Nora Ephron On Aging, Her Neck, Life

Humorist's New Book Looks At Ups, Downs Of Women Getting Older

(CBS)  ”One of the worst things about a heat wave is you can't wear one. You just can't. It's too pathetic. You know, sometimes I put on a scarf, and I realize I look like Katharine Hepburn in 'On Golden Pond.'

"But there are all these things you start doing short of that. But my point is that I began noticing this, and it crossed my mind, 'You know, nobody's really writing about getting older in a way that is remotely relevant or truthful,' because all I'm ever seeing are these kind of unbelievably cheerful, bromidic things about how great it is to be older. Yeah, right. OK.

"I'm here. Consider the alternative. But, it's complicated. It's interesting. You know, thank God our elbows don't face forward, or we'd really be suicidal!"

In addressing "maintenance," of hair, for instance, Ephron writes, "The amount of maintenance involving hair is genuinely overwhelming. Sometimes I think that not having to worry about your hair anymore is the secret upside of death."

"It's tiresome washing your hair over and over, don't you think?" Ephron asked rhetorically. "… I try to have my hair done once or twice a week, because I think it's a more intelligent investment than psychoanalysis.
… And it takes about as much time, if you can find someone in the neighborhood, as doing it yourself. But, do you realize how much time we spend on our hair and dyeing our hair? It's practically a career. Maintenance is practically a career.

"… What I cannot get over is these things that you didn't even know you had to do, like manicures. Where did that come from?

If she could what age would Ephron go back to?

"Forty. Forty-two. That was good!"

Ephron also writes that one of her "great life regrets" is "not having worn a bikini for the entire year I was 26. If anyone young is reading this, go right this minute, put on a bikini. Don't take it off until you're 34."

To read an excerpt of "I Feel Bad About My Neck," click here.