BAD GIRL HITS AN AGE MILESTONE (head on, and fully fueled by hootch)

 I celebrated a birthday recently.  I didn’t celebrate it very well, mind you.  In fact, I don’t celebrate anything well anymore.  I don’t know how to, primarily because the only time I stay up past midnight is with sick kids.

The thing is, nobody needs birthday parties in order to feel older.  Our Drivers License photos do it perfectly well on their own.  Besides, you know you’re getting older because the cops keep getting younger and younger.  Soon they’ll be putting little cub scouts in uniforms and sending them out with toy guns to man the speed traps.

 

Getting older is particularly discouraging when you realize what other people have accomplished by the age of 35.  Attila the Hun had conquered most of Europe before he was old enough to vote.  Cleopatra had vamped the entire Mediterranean coastline while tossing Caesar Salad on the side, and Beethoven managed to write all sorts of world class symphonies and go deaf before he was my age.  Actually, he was dead by the time he was my age.

The worst thing about growing older is not the weight you gain, but the dreams you lose.  For instance, I’m having trouble coming to terms with the fact that I may never become a major Vogue model.  For one thing, we older broads can’t walk in high heels anymore without toppling over sideways.  Something to do with the weight distribution further up.  For another, we can’t see five inches ahead without our glasses.  So unless Vogue wants a model crawling along the catwalk on her hands and knees, modeling is out.

On the bright side, one of the minor irritants of aging is you tend to forget things.  This has certain advantages.  I haven’t weighed myself in weeks.  I've already forgotten my age.  And any day now, I might forget I am married… 

 

Respect me Bub, or I'll Stomp On You With My Stilettos

So a newish and very funny blogger friend  (Sara at Sara's Organized Chaos) is contemplating doing one of those glamour boudoir photo shoots. 

I said:  “DO IT DO IT DO IT!  I nearly did ‘back when’ but chickened out.  When I was 35, I could rock a boatload of sailors.  Now, I might possibly tip that boat if I stepped on in.  So do it now.”

Which has got me all thinking (dangerous at the best of times…)

This girl has spent her lifetime railing against the glass ceiling.  She took a Commerce degree and rocked business back when shoulder pads were big.  Okay, HUGE.  And liked them like that.

So what you’ve got here is one super-saturated power chick at the top of the fast food chain.  Treat me with respect bub, or I’ll stomp on you with my stilettos.  Oh, and pass the lipstick, ‘cause I wanna look sexy.

Why the flaming hell do I want to look sexy?  WHY?  I’ve got a perfectly good husband.  I’ve got a few good male friends who might be willing to step in if hubby doesn’t make it to the 10^th round.  (Of course I’m joking.  Why wouldn’t I be?)  There is no possible way I am looking for ANY new male attention of the prurient kind.

Yet here I am, fixing the long hair, wearing the underwire, cursing every new pound (the old ones should stop inviting new fat to the party).  Good thing the cleavage is still fine.  We’ll just show that off a bit. What the freaking hell is wrong with me?

“You can’t fight biology,” friend Jeannette says.

Well, my biology is sure freakin’ driving me crazy.  Can you spell contradiction?  Oxymoron?  Hypocritical?

Gotta run.  Teaching fiction writing tonight and I need an hour for my hair.

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MALE MENOPAUSE FOR AMATEURS (reprinted with permission)

What is it about men when they approach forty?  It’s like some kind of communal revelation.  Moses comes down from the mountain with an Etch-a-Sketch and all forty-something men the world over suddenly realize “Holy Smoke! I never got that electric slot car set when I was eight and time is running out…”

There are several ways to tell when a guy is getting to that age.  For one thing he no longer fast forwards through the hair replacement commercials.

Another sign is the basement. Our basement used to be a general clearing house for gargantuan ‘projects’.  You know…things like those partially completed but never installed shelves for the office.  Now our basement is a storage area for the local toy store.

Somehow, my guy has managed to get through 39 years without the need for toy airplanes – until last month.  Now he can’t manage without two.  In fact, he couldn’t make up his mind which one to buy (another sign of getting older: INDECISION) so he bought both. One is a common balsa wood wind-up thingy, of the boy scout variety.  The second is a blue and white foam bird that has a disturbing tendency to hit the ground nose first shortly after launching.  But it has a high ‘cuteness’ factor.

Another sign is the remote control cars.  Apparently it’s not enough to have real cars when you’re grown up.  You also require miniature battery powered jobbies which disappear down sewer grates.  We have three.  (We had four before the previously mentioned ‘unfortunate incident.’) And I’m buying stock in EverReady.

But the dead give-away was the classic male menopause statement uttered in front of the television this week: “I want to buy a Harley.”  Not just any old Honda, mind you, but a HARLEY.  This, coming from a man who has never had the slighted interest in anything with only two wheels, because “It doesn’t have 550 horse power and ten thousand foot pounds of torque.  Also, we might get wet.” 

The final sign of male menopause is that victims tend to be forgetful.  In fact, you may even find that your guy forgets your wedding anniversary.

This is okay as long as he doesn’t forget he’s married.

Age Gracefully? No Way! (reprinted with permission)

I celebrated a birthday recently.  I didn’t celebrate it very well, mind you. I don’t celebrate anything well anymore.  I don’t know how to, primarily because the only time I stay up past midnight is with sick kids.

This was not your run of the mill, once a year, sort of birthday.  No, it was more your “SOB!  Not me!  I can’t have lived this long and still not paid off my charge cards” kind of torture.

The thing is, nobody needs birthday parties in order to feel older.  Our Drivers License photos do it perfectly well on their own.  Besides, you know you’re getting older because the cops keep getting younger and younger.  Soon they’ll be putting little cub scouts in uniforms and sending them out with toy guns to man the speed traps.

           

Getting older is particularly discouraging when you realize what other people have accomplished by the age of 40.  Attila the Hun had conquered most of Europe before he was old enough to vote.  Cleopatra had vamped the entire Mediterranean coastline while tossing Caesar Salad on the side, and Beethoven managed to write all sort of world class symphonies and go deaf by the time he was my age.  Actually, he was dead by the time he was my age.

The worst thing about growing older is not the weight you gain, but the dreams you lose.  For instance, I’m having trouble coming to terms with the fact that I will never be a major Vogue model.  For one thing, we older broads can’t walk in high heels anymore without toppling over sideways.  Something to do with the weight distribution further up.  For another, we can’t see five inches ahead without our glasses.  So unless Vogue wants a model crawling along the catwalk on her hands and knees, modeling is out.

No question, this birthday signals in new stage in life: when your furniture is much too nice to have another baby.

On the bright side, one of the minor irritants of aging is you tend to forget things.  This has certain advantages.  I forgot to phone my inlaws last week.  I haven’t weighed myself in weeks.  Any day now, I might forget I am married… oops, I forgot: this is a family column.