I Need Margo Channing to Sign My Permission Slip

                 Fuzzy has been watching The Movies, the multipart documentary about Hollywood from the beginning of the talkies.  Our "I need to watch that again!" list is suddenly gigantic.  I was sitting in on it for a while last night when they talked about All About Eve and Sunset Boulevard.  Is anyone else a bit shaken to remember that Margo Channing was 40 and Norma Desmond was in her fifties?  Do I only have ten years left before I need to retire to a darkened mansion with a former director as my butler? 

                This meshes with my discovery a few months ago that the Golden Girls were in their fifties.  I think I might be getting old, because that no longer seems as ancient as it did when I was twelve.  I thought they were at least sixty, if not seventy.  It really threw me for a loop that these ladies were not that old.  The entertainment industry really does throw women away early.

                It turns out, then, that I'm the same age as Margo Channing.  Margo Channing is definitely an adult.  I don't think I'm that much of an adult.  I feel like I would probably ask Margo Channing to sign my permission slip for a field trip.  I feel like I would not see Margo Channing as a fellow member of my generation, because she is definitely a grown-up,

                I have owned two different homes with mortgages I qualified for.  I have two children who haven't been taken away by the state (yet).  I have a retirement account, and I can comfortably discuss the merits of different school districts.  My socks always match each other, and I make grocery lists.  I buy stuff other than candy at Costco, and I know my social security number by heart.  I refill my gas tank long before my car stalls, and I have the good toothpaste that rebuilds my enamel--I bought it in a multipack from the Costco, when I was buying stuff other than candy.

                And yet--I don't feel like a grown-up.  I know I don't look like a grown-up.  I wear make-up only when I have to, because I work with clothing and fabric all day, and I don't want to have to remove face prints from them.  I wear my hair simply, because it's not like my hair does much anyhow, and it needs to be out of my face to do what I do.  I don't feel comfortable sounding outraged about the quality of school lunches--they're doing the best they can, after all. 

                I guess the big thing is that I don't see Fuzzy and I doing the "grown-up" things we saw previous generations doing, like bridge games and cocktail parties.  I can't think of a single cocktail I could make without consulting a book, other than a really basic Shirley Temple, as that is what I actually drink.  We don't run organizations, aren't hailed as pillars of the community, and don't have high-powered careers.  We live a simple life filled with the people and events we enjoy.

                Perhaps that's an okay kind of adult to be.