How To Have A Good Mood Day, Or, Saturday Morning at 9:48am

On any given day, there is almost nothing I have to do. I'm not working. The nest is empty. You'd think, as I did when I was busy with work or children or both, that this life is paradise. Uh, no. I'm not complaining, mind you. But it turns out happiness isn't just about not getting bossed around. Not just about removing external demands on your time. Because you are always subject to the demands of your self. And the self can be a pretty persnickety master.

Some days I am giddy and happy, almost all day long. Some days I am nagged by little jabs of distress, or an underlying feeling of dread. A very first world problem, as they say, but when that's where you live, that's what you face. Time without demands has focused me on how to put myself into a good mood as much as possible. I'm not kidding. I've been experimenting. Seems that if I have the privilege of not working, it's my responsibility to enjoy my freedom as much as possible. Which requires a good mood.

If the attempt below hints at hubris, please excuse me in advance. High WASPs believe in prophylactic apologies. I do not mean to imply that I am wise, or evolved, or even a spokesperson for the project of happiness. Just had some time to spare.

Here's what I have found.

1. Get a good night's sleep or you are man down from the git go. Drink little alcohol - or none, eat a very light dinner, shut down the computer at least an hour before bed, make sure you have a good book for those final moments awake under the covers, let in cool night air or engineer some, drink just enough and not too much water. There is nothing more predictive of a good mood day than a good night's sleep.

2. Spend some time noticing and enjoying the weather. That's easy in a California summer. It's hard to feel gray under so much blue sky. But almost every kind of weather has something good about it. The noon light on a gray day, the sound of rain hitting windows, evenings when high humidity locations cool off a little bit. Dinner at 8pm, as the temperature finally falls to 80 degrees. Or, if none of that is possible, internal weather. A fire in the fireplace. Do not discount your really strong air conditioner.

3. Create a to-do list that matches your capabilities. A couple of short-term things, tasks with deadlines, or stuff easily done that creates more mental health that it takes away. For me that's removing visual clutter, folding laundry, clearing up a counter. But also make daily progress on what you really care about. Your heart-felt priorities. For some people, that's helping others. Contributing to the world. For some, it's moving towards a personal goal. Again, I'm not talking about how to be a good person here, who can say what that means? I'm just presenting my research on how to have a good mood day.

4. Develop a routine that allows you to accomplish a lot on your to do list without having to think about when or how. Structure your habits so they support your tasks and goals. I find I exercise better if I schedule in classes to attend. I go to yoga at 1pm, while the walk I meant to take at 8:30am is mysteriously postponed until it's too late. And why it's too late is one of those metabolic mysteries that must simply be obeyed. I write when I have finished my first cup of tea. That way I don't have to think about it. The effort of planning and deciding takes a toll on cheer. Why do you think people take cruises? Apply a cruise ship mentality to your day. A Lindblad cruise, more than Carnival, but a cruise nevertheless.

5. Move around. Music is good. I love Pandora radio. Note that I am not saying you have to "work out." Just moving around as much as possible is enough to start up a good mood. Formal exercise is a long term effort for health and vanity, but it doesn't make me any happier than dancing while I clean the house, or weeding in the back yard for an hour or two.

6. Get outside. Scientists think they can prove that nature makes us happy. Glorious redwood forests and wildflower meadows may lift our hearts but we can even find a little nature in some plants on a balcony. If you stop reading and consider, my guess is that you know exactly where your nearest nature is. We tend to know these things.

7. Find a vista, if you can. A beach, a hillside, the 15th floor, doesn't matter. Studies show that people feel better with an uninterrupted view where someone or something has their back.* I can see the sky out my living room window, as I sit on my sofa. I look up a lot.

8. Use food like medicine. Not as an addiction, but as preventive, curative, medicine. Lean protein will help you to feel full. Definitely a good mood moment. Lots of vegetables and fruits are good for digestion. Another good mood moment. Chocolate, in moderation. And comfort food from your personal history - with the caveat that in this day and age, given what we know, it's going to be very difficult to sustain a good mood if you have eaten in a way that doesn't support your health and appearance. Sometimes our histories subvert our happiness, and that's a larger project. Worth undertaking.

9. Talk to one person you love, only to connect, only to enjoy their being and remember why you love them. Talking to people about whether they have finished the estimate, or where they put their sunglasses, or how they need to get to the table now or dinner will be cold and disgusting, isn't a moment of connection. When we let the presence of someone we love fill our hearts, to my way of thinking, that is the goodest of all good moods.

10. Some days you may wake up and know that you are going to suffer. There is nothing wrong with one day spent lying on your sofa with magazines, DVDs, Hulu, a good trashy novel. A mental health day, if you will. Indulging in recreation has few repercussions.

11. On the days when all this fails, go easy on yourself. You eat too much chocolate, tomorrow is another day. Don't fall into a spiral of eating more just because you ate some. Same with alcohol. You left all those papers on the desk, unsorted? No matter. We are humans. We wrap buildings, we aim for peace, we cry at commercials. We get confused. There is value, on occasion, in acceptance.

12. Finally, don't borrow trouble, as our grandmothers might have said, then. Stay in the moment, as the Buddhists might say, now. And do. Any time you have a minute that belongs to you, notice. And if it feels you have no time that belongs to you, make some. Because even I, with no boss, no job, no children at home, no deadlines, can feel as though I have no time that is my own. So it must be something we set up, that feeling. And must be something we can break down.

If I try to pinpoint the things from this list that I have found to have the most impact, I'd say sleep, movement, and accomplishing any absolute deadline tasks. Then, don't borrow trouble, because at bottom most of us are natively glad to be alive. We can set our bodies up to feel cheerful, and quiet our minds to give that feeling some space.

This is all rather touchy feely. Let's pretend we're not talking emotions. Our human frailty. The short sweetness of life. Let's pretend it's just research. Dry, rational, objective. Thank you. Much appreciated. Otherwise I'd have to put my tongue back into my cheek. Thank you very much. Have a wonderful weekend.

* I read about this vista study a long time ago, before the Internet. I've never forgotten it, but can't find it now. Apparently random natural patterns are also good for us, like leaves in the wind, light on the water.
**I know that for some, body chemistry means that native happiness is elusive. Depression is a different kettle of fish, one which I don't know much about.

How To Get Started On Twitter, Even If You Are Over 50

Little known fact. I joined Twitter in August of 2008, when a sales lead came in, source marked, "Twitter." One must do one's research, after all. I had no idea what the point was.

Fast forward to December of 2009. I tried again. Different account. This time I did better. How? You just have to remember that Twitter is like an enormous cocktail party held in a barn. You either want to go with friends, or make arrangements to meet up when you arrive. Best case, your friends know other people at the party.

It's up to you whether you stand in the corner, drink in hand, observing, or get out there and meet and mingle. By the way, celebrities will be present. You can listen to them talk. Or not. They are unlikely to listen to you. Your friends, however, will laugh even at your bad jokes.

How to get started?

• Go to www.twitter.com
• Click the green button that says, "Sign up"
• You will be asked for your full name, the user name you would like to be known as on Twitter, a password, and your email address.
• They will tell you if your user name is available. I'm AmidPrivilege. Nice to meet you. See, just like a party.
  
• They will tell you if the email address has been used, in case you are like me and forget you have signed up already:).
  
• They will not tell you that the full name you enter will be visible to the Twitterverse. Muffy had to tell me. You might not want to use your real name. Unless you are famous, and then you really should.
  
• Choose that user name carefully. If you're a blogger, choose something that is as close to your Google profile name, or your blog name, or your blog URL, as you can find. You are adding to your online persona, and no need to confuse everyone. We're confused enough as it is.
  
• Then the Twitter gods will ask you if people you know on other services already have a Twitter account. Automatically. The Twitter site accesses your contact lists and tells you who is out there. Yes. You can skip this step if you have a horror of the Internet finding its way too deeply into your private business.
  
• Then you can invite people you know that the Twitter gods don't think have accounts. You can skip this step too.
  
• Then, do you want to follow Jimmy Buffet, Newt Gingrich, or Maria Shriver? Or other popular Twitterers.
  
• You can always see what Jimmy Buffet has to say and then unfollow him later.
  
• Twitter sends your email account a confirmation message.
• Tada!
  
• You will now, every time you go to www.twitter.com, see a list of 140 character statements, known as tweets, in time order, from you and all the people you have followed.
  
• You might prefer to read tweets from people you know and trust. Go to the blogs of people you read and follow them.
• Read their tweets.
• Reply. There's a little button just for replying. Isn't that sweet?
  
• Find some things to say that are a) funny b) useful c) inspiring. Tweet. I tend to tweet about what I am wearing or the fact that all my toilets are overflowing. You can tell I'm not aiming for inspiring.
  
• Click through on the profiles of the people who reply to the people you are following. These can be found by clicking any time you see @someoneorother.
  
• Follow more people.
• People will start to follow you.
• Some people will be like Sally Crystal, who says she is a buddhist and tweets in ALL CAPS ALL THE TIME AND SENT ME A DIRECT MESSAGE SAYING OM MANI PADME HUM HRI! TONG GI THRAM CHU DOK!
• Unfollow them. Click!
  

There. Now you are on Twitter.

The only remaining issue is that you will at first want to spend way too much time there. Don't do it. Open Twitter 3-4 times/day only. Otherwise your life will go down a rabbit hole, never to return.

There you have it. Twitter for beginners. Old beginners. But we all have to start somewhere, if only to know that we haven't been left behind. We might change our minds later and say Bah! Humbug! But at least we get the joke.

Have a good weekend.

When Budget Shoes Knock Your Socks Off

These are the Christian Sirianos I ordered from Payless. Now sold out, apparently. $29.99. A second pair half off. Free shipping. This kind of pricing is not common in my usual retail pursuits. So I had to wonder, were the shoes going to be, you know, OK?

Yes. They are. Fabric holds up in person. Heels, nice and shiny. Zipper, sufficiently substantial. Run a little big, which means my size 7 Ferragamos, size 7.5 Manolos feet are floating just a tad in the Siriano 7s. This made my daughter very happy, since the 7.5s I ordered as the second pair were released to accompany her on the holiday party trail Back East. (That's what we Californians call that side of the US.) I am confident that no one will look at my gold zippered feet and think, "Oh, poorly made shoes, darling. Tssk. Tssk. Tssk."


Lisa, one of our readers here, appears to agree, having bought not only the zipper flats, but similar heels. She sent me these accounts of her Siriano outings.

I'm just sending this email to let you in on (and thank you) my 'little secret': after your posting of the zipper shoes by Christian Siriano, I went to the Payless website - I loved those shoes!!! I bought the flats in gold and the other colorway AND the heels. Tonight I went to an Art Gallery opening and wore those heels. I must say that I HAD the best shoes in the joint. (I have two very dear friends who help me dress, and they chose those shoes first out of my ample shoe closet, and the rest of my outfit revolved around them - they are a recently married gay couple (GO IOWA!) and their taste is impeccable.) Anyway, THANK YOU, I never would have thought of Payless (I didn't have the heart to tell my stylists where they came from) and I have three pairs of the coolest shoes around. (Of course, this is not a big city and I kind of stand out in the shoe department anyway :) Louboutins tend to do that.)

...yesterday I went to an annual "Holiday Open House."...in deciding my ensemble (without my stylists!), I went with an all cream outfit and topped (bottomed?) it off with my gold zippered Christian (not Louboutin) shoes. This IS a crowd that takes their clothing VERY seriously and I can't begin to tell you the number of compliments I got on the shoes!!!!! I've got one more of these occasions to attend and have two more pairs of zippered shoes in my arsenal - OH THE FUN!!!!

You are very welcome, Lisa. May all our holidays be FUN:). And well-shod besides.

One Lavish Way To Find The Perfect Little Black Dress

Well, I did it. I replaced the Little Black Dress That Couldn't with the Little Black Dress That Most Certainly Could.

First there was Miss Blumarine. Just too dang short for the over-50 and too dang worn for anyone else. Enter Ms. Lhullier. Purchased in exigency, worn in regret.

Exeunt Ms Lhullier. Au revoir, mon amie. Tu ne me manqueras pas.

But wait, what's that I hear? Who is whispering seductively in Spanish? Oh, Mr. Rodriguez, I've been waiting for you. Thank you for arriving before I develop dowager's hump and can no longer fit your siren curves.


So. Once upon a time I needed a new little black dress. I know, by now, that I require structure, sleeves, classic materials. I know, by now, to do research on the Internet. I looked online all around. And, on the Barney's New York site, (40% off sale on selected items today, if you are so compelled) I found this.

"Aha!" I thought, "Good design, private label, equals luxury bargain." And off I went to Barney's New York. In San Francisco. Which begs the question of why isn't it Barney's San Francisco? Do they think we feel the words "New York" add style? Have they talked to anyone in California? At all? But I digress. (The most compelling word in the English language, digression.)

Small lobby, Barney's. Elevators at the back of the store. Rather like those old New York emporiums, Bergdorf's, etc. Up. You can see almost everything on the women's designer floor from the moment those elevator doors slide open. Find a saleswoman. Explain that you want the Barney's private label dresses. Wonder if you feel a faint chill of disdain. Remind yourself about impunity.


Try on the dress. It looks awful. Hostile pleating. Oh well. Best laid plans. But since we're here....

Try on on Balmain, Balenciaga, Gaultier (twice), DVF. Break into loud guffaws, snorting to the salesperson, (you've been passed over to an important guy, sensing wallet blood, male, gay, fabulously stylish, both discrete and reassuring), "I AM JUST TOO FAT AND TOO OLD FOR THIS!" Tell him you have been in denial. Tell him, laughing, that you didn't realize things had gotten to this point.


8 dresses later, pull on Narciso. Feel the click of yes. (You know that click?)

Sleeves, check; structure, check; cashmere-wool blend, checking it twice...

Realize you don't really mean that you are fat*, just that you certainly aren't willowy any more, and you, most of all, aren't 20. Or 30. Or even 40. But that, at 50, the Narciso dress locates every bit of your current appeal and says, "Uh huh."

And, since the dress is in fact a present, receive confirmation that the atmospheric price is within lavish budget and take your purchase home. Where you will pull it out as soon as you walk in the door, just to look. And again, for Thanksgiving, and probably Christmas parties. For Christmas dinner, and New Year's. Any time at all you travel to Manhattan. Uh huh. New York City.

*I'm not "fat". But, being female in America, I sense the possibility, always hovering nearby. The right question is, fat compared to what?

In Which I Am On A Surfboard Trying To Stand Up

I've been tagged. By Stephanie of even*cleveland. What, she asks, is the 10th photo in my 1st folder? Of course, wild confusion ensued, given my recent change to the Mac environment and my resultant lack of any idea how this operating system deals with trivial things like, um, folders, and um, applications, and um, the relationship between the two. Nonetheless, here is the 10th photo from my ONLY folder consisting solely of photos.

That's me. That's Hawaii. And that's a surfboard I'm trying to stand up on. It's Christmas, 2006.

My children are somewhere else, that day, on that same bay. They are standing up.

I tag Academic, Hopeful.

5 Things To Love (Unreservedly) About Your Body Before You Turn 50

Friendly Italian Women from Flickr. Since they can't speak English, I will tell you what they want to say. You can see by their smiles. They wish you the best. They wish you the joy of your youth. We all do.

What To Love, If You Need A Suggestion Today.

1. Your upper lip.
It's plump. Smooth. Comparatively hairless. Touch it. Appreciate its resilience. Run your finger across that dandelion fluff you pretend is problem hair. Trust me. It isn't.

2. Your eyebrows.
Do you have any hairs growing out of your eyebrows that make you look like an old courtroom lawyers? You know, long enough to have at least two degrees of curl? I thought not. Take a moment to cherish your perfect eyebrows. If you think body hair is a theme, you are right.

3. The backs of your hands.
Do they look like a topographical map? Do your veins want to leave you and join their cousins, Mr. and Mrs. Network Cable, in the ceiling? Does the slightest movement cause creases in your skin to ripple with the history of 600 months of life? No? So sit down. Hold your hands out in front of you. Open all your fingers wide. Close them. Turn your hands sideways. Pretend you are a hand model. Admire.

4. Overall health.
And if you aren't doing right by your body's enormous capacity right now for health, apologize. Not to me, to your body. In the next 12 hours do something in honor of your youth. Eat a piece of fruit. Or a carrot. Those bags of peeled baby organic carrots from Whole Foods are good. Drink a glass of water. Walk or move at some point when you customarily ride or sit. Thank you. Thank you so much.

5. Your neck.
Any resemblance to sandpaper? Any? Any at all? Case closed.

Image from supermuch's photostream on Flickr

4 Kitchen Tricks To Know Before You Turn 50

I love to cook. I used to do a lot of it. In my 40s I learned a few tricks that made the type of cooking I like to do - Cal/Asian, Cal/Italian, lots of chopping - easier. I thought that in the spirit of the High WASP sturdy gal I would pass them on to you. Style is about ease. However and wherever you find it.

These, by the way, are not the kinds of tips you find in Real Simple. You know, those "Aha! uses?" As in, take some sort of oil (which you might not have) and apply it to god knows what (which you might not have either) in order to create some effect (which you would never thought you cared about)? No. These tips are for the stuff we have to do, using things we already have. I am not trying to help you be perfect. Just to avoid unnecessary mistakes. Perfection, risk, voyages, that's another world.

1. What To Do With The Rest Of The Bunch of Parsley?
Say you need parsley. Unless you have an herb garden, you buy a bunch. And you never use it all. If you put it back into the plastic bag, it turns to slime. So cut the bottoms off, and put all your leftover stalks into a bowl of water. Then eat a little bit when you pass it. High in Vitamin A. Good for breath freshening.


2. How Do You Peel Garlic Easily?
Simple. You probably know this one already, but just in case. Put a clove on your cutting board. Smash it with the flat side of your knife blade. All the skin breaks and you can slide it off.


3. What To Do With The 1/4 Leftover Lemon?
Put it in the refrigerator and you will probably find it fossilized a week later. Instead, put it on the sponge next to your sink. Every time you put something down the garbage disposal, slice off a chunk of lemon and throw it down your drain. Also squooge a little on your fingers so they smell good. One can never have too much smelling good in one's life.


4. How To Cut Up An Avocado?
Slice the avocado open lengthwise with a paring knife. With a large spoon, scoop out the entire pit-free avocado half. For the other side, whack the pit gently with your knife. Be careful not to let the knife slip, and keep your hands out of the way. Just saying. Pull the pit out. Slice your avocado. This I got from Livin' Lousiana, (who also sells these nice fleur-de-lis coasters). In my 50s. See, I have just given you two decades worth of knowledge. I'm sure I learned some other things in that time, but they might not come with such a strong guarantee to work.


The sturdy gal likes things that are guaranteed to work. She has little patience for fol-de-rol. Or wisdom that relies on Freud. Sometimes her way is helpful, in modern times of doubt and anxiety. Just scoop out the avocado. Fast. Smooth. Good for the soul.

For Your Own Sanity, Answer These 4 Questions Before You Read Vogue's September Issue

On September 6th, 2009, I walked to a bookstore and bought six fashion magazines. Yes. Six. Because this is a town of old hippies, and I am conscious of my milieu, I felt compelled to tell the cashier that I was doing research on the difficulties of developing a viable personal style. I don't know if he believed me. The magazines were very heavy. I walked home anyway.

The weight of the magazines was not the only potential hazard. In my 20s I read fashion magazines religiously. I swam through Vogue as though it were a deep lake and I a doomed maiden drowning in tweed and gold thread and slouchy boots. Fashion magazines have come and gone since then, the Internet has arrived. From {frolic} and nitro:licious to The Sartorialist and Style.com. To say nothing of J. Crew, Anthropologie, and Chie Mihara.com. At this very moment, even if you don't have six fashion magazines on the floor next to your sofa, you have access to more pictures and commentary on clothing than any one person could ever absorb. Unless it's what you do for a living and still I have my doubts.

How then do you deal with the issue of personal style? How do you shop for and wear clothes so that at least 80% of the time you like what you wear and achieve what you want in the wearing? I can only shake my head at how much less anxiety, how much more fun life would have held had I figured this out earlier in life .

What do I know now that I did not know then? The answers to these questions.

1. What do I want to say with my clothes?
2. How do I want to feel in my clothes?
3. What do I like the look of?
4. What are the categories of activities requiring clothes in which I engage?

Notice that none of these questions are, "How do I look good?". There are 800 different ways to look good, 8000 different opinions about what looking good means, and 250 million people in the US with 250 million different faces and coloring and bodies that look good in different things. You can "look good" by choosing colors that are harmonious with your hair and face and shapes that help your body proportions align with the ideals of your culture. But you most likely won't be all the way to feeling comfortable in your skin. Social context is complicated.

Notice also I say nothing at all about "style profiles". I read, somewhere in my 624 lbs of fashion magazines, that one of Vogue's editors is releasing a new book called I Love Your Style. She lists style profiles, Classic, Street, Trashy Tart, all the usual balderdash. OK, maybe she doesn't say Trashy Tart. It's still balderdash. We don't get up in the morning, and think, "Do I want to be a Russian princess today? Audrey Hepburn? A biker chick on the edge of the Apocalypse?" We do not walk into clothing stores organized into Style Profiles. We live lives. We buy clothes. We engage in social and aesthetic and emotional behaviors. That's the reality.

So ask yourself, first, what do you want to say with your clothes? "Wait," you may protest, "I don't want to say anything in particular. I want to simply be me." I know. I sympathize. And I'm sorry. You can't shut them up. Your clothes talk. So humor me here. What do you want to say?

• Creative?
• Fashionable?
• Conservative?
• Lawyer?
• Republican?
• Rebellious?
  
• Religious?
• Fourteen?
• Thirty?
  
• Available?
• Dignified?
• Responsible + Creative + Progressive + Authoritative?
  

I, myself, want to say that I am a person of substance. That I have a decent aesthetic and good taste according to the High WASP canon. That I'm not trying too hard. I want to say that I am competent. That I will behave appropriately for the circumstances in which I find myself. Whether or not it's true. That's mine to know.

Next, ask yourself, how do I want to feel in my clothes? (Notice whether what you want your clothes to say and how you want to feel overlap. If they do not, we're in "Who Am I And What Do I Want To Do With My Life?", not "What Do I Want To Wear?" Let's pretend your life is in alignment. I do it all the time.)

• Comfortable?
• Safe?
• Sexy?
• Superior?
• Invisible?
• The center of attention?

I have found that I want to feel comfortable, confident, and attractive enough. Always appropriate. Priorities change depending on the situation. I would expect your priorities might be different than mine. Unless of course you too are 52, live in Northern California, tend to vote Democratic, and wanted to be an actress when you were young.

Third, what do you like the looks of? After all, you are going to have to see your clothes in the closet. In the mirror. In windows lining the street as you pass. But this is easy. The flicker of yes is a good sign. I usually suck air through my teeth at the sight of something I covet. We all have our gestures of desire. Desire should be given its due and no more.

No matter how much I like white cashmere.

Because finally you have to ask yourself, what do you actually do day in and day out?

• Take mass transit and walk to work?
• Sit in chairs?
• Talk face to face with people on whom you depend for money?
• Munge on a sofa typing on a laptop?
• Shepherd small children from breakfast to school to ballet to homework and finally, gloriously, to bed?
• Speak to large hostile groups of Northeast women wearing suits?
• Hang out with colleagues in Chicago bars?
• Have dinner parties for friends outdoors on warm Southern nights?
• Attend large formal parties which may result in your photo showing up in a magazine?
• Walk down a narrow, raised, well-lit walkway while excruciatingly thin women with resources write notes on what you are wearing?
  

Optimize for your real life. Sal, of Already Pretty, wrote a wonderful post on buying clothes for the imaginary you. I figure my imaginary life is worth one or two pieces of clothing. A pink cashmere sweater with Hello Kitty picked out in rhinestones at the waist. 50th birthday present from my sisters. I wear it for family gatherings because my family doesn't mind when imaginary me shows up. An entire wardrobe of similar pieces would be problematic. Given the executive thing and all. Dress for your real life. So you say what you want to say and feel how you want to feel in the life you really lead. I have made the mistake of forgetting that occasionally. Left scurrying through my wardrobe. Usually when an outing with trophy wives is involved. Which reminds me. I may need a Confidence Amongst Trophy Wives outfit. But I digress.

You are now ready to open Vogue. The September issue, in particular, has caused me terrible dizziness in years past. Panic attacks. Shortness of breath. No longer. Enjoy. You are guaranteed not to come home with the items below in your hot and poorer little hands. At least by accident. What you do on purpose is another matter. And even if it involves Prada's leather hip waders, should be celebrated.

The "September Issue" by High WASP featuring Balmain

What To Do Now Because Doing It At 50 Will Be Hard

1. Sit down. Stand up. Sit down. Stand up. Silently. Don’t say "Ugh!" or "Umph." or "Oh..."
2. Hurry. Walk fast and talk at the same time.
3. Cook three courses while drinking a glass of wine.
4. Decide that grad school was a bad idea.
5. Ask someone a question. Remember the answer 10 minutes later.

*Or sing Thriller one last time, fall in love, bare your soul. If you were Michael Jackson. R.I.P.

Fierce At 50, Or, Having A Good Job Helps

I’ve spent a fair amount of time recently with young people about to take their first steps in the world. Otherwise known as 1100 new Princeton graduates sitting in chairs on a lawn in the sun. To say nothing of my daughter on the other side of the country getting ready to go to her new job. I’ve also recently had a reader do me the honor of asking if I had any advice on careers, as in, how to have one.

All of which has gotten me to thinking.

I do not believe there is any way around the reality that in order to be fierce at 50 you have to find a career that works. But once you figure out what clothes to wear, (nudge nudge wink wink), what else has to happen in order to have the kind of job which generates fierceness vs. draining it right out of your body? (As an aside I will point out right away that full-time homemaking is a career. Just not one that I know much about.)

Me, I’ve been alive for a while and I have had a lot of jobs. The ones that made me happy included; assistant to at a summer art class for 10-year olds (time spent making pretty things and when not making pretty things spent outside in the California summer), senior product manager at Sun Microsystems (working cooperatively and creatively with teams of terrifyingly smart people who thought I was wonderful), and VP of Product at a dot.com (leading teams of terrifyingly smart people who thought I was wonderful). The jobs that drained every ounce of my soul included; selling $1M/month contracts for industrial gases, (sitting in a car listening to Bruce Springsteen and Tom Petty trying to make myself cold call on yet another man who touched valves and pipes for a living), group marketing manager for a wunderkind (took me through Europe in a private jet and made me leave my children behind for two weeks), and VP of Product Management for a software company (had to lay off 25 people including one man who was at his wife's bedside in the hospital and had a very smart subordinate who was good enough at trying to take my job that he made me miserable but not good enough to ever actually get me released from that employment).

So how then could I have known in advance which were the soul-suckers? Most of them were in high tech, right? How to know which jobs would make me get up early and walk happily to the train station? Which jobs would bring me home at night stunned, unable to speak, looking forward only to too many glasses of wine?

Well there’s the question. I’m getting to it. But this is somewhat tougher than what shoes. As you might imagine.

Why, Were I 20, I Might Not Be So All About Navy

Via simple + pretty, the Isaac Mizrahi resort collection

Fierce at 50. To Sequin Or Not To Sequin.

As part of my campaign to stay out of Dowdytown, I visit fashion sites frequented largely by very young people. I must say, young people sure do go to a lot of parties. At least the fierce and fashionable kinds of young people. And they wear a lot of clothes with holes in them.

Anyway, I like to play a game with myself. It's called, "What Could I Wear? No, Really?" I found this on nitro:licious. I'm pretty sure I could wear it.


Especially since east side bride says this:

But I'm pretty sure I couldn't wear this:


Unless east side bride said so. Then I might, maybe, but probably not, reconsider.

Fierce at 50. When You Are 20. Or 30.

Once you hit 50 there’s only so much you have to work with in the fierce department. Those with inordinate style can just push forward as is. You know the ones. They own the perfect necklace from Uganda. Or the perfect Lily Pulitzer shift dress that shows off their tennis-toned arms. Style comes in all political guises. The rest of us have to hope our 20-30 year old selves didn’t, rolling around in their young ignorance, trash our 50-year old selves. So here are a few words your 50-year old self would like to tell you.

1. Don’t diet any more. Please, please, please find a way to eat that can be sustained for years and year and years. 50-60 years. Because your metabolism will slow down. And what you eat now will make you put on weight later. You don’t want to be too heavy because your joints will hurt and your doctor will yell at you. So find a way to eat well. This will include fruits, vegetables, whole grains, lean proteins, and chocolate. It will include very little fast food. Just do it. Don’t try to lose weight. Just find a way to eat well.

2. Appreciate your skin and your flesh and your hair because they will change. Put lovely-smelling unguents on them and hope for all that is promised. Spend only as much money as you are comfortable with.

3. Move around often. Don’t start running marathons unless you like them. They may wreck your knees anyway. Fidget. Take the stairs. Tap your feet. Walk to the market. 30 minutes a day of brisk walking ought to keep your body from disintegrating any faster than it will of its own accord.

4. Wear sunscreen. Not just at the beach. Or by the pool. Or in the desert. All the time. If you drive a car, especially wear it on the left side of your face. On your left hand. When I look in the mirror I see liplines and spots on the left side that I don’t have on the right side. Car damage. Wear sunscreen on your neck too. Amazingly, your neck isn’t as invisible to everyone else as it is to you.

5. Wear lots of tight pants and teeter around in high heels. Do it now. Go to bars full of people and dance where everyone can see you. Later in life you either will think it’s a really stupid idea and not worth the discomfort and so will have missed your chance, or you will regret not doing it and you will have to try it and you will wander around looking like you don’t know you are 50. You don’t want to wander around looking like you haven’t figured out your age. If you want to look like you like being 50, and think it’s fierce, all the better. But clueless is rarely a good look.

6. Follow fads. Dress as far on the edge as you are comfortable. By the time you are 50 if you dress on the edge people will automatically assume you are either an art gallery owner or a homeless person. By the time you are 50 you will be tiring of scanning your closet. You will be tiring of scanning fashion sites and looking to reinvent yourself. Unless of course you do it for a living. Otherwise you will want to have found a style that you like and you will want to stick to it. So experiment now. Even with perfume.

7. Travel. See the world. Do whatever it takes to realize that there is no one way to do anything. That the question of absolute moral right is a tough one for which many have died unnecessarily. Open your mouth a lot. This will mean you eat many foods, kiss a lot of men, take deep breaths and say what you want to say. And it will means that by 50 you will be spared the closed lip look of a woman who doesn’t like what she sees. Avoid pursed lips.

You don’t want to show up at 50 with regrets. And I find I regret what I didn’t do far more than what I did. After all, there’s almost always a path out of a wrong step, or if not, a way to heal in the days that follow. Whereas you lose the moment where you do not do it forever. In that way moments have of getting lost.

Fierce at 50 #1

I'm just not ready to pack it up and go to Dowdyland. That's the net. Which has led to such crimes as wearing my son's surfer sweatshirt. He doesn't even surf. After a stern talking to from the good women over at Corporette, I am now musing over how to dress in an unsurrendered but still suitable manner. And by suitable, I mean suitable to my goals. Not to any whispered tut-tut-tuts about what I or anyone else "should" or shouldn't do. It's simple. I have the goal to put death off as long as I can. And as a corollary, since at the end of the day I cannot put it off forever, I would like to forget that reality as much as humanly possible . Second, but perhaps more achievable, I should find a job. Therefore, I need to dress in a way that sends signals of intent, competence, intelligence. Even a little creativity won't hurt. Not too much though, creativity is scary to most corporate cultures.

So.

Fierce at Fifty #1 by High WASP featuring Old Navy jackets

Let me deconstruct. Jeans I believe have long since made the leap into the universal dictionary of fashion. At 50 I need to avoid a too-low cut, as that makes me look as though I haven't noticed that I am 50, indicating that I am either very unintelligent or disturbed. Holes are a problem. But these boyfriend jeans are fine. And comfortable too, something I prize more and more as I age. The earrings and necklace, as I have said, High WASPs don't think of jewelery as an accessory. It's more like family. Corporette found me the jacket, and it's cheap and washable. Critical for something I might wear to the market. Since I am prone to brushing up against strawberries, and other things that leave mysterious stains. The bag - good, simple, no visible logo. I can't help that it's expensive. That is the way of the world. The shoes, now there even at 50 you can get a little fierce. A little mischievous. These I found via nitrolicious. That's also how I know they are fierce. And finally, makeup. At 50, my lips are fading in my face, almost as though the fog has me already. And my favorite book, How Not To Look Old (well no actually that's Disgrace by Coetzee, but my favorite in the area of beauty) says wear pink lipstick over 40. Who am I to question?

Fierce in Your Fifties

One might wonder, why would a corporate executive, one who used to agonize over curling iron or no curling iron in the 80's, who wore a bowtie once in those same 80's (granted I vowed never to do so again when I matched all the men in my office that day), and who has been known to buy a Giorgio Armani jacket just because the new client was a large well-known New York financial institution, why would she read something like some notes on napkins? Because of this.

See that Alexander Wang dress in the upper right hand corner? You can wear that when you are 50. You can wear it and feel the hope that fashion at its best brings with it. Hope that your self, as shown and recreated in your clothing, will carry on. That age will not wither, nor custom stale, your infinite variety.

Unless of course it's too short and shows your knee wrinkles. Then eff it but you are stuck with less than infinite variety. Finite, in other words.