I've only been in Alabama once. The summer after my freshman year of college, my mom and I took about a week and a half and took a road trip through Cajun country and then along the Gulf Coast.

The thing I really remember from Alabama is Lambert's, home of the throwed rolls. We saw the sign on the highway and just had to stop there. [link] There's a really big dining room, and every ten minutes or so, someone comes in with a big basket of rolls and throws them to whoever puts a hand up. Someone else comes around with sorghum to put on them. (We had to ask what sorghum was. The guy serving it replied, "Are y'all Yankees?" My mom started laughing, because she thought that the accent and the use of "Yankee" was joking. It wasn't.) They also come around with buckets of fried okra, which they scoop out and put directly on the table, to eat with your hands. There was a loudspeaker where someone would periodically make announcements like, "Everyone cheer for Katie -- it's her birthday today!" One of the announcements was, "Everyone congratulate Jimmy -- he just got out of prison! And he's looking for a date!"

(I did what I generally do at southern meat'n'three places -- asked which vegetables were made without meat, and got a plate of four or five of them. Not the world's greatest dinner, but generally I end up with mashed potatoes, yams, corn, sometimes some greens, fried apples, and maybe mac and cheese.)

I think me doing it would be. I have youth issues.

I have youth issues.

What? Are you pro-Septugenarian?

Hell, half the time I consider the ER a moral failing. Botox is nothing compared to that.

To me, the distasteful thing is the notion that any given group of women in their mid-30s (esp. those who have known each other since high school or earlier) will be so hideously disfigured by age that they will benefit from cosmetic surgery pitches. A personal choice, medicinal treatment -- these are quite different from the peer pressure-enhanced feelings of inadequacy that I think are behind this botox party. But maybe I'm just a hippie or something.

Ah, Lambert's. That takes me back.

Hell, half the time I consider the ER a moral failing.

Is it a moral failing or a failure of character?

I mean, did you do something wrong, or are you just not toughing it out enough?

ION, I didn't realize how close I was in age to Obama. I knew we were about the same age, but we're about five weeks apart. To throw a weird perspective on this, some other famous people born during the summer of 1961 were Princess Di, Michael J. Fox, Boy George, Carl Lewis, Lawrence Fishburne, the Edge (U2), Billy Ray Cyrus and Ricky Gervais.

eta: George Clooney was born May of 1961. Huh. Hemingway committed suicide four days after I was born.

More huh. I'm coeval with Marvel:

November - The Fantastic Four #1 debuts, launching the Marvel Universe and revolutionizing the American comic book industry.

And Catch-22:

November 10 - Catch-22 is first published by Joseph Heller.

And the Vietnam War and the Ken Doll:

December 11 - The Vietnam War officially begins, as the first American helicopters arrive in Saigon along with 400 U.S. personnel.

I was born in Alabama, but moved away when I was not quite 3. Spent several weeks there every summer visiting grandparents. Then, ended up going to grad school in Tuscaloosa.

My extended family still all lives there. Have for generations. My immediate family mostly lives in the Memphis area.

Me? I'll never live back down there. While the racism stuff bugs me to no end, I've seen racism just as bad in and around Chicago. For me, it's just the general conservative social views and extreme religious hyprocrisy that makes it untenable.

Are you pro-Septugenarian?

I'm pro looking my age (whatever hand genetics dealt). When that's 70, 70 it is. The idea of losing my expressiveness in the pursuit of looking younger? Not for me. I was almost torn about doing it to stop the pain. And by almost I mean that I'm desperate to lose the pain, and will do what it takes. But I still might regret what it takes, even as I do it.

I mean, did you do something wrong, or are you just not toughing it out enough?

Failure of character, I guess. But there's a whiff of it not being right.