Lynne M. Spreen's Blog, page 16

Viagra for Women

Did you know there are now 26 different meds to help men get an erection, and yet nothing to help women’s sexual performance? I’m not surprised. Men were easy. Women? Ha.  See, for men, all you have to do is increase blood flow to a few inches of tissue. Men are always horny; they just need the tools to work.

Women, however, don’t need erections. They need horniness. What can a scientist invent to make a woman horny? Well, first, more time in a day and more energy. Most women have a to-do list a mile long and sex isn’t always at the top (putting it diplomatically.)  Also, the scientist could invent a pill to change modern culture so women felt good about themselves even if they have normal womanly bodies and aren’t even half as hot as Caitlyn Jenner.

But more importantly, once you get them naked, women and men’s brains work differently. Women are hard-wired for multitasking, while men are hard-wired for hardness. The erection cuts off blood flow to the brain, apparently, and they can totally focus on the task at hand.

Women’s brains, however, never shut off like that. While she’s trying to enjoy herself, her brain wants to focus on everything else in her life. Thoughts of job, home, kids – ugh! don’t think of the kids right now! – emails, grocery shopping, returning phone call to parents – ugh! don’t think of parents! – getting that report done on time, what to wear to meeting, calling phone company about overcharge…

To get women horny, all you need is a pill to slow down their brains.

And it seems they have! Somehow, while overmedicating us with anti-depressives, Big Pharma discovered that users of one medication, flibanserin, reported a teeny, tiny little increase (.005 to 1%) in sexual desire. Well, look out, world! We have a breakthrough! Viagra for women! And all it took was a pill that changes women’s brain chemistry. I mean, doesn’t that just solve the Venus:Mars debate once and for all?

OTOH, maybe there’ a simpler solution than putrifying our magnificent gray matter with chemicals:

From the Porn for Women series of books.

Okay, I imagine a lot of women would be thrilled to be able to take a pill and feel more lustful. And I hope someday they do, and said pill doesn’t involve side effects like fatigue, low blood pressure and fainting.

Just for fun, here’s Ellen on the subject. (If you’re in a hurry, skip the first 30 seconds, which is the current stupid Viagra commercial, to get to Ellen’s parody of it):

 

Film Star is Fierce about Aging

Frances McDormand (Gabriel Bouys/AFP/Getty)

Frances McDormand despises our culture’s intolerance of aging. It goes beyond frustration. She’s pissed off. In a recent interview with the New York Times, she said, “There’s no desire to be an adult. Adulthood is not a goal. It’s not seen as a gift. Something happened culturally: No one is supposed to age past 45–sartorially, cosmetically, attitudinally. Everybody dresses like a teenager. Everybody dyes their hair. Everybody is concerned about a smooth face.”

McDormand is aging with confidence and pride. She’s my idol.

I started this blog about five years ago because I don’t believe in sleepwalking. I’m not going to negate the last half of my one precious life trying to be something I’m not. Okay, I promise to brush my teeth, shower as needed, and wear clothing in public. For the good of civilization I’ll try to be polite and courteous. But apologize for my age? (I’m clapping my hand over my mouth to stop the blue streak.)

Makes me wanna holler. And not in a good way. 

Frances McDormand is 100% on top of this. Here she is being interviewed by Katie Couric last spring. As you watch, notice how infrequently she smiles. FMD is dead-ass serious.

Some people are vehemently opposed, as is McDormand, to plastic surgery; some aren’t.

I tried Botox and Juvederm, but I felt fakey and stopped.

For me, it came down to personal authenticity. I’m a child of the 1960s, and after a 30-year period of rule-following, I’m done. Going gray, wearing makeup almost never, donated my high heels. Might even take up macrame’ again. (Okay, not that.)

No matter where you come down on the issue, we really need to start pushing back against the American cultural disrespect for age. Maybe even have fun with it. As famous author/photographer Deborah Copaken says in this month’s More Magazine,

“I actually take pride in showing up at parties as an increasingly rare representative of a bygone, natural aesthetic.”

Baby Boomers used to fight for authenticity. We laughed at our elders for their devotion to rules and conventions. Now we carve skin from our faces and inject toxins or commercially developed non-organic material into our bodies. All this to emulate the children we raised. What happened, people? When do we get to be real again?

Related articles across the web

Melissa McCarthy Defends Plus-Size Women: ‘People Don’t Stop at Size 12′
It’s Great 77-Year-Old Jane Fonda Is On W Magazine, But Older Woman Still Aren’t Featured Enough

It’s Like a Miracle: Happier after 50

Research says older people are happier after fifty, that there’s an upswing starting there and going up until forever. I wonder if there’s a moment when you start to notice it?

I’ve had this weird feeling of contentedness lately. Not that life has suddenly gotten so easy. California’s drying up and by all accounts we’re about 30 years overdue for a life-shattering earthquake. And that’s if climate change or a superbug don’t do us in first.

In spite of that, every now and then lately, I feel a soft flutter of joy, a wave of peacefulness.

It’s elusive and hard to describe–can you imagine trying to convince someone of déjà vu if the world had never heard of it? It’s like the happy feelings you get when returning to your old elementary school, or looking through photos of the good days in childhood. This feeling is evocative and nostalgic, but without the pain. I’ve never heard anyone talk about it. Am I alone in feeling it?

There are plenty of studies saying older people are happier, that somewhere north of fifty, things start to change. “They” don’t know why. It might be chemical or physical. It may be that our amygdalae are less on guard, because after a lifetime of experience we know what will kill us and what probably won’t.

With the amygdalae backing off, the prefrontal cortex can reassert itself. Older peeps are less reactive, more mellow. Maybe that’s why we’re said to be happier.

Have you felt it when you’re just going through the motions of your day?

We’re quick to agree we’re happier when a researcher asks us, or a group of friends get together to discuss it. But how about when you’re not thinking about it. Does it pop up for you?

It does for me. Unless it’s some kind of brain flare before I go all Phenomenon. 

You could start watching for it. We knew to watch for signs of menopause. We’re totally on alert for dementia–admit it, you are. You knew to watch for gray hairs, and wrinkles, and sagging flapping skin.

Why not be on alert for signs of this midlife surge of happiness?

Younger people could look forward to it. There’d be a sense of fairness about getting old, a trade-off between what you lose and what you gain. People might even start to think, Damn, getting old might be okay.

How about you? Have you felt it, this older-age sense of contentment, peace, and even joy? Let me know.

Another movie for old peeps!

PS Sue Shoemaker told me about this new movie starring Robert Redford and Nick Nolte. Here’s the trailer. It looks like fun! Remember to give the movie makers encouragement in the form of “liking” their page on Facebook or tweeting about it. See ya Tuesday.

 

Okay, one last thing, really. My friend Walker Thornton posted this really great empowering essay about aging on her FB page today. I so recommend it.

More Movies for Grownups

In addition to last week’s five, I have six more movies for you. Some aren’t out yet, but hang a note on your fridge.

First, there’s Youth, starring Michael Caine, Harvey Keitel, and Jane Fonda. Yes, really. It’s been called “a kind of cinematic symphony of aging.” According to the article, “Critics are already calling for Oscars for both Fonda’s and Caine’s performances. But Caine said he loves Youth so much he would’ve done it for free.” (Jada Yuan at Vulture.com)

Next up: Love is Strange starring John Lithgow and Alfred Molina. Here’s what they say about the film: “The married couple at the center of this poignant love story happen to be two men (John Lithgow and Alfred Molina, who are both splendid). But the crises they face and the grace with which they endure them could fall to any aging pair; they’ve been together 39 years.”

St. Vincent, with Bill Murray and Melissa McCarthy. Here’s the thumbnail: “Go see this film for Bill Murray’s heart-tugging turn as a grumpy Long Island loner enlisted as a babysitter for the boy next door; stay for the surprisingly nuanced study of urban isolation and intergenerational rapprochement.” Fancy way of saying “old person realizes he can’t be an island.”

Here’s one, Land Ho, in which a pair of old guys, former brothers-in-law, embark on a road trip through Iceland.

As Time Goes By, about a 60-something couple, is a series which, like Grace & Frankie, is available on DVD from Netflix. People say it’s addictive. Starring Judy Dench.

Finally, there’s Boulevard, Robin Williams’ last film. He’s a long-married man who finally comes to grips with being gay. As one character says, “Maybe it’s never too late to start living the life you really want.” Thus the eternal quandary, one that’s especially poignant in older age.

In case you missed it, here is the list from last week:

Grace & Frankie (a Netflix series)
Still Mine
I’ll See You in My Dreams
The Intern
Ricki and the Flash

This may be a new trend (movies about the lives of older people). Or it may be an experiment by movie makers. The difference might be your feedback. Wouldn’t you hate if, years from now, film makers were saying “We made movies about older people but nobody watched them”? So whenever you see a movie, report back in some way that the film makers will notice. Tweet about it with the title in the hashtag, for example. If there’s a page on Facebook for the movie, go there and hit the LIKE button for the page. Thanks to Sue Shoemaker and Peggy Wheeler for leads. Get the popcorn; enjoy the show.

Related articles across the web

Fox Searchlight Closes Deal For Paolo Sorrentino’s ‘Youth’ – Cannes UPDATE
David Letterman begins and ends with Bill Murray
The 18 Best British Movies on Netflix Right Now

Follow Your Passion in Retirement

Older generations went to work to put food on the table. They didn’t have the luxury of feeling passionate about a job.

Now, kids are told they should find a career they feel passionate about. Right now, this month, I’d bet that every commencement speech on every campus in the country will include some aspect of “following your dream.”

Passion. It’s practically a sacrament. Steve Jobs, that prickly genius, said this:

“…The only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven’t found it yet, keep looking. Don’t settle. As with all matters of the heart, you’ll know when you find it.”

If that’s possible, great! Everybody should follow their passion in finding a career, but sometimes that isn’t possible. For me, work was critical for my mental health. It got me out of the house and gave me independence. I loved working, and I learned from everything I did. Here’s a list of my jobs from young age to old:

Babysitting
Retail (mostly running a cash register, occasionally stocking shelves.)
File clerk (I filed all day long, five days a week. They didn’t even give me a desk.)
Payroll clerk (continuing the grunt work, but at least I had a desk)
Various jobs within a public bureaucracy, mostly in accounting and human resources (augmented at times by selling cosmetics or tending bar at night)
Eighteen years later, awarded my baccalaureate degree after attending school at night.
High level management positions, including one after my first “retirement” in which I did consulting work for a law firm
Retirement and a pension after thirty years in public service.

Now I’m free to follow my passion. As I sat with six of my writer friends yesterday, working on our chapters together, I felt such joy and gratitude. They’re helping me write a better story. Why? For the love of it.

Through our writing, we’re forming a community of people who are passionate about our work. We’re creating something that didn’t exist before, something that will inspire, enlighten, and entertain readers.

The fact that I had to wait until my late fifties to follow my passion? As the kids say, not a problem. Well worth the wait. BTW, here’s a fine article about life’s “third chapter” as experienced by top CEOs, later in life.

What about you? Did you have to delay your dreams? Are you able to pursue them now, and if so, what are they?

Related articles across the web

Why The New Retirement Involves Working Past 65
Shortcuts to reinventing yourself

Yay! More Movies and TV about Older People

I’m very excited about this: There are more and more movies available about people our age. Although a regrettable number of them star the latest “It Girl,” D. Mentia, many do not. In any case, here’s a sampling:

Grace and Frankie, starring Lilly Tomlin, Jane Fonda, Sam Waterston, and Martin Sheen. It’s a series on Netflix – you can binge-watch the whole first season right now. Although it’s not deep, each half-hour episode makes me laugh, and it’s an interesting premise.

I just watched Still Mine, a neat movie – based on a true story – about hanging on to the good stuff while dealing with a changing world. Stars Genevieve Bujold (unbelievably good) and James Cromwell (also wonderful). Bring hankie.

 

Not yet out is the love story I’ll See You In My Dreams, starring Blythe Danner and Sam Elliott. When Elliott was interviewed on The Today Show, he said about his character (I’m paraphrasing the following because I couldn’t write fast enough):

He’s reached a point in his life – he’s where he wants to be, where he doesn’t have anybody depending on him and he can live his life the way he wants to live it.

There’s also The Intern starring Robert De Niro and Anne Hathaway, in which young and old learn to appreciate and depend on each other. Here’s the trailer:

I’m excited about these movies because they’re more than just caricature and complaint. Older people have astonishingly rich stories to tell – not the stories of their younger years, but the ones they’re living every day. I’m tired of youthful coming-of-age stories (kids becoming adults). There are elder coming-of-age stories to be told. Like how a person moves past the death of a spouse. How a person dates and falls in love when older. How a smart older person learns to use society’s contempt for old people as a Get Out of Jail Free card, to spin that into a kind of new freedom. These stories are starting to appear, and they’re a rich vein to mine. I can’t wait to see more of them.

According to an article in the New York Times,

“…the sight of Sandra Bullock mastering the universe as an astronaut in “Gravity” or Ms. Streep fronting a rock band this summer in “Ricki and the Flash” is almost revolutionary. In an earlier era, they would have been washed up or dried out.”

I hope and believe that, as with the movie The Intern, people will come to see that humans of all ages have their value; they all have stories to tell. As more women and older people sit in the director’s chair, I hope we’ll get to see more of them.

What about you? Have you found any good titles recently about older people? Books, movies, TV shows? I’d love to hear from you.

Related articles across the web

Marta Kauffman On ‘Grace And Frankie’, Netflix, Multi-Cam Comedy & Dry Vaginas
Isabella Rossellini Says She Doesn’t Understand Society’s ‘Attention On Youth’
Agnès Varda Will Be Awarded Honorary Palme d’Or: Cannes

One Secret for Aging Well

If someone knew the secrets for aging well, you’d want to know them, right? Turns out, someone does. Dr. George E. Vaillant has been involved for his entire professional life with three long-term studies of how people age. Longevity studies are more reliable because they record what’s happening at the time, instead of relying on what old people remember.

If whiskey and cigarettes really are the secret to long life, a longevity study will support that.

As Dr. V. interviewed and recorded the lives of hundreds of people over a span of fifty, sixty, seventy years, he learned that the most successful agers perfected certain strategies (and he published a book about it, Aging Well.) Dr. V. asks his study participants this question (among others):

Whom would you be most willing to inconvenience if you needed help?

One of the concepts of aging well is asking for help when you need it, but that’s not always easy. Depending on your personality, it can be awkward, or feel intrusive. We don’t want to bother another person, and maybe more importantly in our go-it-alone culture, we don’t want to feel obligated or dependent. We may even consider it an invasion of our own privacy.

Yet, the freedom to inconvenience others is a mature coping strategy. It’s a tool, a skill. Something to get good at. Perfecting the art of asking for help can lead to a better old age.

Knowing this, I bit the bullet recently and asked my neighbor for help. We were going on a trip for a couple weeks and I needed someone to get my mail (because dealing with our city’s post office is like one of Dante’s circles of hell.) I didn’t feel 100% comfortable about it, but I thought about Dr. Vaillant, and figured it would be good for me. So I went next door to make my very first request.

My neighbor was delighted to help. I gave her my house and mailbox keys, along with my cell number in case the house caught fire.

After my vacation, when I went to pick up my mail, she and I talked and laughed for a few minutes, and I said I’d be happy to reciprocate.

Not only did we reinforce our relationship, but it felt good to know I was practicing a skill that will help me, later in life.

Of such things is maturity made.

Does this idea resonate for you? Who in your life are you most willing to inconvenience?

 

The Cruel Irony of Sheryl Sandberg’s Widowhood

This can’t be what she meant by “leaning in.” Sheryl Sandberg has a high-pressure job, one she said she couldn’t do without the help of her husband. Unfortunately, David died suddenly at the age of 47.

Now Sheryl must go on alone, raising her two sons while continuing as the number two executive at Facebook.

Sheryl Sandberg wrote a book encouraging women to step up their game, while acknowledging how hard it is in the current culture. That acknowledgement reflected her maturation. She, like her peers in high school and college, once viewed feminists as man-haters. As she got older, she was more sensitive to the way the male-dominated (yes it is) business world still makes it hard for women. She argued in Ted Talks, her book, and many other forums that women must lean in, take a chance, make the leap. But we often don’t. For example, in the book, she tells of young female employee who declines a promotion because she wants to be a mother, but she doesn’t even have a boyfriend yet.

In all ways, Sandberg argues for women to try harder, negotiate better, say yes to challenge (citing the fact that men often overvalue their strengths and understate their weaknesses, while women do the opposite.)

What cruel fate! just at the point where she’s gained the most traction and notoriety for encouraging women to try harder at work, she loses her husband. David Goldberg was her mentor, coach, and best friend. In Lean In, Sheryl mentions David almost fifty times, in admiration and gratitude. She says how important he was to her professional success, as well as critical to the well-being of their sons.

Now she’s lost that support. How will it change her future? Will she step down from Facebook? As she tells young women how to get along, from the lofty perch of all of her hard-won advantages, will she continue on the same trajectory, having lost one of her most critical?

She told us women that we’re afraid to step up, and that fear, which is unfounded, can make us poor in later life. She told us to stand up for ourselves and negotiate, because we don’t. She told us to pick the right husband, because that’s critical for our success. She traveled around the world arguing her case that we should throw more of ourselves at work.

Sheryl and Dave

It’s almost as if Fate said, “What can we do to force her to step up her game? To put her money where her mouth is? What’s the one thing we can throw at Sheryl Sandberg to force her to evolve once more?”

Will she lean back? Will she remove herself from the pressure? Or can we, women and men together, humanize the corporate world so it’s a place where widows, and parents, and people who are caring for their own parents, don’t have to choose between family and workplace?

It’s possible that, in navigating these rough new seas, she will chart a new course not just for herself, but for us.

This is Sheryl Sandberg’s biggest Lean In moment yet.

 

Dying for a Perfect Manicure

If you’re around my age or older, you remember when getting a manicure was the province of fancy women. Women who were movie stars, or high-level professionals who maybe had careers but not kids. Women who lived privileged lives.

But then came the acrylics. Everybody was doing them. I was in my mid-30s when I got my first set, blood-red, during my lunch hour. By the time I went home that night, half of them had popped off, and are probably still being found in the depths of the manila-folder archives at Jurupa Unified School District. I gave up acrylics, but got quite comfortable with regular trips to the nail salon.

These days, mani/pedis are so common we even treat girls in elementary school to the procedure. No longer a fancy, expensive indulgence, manicures are more or less expected if you’re doing anything public or professional. Nail salons are on every street corner, with varying degrees of cleanliness. And along with the proliferation of cheap-ass salons comes the usual abuse and victimization of humans living on the fringe. I laughed when I first watched this comedy routine of Anjela Johnson’s, but if it resonates with you, then you know what I’m talking about.

Now along comes information that the fumes from these chemical-bathed work environments are causing the nail technicians to suffer miscarriages and higher rates of cancer, as well as bearing children with birth defects. I guess it’s not a good idea to work all day where you inhale dibutyl phthalate, toluene and formaldehyde, to name three.

One state in the country is starting to move on this problem, New York, in response to this investigative series in the NY Times which ran a few days ago. In it, you’ll learn that, in addition to chemical exposure, these uninformed workers are also being ripped off monetarily, often receiving only tips for wages – if that.

You know how I’ve decided to go gray, and makeup is going by the wayside. Now I’m thinking I’ll do my own nails, too. Out on the patio, where there’s a lot of ventilation. Or I might try these new paste-ons, where you take a photo with your iPhone and have the suckers made to match your outfit or whatever. For about twenty bucks, it seems pretty fun and easy. Or I might just stop entirely. What about you?

Related articles across the web

NY Times Nail Salon Investigation Prompts Governor to Install Emergency Measures
NY Times’ Exposé on Nail Salon Labor Abuses Gets Results, Fast
Why the cost of a beautiful manicure is far more than dollars and cents

Help Me Write This Sex Scene

A couple days ago, my writing group gave me a ration of crap. They started out nice, and then they got pornographic. They were hootin’ and howlin’, laughing like a bunch of drunk teenage girls over one word. (The one guy who showed up today said this is why he likes being in an all-woman group.)

All because of my candy-ass sex scene.

I guess I’m sort of a prude. I don’t like writing about graphic sex. Him touching her whatever, or her doing X to his anything. I like to read what other people write, but my mom’s still alive, for crying out loud, and she reads my stuff.

And my kids! No, no, no.

Look, I was there in the 1960s. Sex, drugs, rock and roll, baby. But that was forty-plus years ago. I’m way more modest now.

So I need your help. With a reader’s objectivity, maybe you can help me finish the problematic paragraph.

Here’s the setup: it’s New Year’s eve at a hotsy-totsy party in Savannah. Karen is drinking, dancing, and responding to the flirtations of a media mogul. She’s 50, and he’s a bit older, a bazillionaire who holds the keys to her professional future. Anyway, I need help with the last sentence:

“…he tipped her chin up and kissed her, exploring her mouth with his tongue. She felt the heat begin, from her breasts, to her belly, to below.”

The word below is what got the girls all rowdy. They said it sounded Victorian, and I needed to be much more graphic. Then they started shouting out examples, which got progressively more outlandish and amusing, as my face got redder and redder, per Mary Jane who was sitting next to me. I swear to God, I refuse to include wet panties or furry mound in this book, and probably any other that I write.

But something more than below. I admit, it’s weak. Any ideas? Maybe you can come up with something.

Just scribble your ideas in the comments below, and thanks, you sexy things.

(PS: if you saw another post this morning about inconveniencing others, I auto-published a draft post by mistake. That’s set for next week. Sorry!)

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