At what point does one feel grown up?

Driving to dinner at a shmancy restaurant last night, I realized I was feeling some anxiety over the prospect of valet parking.

It’s not just because I would be turning my 14-year-old jalopy over to a valet parker accustomed to Mercedes, Jags and Beemers. That is its own special humiliation.

But I actually found myself worrying about doing it “right.” Wondering if I would seem like an impostor when the valet opened my door and when, later, I slipped him a tip.

Not that I care what a valet parker thinks of me. It's not that. It's just that I shake the feeling that I'm a callow kid trying to act grown-up.

Of course, I 100% look like a middle-aged lady. I get ma’am-ed everywhere I go. But while everyone else looks at me and sees a seasoned old broad, in my head, I’m just a little knucklehead trying to keep up with grown-up life. It’s weird.

Maybe it’s the life I’ve chosen to lead—childless, working at home alone, still rocking out too late some nights. Perhaps if I had to engage with the corporate world more often, the inner and outer mes would be better aligned.

I guess this is a callback to the column I wrote a zillion years ago for Salon about going back to school. (Ah, such a heartbreak—my editor on this column commissioned a series about going back to school in middle age but then immediately changed jobs and the new editor wouldn’t give me the time of day. She must have known I was just a dumb-ass kid pretending to be a professional writer.)

I guess feeling young is better than feeling old, but at what point, I wonder, will I actually feel my age—in a good way? Sometimes I get tired of feeling like a dumb-ass kid. I’d like to feel like a dumb-ass adult for a change.

Labels: midlife, personal growth

We spent it at the wonderful Wildcatter Ranch in Graham Texas. I’ve written about this place in the past and will pass along that article in a separate post because if you live in North Texas then this is a place you want to get away to. To which you want to get away. Currently it has just 12 rooms but a new hotel with more rooms is under construction, which is kind of a pity but a ranch has gotta do what a ranch has gotta do.

My friend Diana and her exceedingly smart and handsome boys, Francisco and Eamon, came down for the festivities. Helen and John from Austin dropped by for lunch on Sunday. Nancy and Sarah and Jenny and Mary and Chuck and Michelle helped me usher in the new decade. And my Tommy, of course.

Mostly what we did was hang out by the beautiful pool, which has a long view of rolling hills. Hawks make lazy circles in the sky. The scent of sage perfumes the air. And other applicable cliches.



Beer and wine and champagne were liberally imbibed. My new summer drink is the Miller Chill. I don’t care for beer but this limey brew is yum. Enormous meals were eaten. Much laughter occurred. I hardly even noticed the aging process, I was so busy having fun. On Saturday night, a huge lightning storm moved through and we sat in rockers on the porch and watched the distant light show. It was one of those forever memories.

For my birthday dinner, I ate most of this frighteningly enormous chicken fried steak.



I’m ashamed but I did it anyway. (The fabulous birthday tiara was from my friend Jenny, who made a party out of my birthday dinner, with poppers and confetti and party favors and a tiara. XOXOX, Jenny!) Then, I somehow managed to eat a slice of Nancy's homemade pecan pie, the best pecan pie EVER.

The weekend was so damn warm and fuzzy I can hardly complain about my age. I mean, if this represents my life so far, what do I have to complain about?

Thanks everyone who came to party and all my dear virtual friends who sent their greetings. It was one helluva birthday. Now, I start counting backwards.

WHEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE! IT'S ALL ABOUT MEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!


I'll resume regular programming tomorrow.

Labels: dude ranch, guest ranch, midlife, resort, texas, travel

Labels: midlife

I know it's not Friday but I'm feeling random this morning so please bear with me.

I didn’t even know the guy who created Davey and Goliath lived in Dallas until I read today’s obituary.

Rest in peace, guy who created what may be the creepiest most depressing kiddie show ever. (Hm, my spell check says kiddie should be spelled kiddy, but that that doesn’t look right.)

Something about that show…the melancholy music, Goliath’s mopey voice, the dreary little lessons, just bummed me out. If I stumbled upon it during my search for Sunday morning cartoons, I couldn’t turn the knob (yeah, it was that long ago) fast enough. Gimme Captain Kangaroo any day, with it’s cheery little theme song and Dancing Bear, the big stud. (I know, Captain Kangaroo was weekdays only.)

***

An entertaining local story:

A supervisor who instructed Dallas officers to make up occupations on citations will only receive counseling…

Nowhere in the article does it say why this supervisor told officers to do this, but since the people receiving the citations were all homeless, I wonder if compassion played a part.

But the best part of the story is the occupations he suggested.

Minutia technician—picks streets
Repose Specialist—does nothing but sleeps and lays around in doorways and alleys
Human Relations Clerk—Prostitute
Pharmacology Specialist—Drug Addict
Appropriations Loan Assistant—Burglar
Property Disposal Technician—Thief
Ethanol Analyst—Alcoholic

Counseling? This guy should receive a job writing for The Daily Show.

See why I read the newspaper, kids? It’s chock full of fun.

***

The Belo fitness blog includes this item about a CD that’s supposed to calm dogs down in the car. I listened to the samples. Of course this stuff is calming. It’s a CD of dirges. Maybe they’d calm Jack but they also might put me to sleep. Or drive me to despair. No pun intended.

***

I’ve never been a fan of the Police, but this interview with Stewart Copeland makes me like them even less. Self-important ass. I don’t like Sting, either. Yeah, I said it. Wanna make somethin' of it?

***

Sharon Stone on turning 50: I fired the people out of my life who weren’t working with me successfully professionally. I got rid of the people who weren’t really my friends. I stopped trying to date the men who didn’t really like me.

***

Confirmation that she is not twins. Unless she's quintuplets. (I cropped the giant photo of her, even though it was the ugliest bathing suit of the bunch.)



***

And finally, I'm not the only Dembling reaching a milestone this week. Happy 90th Birthday, Dad. Check you out, rockin' the facial hair (1971).



P.S. Today is Cher's birthday, too. She's 62.

Labels: dallas morning news, dogs, midlife, music, newspapers, police, television shopping

Here goes. My last week of my 40s. So many worries and concerns.

For example, how will I look when my hair magically poufs up into the obligatory old lady hairdo? Can one still buy pink foam rollers for pouf maintenance?

Where do old ladies buy the sucking candies they carry in their handbags? (My grandma carried these rectangular fruity things that were filled with fruity goo. The first cum candy.) How long should they collect lint in the bottom of my handbag before they’re suitable for distribution?

I guess I’m going to have to open a Dillard’s account.


Too bad I look terrible in white pants, but what can I do? The fashionistas have spoken. And I hope Tom will love me all the same in white waist-high nylon panties.

It will be kind of a relief to give up all pretense of wearing cute shoes and just relax into comfortable. I'm thinking white sandals with nice thick gum soles and Velcro closures. And perhaps little gold tsatsakas dangling off them, to make them look snazzy.

Gosh, it’s going to be a busy week. A girl doesn’t age overnight, you know. What else do I need for this very important transition?

By the way, all you Metroplexites. My birthday weekend kicks off Friday night at the AllGood. Black and Blue will rock in my advanced age. If you’re out and about, wander that way. Music starts 9-ish. (Because we old folks just can’t stay up late.)

Labels: birthdays, fashion, midlife, milf, shoes, shopping

I’ve been beating the age horse to death but today's Dallas Morning News has an essay about the “Longevity Revolution” so one last little burst of griping. Ageism factors into Moos’ discussion. Always nice to know I’m on-trend in my kvetches. Click on the little graphic about life expectancy throughout the ages. In ancient Greece, life expectancy was 22 years. Man, they sure managed to accomplish a lot of art in a short time.

Anyhow, Moos writes: Six in 10 boomers in their 50s have told pollsters that they would like to switch careers someday and find jobs with a higher, social purpose. Many have set their sights on education, health care, the ministry and social services.

I was trying to switch careers to social work when I went back to school in 1999. Too bad I set my sights on a field that requires a post-graduate education because after I finished my BA, I realized I didn’t have the dough for grad school and when it comes to scholarship money at my age and station, pickings are very slim.

The last scholarship I applied for, the Jack Kent Cooke, required me to disclose not only all my assets, including retirement savings, but also to submit financial data from my parents. Nuts, right? I don’t know what to think about having to hit up dad for his data but the idea is, according to my adviser at UTD, my alma mater, which had to nominate me, if you’re not willing to drain your assets in pursuit of education, you don’t want it enough. Yeah, that’s fine when you’re 22. When you’re 50, it would only prove that you’re too stupid to educate.

In the end, after I’d filled out an extensive application—including six essays and all this financial data (and no, my father was not thrilled about supplying it), my adviser decided not to nominate me. I don’t know why, he didn’t say in his bland one paragraph notification though he hinted it was money. As in, I wasn't poor enough. But it was a blow. There just aren’t many opportunities out there for the likes of me. The JKC Foundation mission is “lifelong learning.” Yeah, my ass.

I might have had enough of chasing this particular dream. Remember when I posted this article about closing doors? It might be time for me to close this door and get on with my writing career, such as it is. I just don’t know how it’s going to support me into old age. AARP has scholarships for women and was overwhelmed with applications in 2007. Maybe I’ll try that next year. Maybe. Or maybe not.

Speaking of age...

Arbella Perkins Ewings, world’s third-oldest woman, whom I quoted a week or so ago, passed away nine days after her 114th birthday. Way to hang on for the ink, Ms. Ewings. And R.I.P.

Unrelated crime report: Somebody is setting cars afire in the Cliff. Yikes.

Labels: age, dallas, education, midlife, personal growth

I would like to write all sorts of interesting things for you today but computer-related limitations interfere, so I will be brief and point you elsewhere for your day's reading--specifically to this Newsweek essay by Tina Brown about Boomer women and Hillary. (I know, Ruth. Not all Boomer women. No guilt trip implied here.)

Brown writes: Much has been written about how boomer women have rallied to Hillary's cause (she won an impressive 67 percent of the white women voting in Ohio; they were 44 percent of the total). It's fashionable to write off this core element of her base as rabid paleo-feminists fighting the tired old gender wars of the past....

It's a revolt that has been overdue for a while and has now found its focus in Clinton's candidacy. In 1952, Ralph Ellison's revelatory novel, "Invisible Man," nailed the experience of being black in America. In the relentless youth culture of the early 21st century, if you are 50 and female, the novel that's being written on your forehead every day is "Invisible Woman." All over the country there are vigorous, independent, self-liberated boomer women—women who possess all the management skills that come from raising families while holding down demanding jobs, women who have experience, enterprise and, among the empty nesters, a little financial independence, yet still find themselves steadfastly dissed and ignored. Advertisers don't want them. TV networks dump their older anchorwomen off the air. Hollywood studios refuse to write parts for them. Employers make it clear they'd prefer a "fresh (cheaper) face."

Yup. And a lot of us are getting surly about it.

Labels: feminism, hillary clinton, midlife

I got into a squabble yesterday with a friend who is in her early 30s. At one point, she told me I was “showing my age.” She meant it as an insult and I took it as such (and the situation degenerated from there) but I’m rethinking both her attack and my response.

The accusation as intended is a double-insult because it not only says I’m old, but also that my age is a bad thing. And admittedly, by taking it as an insult, I was perpetuating for myself the stigma.

I’m finally ready to push back.

Don’t underestimate the middle-aged broads. We are the insurgents.

I’m reminded of a Mediabistro party I attended a couple of years ago, shortly after the Dallas Morning News had massive layoffs. After frat-boy-about-town Tim Rogers made an unprovoked, unnecessary and obnoxious crack about my age, I wandered away from his exalted hipitude to be with my own, a group of pissed-off middle-aged broads (including several who had just lost their jobs) sitting at a table quietly plotting to blow shit up. We laughed and griped and laughed and plotted. No, we haven’t exactly blown anything up but we sure weren’t having a quilting bee.

Mediabistro parties, which occur in cities across the country, are infamous for their youth orientation. I’ve been to two in Dallas and felt marginalized at one and insulted (as described) at the other. When I was in New York once, I tried to get a colleague to attend one of the parties there and she declined, having had the same experience. I decided to stop attending Mediabistro parties.

But now I’m just pissed. Showing my age? Yeah, maybe I am—and it’s a competent, powerful and, once one comes to terms with the number, increasingly self-assured age. I've heard that as women age, they tap more into their masculine qualities and with men it's the opposite. Know what that means? We have a lot of personal resources to draw on. Power, baby.

Just because we’re not loud doesn’t mean we don’t have anything to say. I’ll go to the next Mediabistro party. Don’t want to bother with antiques like me? Fuck you and all your little friends. And let me know when you figure out how you’re going to stop your own aging process.

Don’t count us out, kids. Maybe we didn’t want to cram into crowded arenas and swoon for our candidate, but when it’s time to vote and caucus, we show up. And no, I don’t suggest all women my age voted for Hillary. But a lot of my friends did and I think we surprised you, yes?

Labels: midlife, personal growth, presidential election, psychology