Read an Excerpt

Boomer Babes

A Woman's Guide To The New Middle Ages

St. Martin's Press

Boomer Babes at Fifty: Still Ready to Rock

I am not twentyish, I am not thirtyish. Three months ago I was forty years old. Forty. Four oh — That slipped. I hadn't quite made up my mind to admit it. Now I feel as though I've suddenly taken all my clothes off.

— Margo Channing, All About Eve

Admitting to forty in the fifties was as bad as admitting to er, ah, um, fifty at the millennium.

Will we women of the sex, drugs, and rock and roll generation face fifty without flipping out? You're kidding, right? Are there no plastic surgeons? Are there no mud wraps?

Not that we're going to take it lying down, mind you. Hey — we jettisoned girdles and bobby pins as a way of life, so we certainly aren't going to go gentle into the land of Depends. We ain't our mothers, we ain't our older sisters, and we ain't going down without a fight.

Don't forget that we fought in the streets in the sixties with rock music as our soundtrack. Who said war had to be hell?

The first wave of female baby boomers, those of us born between 1946 and 1955 — nineteen million strong — ditched the notion of becoming Mrs. Jim Anderson. We figured Father didn't know best.

Hell no, we didn't want to go anywhere in a hairdo, a panty girdle, and a shirtwaist dress.

Okay. Now millions of us are looking fifty in the face (literally and figuratively). We're finding that getting older isn't the problem, it's looking older that pisses us off. Let's face it, looking older was always the first step on the disposable dame ladder. You know — disposed of by husbands, lovers, employers, children, and worst of all, even cosmetics companies! You can live without a man, but you can't live without mascara.

Screw that.

For all of us nineteen million women who tuned in, turned on, and dropped out, it's time to redefine, redesign, and reinvent ourselves. Again. After all, we did it the first time around with no role models — the only famous women we knew were movie stars, the wives of movie stars, and the wives of powerful husbands.

And even then, only the movie stars seemed to be having any sex ... until, of course, they lost their looks and killed themselves.

If a woman did something to change the world back then, she inevitably ended up looking like Eleanor Roosevelt. If a woman looked like a babe, no one would have taken her seriously.

So here we are — too old to be young and way too young to be old. We'd tell you to steal this book, but we need the money. We're not getting any younger (or is that older?). Instead, buy this manifesto for the new middle ages, a guidebook to staying hip and hot without flipping out.

After all, we're still ready to rock

Fifty Good Reasons to Turn Fifty

1. It's better than dying.

2. If you make a mistake, it doesn't shatter your confidence in your own judgment. Instead you now say, "I made a mistake. Big deal. I didn't kill anyone." (Leave the last part out if you actually did kill someone.)

3. You don't get embarrassed easily anymore. Blunders that in your youth would have prompted you to enter a witness protection program now roll off your psyche. (The only exception to this is if you simultaneously rip your dress and fall while accepting an Academy Award.)

4. Liberating phrases are now part of your vocabulary: "It's not my problem." "Who cares?" "Get over yourself." "So sue me." "What an asshole." "F#$@ it!"

5. You picked a good time to turn fifty. Millions of other women are doing it these days, and the face of fifty has definitely changed and changed radically. Think about this: In 1950, in Sunset Boulevard, Norma Desmond was fifty. In 1998, in real life, Susan Sarandon is fifty-two.

6. You now realize that you don't have to send Christmas cards or make your bed unless you actually want to.

7. You've stopped trying to change people.

8. You have your own voice. Now when you think and speak, the opinions are really your own and not those of some boyfriend, girlfriend, or a grown-up who knows more than you.

9. You judge yourself by your own standards. For example, "Am I the fattest person who ever lived?"

10. You don't doubt yourself or who you are and rarely, if ever, have an Asshole Attack. (Translation: when you wake up the next morning wishing you could take back the night before.)

11. Now when you feel competitive with other women, it's about important issues, namely, who earns a bigger salary and who has better stock options.

12. More than ever before, you enjoy the company of other women, especially other women around your age. After all, who besides you (who's over three feet tall anyway) wets her pants?

13. Fifty means never having to say you're sorry (except when you've run someone over).

14. You don't care if your in-laws like you, hate you, or even know you exist.

15. You no longer care if your mother approves of your boyfriend. Or your husband. Or your best friend.

16. You're finally careful about your diet. You have to be. Remember: "What doesn't kill you will make you stout."

17. You've finally achieved true sexual liberation. You have to do only what you want, when you want, and with whom you want.

18. You realize that the only people with true power over you work for the IRS.

19. Your short-term memory is so shot that you forget if you lied about your age to the person you're talking to. This is okay because your memory is such a memory that you soon forget you're embarrassed.

20. They now have fat-free Carvel.

21. The $6 manicure. Anywhere. Anytime. Anyplace.

22. You no longer care if people think you're a: lesbian, bisexual, trisexual, asexual. Or that you: came from the wrong side of the tracks or tracts, went to Ed & Larry University, didn't go to college at all, haven't read Sartre (in French), don't like to cook/do like to cook, and everything else that used to make you feel like shit.

23. Instead of furtive peeks at The Enquirer at the supermarket checkout, you can now read it shamelessly on public transportation.

24. You have finally realized that Audrey Hepburn was a walking eating disorder with fashion know-how.

25. Nobody — unless he is brandishing a machete — is especially intimidating anymore.

26. You no longer feel the need to sleep with someone you don't even want to have lunch with.

27. A facial still works.

28. You can enjoy vegetarian food without worrying about falling into the hands of the Communists.

29. You can go to a spa without feeling like you're trapped inside The Women.

30. Being alone means that you enjoy your own company, not that you're a lonely woman alone with her cats.

31. "The only thing we have to fear is fear itself." Okay, so we didn't make that one up. But you can now laugh at things that used to scare the pants off you: broken bra straps, Kenny Keegan, algebra, boys seeing your underpants, sororities, psoriasis, the A-bomb, stains — particularly under your arms and on the back of your skirt — and being dateless on Saturday night, prom night, or New Year's Eve. Then there was the escaped murderer who left his hook of a hand on your car door, and you found cockroaches in your beehive hairdo.

32. Baseball caps instead of hairdos.

33. Clogs are back.

34. You're proud of your ordering-out skills.

35. You have no desire to have blue water in your toilet bowl.

36. You don't need to keep up with all the new dances.

37. You're in better shape now than when you were at twenty-five. Or at least you should be.

38. You've stopped smoking. Or at least you should have.

39. When you say, "Don't let the door hit you in the ass on your way out," you're talking to your husband.

40. You now feel free to openly despise people who use the words "gal" and "fella."

41. You don't have to call home on business trips.

42. You no longer care when your ex threatens to sue you for custody. Let him — the tuition is killing you.

43. Platform shoes are back.

44. Leggings, the forgiving fashion are here.

45. You've dated so much that it takes you only fifteen minutes to know what's what and what gives and who doesn't.

46. You can buy your own jewelry.

47. You can take yourself on vacation.

48. You can buy your own car — the one you want this time.

49. You can buy your own house and live in it with anyone or no one.

50. Been there, done that, and can do it again. But only if you want to.

Ten Commandments for Preserving Babedom

1. DON'T LIE ABOUT YOUR AGE

There are many reasons to come clean here. For one thing, unless you scored 800 on your math SATs, the math will kill you. And do you really want to go through making all that fake ID again? It would be beyond humiliating to get caught lying about your age, plus it would create suspicion that you might be older than you actually are. So unless you have the balls of the Gabors, we recommend that you obey this commandment.

Why not take a deep breath, stand up straight, look them straight in the eye, and come out with the truth?

Remember, there are a lot of us. Think back to your horribly overcrowded third-grade classroom — seventy kids huddled under their desks to escape atomic devastation. Every kid in that classroom, including the boy who used to sneak a peek at your underpants during air raid drills and the girl with the Toni who was never tardy, will be turning the big 5-0.

2. DON'T LOSE TOO MUCH WEIGHT

To paraphrase Catherine Deneuve: When a woman is over forty, she has to choose between her ass and her face. The face should win. Losing too much weight will make you look not only older but scarier. Despite what we've been told our whole lives, you can be too thin. Remember, the woman who made this up — the Duchess of Windsor — was married to the man who would be queen.

Also, the thinner you are, the greater risk you run of getting osteoporosis and spending your twilight years shaped like a question mark.

Besides, who would you rather look like — Deneuve or the Duchess?

3. DON'T GAIN TOO MUCH WEIGHT

If you were all excited by Commandment 2, calm down. We just said don't get skinny — we didn't say you should classify Dunkin' Donuts as a food group.

Meat on your bones is good; fat on your meat is not.

4. SPEND MORE MONEY ON UNDERWEAR AND SHOES

Both keep you up and keep you from looking bent over. With any luck, you'll reap double lotto: floozie pumps with the souls of sneakers; industrial-strength undies with the heart of a Paris bordello.

5. UPDATE YOUR IMAGE

It's not how you feel, it's how you look. If you don't want to look about fifty years older than you already are, please remember that in the war on aging, less is more! In other words, the more you age, the less gunk you should pile on. (See Chapter 18, "Making Up to Make It Big: The Babe's Complete Guide to Makeup.") First, don't lay on the foundation with a trowel — it highlights the lines. Second, ditch the frosted and colored eye shadow. Third, unless you're the wife of a fallen Evangelist minister, avoid pink blush and brown lip liner. Fourth, for the sake of everything that's holy, remember that under-eye concealer is supposed to conceal circles, not give you big white rings. Try finding a shade that actually comes close to human flesh.

Finally, if your hairdo closely resembles that of Miss Texas, you have automatically added ten years to your age. (See Chapter 17, "Hair Raising: The Babe's Complete Guide to Hair.")

6. IN THE NAME OF GOD, DRESS SIMPLY

The following garments should be avoided like a large plague of locusts:

• Blackglama — you're too young

• Crop tops — you're too old

• Culottes. Period.

• Tops with animals printed on them

• Cowboy hats

• Ruffles — anywhere, anytime, anyplace, on anything

• Turquoise (the color, not jewelry)

• Coral (the color and especially the jewelry)

• Two-piece jogging suit

• Blue stretch pants

• Shawls, capes, and big lady-editor scarves

• Shirts that are too long, short, pleated, full, tight, or coral

• Big necklaces, unless they're big with diamonds

7. MOISTURIZE EVERYTHING ALL THE TIME

And that includes from the inside out. So drink eight glasses — at least — of water a day. Get a humidifier, and keep it clean and keep it on.

8. HALF-GLASSES ARE FOR HALF-ASSES

If you need reading glasses — and we know you do — please somehow control yourself and do not under any circumstances succumb to buying — or, worse, wearing — half-glasses. It's like wearing a sandwich board for the AARP. You may possibly never have sex again if you ignore this warning.

A subcategory to avoid like a touch of Ebola is big glasses with the dipping side pieces. The only person who can get away with wearing these is Sophia Loren — the greatest babe who ever lived — and the only reason she even wears them is because she owns the company, or part of it, or something.

9. GET MORE SLEEP AT NIGHT AND MEDITATE IN THE MORNING

Let's face it, you simply can't do the things to blissful excess that you used to do (with the possible exception of sex) and still look good.

You'll sleep better at night if you start the day meditating for at least fifteen minutes. It will give you time to yourself and with yourself. Need inspiration to get started? Put on an old Beatles song. Better yet, Valley of the Sun meditation/motivation tapes by Dick Sutphin are fabulous.

10. TAKE A WALK, LADY

If you don't force yourself to walk at least twenty minutes a day, you will be old before your time. Babes are in shape — or else they wouldn't be called babes (in fact, they wouldn't be called at all).

Here's why else you need to walk it off:

Walking twenty minutes a day will make you ten pounds thinner a year from now.

Walking is better than running, because running makes everything that's starting to fall, fall faster.

It's free.

Ten Commandments for Preventing Old Fartdom

1. KEEP LISTENING TO ROCK

Rock is our music. We came of age with it, and we should come of middle age with it.

Proviso: Even if you hate Rage Against the Machine, saying it out loud can immediately make you sound like Ed Sullivan introducing the Beatles (or, as he put it, the Beet-uls).

But more important, always remember that it is better to bite off your own leg than to listen to any orchestrated version of any Led Zeppelin song.

Corollary: If you must listen to corny rock and roll, please do so in the privacy of your own home. This includes doowop, the Mamas and the Papas, and especially Michael Bolton.

2. NEVER WEAR MORE THAN ONE DROP OF PERFUME

And never wear even one drop of Giorgio.

3. AVOID OLD-LADY EXPRESSIONS

The following phrases should never come out of your mouth:

• "Unhook my brassiere."

• "My ankles are swollen."

• "Sock it to me, baby."

• "I have a coupon for it."

• "That looks sharp."

• "That's a man's job."

• "Coordinating wardrobe"

• "Mediterranean bedroom set"

• "Peau de soie shoes"

• "He's dead, right?"

• "Iron curtain," "iron lung," "iron-poor blood"

• "Slacks"

• "The kids got sick on me."

• "Rouge"

• "She must have had some work done" (generally said while watching The Tonight Show).

• "So, I put on some weight — what do you expect? I'm middle-aged, for Crissakes!"

• "My back is out."

• "Decoration day"

• "Beauty parlor," "pizza parlor," "funeral parlor," "ice cream parlor," anything, in fact, ending in "parlor," with the exception of "tatoo"

• "My podiatrist said ..."

4. GET A COMPUTER

Like rock and roll, computers are here to stay. Buy one, use it, and get on-line. Being a computer illiterate keeps you frozen in time and out in the cold. As soon as you say, "I can't keep up with all this technology ... I'm a dinosaur," you immediately look and sound like Mrs. Lawrence Welk. Don't think that it's gotten so far ahead of you that you'll never catch up. You will.

5. HIT THE ROAD, GIRLFRIEND

Take a road trip, drive too fast in bare feet, listen to music too loud, don't make reservations, sign in at motels under an assumed name (try a movie character), stop at diners, drink huge amounts of real coffee and real Coke, eat hot dogs and fries, and don't call your office.

6. AVOID THE FOLLOWING MEDIA LIKE CRAZY

• Reader's Digest

• TV Guide (It's bad enough to buy it, but if you find yourself highlighting it with a yellow marker, throw your television out. Now.)

• The Christian Science Monitor

• The 700 Club

• Infomercials (especially the ones with the man in the terrible sweaters)

• Lite FM

• Barbra Streisand CDs and movies

• Liza Minnelli concerts

• Any book with Fabio on the cover

• Who's the Boss? reruns

• The Price Is Right

• Woodstock, the movie — again

• The Celestine Prophecy

• Any movie score by Marvin Hamlisch

7. DON'T OPEN BUTTONS OR UNZIP ZIPPERS AFTER A GOOD MEAL

Kill yourself before ever uttering a postprandial "uffffffff," talking heartburn, let alone, God forbid, even mentioning gas.

8. KNOW WHEN TO HOLD 'EM, KNOW WHEN TO HIDE 'EM

DISCREETLY LEAVE LYING AROUND THESE THINGS YOU USED TO HIDE

• Your diaphragm case

• Midol

• Tampons

• Birth control pills

• Sexy underwear

BOLDLY DISPLAY

• Magazines: Details, Wired, Spin, Muscle & Fitness

• CDs: Pantera, Cypress Hill, Pearl Jam, Helmet

• Shoes: Doc Martens

• Videos: Pulp Fiction

• Books: The Rachel Papers

• Eats: Rice Krispie treats

• Drinks: Samuel Adams beer

• Smokes: Cuban cigars

HIDE!!!!!!!!!

• AARP literature

• Metamucil

• Loving Care

• Nose-hair clippers

• Gas-X

• Your collection of 45s

• Correctol

• Wedding album

• Replens, K-Y jelly

• High school yearbook

• Pitted prunes

• Cast album of Hair

• Estrogen tablets

---

Excerpted from Boomer Babes by Linda Stasi, Rosemary Rogers. Copyright © 1998 Linda Stasi and Rosemary Rogers. Excerpted by permission of St. Martin's Press.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.

---