We're over 40. Deal with it.
September 1st, 2010
Don’t tell me this doesn’t bother you. You’re checking out at the grocery store and the pimply faced cashier hands you your change (never counting it out, of course) and he says, “Have a nice day, ma’am.”
It makes my skin crawl. Read the rest of this entry »
Tags: Ageism, decluttering, ma'am, obsessive, OCD, old, sir, stuck in a rut, youth
Posted in Just Fun, My Pet Peeves, Social Issues | 15 Comments »
August 29th, 2010
For the past three weeks or so I’ve been vigorously planning my high school reunion (which is my way of an explanation as to why I haven’t blogged). Besides getting some very unsolicited information from class members I reached by phone (like how DH’s old friend hoards gold coins and lost his wife because he wouldn’t use them on a down payment on a house), I’ve discovered that I’m not alone in hoarding things from the past (though, as you might remember, I did finally manage to throw out my old Xerox job appraisals from the late 90s. . . ).
But I’m happy to report that some people are even worse than I am. Read the rest of this entry »
Tags: beehive, hair style, high point, high school, high school athlete, high school reunion, hoarding, memories, past, personality
Posted in Fashion, Grooming, Relationships | 7 Comments »
July 29th, 2010
Several years ago I was walking past a construction site and none of the construction workers commented, whistled, cat called or even stared at me or any other women. When was the last time that happened to you?
No, it wasn’t because we were all old hags. And they weren’t blind. It was because it was on Xerox’ training facility campus and they apparently made this choirboy approach mandatory. And I had the weirdest feeling. It was incredibly. . . liberating.
What I had realized was that most of the time, walking past construction guys made me really uptight. But, like most women, I had built up my defenses without realizing it. So, my first thought was, ah, how great! My second thought was, I am really pissed off that I have to deal with this shit the rest of the time. Read the rest of this entry »
Tags: cat calls, construction, harassment, intimidation, sexual harassment, Xerox
Posted in My Pet Peeves, Social Issues, men | 5 Comments »
July 26th, 2010
We all know the routine: guy falls for girl, girl falls for guy, guy cheats on girl, girl falls apart. Except for one thing – it’s really the guys who can’t handle the strain.
Yeah, I know the “hell hath no fury” blah blah blah but it’s just not true. I’ve said it before (see Hell Hath No Fury. . . Give Me a Break!, October 22nd, 2009) and now I have scientific evidence to back me up (as if I needed it). A survey of 1,611 men and women, aged 18-23 in the Journal of Health and Social Behavior confirms what I’ve known all along: tempestuous relationships are a lot harder on men than on women. Read the rest of this entry »
Tags: Hagen Daz, hell hath no fury, Journal of Health and Social Behavior, men 18-23, Relationships, survey, tempestuous, web thinking
Posted in Relationships, Social Issues, men | 3 Comments »
July 21st, 2010
In NJ we have the unique distinction (among other things) of being the only state where you can’t pump your own gas. That means, when it’s 100 degrees out (like it’s been here recently) or it’s pouring or there’s a foot of snow on the ground, I don’t have to get out of my car in my nice heels and nice, clean clothes to grab a greasy, dirty pump and possibly drip gas on my feet. So, of course, every couple of years, some idiot starts a campaign to change the law and let us pump gas.
Let us? You mean force us. I don’t want that prerogative nor do most sane people.
Which brings me to the point of this post: how often do we let (or expect) other people to do things for us that we could (or should) do ourselves? Read the rest of this entry »
Tags: dependency, gas, New Jersey, NJ, weakness
Posted in My Pet Peeves, Relationships, Social Issues, men | 4 Comments »
July 16th, 2010
With all this hot weather, you know what’s really grossing me out? Of course, I’m talking about men running around without shirts on.
Do they have no shame? I mean, really. Some of them are flabby and shapeless and some of them have breasts as large as mine – but not quite as perky. And, yes, I’ll admit Read the rest of this entry »
Tags: bra, bra straps, breasts, good old days, laws, Respectability, topless
Posted in Fashion, Grooming, My Pet Peeves, Social Issues | 5 Comments »
July 7th, 2010
I hate my neck.
Everything else about me – that I have to expose to the world – looks fine; I can style my hair, I can wear Spanx or other heavy-duty tools to hide rolls of fat. I can ever wear fake tan if I must. But my neck? Ugh. Now I know why Katherine Hepburn loved turtlenecks.
I’ve tried exercising it – smile, stop; smile, stop. I’ve tried creaming it (if you don’t use face cream on your neck and chest, you will be sorry). I’ve sat in front of a mirror and tried to figure out the exact right way to tense my muscles so it doesn’t look like crepe paper.
But it does. Damn. Read the rest of this entry »
Tags: age, Ageing, bathing suit, body, face, fat, fat rolls, muffin top, neck, plastic surgey, skin care, wrinkles
Posted in Grooming, My Pet Peeves, Re-Post | 10 Comments »
July 6th, 2010
There was a time I actually didn’t care what I looked like because it didn’t seem to matter. Long, long ago. Maybe we revert back to that as we get really, really old (but, I look at Joan Rivers and doubt that). I began to wonder exactly when “lookism” became an element of my psyche and I can trace it back to my first 7th grade dance.
Now, at KGS we used to have casual dances during lunch in the gym when it rained out, but I’m talking about a real, honest-to-God dance, where some people came with dates and our mothers drove us to the Magnolia Inn afterward for pizza. I recently found an old diary that I wrote in on that night – it’s painful (for me) to read, but it does give me some insight on why I (and probably most girls) started to worry day and night about how we look. Read the rest of this entry »
Tags: 7th grade, boys, dance, Junior HIgh, KGS, lookism, looks, teen angst
Posted in Forward Into the Past, Grooming, Relationships, Socializing, men | 5 Comments »
June 24th, 2010
The big scene in Academy Award-winning Little Miss Sunshine is funny enough to make you wet your pants: slightly overweight, innocent pre-teen Olive does an hilarious burlesque version of “Super Freak” that her strip-club-loving grandfather choreographed, while the parents of the other hotted-up little girl contestants watch, mortified. It’s obvious Olive has no inkling that pulling the scarf through her legs is naughty.
For some reason it makes me think about the totally sexualized existence girls reside in now. Five year olds wear skimpy bikinis. Gyrating eight and nine year olds bump and grind in a national dance contest to “Single Ladies”, with their cracks showing and in full-fledged hooker attire. And eleven year olds are sending boys nude photos of themselves – sexting. Hey, but wasn’t sexual freedom what we feminists fought for? On the contrary, to me classifying eroticized little girls as a form of sexual freedom means we’re come a long way, baby. . . in the wrong direction. Read the rest of this entry »
Tags: bump and grind, eroticized, hooker, hooking up, Little Miss Sunshine, oral sex, sexting, Sexuality, spin-the-bottle, STD, vagina
Posted in Fashion, My Pet Peeves, Relationships, Social Issues, Socializing | 7 Comments »
June 8th, 2010
Today I was wearing a new top that I really liked. And one of my co-workers – a woman – commented that it was “really cute.” Now, normally that would be enough to make me happy. But I’ve recently gained a new wisdom, basically because I have caught myself saying the same thing to other women. . . when what they were wearing looked absolutely horrendous on them.
Not that I had lied to them. To the contrary: I really, really liked what they were wearing; just not on them.
Which brings me to my newest aha moment: how can we know when to dump an outfit we love?
Tags: clothing, friends, honesty, hot pants, outfit, truth about how you look
Posted in Fashion, Grooming, My Pet Peeves, Re-Post, Socializing | 4 Comments »
