oh, blah blah

Hey! Let's do a review of a book that no one else cares about! That'll be fun.

You know how when you go to buy a book or DVD on amazon, there's usually one thing you really want/need and another thing that, yeah, you'll buy it while you're there, and somehow it never quite adds up to the $25 you need to get free super saver shipping? So you throw something else in your cart that you wouldn't have bought otherwise, and then your total is like 38 bucks? Those people at amazon did not wildly succeed by being stupid is all I'm saying.

Okay, the other thing I'm saying is that, swear to god, I have an excuse for buying this book. Also, I usually buy stuff off amazon at like 11 pm, and my brain is pretty much mush at that point. So that is my other excuse. You know it's bad when you need to list two excuses, right?

Anyway, I have never seen such a pile of crap get all three stars and up ratings. The author is one of that type of gay man who is way overly concerned with the outside packaging. He discusses how he had plastic surgery to make his face look exactly the way he wanted it to look. Which right there tells me he and I are not going to be simpatico, okay? I mean, obviously I walk a fine line between ridiculous vanity and self-loathing, but having surgery to change your perfectly normal face into someone else's face to meet some Ken doll ideal of perfection that exists in your head is *not* anything I can get behind. But be that as it may, this guy does makeovers on, I dunno, Oprah or something, so you would think he would have something useful to say.

You would be wrong there, in my humble opinion. First of all, he has you analyze what your type is, fashion-personality-wise. I am an "innovative" (I personally say "funky") with a dash of "romantic" (I personally say "sad Stevie Nicks wannabe"). He then takes all the different women with their distinct fashion personalities and makes them over into "aging trophy wife". If they were going to all end up looking the same, why bother divining their look to begin with? So, Andrea, what's an aging trophy wife look like anyway? Short but floofy hair, usually lightened. Makeup applied with a trowel, which looks passable for a photoshoot but which in real life daylight hours is gonna look skeery. Clothes way too formal and "done" for the average person's life. Show me how a woman of 45/55/65 can look good in jeans or a casual skirt with makeup that takes ten minutes or less to do and a non-matronly hairdo, and then I'll be impressed. I know it's possible--I have eyes, I see pretty woman my age and up every day.

Oh, Andrea. I know, you're thinking I'm just pissed because of all the things he's telling me I'm doing wrong, and you probably would be right. The day I start wearing light pink or beige toenail polish is...never. (They're kelly green right now and the Benevolent L thinks they're *awesome*, so my friends at least encourage me in my questionable ways.) I also heartily disagree as you know with the OMG cover it up! school of thought. Yes, most women over the age of 45, myself included, do not have perfectly toned upper arms. We all don't have the time, dedication, and genetics to be Michelle Obama, okay? I do not, however, believe that that means we are never allowed to wear strapless, sleeveless, or short-sleeved garments ever again. No one is gonna die from looking at my arm flab, just as no one is gonna die from looking at my belly flab when I wear a two piece to the beach because I feel like experiencing the sun on places that are covered 99.8% of the time. Pretending the arm flab isn't there by trying to keep it covered doesn't make me any prettier.

Now, perhaps I am a hypocrite, because there *are* things I think a woman my age or older should never wear on, say, a city street. Miniskirts, short shorts, and belly shirts, are a no for the middle-aged, even if you have the body for it. In the right circumstances--at the beach, at a barbecue, onstage if you're a performer--go for it. But in everyday life it looks ridiculous on an older woman. Nothing to do with covering up flaws. It's more to do with dignity. Shopping in the junior's department when you are fifty looks like you're trying too hard, even if those clothes fit, capice? I know that in my bones.

What I don't know in my bones is whether my Gap jeans, my hoodies, my long hair, my boho shirts, my funky shoes, and/or my darkly painted toenails are ridiculous or soon to become so, and Mr Hopkins was no help with that. (Well, okay, he came out against the toenails but I don't believe him.) And, like I said, all my friends do is encourage me, so I'm not sure I can trust you all. It's a conundrum. I might need to just go with my instincts and probably look ridiculous, but feel like me. Barring a better fashion expert coming along to win me over to their point of view.

xoxo