Today my face went through the automatic carwash. Or at least the “medical esthetics” equivalent. Part of a regimen recommended by the dermatologist for the purpose of keeping years of solar carelessness at bay. See, when I was a youngish person we didn’t have the Surgeon General and everyone else pushing spf--the higher the better--on us. In fact, a popular product was “tanning oil,” designed to increase the helio-impact of beach time. Not that I bothered. I was into neither products nor baking. By a same or similar token, neither did I exercise any care or avoidance. Hence, today’s heavy-duty exfoliation, scraping, stingy lactic acid stuff, spritzy spritz thingy, and a whole bunch of lotions and hot towels. I felt like one of those snobby rich ladies with cucumbers on their eyelids, except that I was not wearing the appropriate bling, and my car--parked by myself--was a Subaru. Will this be of use? I don’t know. But it sure felt like the skin equivalent of having your teeth worked over by the dental hygienist.
Meanwhile, the MacBook work space is surrounded by a teetering stack of college guides (all full of kitty claw and tooth pricks,) and a workbook full of suggestions from the post-secondary advisor-lady. I’m paying online visits to school sites, gap year sites, parent forums...and the kid himself is, essentially, clueless. I do not know what we will do. Send him to some sort of pre-freshman year preparatory program where he’ll be surrounded by underachievers for whom this was their last best option? Send him--rather blindly, I’d say--into the world of real college expectations with the hounding (I hope) support of a built-in LD support team? Prepare a roster of back-up options should plans A or B founder? Yes. But it’s a short roster at this point. Very short. I need a fail-safe plan. Suggestions will be entertained.
