The line

So, everyone is vain.  But I am REALLY. VAIN.  Vainer than the average bear.  Vainer than many people would expect, particularly the Viking, who has to put up with this nonsense.

It's probably the ballet.  Being instructed - no, actually expected - to stare at yourself in front of full-length mirrors four hours and hours on end will do that to a chick.  And it's an art that is all about a never ending quest effortless perfectionism (which is why the quest is never-ending, because there is no such thing as perfect, bitches). 

But the nit-pickiness of ballet has always bled into other aspects of my vanity.  For example, most people notice that I never leave the house without red lipstick.  I could be keeling over from the flu, but if someone finds my lifeless body, I will have a little color on my face.  And I have really thick, dark eyebrows that need a lot of love and shaping, so yes, I often shut my door at work and to pluck my brows when no one's looking.  Which is how I arrived to obsess about....

The line.  It's a frown line.  Smack in the middle of my head, right between my eyebrows.  A deep crease that I am sure is the vestige of four years of non-stop crying and stressed out brow-furrowing and fertility hand-wringing. 

The baby weight of 53 weeks of pregnancy is starting to come off.  But this line is taunting me.  I really wish I could be stoic about it, and proudly wear it as a survivor of all of this fucked-upedness. 

But, as we established, I am stupidly vain for a forty-two year old.

So guess who just spent an hour of her life she will never get back researching over-the-counter wrinkle fillers.  Gah.  Welcome to middle-age.