Stephanie Dolgoff's Blog, page 11

Too true

This video is a little inside baseball–people who have written for or worked at a major consumer women's magazine will relate best–but it has a Formerly streak running through that I think everyone who works in a field that is changing rapidly would get. Who hasn't had to bite her tongue to the point of drawing blood to keep herself from screaming, "You have no freakin' idea what you're doing!"  "I've forgotten more than you'll ever know," "Maybe it's time to open that cupcake baking business," and of course, the illusion killer, "When I was your age…"?

Greek for dummies

I had one of those moments just now when I had the overwhelming sense that I and all my friends are living subtle variations on the exact same life I'm living, and in true Formerly fashion, that felt comforting, not depressing.

I was on the phone with my girlfriend Demetra in Greece (she has one of those calling plans that lets us blather on for no money–remember your mom screaming that you'd better shut up because she was on the phone "long distance" and it was expensive and she needed to concentrate? Those days have gone the way of rotary phones, busy signals and having the excuse that you did try to call but no one answered.)

Anyway, her daughter Katarina came up to her while we were talking and I heard something that sounded like this (I don't speak Greek and the sound was muffled.)

Katarina: "Da-dum, da-da da dada da dah dum, da da? De da da deh da deh!"

Demetra: "DA-duh! Da da dud dah du da da da? DA!"

I knew instantly what had been said was something to the effect of, "Mom, do you know where my other sparkly hair barrette is? I can't find it anywhere." And Demetra said, "Katarina, can you not see I'm on the phone? Go!"

I also knew that after we hung up, Demetra would star in the Greek-language version of the exact same movie I'd been in this morning. The dialogue is as follows: "God, you didn't have to yell at me, mom! I was only asking a simple question!" and "I. Was. On. The. Phone. It's your job to keep track of your own things–I'm your mother, not your housekeeper."

Needless to say, I've had several such conversations this week alone with my daughters, as I did with my mother growing up, as she no doubt did with her mom. Irritating as those moments of friction are, the whole thing felt right somehow, like if everything else persists on changing–if our bodies and priorities have shifted, if technology changes so fast you that what you just mastered is obsolete, if they stop making the only lipstick color that looks good on you SIMPLY BECAUSE THEY CAN!–at least moms and daughters will likely stay the same.

Photo by Esparta CC

"Bloody irrelevant"

I wish I were British so I could go around saying things are "bloody" this or "bloody" that. "Freakin' " just doesn't have the same ring to it.

My friend Cory sent me this link from a CNN blog, which reports on Helen Mirren being bloody peeved that Halle Berry praised her hotness, among other things.

"Presenting the 65-year-old actress with the Sherry Lansing Leadership Award, Berry told her, "Helen, you have single-handedly, all by yourself, broken down that barrier because you can age, you can do films that are successful, and you can still be hot as hell!"

Clearly Berry meant it as a compliment, but Mirren was pissed–no, actually, she was "cross," which is so much more contained and hence cooler–that her looks were even commented upon.

"It creates even more pressure on women, and I certainly don't want to be a part of that," she explains. "…Why don't we talk about the fact, for example, that I just did 'Arthur,' and the cinematographer was a woman, the film operator was a woman, the whole camera team were women? That's where we should be putting our attention. The fact that I look good at the age I am is bloody irrelevant."

I see her point, of course. Looking good as you age, while it may take a bit of effort, is hardly an achievement or a sign of leadership, as the award she was receiving was meant to recognize. What's more, we don't have that much control over it, and we have much more over how we behave and what we do and say. I guess she didn't appreciate being crowned a beauty queen (which Berry herself was as a teen) when she didn't feel she'd signed up for the pageant.

But is it "bloody irrelevant?" I don't know…she's an actress, and actresses of any age are beautiful, by and large. It seems highly relevant, if you're an actress, anyway. Helen Mirren is one of the few older actresses who work, so of course she's pretty. I challenge anyone to name an ugly actress–the handful that there are odd looking are mostly character types whose names you'd never know.

Maybe she was mad in the same way that the very elderly take offense when people underestimate their intellect or cognitive skills–maybe she feels patronized, or annoyed that it's assumed that she wouldn't be hot. The idea that her hotness is something that needs to be remarked upon because of her age must piss her off–I mean, render her cross.

Halle Berry meant that Mirren was an inspiration. My question is, are her looks the inspiration, or is the fact that she's still employed (in part because of her looks) meant to be inspiring? I'm not so much inspired by Helen Mirren being pretty and employed as I am by her speaking her mind. Freakin' awesome, no matter what you look like.

Photo by Gage Skidmore CC

Nothings says Formerly like a pair of pink fuzzy slippers

These are my friend Amy's feet in what is to her the latest evidence of her membership in the Formerly club. I've written a ton about my hideous but so comf Merrell fleece-lined clogs, so please don't think I'm holding myself up as a shining example of footwear fabulousness in the Formerly years. But wow–where does one even buy such things?

Inspiring. Please when you have a chance, zap me a cell-phone photo of your most Formerly item, be it a towel warmer (what young person has a towel warmer?) or a bra holder-upper, or the entire 10-CD Superstars of Country music series of the '70s (ahem, not my real name.)  I'll post the funniest in a future post.

Thanks!

Give My Formerly Hot Life, personalized

From the shameless self-promotion file: Lately I've been asked to personalize copies of My Formerly Hot Life for gifts people want to give their friends for the holidays, and of course unless you're in NYC, it involves a lot of postage and hassle.

So I'm completely copying my friend Gretchen Rubin, who had a fantastic idea: personalized bookplates. Just shoot me an email with all the info–who you are giving the book to, and anything else you'd want me to say–and I'll send you an autographed, personalized bookplate (or as many as you need) and you can stick it right in yourself. stephanie at stephaniedolgoff dot com.

Have a great holiday!

Let's (not) do the time warp…again

Warning: I'm in moody bitch mode, so filter my rant through a screen of tolerance and good will, if you don't mind, and perky Steph will be back as soon as possible.

The ever-chic Sarah Jessica Parker is in Elle this month discussing, among other things, getting older.

On aging naturally: "I don't know what I can do about the aging. Yes, I am aging. Oh my God, I'm aging all the time. It's like those flowers that wilt in front of you in time-lapse films. But what can I possibly do? Look like a lunatic?"

Now, I'm a journalist, so I know you have to ask a question in a certain way to get any kind of a reasonable quote, especially from a celebrity (if you ask, "Is the sky blue?" you'll get, "Yes." But if you ask, "I understand many of your critics see the sky as blue, and I can sort of see their point. But what would you like the world to know about your more nuanced perception of various colors the sky could be seen as being?" you might get a more interesting answer.)

In any event, the article wasn't written or edited in such a way that you could determine what exact question the writer asked, but I'm guessing it was something like, "It must be hard to be an actress in Hollywood who is…shall we say…not young. Do you feel terribly threatened by the Megan Foxes of the world? Do you think about aging at all? Do you even think of yourself as an 'aging actress?'"

So what the hell is she supposed to say? That she's not aging? Never mind the fact that, as Jezebel pointed out, "she has to talk about the kind of stuff that 47-year-old Johnny Depp rarely gets asked: How does it feel to be SO FUCKING OLD" ?

What gets me peeved (see: I'm a moody bitch, above) is that she and everyone else in the universe conflates aging with looking like you're aging, and they're simply not the same thing.

Of course she's aging. We're all aging. My seven-year-old twin girls are aging, and at the exact same rate as SJP, me, and the guy who mutters to himself outside the bodega on our corner, and Sasha's new guinea pig, Hairdo, who unfortunately for her has a much shorter lifespan than we humans. SJP, who is 45, simply started aging before my girls, and two years before I did, because aging starts the moment you're born. Time passes and we log birthdays. Hence, we age. Big whoop.

Looking as if you're aging…that's another thing entirely, and no one would choose to look older if they had the choice. But I agree with SJP that we kind of don't. Sure, we can do this and that and look somewhat younger and after awhile, as SJP says, "like a lunatic" if we do too much.

But it doesn't change the basic fact that the older we get, the fewer years any of us have left on earth to inject our faces with Botox or get "Lunchtime lifts" or whatever else we do to pretend that we're not aging.  All we're really doing with all this silliness  is running on a hamster wheel like Hairdo, chasing something that is as impossible to stop as rain or taxes or children jumping up during dinner or celebrities getting divorced or politicians getting caught in public restrooms doing embarrassing things. Is that why we are so focused on looking older? Is it some lifelong denial of death ritual that now involves expensive dermatological procedures?

It just seems so predictably female and American to pick the single most immutable fact of life–the passage of time–and make it the thing we are going to struggle against until the day our time runs out.

I'm not saying I am above it all, of course. I'm just getting a little tired of it. Or maybe I'm just a moody bitch.

And you are…? Right. My children.

There's a word for the condition in which you frequently blank on words but I can't remember what it is.

My mom, who is going to be 70 in a few weeks, and I were talking about it after I held a Thanksgiving yam in front of her face asking if she wanted me to cut it  up and neither of us could make our mouths form the word. For whatever reason, I could remember that it was a tuber, but not a damn yam.

OK, Googling it (forgetting words, condition, help!). The word is aphasia. I've had it ever since my kids were born seven-plus years ago, and it's worse in periods of stress (Thanksgiving was stressful, as usual). The words come back, often in the middle of the night, when I find myself sitting bolt upright shouting "Yam!"

Naturally, every single mom I mention it to attributes it to "mommy brain," the result of too much running around, too little sleep, and multitasking to the extent that your brain simply can't conjure the information you need when you need it. But my having kids just happens to have coincided with my crossing into Formerly territory, so maybe it's a Formerly thing.Either way, Babble has a report on a new study debunking the myth of Mommy Brain–in case you haven't noticed, you're smarter–and there was a book a few years back that did the same.

The study, published in the journal Behavioral Neuroscience last month, wasn't the first time scientists had shown that motherhood gives us a mental boost. In fact, decades of studies on animals and humans have revealed that our neurons reorganize when we have a child, making us more intuitive and wiring us to find our babies — and all the diapering, soothing, and feeding they require — highly rewarding.

Yeah, OK, but how about remembering your children's names? How about "Sasha, pick up your dirty…um, stuff–NOW! And put them in the…thing! You know what I mean! Stop laughing!" That's what I think of when I think of mommy brain, the periodic inability to recall words or to remember where you put things, like your offspring.

I write about health, so I know that this could be straight up stress (studies have shown that stress marinates your brain in chemicals until it's essentially pickled) or it could be age thing (43 is a bit early for cognitive impairment, though) or it could be undercaffeination, as this usually happens in the morning.

But I prefer to blame my children, as generations of mothers have before me. Look, I'm all for science proving that we moms are superior to everyone else, but really, I think Mommy Brain is a real phenom.

What do you think? Is it kids, or just the exhausting life of a Formerly? I'd particularly love to hear from the child-free among you, to see if you have this um…thing…problem, whatever.

Photo by Rick CC

Tune in tonight

I'm going to be on Chit Chat radio tonight at 11, at which time I will be punchy tired and maybe a little drunk from dinner with visiting friends–should be fun. I hope you listen. Click here to do so.

Let me help raise $ for your kids' school

Hey, all,

The tireless woman who is organizing the silent auction for my girls' woefully underfunded public school asked if I'd donate a signed copy of (my bestselling) book to help raise money, and of course I said yes. I also offered to come and lead a book group discussion if the book group was reading My Formerly Hot Life. It'll fetch a few bucks for pencils and I know it helps me feel a little less guilty about contributing paper plates and milk rather than a gorgeous spinach pie or homemade dumplings to the Fall Family Celebration, like the other parents. (Those are two incredible moms from my kids' school–like, bionic in their energies.)

ANYway, I'm happy to do a version of the same for your school auction. If you'll provide a book or books, I'll inscribe and will happily pop in to any book group via Skype or in person if you're nearby. I'm also glad to write up the blurb for the catalog, including all the hubbub surrounding the book and everything else. Just shoot me an email (stephanie at stephaniedolgoff dot com) and we'll set it up.

NYC event

Hi, kids,

Stop by Peoria Emporium December 4th between 2 and 5, where I'll be reading and signing books and drinking any of the wine that is left after the mobs swoop through. Seriously, it'll be a fun time–things degenerate pretty quickly into all of us just hanging out and laughing. Bring friends!

25 East 20th between Park and Broadway in NYC! It's a really neat shop/art installation. Who knows? You might knock off all your holiday shopping in one day.

I hope to see you there. (That picture has nothing to do with anything so don't bother trying to figure it out. It's from this guy's cool blog. Can you believe he made that costume?)

Steph!