Twenty-three and counting

In one month and eleven days I will be 23 years old.

Tonight, in addition to my normal bedtime-girl routine such as brushing my teeth and putting on a light moisterizer I broke out the long forgotten tub of Laura Mercier Eyedration eye firming creme.

Yep.

Last week I got my hair done - a neccesity for any curly haired scottish girl. A even greater for any curly haired scottish girl whose Mother handed down the "platinum hair" gene. This gene turned my Mother completly gray by the age of 24. It's threatening to do the same to me. I was shocked at how silver I had gotten in the course of four weeks. I have a feeling I will need to adopt my hairdresser and have her family over for Christmas we're gonna see so much of one another.

After the "Oh my god - I'm Billy Idol with boobs" moment at the salon I was thrown for another shocker. In the course of moving chairs back and forth I somehow hurt - my - back. Hurt my back so much that I spent most of last week lying on our ironing board which I had converted to a floor mattress and when I wasn't pretending to be a starched shirt I limped around like Igor.

It hurt. A lot. It still hurts. I just popped two horse pill sized Naproxen provided by my neighborhood Corpsman at the base. "Take these and don't wear boots."

Where is any of this going? To the eye creme...I swear. While lying on the ironing board I found myself able to do little. I read books, whined, read more books, whined some more. I also somehow got a hand on my makeup mirror and tweezers. Not a bad thing unless your make-up mirror reveals to you (while you're lying on an ironing board whining) two fine wrinkles right under your bottom eyelashes. Not smile lines, not scrunched face issues...no...wrinkles. Actually Wrinkles with a capital W.

THAT'S what brought on the eye creme. It was a gift that came with my make-up...something I never thought I'd need. Something the sales lady said she never thought I would need...and yet I am well firmed my friend - well firmed.

What the heck is this? I'm 22, I'm young and feisty. I'm not supposed to be hiding gray hair and trying to smooth my wrinkles. I'm the girl who's supposed to stay up all night dancing and have sex with my legs over my head kama-sutra style - not lying on my ironing board in the middle of the living room reading "Enemy at the Gates". Geez, even my book is an old person book!

The jump from 22 to 23 cannot be this dramatic. I cannot go from semi-cute college co-ed to old soccer mom - ladies who lunch.

This is unfreaking acceptable. I demand to speak to the manager...or at best her assistant.

For my 21st birthday I got my navel pierced and attended a drinkfest farewell dinner for the USS Constellation. I had a good 21st year. I spent part of it blonde...

So for my 23rd I plan to get a tattoo, and another piercing...somewhere...where else can you get pierced...I don't care...I'll get them all. Heck I'm gonna get them and show 'em off. Get out those beads boys - I'm gonna go wild. I'm gonna shake it shake it like a polaroid picture. Get retarded in hah - retarded in here! Bring on the shots, bring on the tequila. I'm young, hip, hot, smoking - I'll burn the brick house down!

Or I'll go to Basken&Robins for my free ice cream cone and get an early night because a girl needs her beauty sleep and I have to work in the morning.