or—worse—be a bane to his children by becoming incontinent and demented.

These days, as the average life span has lengthened with better health care, senior citizens are still leading bustling lives, enjoying activities and even hobbies they perhaps never got the chance to pursue when they were younger.

I can look only to my mom and her amigas as examples of “silvergenarians” still leading very active lifestyles, wrinkles and all. I call them the “Ladies Who Lunch”—thank you, Barbra Streisand—because almost every month they get together and celebrate someone’s birthday by eating out. Of course a few weeks before their lunch date, they have little arguments among themselves which restaurant they should go to. My mom constantly complains about how her gangmates never seem to see eye-to-eye on where to go. A most cantankerous bunch of senior citizens if you can imagine, though in a funny old people sort of way. (Think Walter Matthau and Jack Lemmon in Grumpy Old Men.)

My retort to my mom, of course, is the usual “Just go to a frigging fastfood center and let everyone choose what they want to eat.” Of course, she never pays any attention to any of my suggestions. (Hopefully, this is not a preview of how my own gang will behave as we thumb our way toward Golden Acres. Instead of arguing about which restaurant to go to celebrate someone’s birthday, perhaps we will be content with our regular “immoveable feasts” of sinigang na baka and binagoongan na baboy.)

Some of my mom’s friends are widows, have husbands who have left them, sickly, or just plain loony (again, in a loveable senior citizen sort of way). And yet they all seem to be enjoying themselves even as they approach their 80s. One goes ballroom dancing a lot and has had a young lover; another is going off to the North with her travel club of fellow seniors; one is still busy running her own company; while the others are quite content babysitting their grandchildren or waiting on their grown-up, married children to visit on weekends. If my mom isn’t out playing mahjong or shopping, she is at home fighting with me for the control of the TV remote. Damn those afternoon soap operas!

According to the National Statistics Office, the number of senior citizens in the country is expected to reach seven million by the year 2010, from the current 5.6 million. The same data also shows that 60 percent of our senior citizens are married, although females dominated the single (71 percent), widowed (76.5 percent) and divorced/separated (57.26 percent) groups. Which says a lot, I suppose, about how elderly women view their lot in life. They are definitely okay being solo. Most of them don’t want to remarry, and have things to do other than obsess about romance.

I particularly admire this one tita of mine who is the most dynamic and perhaps most liberated among my mom’s friends. She’s had a few lovers since her husband passed away decades ago. Asked why she wouldn’t marry her present boyfriend, a widower of her same age, she said she didn’t want to get stuck taking care of someone. What if he got sick? And of course, she wouldn’t be able to just take off to enjoy her own activities with someone watching over her shoulder. Heavens! I told my mom that my tita is more “progressive” than even most single women I know.

Thus, the elderly Filipina will have intimate relationships with men (younger or as old as her) but not necessarily with an eye to get hitched again.

Elsewhere, aging men and women are getting “with it.”

Just check out some local bazaars and you’ll pick up a few items made by this and that “lola” now making money from their cooking hobbies, suddenly free from the rigidities of a 9-to-5 career or from taking care of husbands.

A good friend’s husband also retired at 60 a few years ago, but is still consulting for his company and runs a few businesses on the side. He and his wife also travel more these days.

In Japan, where the elderly is about 19 percent of the total population, Yuichiro Mira climbed Mt. Everest in 2003 at the ripe old age of 70! He plans to do it again next year, at age 75.

Another Japanese, Motoko Nakano, 84, is now officially a guide on the “Silk Road” tours for her fellow elderly travelers, after having toured China about 10 times. A widow and former restaurant owner, she is a frequent traveler, often researching on the Internet to plan her itinerary.

So it is wrong to think that when one ages, one becomes inept and useless. More than the crow’s feet, laugh lines and occasional sore joints, aging is probably a chance at a new and challenging fun-filled lifestyle.

(My column, Something Like Life, is published every Friday in the Life section of the BusinessMirror.)

Aging, or ageless?

Unfortunately, there are realities we women have to face, one of which is that the world celebrates youth and its glowing tans, reed-thin dimensions and clear fresh faces. And most often, relationships are formed on first impressions.

Something Like Life
Jan. 5-6, 2007

TWO days before New Year’s Day I made a devastating discovery.

I was seated at my dresser putting on makeup for a trip to the mall when, to my horror, I saw tiny fine lines beginning to form around the outer corner of my eyes.

Eek! I screeched. Crow’s feet!

I couldn’t help but go overboard with the concealer and patted just a tad more than usual to try to erase the superfine indentations. They may not be visible to most people but as I scrutinized every inch of my face, the lines seemed to multiply and I started noticing a few crinkles forming on my forehead and—dear me!—laugh lines!

What a way to greet the New Year! Here I was feeling all chipper after having just survived Christmas, now looking like an old hag. Why couldn’t I look like one of the Witches of Eastwick instead?! Sexy, looking youthful, all spruced up and ready for Jack Nicholson’s taking!

I blended the concealer ever so gingerly to make sure all spots and lines were covered, or at least visibly minimized. As I swept the foundation all over my face, then applied the rest of my makeup, I calmed down a bit, secure in the vision of beauty that lay in the mirror before me. I was young again!

It was one of those times when I wished I were a man instead. Notice how crow’s feet, eyebags and a lined forehead make George Clooney even more handsome? Remember gorgeous George romping around the first two seasons of ER when he was thinner and in his early 30s? And now at 45, despite the rounder heavily lined face, he is the Sexiest Man Alive of 2006, according to People magazine.

I couldn’t help but think that this is one of Nature’s cruel jokes on women. I mean, women’s lives are already so much more difficult with pregnancy; do we have to look like crones as soon as the lines start crisscrossing our foreheads and our cheeks start sagging into jowls? On the other hand, as males grow older, graying hair makes them look distinguished fine gentlemen. Even wrinkles on their faces make them appear respectable.

I know it sounds silly for me to fret over a few hardly visible lines around my eyes. Haven’t I always said that 40 is the new 30? So I may feel young but my complexion appears to be having difficulty keeping up with me.

Unfortunately, there are realities we women have to face, one of which is that the world celebrates youth and its glowing tans, reed-thin dimensions and clear fresh faces. And that most often, relationships are formed on first impressions. Judgments are made on one’s appearances instead of one’s character. Have a male CEO choose between a clueless pretty young thing and a woman with a matronly appearance and demeanor, and you can bet whom he would choose to hire as his secretary—yes, despite the latter probably having better qualifications and experience for the job.

Once time starts marching across our faces, it’s time to book the Botox, ladies! Not that I would undergo those toxic injections myself. Besides, on a journalist’s salary I wouldn’t be able to afford them. Still, if I had enough funds, would I have Botox to freeze age in its tracks, albeit temporarily? Hmmm....

Of course, I have no one to blame but myself. In my youth, I worshipped the sun and used tanning oil on my face and entire body quite liberally. Being quite fair in complexion, I would have to sunbathe for two days under the noontime sun just to get a golden tan. Heck! No one talked about skin cancer and melanomas back then!

Once I reached 30, however, and all scientific studies talked about the horrific dangers of sun worship on the skin, I junked my annual summer sunbathing ritual. I went into overdrive trying to protect my face, especially after a therapist at a skin care center told me that my face was suffering from sun damage. The closeup photos of my complexion didn’t look too appealing—it was red and splotchy. I was now condemned to face a lifetime of moisturizers and inspecting the SPF on each sun block on every cosmetics counter.

So like many other women, I have joined the growing numbers in buying expensive facial products in a bid to keep wrinkles at bay. This is no easy task, mind you, as there are many brands which purport to be the best and the most effective antiaging, anti-wrinkle, line-correcting cream ever to arrive at a beauty counter. Just think of the millions of jars of this stuff that is sold by the minute everywhere in the world. The quest for the fountain of youth in a beauty jar is merciless. Women spend huge amounts of money every year in an almost desperate attempt to beef up their skin-care regimen.

Of course, you could say, “Why bother with all that gunk for our faces?” Can’t we just all relax and simply age gracefully like, say, Susan Sarandon or Katharine Hepburn who kept on working despite being afflicted with Parkinson’s disease. Kate was a real beauty, a diva even, right until she passed on.

Well, a popular facial soap brand last year began a campaign for real beauty...putting fat and old people on their print ads and billboards. The “ageless” ads showed a smiling woman with white hair and a creased face. Despite this, we know for a fact that cosmetologists and plastic surgeons will still be booked back-to-back this year in an endless round of treatments for women conscious of their crinkly crow’s feet, burgeoning puson, sagging bottoms and deepening laugh lines. And women’s magazines will not stop putting the same youthful anorexic-looking models on their covers.

The reality is, all women want to be young, thin and gorgeous despite their accomplishments, their fine character and the praise they have garnered for their success.

Despite studies that show none of these beauty creams come close to fulfilling all their youthful promises, we will still keep buying them in the hope that one would prove to be the real deal.

And if by any chance I win the lottery tomorrow, perhaps I too would make a beeline to the best dermatologist for a fixer-upper.

(My column, Something Like Life, appears every Friday in the Life section of the BusinessMirror.)