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February 16, 2002 skin deep "What about Dermatitis Multiformis?" I shouted at the television.  "Is that 'interesting?'  Does that have 'character?'" I was screaming at a tittering starlet who was "fascinated" with the faces of old people, faces she said had "character."  She didn't own one of those old faces, of course.  If she did, she'd never be spreading such an immense load of crap. A few lines here and there are fine, but some of them get to be downright disfiguring.  I'm thinking of those parallel creases that run from the corners of your mouth straight down to the jawbone.  They make you look like Charlie McCarthy or Mortimer Snerd.  Or, worse, that scary-ass puppet Anthony Hopkins hung out with in Magic.  What was his name?  Fats? Some people get "laugh-lines" around their eyes.  I've developed "wince-lines."  And how about forehead furrows?  At a certain point, you consider sowing seeds up there and starting a vegetable garden. But it's not just the wrinkles, creases, and crevices.  Your skin gets thin except, unfortunately, in areas where it just hangs.  It's nice and thick there.  Like a yak hide.  And let's not forget adult acne, strawberry moles, scaly patches, discolorations, dessication, rashes, random hair sprouts, and the ever-popular "mystery growths."  God's dermatological pallet is cruel and limitless. Back to the television.  I pictured the young movie star about forty years older.  Her chauffeur was driving her to the plastic surgeon for a character-removal consultation.  I smiled and felt the lines around my eyes.

©  2002 by the beastmaster