"Mom, you're SO cool. YOU don't care what you look like." Hmmm. Uh, thanks, I think. I'm pretty sure that was meant as a compliment. My youngest son, Pat, and I are sort of in that last stage before real adolescence hits when we hang out and enjoy being lazy together.

The top of our list of things to do is to watch "Win Ben Stein's Money" (How does that guy know all this stuff?!!) while eating food of absolutely no nutritional value. So, I feel it's safe to assume that Pat's statement was an expression of real teenaged approval.

It's not that I planned this rather jejune (look it up - I had to) approach to my image. It just sort of evolved. Every year, I get my hair cut to chin-length. Nothing fancy. Just enough to keep it relatively healthy looking for the rest of the year while I ritually abuse it. I decided a long time ago that I was des-

tined to carry on the legacy of Marilyn Monroe's platinum blonde wow-ness, and I began bleaching my hair. Well, my figure didn't quite keep up with the hair color thing, so I gradually turned down the voltage bit by bit. But - and this is important - I still bleach it blonde. Never give in, is my motto. Of course, as any woman who colors her hair knows, if you don't want to look like you've glued corn stalks to your head, you have to do a lot more than wash it and let it run free in the breeze. Blow dryer, curling iron, hot rollers, and massive amounts of hair spray and prayer come to mind.

Well, this year, I broke all the rules. Instead of getting my hair cut in September, I had it done in June. So what, you might ask. To any other sane person, this probably wouldn't make much of a difference. But something happens to me in the summer. I get delusions of grandeur when my kids get out of school. Maybe, it's a hormonal imbalance. For example, this is when I decide to write novels. Don't laugh. I've written three full-length novels over the summers. OK, so the first one was pretty awful, and my kids are forbidden to publish it posthumously when I'm famous and any scrap of paper that I've

ever written will be auctioned off to my fans for $870,000.00. (Whoa, Terry, whoa! Calm down! Come back to earth.)

This summer, while toying with the idea for at least two novels (in general, I usually have five running through my head - I must be getting more serious as I age), I decided that I was going to renovate my house. Now, I have no money, you understand, so this takes massive infusions of creativity as well as sheer commitment to scrubbing places that you will never scrub again. (And you think I'm kidding.)

So between muttering to myself about what my new characters are doing while I scrape grease off the wall behind my stove, and chauffeuring everyone in my family around, a new look sort of evolved for me. I suppose if I had to describe if for a fashion shoot it would be described as "fresh, uncomplicated, active." Well, in reality, this look isn't exactly young and sassy, if you know what I mean. A more popular view would probably be "middle-aged mother trying to clean house that four sons and husband live in, fix dinner, and get out for two-mile walk before British comedy comes on at eleven." Yes, I think that characterizes it nicely.

My family and I are going on what would be termed as a "real" vacation this summer. My husband and I are driving out to Colorado with our two teen-aged sons who are at peak bickering meltdown. Take a moment to really contemplate exactly what that means. Sixteen-hundred miles, thirty hours in a car TOGETHER - one way. Staggering in it's implications, isn't it? So with that thought in mind, if you happen to see me out taking my walk, or running to the store, in my beloved slob suit with my bleached blonde hair flying with unreserved abandon every which way, understand that it's really just MY vacation that you're seeing - every over-processed, un-hot-rollered strand of it.