The California Cure Saving Face

Saving one’s face—also known as anti-aging—is right at the intersection of vanity and judgment. Twenty years ago, I had too much of the former and not enough of the latter. Had I not been a struggling writer, and had I more ready cash, I might have gone for lip augmentation or been convinced that a forehead lift was the answer to a few wrinkles. I might have ended up altering my face to the point where I was no longer me—and it would have been my fault.

I know that for some women, altering is exactly the point. I have a friend Belinda, who is on her third face, and as lovely a face as it is, it bears no resemblance to the girl in her 21st-birthday-party video.

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