How to Know For Sure You're Middle Aged

I have no illusions that I am a spring chicken.

My birth certificate and driver's license say I'm 48, and I'm not about to try to hide it. I've got lines, saggy upper arms, some gray hairs, blah, blah, blah -- in other words, I am More magazine's target audience.

But that's just what people see on the outside. Inside (except for the times I see teenagers speeding in my neighborhood or young women with their thongs riding above their low-rise jeans or kids skateboarding without helmets and pads) I'm about 25.

Except for the days I'm 15.

And the occasional afternoons when I'm 9.

Which is why what happened yesterday stung a bit.

I'm about to go back to work. Like, in an office. I've been a freelance writer and editor for awhile now, but as of April 14, I will be a real live part-time employee, with a parking decal, a W-4, and my very own taupe cube I can decorate according to my personal style. (Clutter is my signature look.)

Rest assured you will hear a lot more about that in coming posts, as I already run short of hours every single day even without spending half my week away from home. But what I want to tell you is this:

Yesterday, as my new boss was walking me out of the building, I asked her a question. And she answered me, "Yes, ma'am."

Oh. my. Gawd.

We are going to have to nip this in the bud.

Ain't Too Proud to Beg (You to Watch Scum on TV)

It has come to my attention that some of my readers have not yet met The Real Housewives of New York City.

This is a dire situation I feel obligated to remedy. Not filling you in would be like seeing you standing by the side of the road with a flat tire and just waving as I drove on by. There are oh, SO many reasons why you should check in with these women THIS VERY NIGHT. Here are just a few:

1) This show is wonderfully entertaining, in the way that hearing middle schoolers talk about who is mad at whom can be the most exciting thing in your day. (C'mon -- you know you listen. Manning the student checkout desk is the hottest volunteer commitment at Ben's middle school. I am proud to say I have restrained myself, but then again, I have a communicative carpool.)

2) You will learn that you are actually lucky not to have a vacation home in the Hamptons.

3) No matter how whiny/selfish/immature/tacky/downright mean you've been today, you can go to sleep knowing that there are at least five women who are worse.

TRHNYC follows five "ordinary housewives" -- Alex (pretentious former model with really creepy husband), LuAnn (a humble countess), Ramona (a female wrestler in designer clothes), Jill (the voice you hope never to sit next to on an airplane), and Bethanny (skinny, single, career woman trying desperately to become some sort of wife). These women are "ordinary" in the way that George Clooney is an "ordinary" hunka hunka burning love. They are "housewives" in the way that ... well, they live in houses, and four of them are wives.

Here's how BravoTV's website describes the show:

"The new series features an elite and powerful set of New York socialites as they juggle their careers and home lives with busy calendars packed with charity fund-raising galas, the social whirl of the Hamptons, and interviews for elite private schools. These driven and ambitious women show everyone what it takes to make it in the upper echelon of society, where money and status are an essential way of life."

See what I mean? They're just like you and me!

TRHNYC follows on the heels of several seasons of The Real Housewives of Orange County. Those women mostly appeared to be former Playboy bunnies -- long, platinum blonde hair; basketball boobs wedged into ultra-low cut tops; many, many, many diamonds (so many some had to be cubic zirconias) -- but occasionally they would be pictured nudging a sponge around the kitchen or driving a child somewhere in a Hummer, and some of them seemed sort of sweet, although not to each other.

After the first season, I never let myself officially watch The Real Housewives of Orange County. I proudly told myself I had better, more enriching things to do. Bravo is a veritable treasure chest of reruns, however, and I could roughly keep up by tuning in while I was washing dishes or folding clothes.

I had sworn I wouldn't even start with TRHNYC. But I've seen bits and pieces of every episode through the reruns, and I've decided I just can't stay away. (Unless I can't stay up till 9 Central, in which case I'll have to catch a rerun some afternoon when I'm ironing. Yes, we are a TiVo-less family.)

If people are your favorite thing to watch, refusing to watch this show would be like an art lover going to the Louvre and checking out the bathroom instead of the Mona Lisa, or a geologist skipping the Grand Canyon to take a bus tour to Branson, Missouri. It just wouldn't be right.

So come on, treat yourself -- tune in tonight. And if watching TRHNYC will make you ashamed, do what I'm doing.

Keep the television on PBS until then.

You Must Remember This

Show me a premenopausal woman, and I'll show you someone who secretly worries she's got Alzheimer's.

There's my friend who forgot she'd agreed to feed the neighbors' dog while they were gone for the weekend. (Fortunately, the doggy's owners returned and reclaimed their key, which is what finally prompted my friend to think "Dog... what dog... oh my God, that dog.")

There's my other friend, who had a detailed discussion with some mutual friends one night about exactly what grade Billy is in. "Billy's a senior, right?" she asked. My friends told her he was a junior, which surprised her and prompted several minutes of "are you sure?" conversation. The very next night, she was out with the same group. "Billy's a senior, right?" (She still swears the topic had never previously come up.)

And then there's me. I routinely call Billy Ben and Ben Billy, and I can't find my car in a parking lot without whirling my keychain panic button over my head like a lasso.

I'm happy to report there's a new book out there for women like me and my forgetful friends. It's Where Did I Leave My Glasses: The What, When, and Why of Normal Memory Loss, by Martha Weinman Lear. (Pictured beneath the title on the cover of the book is a woman with her glasses on her head. This title and cover are so perfect together that I really hate whoever came up with them.) Yesterday, I think it was, Ms. Lear was interviewed on Fresh Air. You can listen to it here.

She says we shouldn't worry, as long as we can still do things like list fruits and vegetables. (For these purposes, I'm sure it's fine if you classify a tomato as either.) It's completely normal for people at a certain stage in life --I'm not saying exactly when it starts, but smart-ass teenagers who make fun of forgetful parents ought to count their memory blessings while they still can-- to have trouble with three things: remembering names ("remind me again who you are?"), multitasking (i.e., living in America), and processing new information (so that's why I can't get photos in my blog entries!).

I couldn't help but note that Ms. Lear's research indicates a key component to improved memory is paying attention. If you're doing three things at one time but only really focusing on one, the other two aren't going to make much of a footprint on your gray matter. Which means before the night is over I'll have totally forgotten that I watched The News Hour this evening while I wrote this entry.

So check out this book. If you're like me, though, you better order it from Amazon right now, or in a day or two you'll see it in a bookstore and say "What a clever idea for a book! Why didn't I think of that?"

No Woman is an Island, Unless She Lives in a House Full of Men

Today was quite obviously garbage day in our little corner of Fox Valley as I drove Ben to his job bagging groceries. (Fortunately for us, he's not relying on family money is his schemes to be filthy rich.) Cans lined the curbs, and because it was the first pickup since Christmas, many people had piled extra bags alongside. One yard had so many bags they were spilling out into the street. “I can’t believe those people,” I said in my looking-down-my-nose voice. “A person’s got to swerve into the other lane to avoid those.”

“If it was me driving, I’d swerve to hit ‘em,” Ben said. “That’s just part of being a guy.”

I’ll have to take his word on that. I may live in a House Full of Men (kind of like a Barrel Full of Monkeys), but I wouldn't in a million years swerve to hit anything, much less a garbage bag. I don’t exactly get my guys. And they certainly don’t get me.

I was born the girliest of girls. My favorite toys as a child were Barbies and eye shadow, and when I used my imagination, it was to picture myself being really well made-up as I married somebody famous. I ran like a girl and got picked last for teams and was terrified of balls of all sizes. Figure skating – as a spectator, not a participant – was my favorite sport.

Nothing changed as I got older, either. When I was single, I once found a half-dead mouse in the middle of my living room floor and called a friend’s dad, who’d been asleep a couple of hours, to come over and get it out of there!!!!! It happened to be snowing heavily at the time, but really, what other option did I have? And when the managing partner at my law firm insisted that I play on the firm softball team, I promptly burst into tears. (The legal term for that is “career-limiting gesture.”)

Yes, I married a man, but being heterosexual, I really didn’t have much other choice, now did I? Besides, I’d grown up in what one friend tactfully described as a “matriarchal family.” I assumed Bob would find girly stuff just as compelling as all those women I’d grown up around, or else just go along to get along like the few men in my family had learned to.

It went without saying, of course, that all my children would be girls. I was so certain of this I bought a pink quilt before I was even pregnant. That turned out to have been a bit presumptuous on my part. The only kids I’m ever going to have turned out to be boys. (I finally ditched the quilt a few years ago.)

Once I got over the initial shock of ultrasounds showing penises (penii?), I discovered that there are some distinct advantages to mothering sons. As a rule, they do not care nearly as much about the presentability of their homestead as do girls. The ones I live with don’t really care whether I iron, and when Bob needs a crisp crease in his pants, he’s really good at putting it there himself. I happen to enjoy a gross-out movie now and then, and there’s always someone up for one around here. Most importantly, boys are far less concerned about what their mothers wear in public than all those girls my friends gave birth to. Ben likes it when my clothes look “Fox Valley-ish” (translation: expensive), but he’ll still get in the car with me when they don’t.

Still, there are many times when Bob and Billy and Ben start talking and I feel a wall go up around me. I don't understand what they're saying and worse, I don't want to. I could live with these guys a thousand years and still not care to talk about computers, tail lights, farts, or how airplanes work. And when I'm choosing a paint color for the bathroom, they are no help at all. They think there is only one shade of white and that it’s called “white.”

When things get really bad – when I’ve felt alone in the midst of my men for too long -- I’ll interrupt their discussion of the difference between volume and mass and say “It’s like I was telling Valerie just the other day.” They know that Valerie is my imaginary friend. She knows that there are thousands of shades of white and that not a single one is called “white.” She knows that a black sweater does not necessarily match a pair of black pants; she watches Giada De Laurentiis for her recipes, not her boobs. She knows how to pin up a hem and flute a pie crust, and there is nothing she would rather do than drive around and look at houses.

Usually the mention of Valerie will bring the conversation around to a topic we all care about, like politics, or where to eat lunch, or what a piece of crap our van is. (Mercifully, these guys care about team sports only marginally more than I do.) We’ll all be one big happy family again, until the next time they go off on a testosterone-juiced tangent.

Lately, I'm pleased to report, we’ve found a new activity we can all enjoy together: watching Project Runway, which is on tonight. I like the clothes and the tailoring technique and all the reality show drama. And the guys think the models are hot.

An update: For those of you who read yesterday’s entry, I am happy to report the sofa is gone. Garbage trucks must be roomier than I thought.