You Are a Person, Not a Pickle

and other gifts of experience.

This week I’ll turn 39.

The targeted ads are jazzed. They swarm like vampires, heralding promises of firmness and fertility and infinite forms of “glow.” I am haunted by those filmy, comma-shaped masks that promise to make your eyes “get younger.” (If you’re anywhere near my demographic, you know the ones.) Everywhere I turn, I see preservation on the m…