Youth, Where Art Thou, Youth? How I miss you.

It's true, none of us are immune to the effects of aging (Booo to Aging!), therefore we must fight with all our powers to counteract all elements that age us: oxidants, the sun, stress. However, if we've been hit, we need to retaliate with a vengeance. This is what my hermaphrodite friend, Herminia HeSheBe, has done. He/she has noticed a general thining in his/her hair, so she decided to fight back by getting hair implants. This is her tale:

"The procedure starts with the doctor drawing on your face and shows you the area he'll be filling in. Then you ingest a steroid to counter any inflammation. Then they shave the donor area and inject it multiple times with anesthesia. When you are numb, the doctor cuts the donor area and then stitches it up. The stitch is 5 inches long. All this time I was watching a movie, "Death Becomes Her" , appropriate, right? The assistants start separating the follicles for implantation and the doctor marks the areas for implantation. I almost fell asleep while they were puncturing holes on my head, that's how relaxed I was at that point. Then the assistants start placing the hair grafts in the holes, took awhile, but no pain at all. After the implantation was completed, they gave me some topical stuff to apply but went out of the operating room relaxed and coherent - no bandages. No muss no fuss and voila! Beauty reclaimed!"

"Later,when I got home, I took the Darvocet they gave me and it made me vomit so much it reminded me of when I was a young and careless cheerleader, 40 years ago."

Above, you'll see Herminia's After Picture a day post alien impregnation, er... , hair transplantation.

I fully support Herminia's decision to valiantly grasp - with gnarled, age-spot riddled hands - his/her last vestiges of youth, vitality and moisture. If you have the spare change, why not? As Isabella Rosellini's character, Lisle Von Rhoman, proclaimed with relish: "Sempre Viva! Live Forever! [pregnant pause] And now, a word of warning."