Beloved, Magical, Literary Mancake

The night Max wore his wolf suit...

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Good Shit: Can't Wait Until March Book Log and Not a Baseball Fan

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Good Shit: Two Good Books Written by Two Good Derfs

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Mrs. G. usually hesitates to give anything close to advice but not today: You need to check these out.

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Intercourse at a Book Store

Mrs. G. went to a book store yesterday to buy a novel a friend recommended to her. She couldn't remember the name of the author so when she entered the store she walked over to the information counter, behind which stood a lady in a pale yellow sweater.

Lady in the pale yellow sweater: May I help you?

Mrs. G: I can't rememember the name of the author who wrote a book I'm looking for. The book is called You Deserve Nothing.

Lady in the pale yellow sweater (repeating the title as she types it into her computer): Yooou. Deseeerve. Nothiiing.

Mrs. G: It's a a self-help book...for children.

Lady in the pale yellow sweater stops typing and looks at Mrs. G.

Mrs. G: Kidding! It's fiction.

Lady in the pale yellow sweater:............

Mrs. G. (forced to sputter the mantra of the frequently misunderstood): I was just joking.

The moment, it was over. And perfectly good material? Wasted.

Mrs. G's Favorite Memoirs

Mrs. G. can get lost in a novel like nobody's business. She doesn't read nearly as much as she used to, but she still manages to tackle nearly a book a week.

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You Want Me to do What?

Mrs. G. stumbled across an article in the New York Times that simultaneously riled and unnerved her. The article discussed the best selling book How Not To Look Old by Charla Krupp. The book is a self-help primer on how to disguise and camouflage the fact that you are over the age of 25. How to fight getting older with the same vigilance as you would heart disease and cancer.

Chapter headings include:

• Nothing Ages You Like...Forehead Lines


• Nothing Ages You Like...Yellow Teeth


• Nothing Ages You Like...Sagging Skin


• Nothing Ages You Like...Grey Brow Hairs

As far as Mrs. G. can tell, according to Krupp, nothing ages you like, let's see, aging. Krupp insists that it's not just about vanity anymore. Looking young and fresh is crucial to job security.

Whether we want to admit it or not, in male corporate America we would rather have a cute, sexy 30-year-old working for us than a 50-year-old with gray hair who has let herself go and looks out of it, not in the swing of it, like a nun...My book is hitting a nerve because I am giving not looking old a spin as if your life depended on it.

Mrs. G. wants to make sure she has this straight. She not only has to raise the children, take care of the house, teach a few classes and keep her family's life spinning like a carefully balanced wash load, but now, when she has a minute, she needs put the brake on aging and stop time?

And, sadly, there is current research by The Center for Retirement that contends women over 50 were granted interviews for potential jobs forty percent less than their younger counterparts. Well that's just great. Looking younger can pay the bills. Looking your age will cost you.

Mrs. G. will enter the workforce full-time in the next few years. After having been home raising children for the last seventeen years, now she can question her relevance and validity as a valuable employee and worry that she isn't pretty enough, that she doesn't look ten years younger. At forty-one, a few little lines have set in, the chin is loosening it's grip and the breasts require industrial strength support. There's this distinct gut. And get this...Mrs. G. looks her age.

Has Mrs. G. lost touch with reality? Is she the only woman who would rather look like...

this...

and this...rather

than this? And Joan, Mrs. G. loves you, but girl please.

What is this book doing on the best seller list? Why is Oprah, the queen of finding your authentic self, promoting this book on her show? Why are we surrendering to the pressure to stop aging naturally? Why are we discriminating against ourselves? When are we going to quit blogging about how inner beauty is where it's at and bragging about how we assure our daughters they are naturally beautiful and perfect just the way they are (but momma needs all the helps she can get) and mean it? 13 billion dollars was spent on cosmetic surgery last year. 13 billion dollars. Reader, when are we going to collectively look Madison Avenue and societal pressure directly in the eye and say: Suck it...we don't want trout lips. We don't want, as Sharon Osbourne so eloquently put it, foreheads that look like flat screen TVs. Well, guess what? Mrs. G. is aging right this minute. She's getting older, and there isn't a damn thing she or anyone else can do about it. Deal with it. She is.

Postscript: When this originally ran, Mrs. G. received several unpleasant emails from women who were offended by many of the comments. They felt that Mrs. G. and her readers were dogging women who chose to get Botox or any other cosmetic procedure. But that really wasn't Mrs. G's intent. Do what you want to do to feel good about yourself. Fine. (Although she still thinks that book is ridiculous) Whatever. Mrs. G's point was that she takes care of her hair, bathes and smells nice, tries to wear what she considers comfortable and cute clothes, brushes and flosses, slathers on the occasional moisturizer and, by God, she feels that should be enough to qualify as looking good, mighty good. Certainly good enough to get a job for which she is qualified without out bumming out the boss and all the other employees.

 

If women collectively refused to follow imposed societal expectations, the world would still spin on it's axis. Advertisers, shallow men and women and discriminating employers would no longer have the power. Just think about that and it will blow your mind.