Oh to be de-aged

I am quietly panicking about the looming deadline for my book. I tried to break the back of it over the weekend, but life kept getting in the way.

I was madly typing on Saturday at 11.55am when I got a text from the youngest about borrowing the car. I replied that she was welcome to come and get it any time.

She struck terror in my heart with these eight words: “no ur getting ur hair done at 12.”

Arggggggghhhhhhh! I’d forgotten! I hadn’t showered. I hadn’t cleaned my teeth. I wasn’t wearing make-up. I was dressed in scruffy walking clothes.

There was no time to fix any of those things. I threw myself into the car and burst frazzled through the salon door at 12.20pm.

I breathlessly asked the hairdresser if she could dye my eyebrows as well as my roots. They are looking very faded in photos and Teams meetings.

I was so focused on making charming small talk to make up for arriving late that it didn’t occur to me to specify what colour eyebrows I wanted.

I also pay the yearly wage of a salt mine worker to get my hair coloured so I kinda presumed they would know what colour eyebrows to give a redhead.

But no. They dyed them black. So black that DD did a slight double take when he saw them.

He clocked my scary new eyebrows as we ate sausage sizzle dinner together and watched the youngest play a late afternoon game of AFL.

Then went to see the new Indiana Jones movie at a gorgeous old cinema called the Cremorne Orpheum.

The CGI that has been done on Harrison’s face for the movie was truly remarkable.

It’s the work of a the team of over 100 artists at Industrial Light and Magic, who spent three years on the film’s visual effects, which also included enhancing and developing existing de-aging technology to create something called ILM FaceSwap.

ILM FaceSwap is miraculous and very realistic during the flashback parts of the movie where Indy is supposed to look 40.

I was totally dazzled.

It must have been pretty freaky for Harrison to see himself on the big screen like that.

I’d quite like some ILM FaceSwap work done on DD and I, to see what we’d have looked like if we’d dated young instead of middle-aged.

As for the movie itself, while I have no firm opinions about Harrison as a person, I adore the character of Indy so it was great to see his last adventure on the big screen.

The film was about 30 minutes too long for our liking and DD wanted to know why everyone in the cinema (other than me!) was a Boomer.

You just had to see gorgeous CGI-free Karen Allen – who starred as Marion in Raiders of the Lost Ark and returned for a cameo in the new movie – to know the other Indiana Jones movies were made a loooooooooong time ago and the final one was bound to appeal to an older demographic.

(I also loved seeing Indy and Marion recreate their kiss scene from Raiders of the Lost Ark and show that things can still be sexy when you’re 80 and 71 respectively.)

As for Sunday, it started with a walk with a friend that included finding a $50 note in a garden bed. Woot!

The rest of the day passed in a blur or manuscript writing, then I jumped in the car to DD’s place to quickly read the travel section of the Sunday paper, watch a few cruise videos on YouTube and shout DD a bowl of pasta at our local Italian restaurant (with my $50 note) before returning home to another night of jackhammering outside my apartment.

Fortunately I have no after-work functions this week and can crack on with my big project, as half the pages are due next Monday.

Deep breaths!

Hope you had a great, jackhammer-free weekend.

Song of the day: Ed Sheeran “Thinking out loud”