Damn you, Victoria Principal!

Principal Secret is slowly but surely discontinuing its original spa products. This means that slowly but surely it will be harder and harder for me to get my absolute favorite moisturizer: Time Release Moisture.

I've been using it forever because I love it. Thick and creamy, it goes on easily but never feels heavy and works well under foundation. And now it's going away.

Which means I will now obsess on how to score as much as I can, while I still can, and stockpile it in my linen closet. I just now won an auction for a jar on eBay. I still have the liquidation websites to explore.

I don't enjoy this. But unreasonable product/brand loyalty combined the impulse to hunt and capture are the warp and woof of my personality.

http://onegalsmusings.blogspot.com/2006/05/i-will-not-obsess-i-will-not-obsess-i.html

Now for something completely different

Menopause.

According to my doctor, I still have a way to go before I have to confront it. But I've been watching my oldest friend, just one year older than I, wrestle with it and I have to tell you I'm terrified.

She's moody. She has hot flashes. She suffers from increased fatigue and decreased lubrication. She flirts with both major decisions (ending her current relationship, selling her house) and minor ones (earning extra money by having a garage sale), yet never does anything. Worst of all, she has become obsessed with … Barry Manilow. Yes, Barry Manilow. She even thinks he has a "hot ass."

As if that isn't enough to make me shudder and fear the future, I read the latest issue of Oprah's O magazine, where I discovered a laundry list of physical terrors that await me.

So I've cataloged these issues here. Let's review, shall we?

• Hot flashes
• Mood swings
• Emotional paralysis
• An all-encompassing obsession with John Stamos (sorry, but not even a tsunami of surging hormones could EVER make me feel anything but amusement toward Barry Manilow)
• Vaginal dryness
• Slower metabolism, making weight loss difficult-to-impossible
• A beard
• Big teeth
• An even bigger ass
• Osteoporosis
• A bare scalp you can see from space

Am I missing anything?

Control is a big issue for me, and I'm now confront with something that will happen TO MY OWN BODY that I cannot control. I can't even predict when it will begin. I have personified menopause -- it's a ghostly figure that shadows me, hiding behind trees and lamposts and ready to pounce on me when I least expect it.

I hate this. I dread it. I don't want it to happen, and there isn't a damn thing I can do about it.

Oh well, at least my nipples aren't depressed.