In My Dreams

IN MY DREAMS, my next Heartwarming, will be released on my 70th birthday, January 1, 2015.  Geez!  70.  My heart is seventeen, so it's always startling for me to look in the mirror and see the wrinkles and the hair that looks like a cotton ball in a snit.

Can you tell I've been thinking about age?  In an effort to make sure I remain well to take care of Ron, I recently had a thorough physical examination. Last one was in 1993.  (I'm so ashamed!)  Believe it or not, I'm in almost perfect condition.  Bone density is great, cholesterol is great, all lady-parts-tests negative. Vitamin D was low, but that's the sunshine vitamin, and I live in Oregon, so go figure.  But I've been loaded up on mega doses and I've gone from 9 (!) to 50 in three months.  (Not sure what the desirable figure is, but the doctor seemed happy.)

I was paging through my ELLE magazine today (good source of character faces) and was plotting my fall wardrobe.  (In reality, it's a couple of pairs of jeans and a few sweatshirts, and when my office is really cold, an Eddie Bauer merino wool turtleneck that's very cozy, but I'm dreaming, here.)  I imagine you don't want to hear about fall when it's finally summer, but I hate my summer clothes because those light fabrics show all my rolls.  (I keep thinking I can tone them up and the ripples would look like washboard abs, but they're in the wrong place.) Sturdier winter fabrics hide everything.  You can wear tights and a big sweater and look twenty pounds thinner.

Anyway, I want to wear skinny jeans and boots, dresses and tights, big jewelry and funky hair.  But I don't have anything skinny to put in the jeans, I don't have a waist so a dress is probably out, and I think my hair has aged, too.  It used to be wavy and controllable, but now it does what it wants, and both sides never want the same thing.  It's probably a good thing I'm not going to San Antonio.  One look at me, and you'd all turn from writing romance to horror.

I am young enough at heart to lust after Erik Dane, Captain Tom Chandler in the new THE LAST SHIP, and, formerly, Dr. McSteamy, from Gray's Anatomy,  and I do love Nathan Fillion of CASTLE.  And, more age-appropriately, Tom Selleck, Sean Connery, and Robert Wagner still make me swoon.  (It's all right with Ron because he has a thing for Meg Ryan.)

"Hanging out" with all of you gives me a wider-ranging perspective of womanhood, so thank you for that. It's nice to know that young or older, we like the same things, worry about the same things, and whatever we differ on broadens our horizons of tolerance and acceptance.  I think Heartwarming is going to keep my heart young, and I may still try to tone those rolls.  Jen, are you available as a personal trainer?