Lisa Scottoline: A fish called Lisa

By now, we all know that I stay positive about getting older.

Especially considering the alternative, which is being in Congress.

Heh heh.

But despite my trademark positivity, I think regular readers will also know that I keep it real about everything, especially aging.

Like, I want to be the one who tells you the stuff that no one else will.

For example, I was the first to tell you that someday, you'll find gray chin hairs and know you're becoming an Amish man.

Anyway, this very week, something happened to my upper arms that I can't even begin to explain.

By the way, if you're eating, stop now.

Unless you're an emotional eater, at which point you should eat more.

I say this because I'm an emotional eater.

Honestly, I can't think of a better reason to eat.

But anyway, back to my upper arms.

I was in yoga, and we were doing Downward Dog, which is the pose that you see in all the commercials, in which some insanely fit woman is forming an upside-down V with her well-muscled body, wearing something better than you are.

Also, she doesn't grunt when she goes into Downward Dog, like I do, which I think is adorable.

I mean, how can you not make a noise when you're turning into a dog?

Properly, you should bark.

Or at least fart.

But to my credit, I just grunt.

Maybe I'm Downward Hog.

Mother Mary used to grunt every time she sat down or got out of a chair, so clearly, for her generation, the problem is chairs.

In yoga, we have Chair Pose, in which you have to act like you're sitting in a chair when you're not, so they should probably call it Where-The-Hell-Is-My-Chair Pose.

And if you've ever been in Chair Pose, you know that you not only want to grunt, bark, and fart, you also want to scream.

Anyway, what I noticed in Downward Dog was that I happened to look at my shoulder caps and upper arms and there was some weird stuff going on.

It's a family newspaper, so substitute the word we want to say for stuff.

Here's a hint:

It begins with S and rhymes with hit.

Try to follow along.

What exactly was happening was something I had never seen before, which is that all over my shoulder caps and upper arms were tiny weird little bumps and hills.  They weren't wrinkles or cellulite, which I can deal with because God knows I have plenty of both.

I can't really say what exactly I was witnessing, except that it was something I've never seen on myself, and the only time I had actually seen it before was in a movie last summer, where a woman fell in love with a fish.

And I didn't look like the woman.

I looked like the fish.

So basically, I have scales now.

I have no idea why.

I'm not a doctor, I'm just a lady trying to tell you the truth about what's going to happen to you when you're 62 and about to turn 63 on July 1, when I will probably devolve to an amphibian and return to the primordial ooze.

Maybe that's what's happening.

Time is reversing, but I didn't get younger again.

I skipped the younger-again part and went straight to flippers.

I should've known this was going to happen, because the thing that happened two days before that was I had to go to a wedding and wear a fancy dress that had short sleeves, and that's when I noticed that my arms had a weird stringiness, slackness, or something else that begins with S.

Right, you guessed it.

But I wasn't scaly then, so maybe the stringiness is what you get before the scales.

So I'm here to tell you when you see that stringiness, turning into a trout isn't far behind.

I don't know what to make of this, because clichés talk about the indignities of old age, but I disagree.  It doesn't feel like an indignity as much as a mystery, and although I'm aging, I feel better than I ever have.

I just don't understand my own body.

I suppose a doctor would, or maybe a fishmonger.

Either way, I'm here to tell you what's going to happen next.

If you haven't grown scales yet, heads up.

You're warned.

And you're welcome.

If you already have your scales, please let me know what's going to happen next.

And when to expect gills.

Look for Lisa and Francesca's new humor collection, "I See Life Through Rosé-Colored Glasses," coming July 10, and Lisa's new Rosato & DiNunzio novel, "Feared," coming Aug. 14. Also look for Lisa's #1 best-selling domestic thriller, "After Anna," in stores now. lisa@scottoline.com.