Recently, while watching TV, I was asked point blank by the star of a popular night time drama if I have been waking up with “fatigued” skin. I am accustomed to these odd, almost metaphysical questions, which are often posed in tones of serious concern by a woman who appears to be too young to vote or drink alcohol in most States in the Union.
 
But this time, I was truly perplexed. In my many decades on earth, my skin has been dry, cracked, scratched, torn, cut, burned and occasionally decorated with warts, pimples, moles, and bug bites. To my knowledge, it has never been fatigued.
 
The moment gave rise to a feeling of nausea, anger, and, oddly enough, fatigue! After years of being marketed to in this alarmist, condescending, idiotic way, I’d had enough. This was the straw.
(If someone would please provide me with a camel’s back, or a less-overused metaphor, I’d appreciate it.)
 
I’ll put aside for the moment, the meta-issue here, which is the implication that the perfection of our skin is (or should be) a priority for women. Instead, let’s get right to the grammar of it.
 
I don’t want “less dark spots” on my skin. If anything, I want fewer dark spots on my skin. (And I’m not even so sure about that.)
 
Next, I do not think it is possible to “hydrate dryness.” If you hydrated dryness, wouldn’t it be…wetness?
 
Moving on: Being your best beautiful.
 
Where do I begin? “Best” is an adjective and should not be used to modify or describe another adjective. And “beautiful” is an adjective. To use it as a noun implies that it is an object, a discreet thing, or perhaps that it is an intention you can realize. Even its relative, “beauty,” is not to be possessed or achieved in the way these ads suggest.
 
Next, I do not believe in Big Foot, the Loch Ness Monster, or the Easter Bunny.
Nor do I believe in “A New Day for Skin.”
 
Moving on, “Volumizing” is not a word.
 
Getting down to the real issue: the term “skincare” is a misnomer. Caring for your skin is not about putting stuff on it, aside from sunscreen. It’s about being as healthy as you can and not abusing it. If you want to try to slow some inevitable change in it, OK, good. Go ahead and try. But let’s not call it “skincare.” That’s not a real thing.
 
There are real maladies of the skin, and people suffer terribly because of these, both physically and socially. One of the greatest risks to skin is sun exposure. Wearing sunscreen and preventing sunburn are important. Having bad acne is nothing to laugh about. And serious diseases often have concomitant skin problems. Even in the healthiest person, as the skin ages, a layer of fat diminishes and the skin becomes more fragile. I’m not talking about any of those real concerns.
 
I’m talking about purely invented problems, like “uneven skin tone,” “loss of firmness,” and, the most humiliating of all, “lack of radiance.”
           
The language of “skincare” offers expensive solutions for these cooked-up problems, as we are told that we need to “trap moisture,” “replenish”, “renew”, “correct” or even “repair damage.” For those who have lost all respect for the English language, there is even a brand “Revitalift.”
 
Along these lines, we have phrases like…
 
“Plumps skin cells.”
 
“Hydroboost.”
 
“Ageless skin.”
 
The most recent piece of disturbing news these nonsense speakers are broadcasting is that my lips are aging more rapidly than the rest of my skin. This disparity, unnoticed by me before I was so informed, can be addressed by a new kind of lip stuff. Thank goodness.
 
And that’s the point of all this. If there’s no problem, then there’s no market for a solution to that problem. No illness, no need for a cure. Though it’s done with a bit more subtlety than the man-in-the-lab-coat-ads of the 70’s, the industry devoted to selling women products to change their skin is still largely built on a medical model, albeit with a more holistic, alternative-medicine aesthetic. Ironically, these ads capitalize on the fact of our growing health-consciousness. The yoga mat is a popular accessory prop in these ads, though the advertisers fail to point out that a woman’s skin is more likely to glow from yoga than it is from their expensive goo.
 
And for those of you out there thinking, “what’s the harm?” Why is she bothering to take the time to attack the lousy, incorrect, sloppy, misleading language that these unethical fear mongers use to get us to buy their crappy little bottles of goo?
 
Because it is harmful. The images are harmful. The implications are harmful. The distraction from things that really can improve our lives and the lives of those around us is harmful. And these days, quite often, the goo itself is harmful.
 
Many, many items on this loosely-regulated market are using hormones. Specifically, they contain phytoestrogens that mimic the body’s own hormones and can wreak havoc on the thyroid gland, in a world where various kinds of thyroid diseases are already on the rise due to environmental pollution. (Insert second rant about estrogens in plastics here.) As one endocrinologist told me recently, he now has to add a question when speaking with his patients: What are you putting on your skin?
 
Also, if you read the very fine print on many of those “anti-aging” elixirs, you’ll see that in many cases you are not supposed to use them before you go out in the sun. So not only are they not helping, they’re increasing the very real risk of sun damage. Lovely.
 
That these products are marketed to women at an age of increased risk of thyroid disease, namely menopause, and in a world where the ozone is thinning, leaving us at potentially greater risk for sun damage including cancer, it is all so unethical that I need to take a deep breath before I continue.
 
Ah. (Unlike these products, oxygen is good for the skin:)
 
Disclaimer: I’m not saying don’t have fun with your toilette. I’m just saying, don’t be a sucker.
 
I remember the moment I first felt excited about these sorts of products. I was on vacation the summer I turned 13.  I walked in to a drug store. It was the same drug store I’d been to on many previous summer vacations, usually to buy candy. That summer, I came upon the aisle filed with lotions, face creams, and cleansers. I remember thinking: all of these things have been here every summer, my whole life. How is it I never noticed them before now? They seemed to me edible, delicious, inviting me to womanhood.
 
It wasn’t that there was anything wrong with my skin. Or hair. Or body. But I felt like a wizard’s apprentice, ready to begin my experiments. Transformation was what the products offered. It seemed to me self-evidently desirable.

Better than candy.
 
Now, I’m saddened that I have to tell that young girl inside of me that there’s a man behind the curtain who made the whole thing up. And worse. Knowing as we do that most of these companies engage in torturing animals, it becomes even more difficult to take any part in keeping them in business.
 
I say torturing, not “testing on” animals because  “Animal Testing” evokes an image of a bunch of cartoon horses, sitting at desks with Number 2 pencils ready to take the SATs, or maybe anima-tronic cats punching holes in multiple choice forms. Let’s put the misnomer “Animal Testing” out to pasture, along with “Skincare.”
 
So what’s the truth of the matter?
 
Even if you accept the premise that not all of us have skin as lovely as we’d like to have, and that we want, of all the problems in the world, to address this one. Or that caring for our skin, even pampering it is enjoyable and nurturing and good for us. Or that looking our best helps us show a positive face to the world. Even if all that is so, and I believe it is, these companies do not deliver anything close to what they promise.
 
A few years back, I ran into an old college friend on the street in New York. Since our time as undergrads, he’d gone on to a successful career as a fashion photographer. He was just heading to his studio to work on some photos he’d taken of Miss Universe. As he put it: “Even Miss Universe needs Photoshop.”
 
We all know it. The women in these ads, don’t really look like that!
 
In 2011, an ad by Lancôme featuring Julia Roberts was banned in the UK, after a group called the Advertising Standards Authority ruled against the company in a complaint filed by a British MP, who accused the ad of being misleading. The heavily-retouched ad was for a product called “Teint Miracle.” An ad for a product from Maybelline called “The Eraser” featuring Christy Turlington was also banned. Lancôme and Maybelline are both part of L’Oréal, as is the formerly-progressive company, The Body Shop.
 
If there were any truth in advertising to be had, all of these companies would have to include in their ads the suggestions that we reorder our lives so that we…

            Make sure to get enough sleep,

            Take plenty of exercise,

            Drink lots of water,

            And, importantly, do some research and trial and error to make sure that our diet does not include items to which we are sensitive or allergic.
           
They might even suggest that we do more to be of service, or that we don’t hang around people who stress us out, or stay in jobs we hate, or spend too much time in the car, watching TV, or on the computer, or reading ads about “skincare” with completely unattainable standards of beauty.
 
For those who were hoping for some “skincare” tips in this post, I apologize. Of course I have my own tricks. I will tell you that there is very little that cannot be accomplished, whether moisturizing, shaving, or makeup removal, with a run-of-the-mill, organic hair conditioner, which will run you about seven bucks for eighteen-ounces. And I love essential oils...
 
See how easy it is to sidetracked? It’s not so easy to opt out of this how-you-look is how-you-are assumption that is so prevalent in our culture. It’s a moral code that equates appearance with value, and it’s got its hooks in.
 
Personally, I wish I’d opted out of it more, and sooner. Over the years I’ve spent hundreds, or maybe even thousands of dollars on products I’ve used three times and then thrown away. Not because of a feminist principle I hold, but because they don’t work. They don’t improve my skin. And they don’t fulfill the promise behind the promise: they don’t improve my life.
 
What might you do with 144 dollars and fifty cents?
 
That’s what Clinique, one of the most medical-aesthetic “Skin Care” companies wants from you for 3.4 ounces of its “clinical dark spot corrector,” which you should not use before you go out in the sun, by the way. For its “Custom-repair serum”, it asks 154 dollars, but that’s because it’s a serum, which implies that it fights pathogens of some kind. Maybe it fights gullibility pathogens.
 
Or maybe it fights racism. I’m not hearing a lot of language from Clinique about the fact that if its product removes dark spots, it likely also makes you look whiter. How long do you think these companies could get away with what they do if they were required to use plain, or even accurate language?
 
 “Our cream removes a layer of skin and bleaches the raw skin underneath, making you more prone to sun cancer while looking whiter!” Uh, could somebody get the FTC on the phone? How are they allowed to sell this s#@t!
 
Think of what a hundred and fifty bucks would buy in fruits and vegetables. You could get a massage for that, or buy a dozen books on your favorite subject. Or a month pass for yoga classes. You could become a sustaining member at any number of wildlife refuges. You could put it in a retirement account, and by the time you’re eighty, it might pay your rent for a couple of days.
 
Conclusion:
 
In his book, Walden, Henry David Thorough tells us to “beware of all enterprises that require new clothes.” Taken out of context, it sounds as if he is knocking variety, or extravagance. But the essence of the paragraph is that our focus should be on the person within the suit of clothes, the part of us that “cannot be removed.” Thoreau suggests that a person should live in such a way that “if an enemy take the town, he can, like the old philosopher, walk out the gate empty-handed without anxiety.”
           
Of the outfit itself, the shoes, the jacket, etc., Thoreau says simply that if they are fit to worship God in, “they will do.”
           
Taking the skin as a metaphor, it is in some ways like our clothes, our layer of protection from the world, and also our first point of contact. But it is also something that reveals, and perhaps is meant to reveal, who we are. To show the world nott only our heritage, but what we have been through in life. To show our age.
 
Thoreau also points to self-acceptance in that paragraph, and that is the question we skip when we are drowning under waves of self-improvement. Do we accept ourselves as of value, as we are? Put another way, given whatever we believe to be holy, is our face fit to worship?
           
I dare say it is.
           
And I’ll dare a step further, and paraphrase Thoreau:
           
            Beware of all enterprises that require you to wish for a new kind of skin.
 

Last week here in California, Governor Jerry Brown signed an important piece of legislation. The law, entitled the “End of Life Option Act,” gives physicians the right to prescribe lethal medication to patients at the end of their lives. The patients must be mentally competent, two physicians must agree, and the dosage must be self-administered, which is what makes this “Physician Assisted Suicide” as opposed to “euthanasia,” at least by legal definitions of those terms.
           
It seems an amazing coincidence that a day or so after the legislation was passed I came upon a very old box of papers that needed sorting. In it, I found this essay. (See below.) It begins with the topic of being kept alive without brain function, but eventually gets to the heart of what many people these days call “death-with-dignity” issues.
 
It also so happens, that just a few days before the governor signed the legislation, I took my old cat to the vet, to be euthanized.
 
It was an emotional, heart-wrenching few weeks, as it was with the two other animals I have had euthanized in my life. One cat I had for eighteen years. My dog Sammy, an overgrown lab mix I had from the time he was a nine-week-old puppy until he was fourteen and a half. Old Grey was somewhere around twenty-years-old when he died. On all three occasions, I was immensely grateful for their long lives, and for the care and assistance of the vets at the end of those lives.
 
Some time before Sammy passed away, I asked his vet how she felt about the fact that people don’t have the right to make the same choice at the end of life for ourselves, as we make for our animals.  She and I had seen a lot of one another over Sammy’s lifetime, this doctor and I, because of Sammy’s severe epilepsy. I respected her enormously, and still do. I will never forget her answer, which she offered not only for her self, but for her profession.
 
She said that she didn’t know any vet, whatever their religious beliefs might be, who did not believe that humans should have the same right to a humane death an animal has. Not one.
 
Roots of the word “euthanasia.”
 
There is a lot of language around this issue, and you’ll see that my essay includes some questionable word choice. One common translation of euthanasia, as “mercy killing”, is certainly incorrect. Or at least it’s not a literal translation, because mercy killing refers to the person administering the medication and their intentions. But the Greek prefix “Eu” means well, or good. Euthanasia means, simply, a good death.
 
Old Grey’s behavior changed in the last weeks of his life. He wanted to be outside all the time. And once outside, he would wander in different directions than his previous patterns, to the point where I didn’t let him out on his own any more, afraid he would wander into the street, or just wander off.  In the house, he kept finding new and strange places to hunker down. Various closets. Behind a hole in the paneling under the sink. Every time I came home, I had to play “find the cat.” Once, I came home and found most of my china shattered across the kitchen floor. Old Grey had climbed up onto the counter, and into the back of the cupboard, moving aside the heavy buffalo china in the process. He couldn’t have made it any clearer: he was looking for a way out.
 
Looking back at the final photos of Old Grey, I am shocked by his condition, and realize how much denial was still swimming around in me, even though I was doing my very best to face the fact that he was dying. Now that he’s been gone more than a week, when I come home, I still open the door just a crack and angle my foot there, as if to prevent a kitty escape. I forget he’s gone a dozen times a day.
 
I think this kind of denial is one reason the legal battles around this legislation have taken as long as they have. We’re all in denial about death, most of the time. That’s the way we’re wired.
 
From that place of denial, part of us thinks that the conversation about end of life issues is actually a conversation about whether or not we’re going to die. That part of us believes that if we support this legislation, we’re saying we’re going to die, and if we don’t support this legislation, then we’re not going to die.
 
Do we really believe that, intellectually? No. But somehow the whole issue triggers something in us, as if it’s a big flashing sign that reads: DYING! And then evolution goes to work. We check what we think is the other box: NOT DYING!
           
Fortunately, there are people among us brave enough to have realized that is not the choice we are confronting. Some of those people, my friend Katharine among them, paid the emotional price of watching a loved one suffer and then took the time to fight this legislative battle on all our behalves. We owe them an enormous debt, as we do to those who will continue the fight in the 45 states in the U.S. that have not fully approved such legislations.
 
I remember writing this essay when I was thirteen or fourteen. I am including it here in the original form even though it may be a bit difficult to make out in this picture. Something about the girlish handwriting seems to me indivisible from the teenage mind that created it. It reminds me how small we all are in the face of this issue.
 
And despite outdated word choice, and a touch of grandiosity that makes me cringe, I stand by it. 
 
Author’s note: the teacher’s comments at the end about "wordiness" are, unfortunately, still quite fair and common critiques of my writing style:)

P.S.
 
In case the teacher’s remarks at the end are not legible, they read as follows: “some wordiness. Sometimes idea gets hazy from perhaps too many words-but essay is good.”
 
I can’t take this adolescent essay at face value entirely. At that age, when we thought something was really funny, my friends and I used to say dramatically, “that kills me!” That’s how little we knew of death. We could make a joke of it.            
 
But there is one thing I like about the essay. It’s the willingness to admit that I don’t really know how I would feel until I’m in that situation. Looking at it that way, it becomes self-evident that we should leave the choice to the person in that situation, or, if they are unable, to the person who knows them best.
 
I’m not making an argument. The argument makes itself. I think those who have the experience, like hospice workers, or the vet, or my friend Katharine, they already know the sense of this. All we can do is take their wisdom to heart. Or we can absorb the lessons of death that all our loved ones, animals or otherwise, bring us so generously at the end of their lives. Or we can wait and see for ourselves.
 
Or all of the above.
 
But I like that part of the essay, the way it hovers over the issue, my young mind trying to decide, but then admitting that I don’t really have the answers. As an older person, it’s a habit I’ve gotten out of, saying, “I don’t know.” 
 
I don't know...
 
I’m making a mental note to myself to admit that more often, that I just don't know. Especially when it comes to second-guessing other people’s choices, both big and small.

 ​In Kitty Heaven
               
For Old Grey
199? -  October 1st, 2015
 
In Kitty Heaven, butter sits unwrapped on the counter all day long, getting smellier and smellier. And when you climb up to lick it- the only natural thing to do- nobody yells at you to get down. Later, fresh  glasses of water stand on every night table, unattended.
 
Surfaces are arranged at a gradient in Kitty Heaven so that everything is mountable. A footstool leads to a sofa leads to a bookshelf leads to the top of the fridge. There is no vantage point denied you.
 
There is always a fresh supply of cardboard boxes in Kitty Heaven, of varying sizes and strengths. Sometimes, they fit just right. Other times, they are too big, or too small, or collapse if you climb on them. This is all part of the fun.
 
There is always a lap available in Kitty Heaven when you want one, because people who live in Kitty Heaven are not allowed to leave. There are no office jobs, day trips, vacations or weekends away. People in Kitty Heaven remain in Kitty Heaven, to serve.
 
Clearly spelled instructions are posted in all rooms for humans, delineating preferences. Scratch under the chin, counter-clockwise, but only in the evenings. Leave the bedroom closet door open, just a crack. Mornings, move around that fake mouse on the string, at dawn. I said dawn.
 
Even though people in Kitty Heaven are not permitted to leave, there are plenty of strange bags, and suitcases in Kitty Heaven. They arrive unexpectedly, sometimes full of smelly laundry. Then, they are left open, available for exploring. The laundry taken out of them is not washed. Oh no. It is left in a pile on the floor, for siesta.
 
All furniture in Kitty Heaven has rounded, upholstered edges. Even the stove, and those ugly chairs in the dining room.
 
When you want to go outside, you go outside.
 
What you do outside, where you go, who you see, is nobody’s business but your own.
 
The menu in Kitty Heaven varies. At least once a week there is something really smelly, like tripe, or something alive, like a mouse. Occasionally the sound of dry food being poured into a bowl is piped in through a sound system, so you can ignore it.
 
Similarly, there are lots of soft, expensive cat beds around, but you only use them when the people aren’t looking. Then, like when you died, the people go to throw them out and notice they’re covered with cat hair. The people are astonished, and you laugh at them, from Kitty Heaven.
 
There’s a lot of paperwork to do in Kitty Heaven, but it never gets done because you sit on top of the papers. For as long as you want.
 
In Kitty Heaven, Bella, (the calico bombshell from next door who thinks she’s all that), is not allowed over the fence. Likewise, the scrawny orange tabby is not free to wander down the middle of the friggin’ street like he owns the place. They have their own Kitty Heaven, somewhere else.
 
Dogs are allowed in Kitty Heaven. Surpised? Yeah, they are. Their stupidity is entertaining, plus they make the house smellier, and raise the median temperature a noticeable half a degree. These are basic quality of life issues for you. Plus sometimes, when they’re asleep, you can lie down on them and take a nap and they don’t even care. Truth is, dogs are nice to have around.
            And if anybody quotes you on that, you’ll bite them in the calf until they bleed.
 
There are lots of kids in Kitty Heaven, way more than grown-ups. Kids in heaven want to be around cats, that's part of the reason. But it's also because kids have their priorities straight. Think about it. What’s the first thing a grown-up says when they visit the house? “Uh, I brought you this bottle of wine,” or “Hey, I like your haircut.” What’s the first thing a kid says? “Where’s the cat?” And, “Can I pet him?”
 
It’s sunny in Kitty Heaven. 
​ 
Kitty Heaven is not such a dramatic a transition from life on earth, not like for humans. Because even on your worst day, you were already half made of light.