Oops, I did it again. Even though I know better—and even though I’ve endured the aftermath the next morning in the mirror too many times before—I still fell asleep in my makeup, again, last night.

I knew I’d regret it, but the choice between getting up to cleanse at the sink or staying in bed (and sometimes the couch) is too overwhelming. At the end of a long day, my body longs to lie down rather than stand at the sink ritually going through my skin-care routine, and flossing and brushing my teeth, and using Latisse and using Minoxidil, and putting body lotion on, and putting a foot exfoliant cream on. Damn I have a long routine!

So I tell myself, “I’ll just lie down for a few minutes and finish the end of CSI or Glee.” Yeah, right. Who do I think I’m fooling? I know the odds are 10 to 1 that I will ever get up to do what my boyfriend affectionately calls “exit procedures.” But I stay lying down, nonetheless, knowing there will be hell to pay in the morning.

Foundation, blush, mascara, eyeliner, and lipstick look like hell the next morning when you’ve slept in it all night. The smeary, flaky mess you see looking back at you in the mirror is a disaster. Speckles of black mascara in and around your eyes, the streak of lipstick across your chin, and dark rings of shadow are a sight to behold. It looks like something out of a bad movie about the drug underworld.

But how bad it looks is only half of the disaster. Swollen, red, irritated eyes with veins bulging are coupled with crusted tears at the corners to create an itchy, sore, and uncomfortable mess. And, if that wasn’t bad enough, your skin is about to punish you for your negligence.

One of the problems with sleeping in foundation, pressed or loose powder (whether they’re labeled mineral or not), and blush (cream or powder) is that they all keep skin cells from sloughing off your face as they should. The combination of makeup and built-up dead skin cells ground into skin immediately clogs pores. For those prone to breakouts, it will trigger a new crop of pimples or blackheads that will appear first thing in the morning or will creep up on you by the end of the day. For those with dry or sun-damaged skin, it will just make your skin look dull and ashy. Yuck.

Though you shouldn’t have done it (and, as evidenced above, I’m just as guilty as many of you), here’s what you can do to minimize the repercussions of falling asleep in your makeup:

• Wash your face twice, and use a soft washcloth to be sure to manually (but gently) exfoliate your skin.
• You must absolutely use an eye makeup remover that has no chance of further irritating your eyes, and get every last trace and fleck of makeup off and out of your eyes. Paula’s Choice Gentle Touch Makeup Remover fits that description.
• Use lubricating eye drops (not Visine-like products) to soothe your eyes (this really helps!). The Refresh brand is excellent!
• Go over your face with a well formulated toner to add antioxidants to your skin and remove last traces of makeup from your face, particularly around the hairline.
• If breakouts or blackheads are a concern, it is essential that you apply one of Paula’s Choice BHA exfoliants (I prefer my Exfoliating 2% BHA Liquid, but you can always check Beautypedia.com for our list of best BHA products from other lines).
• If you can grab a minute, lie down with your head elevated and place an ice pack over your eyes (it will feel great and reduce puffiness and swelling).
• Apply a lightweight moisturizer such as a serum or a gel on your face and, if needed, a more emollient moisturizer around your eyes.
• If you can wear a lighter makeup than you did the day before you fell asleep with your makeup on, that would help a lot.

It goes without saying, but I’ll say it anyway: Do not fall asleep in your makeup again tonight. Taking brilliant care of your skin at night will always reap far better rewards than those five extra minutes you get by lying down before you get your makeup off. I know, better said than done, but my job is to say it. Now if I could only practice what I preach!

Accutane was a brand name for an oral, anti-acne medication that is no longer being prescribed, but the active ingredient in it (isotretinoin) is now available as a generic. Accutane/isotretinoin has the potential to cure acne or at the very least make it go away for awhile. Once a round of isotretinoin is done, the acne may still return; however, if it does, it is rarely as bad as before.

Regrettably, isotretinoin is a difficult drug. There are lots of serious side effects such as elevated cholesterol, liver problems, loss of hair, unbelievably dry skin, birth defects if you get pregnant while taking it, depression (though that side effect is controversial), headaches, bloody nose, and on and on. But for me, my acne was even more difficult than all of those health risks, which is why, once I was fully informed about the risks, I still opted to take this medicine to help my acne.

Prior to Accutane, every morning for me was a living nightmare of having to look in the mirror to see what had happened to it overnight. It was agonizing and it was rarely good news. And then during the day I could feel eruptions developing as I touched my face or felt the small throbs where swollen bumps were growing. I even hated the word “pimple.” I found it embarrassing and insulting. I am sure anyone struggling with acne knows just how I felt, and how strong the desire for clear skin becomes.

When I finally decided to try Accutane it was with utter abandon. I would do anything to not have this struggle of seeing red, inflamed, white dotted lesions on my face.

When I started my prescription I noticed a difference within the first week. I’ll never forget the moment when I touched my face and felt nothing that I was so used to feeling. All I could feel was smooth skin! Much to my continued surprise, it remained that way for weeks. I had some of the side effects I was told about, including bloody nose, dry lips, and headaches. No one tested for liver function and cholesterol levels in those days and I was beyond getting pregnant so there is much I don’t know for what did or didn’t go wrong for me internally. What I do know is that it was the first time in my life since the age of 11 that I liked looking at myself in the mirror.

At the three month point I started experiencing hair loss and that freaked me out. As a result, I stopped taking the drug and, as expected, the hair loss stopped. The trade-off for stopping too soon to save my hair was my acne came back about two months later. I did a great deal of research and found that the dosage and timing was a big deal. A lower dose taken over a longer period of time seemed to be far better. I discussed this with a new physician and started another cycle of Accutane. Thankfully, it went much better the second time around.

Today, almost 17 years later, I still struggle with breakouts but nothing like I did before Accutane. I sometimes think I should have taken another treatment cycle but never did, not because of the risks, it was just that I never got around to it and I was happy enough with the results two rounds of Accutane provided.

Given everything known about isotretinoin/Accutane my only personal regret is that I waited so long to take it. I can only guess what my mornings would have been like in my 20s and early 30s had I taken the drug back then, and not wasted so much time and money on irritant-laden products that made matters worse not better. Like many of you, I just didn’t know any better and just kept buying product after product hoping something would work.

Everyone has to weigh the pros and cons of many things they do in life; for me, Accutane was a no-brainer. Whether you feel the same way is a decision only you can make, but if you decide to take isotretinoin, be certain you’re fully informed of the risks, particularly if you’re a woman of childbearing age.

There is some pretty silly and often imprudent advice floating around on Internet sites and in fashion magazines offering beauty suggestions for traveling women. Traveling is challenging enough without having to waste time packing things you don’t need, or won’t help you get through security. The tips below will help you arrive looking gorgeous and feeling great!

Here is absolutely what you need to do so you can be a happy camper anywhere you go:

• Pack your carry on wisely. Do not try to get cuticle clippers, scissors, razors, or bottles over 3.4 ounces through airport security. Sharp objects of any kind are not allowed (I had a pointy pair of tweezers confiscated recently).
• Use a quart-sized plastic bag as recommended by the Transportation Security Administration (TSA). You are only allowed one plastic bag, and because it can’t be said too often, the enclosed containers must be 3.4 ounces or less.
• Wear sunscreen! Not only are you going to be dry up there, you’re going to be exposed to intense UV light when the windows are open (it really helps to close those windows if your neighbor doesn’t mind).
• Wear shoes that expand. Your feet will swell up. Think brands like Clarks, Munro, Merrel, and Fitzwell.
• Forget the heels. Watching women all over the world teeter on heels trying to get through airports is just sad to see.
• Don’t wear flip flops. They offer no support which will make you feel and look tired and put your body into an unattractive and unhealthy posture (almost as bad as really high heels).
• Wear loose, nice clothes that expand and don’t wrinkle; you will look and feel great. Stretch jerseys are the absolute best. For high end, check out Misook at Nordstrom.com, and for less-expensive options check out MyShape.com! They have the most amazing collection of stretch jersey clothing ever!
• Whatever makeup you wear, be sure it is easy to remove for long flights. Sleeping in your makeup is awful for your face. You can end up with swollen, puffy eyes, breakouts, and dry, flaky skin.
• Wear lip gloss or a creamy lipstick. Lips dry out in an airplane and at high altitudes. You can also try a lip stain like Revlon’s Just Bitten Lipstain and keep reapplying the gloss that’s part of the packaging.
• Bring oil blotting papers. They help anywhere you are, but are especially helpful after a long flight.
• Do drink a lot of water and don’t have more than one cocktail. Your body and head will thank you for it.

What you should bring on the plane that can get through security:

• Afrin or some other nasal spray for when your ears get plugged during landing. It can make all the difference and can be used in the moment when you start feeling uncomfortable pressure.
• Bring a travel size container of your favorite fragrance, but don’t overdo it. The person you are sitting next to might have a sensitivity or allergy to fragrance (I know I do).
• Travel-sized packets of your skin-care routine are a must, and include a toothbrush and tiny travel-size of toothpaste. At the end of the flight it helps to do your skin-care routine, brush your teeth, and apply simple makeup. It will feel wonderfully refreshing and look beautiful.
• All Paula’s Choice skin-care products come in travel sizes, and I’ve never had them questioned at security so I don’t pack them in my quart-sized bag.
• To get your makeup on the plane, pack your foundation in the quart-sized bag. Other than my foundation I’ve never had my lipstick, concealer, mascara, or other makeup products questioned at security.
• Include a travel-sized packet of a rich moisturizer for your hands. My Beautiful Body Butter is perfect. It is dry up there and your hands will feel it. And don’t forget to apply sunscreen as a finishing step.
• Lubricating eye drops—what a difference these make! Not only does your skin get dry, but so do your eyes!
• Hair does dry out up in the sky; a silicone serum spray can instantaneously put shine back in your hair and make it feel soft and silky. Garnier Fructis Brilliantine Shine Glossing Spray, $4.99 for 3 ounces, is perfect and can get through security, too.
• For more detailed information about security at the airport, check out www.tsa.gov, especially their travel assistant section. This is a thorough and easy-to-navigate site.

What you absolutely don’t need to do:

• Don’t spray your face with water; what a waste of time! Water isn’t moisturizing, it just evaporates and leaves your skin feeling drier. What your skin needs is to keep the natural water content (which is about 30%) and healthy substances in skin so it feels soft, smooth, and looks radiant. Using a brilliant skin-care routine will get you through life anywhere you are.
• If you are flying first class or business, don’t use the hot face cloth they hand you on your face. I never recommend steaming the face (heat can cause spider veins to surface and create irritation).
• Don’t pack aerosols because they can drain out under the pressure of traveling at 30,000 feet up in the air.
• Don’t pack pumps that don’t lock down. They will leak.
• Some caps come loose no matter what you do. If you are packing a particularly greasy item put it in a separate plastic bag.
• Don’t pack full sizes of your skin-care or hair-care products in your checked luggage. Travel kits are the best. You can find them in drugstores, online, and Paula’s Choice will be launching one this fall!

A Facebook fan of ours wanted to know more about how I develop Paula’s Choice products from concept to the final version, ready to be launched. They also wanted to know how my process is different from the way other companies create beauty products. I have to say, I love this question!

It is astonishing even to me how incredibly different my product development methodology is from other cosmetic companies’.

Creating new products and improving our current formulations is my passion and it has been my life’s work. Every product is my achievement or concept and I personally oversee the formula from every perspective. That alone is rare.

There are no owners or formulators for cosmetic companies who have spent the past 30 years writing 18 books on skin care and makeup. Most of the people developing skin-care products either don’t take the time or they don’t know how to evaluate a peer-review scientific study.

Many of the scientists who work for cosmetic companies are not penetrating past the claims of one product, or they don’t actually understand or are involved in an entire skin-care routine. You only have to look at the vast number of products in jar packaging, or that contain alcohol among other notorious irritants, or are antiquated formulations; for some reason this still shocks me.

My team and I always obsess over:

1. What the research says about the ingredients we want to use.
2. Analyze what the actual overall benefit to skin will be for a specific skin type or concern based on published research and then on our own clinical panel testing.
3. How it compares to other products (if I can’t make it far better and sell it at a more reasonable price than other cosmetic companies, we won’t make it).
4. Most importantly, it must work within a framework of superior skin care (gentle cleansers, toners loaded with “bio-active” ingredients, sunscreens enhanced with antioxidants, moisturizers and serums containing substances that repair skin and fend off environmental damage, effective exfoliants—not scrubs which tear at skin, etc).

What makes our process different is basically the following:

1. I have a unique concept of skin care based on published research about different skin-care concerns ranging from acne to rosacea, wrinkles, sensitive skin, oily skin, and dry skin, etc. Most cosmetic companies don’t approach skin care in a cohesive, systematic fashion; they follow trends or an exotic ingredient they can build a story around.
2. We never jump on bandwagons. Just because apple tree stem cells or ingredients claiming to work like Botox are being thrown into moisturizers, I would never include it simply because it would make for good ad copy or a fashion magazine editor would think it was new and different. The research must be there to support adding it to a formula.
3.  My fundamental philosophy is to never harm skin: Irritation and inflammation is bad for skin. There is no contradictory evidence on this one. Other companies throw in known irritants ALL the time because it sounds natural or they just don’t know what they are doing.
4. In the world of cosmetics most product development people are in the marketing department (that never fails to kill me). They decide they will be able to build a story around some new ingredient and then give that information to the chemists and a new product is born. That process has nothing to do with skin care.
5. Because my team and I have reviewed thousands of products and have spent every day poring over published research about skin, we know up close and personal what hundreds of other brands are creating and understand their formulations. We have a bird’s eye view of the industry and we can avoid formulary mistakes and can discern formulary excellence from every angle.

I’ll never forget the time when my product development manager, Kate Mee, and I met with a prominent cosmetic lab down in California (they did work for many of the major cosmetic companies). We sat around the table with three of their cosmetic chemists, two of the owners of the lab, and two of their main sales representatives. When we began discussing the formulas they had been working on for us, they were taken aback at the research we had done and the meticulous detail we went through to evaluate the ingredients.

I said, “Doesn’t every cosmetic company you work with do this?”
They said, “None of them do this.”
I said, “Then what do they do?”

Their response was that they “talk marketing ideas and what star ingredient they want the product to contain, or how the product should smell, or what natural ingredients we can put in it, but never research and definitely not an analysis of every ingredient.”

I said, “But if the product is for acne and they don’t have acne, or if the product is for dry skin and they don’t have dry skin, why would they try it?”

Their response: “They don’t really care about the ingredient deck. The people we meet with are from the marketing team; they don’t know anything about the science of skin, skin problems, or cosmetic chemistry. They care about appearance and how they can sell the product.”

Geesh! That was one of the most eye opening experiences of my career. I have written extensively about what can and can’t benefit skin. As new research comes to light we change or improve what we do. As new requests come in from our readers or customers we examine how we can meet those needs—often we can, but often we can’t. What we will never do is pretend a product can do more than what is possible. All of this adds up to skin care you can trust, whether it is from my product line or from other cosmetic companies’ products we recommend on Beautypedia.com.

If you are anything like me, when you envision the CEO of a cosmetics company you may picture an authoritative figure wearing a designer outfit with an executive assistant sitting right outside their door, waiting to answer every beckoning call. Ok, The Devil Wears Prada may have influenced this vision a bit, but the fact remains that we often perceive these high power individuals to be intimidating, untouchable, and far removed from everyday people or everyday life just in general.

While that may be true for some corporations, let me set the record straight here at Paula’s Choice. I would know; I’m Paula’s assistant! First of all, I have to start out by mentioning that in the 30 years Paula has been flying around the world educating women about skin care, and running Paula’s Choice, this is the first time she has had an assistant. I’m flabbergasted at how she managed to juggle it all on her own (though to the credit of the office, she has had great support). Nonetheless, let’s get down to the details you really want to know…

Is Paula a diva? Well, she does like her Perrier mineral water and flying first class (but she flies me first class, too, so that part of her being a diva is fine with me), yet in reality Paula is about as down-to-earth as they come. Some days she comes into the office dressed to the nines, but other days she’s completely comfortable sporting a casual ensemble. She’ll be the first one to greet everybody as she enters the building, compliment you on a new hair cut, or stop to play with the dogs in the office. It’s easy to tell when Paula is here because you can usually hear a roar of laughter before she has even made it up to her office on the second floor. (Speaking of laughter, she has been known to interrupt a meeting to play a funny video she just saw on YouTube, but you didn’t hear that from me.)

Another surprising fact is how hands-on Paula is. You might typically think of a CEO as someone who has “people” for everything, but as busy as Paula may be, she will actually read letters from customers and take the time to respond. She holds weekly meetings with our Customer Service department to keep them up-to-date with the latest information, as well as get feedback on what our customers have to say. Even when she is traveling across the globe to different time zones, Paula will wake up at 3am to do her online radio show. Every product development idea, Beautypedia.com review, or Paula’s Choice promotion goes through Paula.

Last, but certainly not least, what sets Paula apart as a CEO and as The Cosmetics Cop is her capacity to relate to people. Fans catch a glimpse of this on her weekly radio show where Paula tells all from her struggles with puberty and acne as a teen, to her experiences with menopause and plastic surgery. Paula has sincere empathy for the skin-care issues that her customers, fans, friends, and employees face and she is always there to lend advice and sometimes even some free products. Moreover, what other CEO would recommend products outside of their own? Only someone who is dedicated to helping you find the best products for your skin. Now that’s a far cry from what most of us would picture of any CEO from any other company in the world.

I think I left off my European travel tales with Harsha heading for Mumbai and me flying off to Rome where I met my girlfriend Julie for our 9-day Italian escapade. Almost everything went off without a hitch. Flights were on time, drivers were where they were supposed to be, the hotel was lovely, our guide was wonderful, and the food, ah, my taste buds and hips will never be the same (but my hips weren’t doing so well when I first got to Europe anyway).

The sole hitch was a struggle at the Rome airport trying to find the right baggage claim area after I deplaned. Seems once you are in the wrong place in the Rome airport, it is a convoluted, circuitous, confusing process to get to the right place. After 45 minutes of asking directions and getting different answers and misreading signs (which make no sense in any language), my frustration had built to a crescendo that finally burst when I asked a policeman for help and instantly started blubbering. I felt like a child lost at a shopping mall looking desperately for a parent. My only solace was not being the only passenger trying to find the right baggage claim location (even Italians can’t make sense of the signs). Organization, Italian style!

Shortly after being reunited with my luggage I was in Roma and hungering for pasta, pizza, and pomodoro!

Without question, Rome is my favorite European city. Most of Italy is a tourist’s dream come true. It is the best of everything: ornate churches, opulent palaces, villas filled with antiquities, art, and sculpture for as far as the eye can see. There is also rolling countryside, greenery, mountains, a shoreline dotted with picturesque villages, incredible dining, charming shops, and palatial museums adorned with stunning décor and art work created by artisans endowed by the Divine. Of course, we went to all the traditional places and I am pleased to report that it was perfect with relatively tame crowds all around.

Visually, there is so much to take in it becomes instantly overwhelming. There are moments of breathlessness mixed with astonishment and wonder. In particular I am still surprised at my reaction every time I see Michelangelo’s Pieta at the Vatican, plus the Vatican is without question one of the most gorgeous buildings in the world. Michelangelo’s Pieta is mesmerizing and haunting, an achievement of sheer genius and passion. But it is all astounding. This time I was surprised to find out that all the “paintings” in the Vatican I’ve stared at during previous visits weren’t paintings at all; rather, they are elaborate, unexplainably complex, intricate tile masterpieces. We finished our Vatican visit with the spellbinding, enthralling beauty of the Sistine Chapel. Viewing the ceiling and walls painted by Michelangelo can be a painful experience as you linger over the art work towering overhead with your neck stretched and wrenched back and upward for way too long so you can take it all in.

When all is said done, all of the art and architecture of Rome are not about the Catholic church, but rather a living testament of the soul’s need to express itself through diverse mediums and arduous endeavor. No wonder all roads lead to Rome; it is truly a Mecca for anyone with eyes hungry to see unparalleled parts of exquisite European beauty prefaced by a torturous, complex history.

After Rome, Julie and I went to Milan for the penultimate part of our trip to Italy: Opening night at La Scala to see Placido Domingo singing the title role in Verdi’s Simon Boccanegra. Milan is a lovely city, but it is really just a city with some fabulous shopping for the too thin and too extravagant crowd that also happens to have a mind-blowing massive cathedral (I know, not exactly unusual for Italy). But what it does have that no other city in the world has is La Scala, the pinnacle of opera houses where the who’s who of operatic talent has graced its stage. I couldn’t believe it. Adding to the drama of the moment was the delivery of the tickets I bought almost six months earlier: They didn’t show up until the night before the performance. I thought I was going to faint! When that anxiety ended it was all well worth it. The performances were ardent and the musical quality pure and thundering. I felt blessed and humbled by the experience.

From Milan we traveled to Florence which is yet another scenic, idyllic, art-endowed city with the Pitti Palace, Boboli Gardens, and the Arno River cradled by adobe colored buildings with classic tiled roofs and lush grape-vined hillsides spanning the horizon. Uffizi Gallery was certainly the high point with Botticelli’s numerous breathtaking pieces a prime reason to visit and marvel!

As you already know, the last part of my almost two-month journey was the global calamity caused by that unpronounceable volcano in Iceland spewing its pent-up fury and bowels in a rolling mushroom cloud of environmental and commercial destruction. Every day from April 15th on, when almost all the airplanes in Europe were grounded and hundreds of thousands of people were stranded, we had no idea what we would do. I was working hard on trying to be very Zen about the whole thing, but mostly I was just being a nervous wreck who wanted to come home.

To make a long story short, I wrote this partly on the plane from Rome to London (that left on time and landed on time) and while waiting for the plane to Seattle that also left and landed on time. As I complete this, I am finally at home in my own bed. I can’t believe it. I am flabbergasted and filled with relief.

Of course, I will be hitting the ground running in no time (Vancouver, Toronto, and San Francisco, here I come!) but it has been one of my best trips ever in so many ways, yet, when all is said and done, there is no place like home!

Meet Paula in Toronto, ON where she will be exposing the truth behind common beauty myths and signing copies of her latest editions of, The Original Beauty Bible and Don’t Go to the Cosmetics Counter Without Me (Brand New 8th Edition).

Thursday, May 6, 2010
6:30pm

Indigo Books Music & Café (Yorkdale Shopping Centre)
3401 Dufferin St.
Toronto, Ontario

Join us for your chance to:

• Find out how to look younger without spending a fortune.
• Learn why typical acne products can make breakouts worse.
• Discover the reality vs. the hype behind organic and natural products.
• Ask The Cosmetics Cop your skin-care questions.
• Get FREE samples of Paula’s Choice products.
• Win a $100 Paula’s Choice gift certificate!

RSVP Here or on Facebook

Call in & ask Paula your skin-care questions during her live Internet talk radio show,
Be Beautifully Informed with Paula Begoun,
The Cosmetics Cop.

Every Thursday beginning
6pm PST, 8pm CST, 9pm EST

• Best & worst products for the week.
• Behind-the-scenes look at cosmetic tips, advertising, & procedures.
• Call in & get personalized advice from Paula.
• Select callers can win free products on every show!

To tune in…
Call (347) 426-3783 to listen live & ask questions at show time, or listen to live & archived segments online .

Traveling from London, to Amsterdam, Edinburgh, and now Monte Carlo is like going from Mars to Neptune and then onto Uranus and finally Venus. Each locale is a completely separate world with little comparison other than an ancient history spanning from Roman times to Medieval and now into the current world of political and financial turmoil. That is where the similarities stop and start; otherwise, each place has such a distinctive character you’d never mistake one for the other!

What I find most interesting is that in every other place I’ve been I feel like I blend in to some extent (though of course once someone starts talking to me it is clear I am as American as apple pie and Tiger Woods—he has been in every newspaper all over Europe), but I definitely do not belong in Monte Carlo. Money—and I mean serious money—spills over from every nook and cranny. It practically rolls in on the Mediterranean waves like a tsunami! This is tax haven heaven for the world as Monaco has no income tax or capital gains tax. That’s enticing enough to make me think ‘Paula’s Choice Monaco’ has a nice ring to it!

Money not only talks here, it walks all over the place and does so in 5-inch tall Manolo Blahniks and Jimmy Choos. All of the clothes you see on runways or in Vogue adorn these size 0, modelesque young women on the arms of incredibly wealthy men, or fathers, or, well, who knows what the relationship is. Long-legged, perfect women, in unbelievable outfits along with $20,000 Valentino handbags is a site to behold. I’m not sure whether I feel jealous or relieved; the clothes certainly weren’t made for me and the shoes would kill me as soon as I stood up! I’m not sure, but I suspect this kind of lifestyle comes with a price that involves some sort of soul-demeaning competition that can be easily toppled. For most of the women, all of this ostentatious display is almost certainly dependent on the good will of men, and we know how reliable that is!

Back in my own idyllic state, Harsha and I are in a lovely room at the Fairmont overlooking the sea (actually it’s right on the Mediterranean, with towering, rocky cliffs framing the background). Monaco is a teeny country with no borders but you absolutely know when you are here. The town is centered on the famed Le Casino which is simply magnificent: like a gaudy Versailles with a stuffy crowd. It wasn’t the swank experience I was hoping for and no one looked like Sean Connery or Cary Grant. I felt far more comfortable coming back to my hotel that has a small Vegas-style casino to gamble there. I understand a Vegas crowd, they laugh and the dealers are charming and helpful (I still lose money but at least I’m having a good time during the experience). In contrast, Le Casino seems designed to take your money and run, minus the fun in between.

Of course, we do venture outside our hotel. In fact, the ancient villages we traveled to were wonderful. Eze and St. Paul de Vence were striking examples of walled citadels built on precipices with 360-degree views of the surrounding hillside painted with adobe homes, Italian cedars, and pine trees. St. Paul de Vence was especially amazing as it is an art community that I could have spent all day wandering the spiraling stone-clad streets looking at the blown glass, oil paintings, and history poring from the steep alleyways.

For the most part, we have been relaxing. Late mornings, leisurely breakfasts overlooking the changing mood of the weather, reading the newspapers, and having long talks. Surprisingly, there is a cosmetic dermatology conference in town that I decided to attend. It was a great experience. How unexpected, and it dovetailed perfectly with my BlogTalk Radio show for this week (yes, even on vacation I am still keeping you “Beautifully Informed”).

Harsha and I are going to the tennis open here in Monaco on Saturday. The names of the players are the who’s who of the tennis world and Harsha can’t wait. He loves tennis and he has taught me to appreciate the game.

For now, that’s about it. I’m off to see what the Europeans know about anti-aging (I suspect not much; these are deeply sun-damaged faces akin to the Miami crowd). There are over 100 cosmetic companies with booths at this event, none that I have ever heard of before. Being a cosmetic cop has no end in sight but at least my downtime is filled with memorable moment after memorable moment. Viva Monaco!

I have been gazing at the city of Edinburgh from our room and I can tell part of my soul feels settled. My dream of going to school here to study writing (which never happened for many reasons) has been resolved, the regret and questions of what could have been are answered. It would have been something to be here in my youth, but my life has been just as interesting (and I am indeed a writer and a prolific one at that, though not the type of writer I fantasized becoming), and there is no answer to the question of what might have been. The prophetic words of Robert Frost have been whispering in my ear the whole time:

The Road Not Taken
Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveller, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I–
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

Robert Frost