Tomorrow is my birthday, but today is a day for...

... getting a flu shot — done! — and a mammogram — later. The mammogram is something I'd been putting off, but deciding to go in for the flu shot gave me the push I needed to schedule the mammogram. Dialogue with the nurse:

NURSE: Do you have breast implants?

ME [with slight disgust and amusement]: Nooo! [Changing my tone:] Oh, I mean, I didn't mean any disrespect to the women who have breast implants.

This is the instinctive all-inclusive political correctness I carry about in my daily doings here in Madison, Wisconsin. Not that the nurse would have expressed disapproval if I'd said anything wrong. And I'm not even sure if my self-protective instinctive political correctness is a comic routine. It is something I see myself doing. Sorry if that's TMI on the breasts, but I'm just saying: Come on, everybody, get your flu shots and (if needed) mammograms.

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The argument for letting your hair grow long and white as you age and not getting any facial surgery or Botox.

From 83-year-old "supermodel" Daphne Selfe. (Great name, by the way.)

Selfe, who went gray in her 40s, gave up coloring her hair and decided to let it grow.

“My hair is long now because it’s cheaper. I don’t have to do anything but put it in a topknot or a French pleat,” she said. “It avoids that old lady permed look, lengthens the neck and lifts the face.”

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