Ain’t No Country for Old Women – Aging Broads in a bit of a Quandary

Posted on May 8, 2013 by Karen

"Quit yer gazin' ye olde geezer..."

NO bitching about aging. Seriously, not a word—unless you’re retaining water, sleep with an oscillating fan, and have to measure out food because of a metabolism gone awry.

Particularly you men out there, complaining that fifty sucks. Yeah, you! Just remember that most of you, (excluding chubby short men with receding hairlines) have the unfair advantage of aging gracefully. Yep, the old double standard is working for you, because at fifty, that gray hair and those facial lines will get you celebrated as a ‘distinguished silver fox’ while the pressure on us women to continue to look youthful, is intense, not to mention unaffordable for most. Let’s face it. In this society, women have had to adapt more than men. Um, yeah, they have.

Discrimination of aging women in the workforce is nothing new. Career opportunities have been taken away from women as they age for decades, but the entertainment industry takes the cake. Hollywood is fickle at best, catering to your every whim so long as you retain your youth and beauty—but god forbid you have the audacity to age five years, and they’re poking fun of you and your middle-aged sexuality. Suddenly you are out of work and told you are worthless.

You don’t have to look very far to see the rejection for leading roles of all but a handful of vibrant actresses past the age of fifty, yet the Hollywood studios routinely cast much older male actors with prepubescent ladies as their romantic costars. Bordering on creepy in my opinion. They’ll think nothing of pairing an out of shape 40-something (almost 50) Russell Crowe, as a leading man, with a 20-something stunner like Olivia Wilde, when clearly someone of a hotter caliber deserves the likes of her. Not to take away from the Aussie’s sex appeal, in a not-so-young-anymore-kind-of-way, but hasn’t he had his fair share on the set?

And really, all you big Hollywood producer guys—and you know who you are: Do we really need to look at even older gentlemen such as Michael Douglas, Nick Nolte and Sean Connery feigning torrid acts on kitchen sinks and such, which they would no more do at their age than eat…oh, I don’t know, Quiche Lorraine?

Naysayers, imbeciles—men who think fifty is past their prime and only date women whose ideal is so mismatched with the ideal of themselves. Take a look in the mirror chumps! And you wonder why women feel a wee bit angry when they receive the message, directly or indirectly, that they’ve crossed the finish line.

Look at “poor” Demi Moore. Once a former icon, sex symbol, and trailblazer for women in Hollywood—and in the last year, labeled a “pathetic image of insecurity and self-loathing,” one that we can relate to. Losing the battle with Mother Nature and beginning to show her true age, particularly in a town like Hollywood, had to have taken its toll. Add the element of abandonment, rejection, heartache and public scrutiny, and it’s no wonder she turned to substance abuse. We live in a youth-obsessed culture that teaches us at an early age that we are valued by our beauty, and there is no industry that reinforces that sentiment better than the film industry. Those bastards are brutal and unforgiving. “Aging is bad. Plastic surgery is good. Stay young and thin at any cost.”

Well, I’d like to say, a big juicy FUCK YOU to you Hollywood! Do I sound bitter? Well, I’m sure I have plenty of company.

When it comes to aging, we ‘older broads’ are in a bit of a quandary, to be sure—because despite seeing the danger and futility of valuing beauty too much, we just can’t help ourselves and fall victim to it, thanks to American culture, Botox, and our bigger is better mindset. Women’s beauty is a strange beast. It’s as addictive as crack. It changes the way people deal with you, making it exceptionally hard to give up the ghost and gracefully accept that you are no longer 20, 30, 40 or…. ahem…50. It doesn’t help that at 40-something, you’ve got a grounded confidence, or that at 50-something, you have a clarity of intent. No one gives a shit.

Until you’re injected with Botox, fillers, and a host of other youth-oriented products to transform yourself into the trophy woman, you’re simply an aging woman in the eyes of society, and that just won’t do.

...I might as well wrap myself in a hideously crocheted shawl and go meekly into bun-wearingdom...sigh"

Why? Because society has two attitudes on aging. One for men and one for women. Men are ‘allowed’ to age and women are not. Pretty black and white, wouldn’t ya say? An older man showing visible signs of gray, is praised; is looked upon as refined, dignified and showing maturity and wisdom—wheras a woman displaying those same signs of gray is predictably seen in different lighting—clearly fluorescent. Apparently her ‘touch of gray’ gets her one foot in the grave.

Ain’t no justice in this here country of ours.  Maybe it’s about time we learn a thing or two from our European neighbors, where there’s a greater acceptance of aging—where a woman can be considered beautiful at any age without having to reconstruct herself from head to toe.
When I get old, I’m moving to Europe, where aging is embraced, and old women are not only respected, but are encouraged to become as goofy as they want.

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Maladjusted and Dysfunctional: The New Frontier

Posted on March 15, 2013 by Karen

“There’s been an accident. The new hearse is totaled. Your father is dead. Your father is dead, and my pot roast is ruined.”

–Six Feet Under

As much as we try to sugar-coat them with terms like “eccentric” or “unique,” let’s face it. Some of us have downright dysfunctional families. Nothing to be ashamed of. They happen to the best of us. Particularly my tribe.

As Jews, dysfunction is in our DNA. We’re a wounded people, persecuted from the beginning of time. It’s part of our history. It is our history. So, that should entitle us to carry our wounds around with us through life, until they eventually kill us, right?

Things happen in life that leave marks on us. We’re all wounded in some way—bi-products of our whacked-out families and our tortured history. Dysfunction has ruled our families since the beginning of time. More than likely, someone in your family was living with some deep dark secret as you were growing up. Something you probably didn’t understand at the time, but in hindsight, made sense when you considered the odd behavior or that nobody was allowed to talk about anything or someone would come up and smack you in the mouth.

Maybe like mine, your grandfather and grandmother were the Jewish equivalent of Edith and Archie Bunker—repressed and their operating principles based on fear and hatred. Don’t go out with the Spanish or Blacks. Stay away from homosexuals. Don’t masturbate, or you’ll go blind. Don’t smoke marijuana or you’ll turn into a crazed junkie. Above all, don’t be weird.

So okay, we were Jews. Neurosis was in our blood. These women deserved some sympathy. All Jewish women who lived through World War II had every right to be insane, depressed, wildly overprotective and abundantly afflicted with all sorts of maladies and psychoses. At least for several decades. Only thing is, we weren’t from Eastern Europe. But we were Jews, and the mere threat of excommunication from the family was constantly looming—particularly if you strayed from the tribe (ie: dated a Gentile, fraternized with a black boy)

It was a fucked-up decade with an abundance of even more fucked-up family dynamics. Dynamics which would ultimately lead to resentments of epic proportions. Interfaith marriages, divorces and family feuds would result in your decapitation in the family photo album. Heads cut out of pictures without a mere thought. One minute you’re just a curious kid perusing some photo nostalgia, and the next, you’re stumbling upon faceless bodies of relatives and strangers and traumatized for life!
What the hell!

I blame the fifties entirely for this behavior. Those postwar conformity-obsessed conservatives, turned our land of the free into a repressive and judgmental country. One that loathed anything different and feared everything but the status quo. If we’ve learned anything from the slew of daytime talk shows in the last decade or so, it’s that repressive parents turn their kids into timid, ambivalent, screwed up creatures riddled with neurotic self-loathing, isn’t that true Oprah?

So here we are sixty years later, and this fine country of ours has now become a larger dysfunctional family in search of a twelve-step program. At least it might help you understand why you’re so screwed up; why your parents were taught at an early age to repress major obvious shit and suck it up in silence—to take those family secrets to the grave.

When repression runs this deep, families caught up in the petty, juvenile bullshit, end up in an uncomprehending, festering, cancer-causing  resentment. And then take it out on the kids.

“Thanks for making my life just that much more difficult. Thanks for undermining my authority with our employees. And thanks for making so clear to me that my choice to dedicate myself to this business and to this family was really stupid, because apparently I would have been rewarded just the same for wasting my life.”

“Oh, my life is a waste? Well, fuck you. At least I enjoy it.”

“Well, lucky you.”

“Fuck you!”

“No, Fuck you!”

“Fuck you!” *rolls eyes*

–Six Feet Under


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Distracted Like a Fox – Trapped in a Hurricane of Hormonal Suckery

Posted on March 4, 2013 by Karen

Anybody have a fan? Oh never mind, I've called my cabana boy over...

You’ve probably been wondering where I’ve been the past ‘few’ months—why for two years, I’ve been consistent in spewing my ‘dogma,’ and then poof, I’m a one-hit wonder.

So where have I been? Good question. The details are a bit fuzzy and last week’s migraines did a real number on me. Pain and paralytic indecision are a dangerous mix, although despite feeling like a tortured, incompetent ninny these last few weeks—er, months, I feel compelled to purge my soul, or at the minimum give you the CliffsNotes version of my so-called life the last year. Some of the visuals may be inappropriate for small children.

It had all been so sudden. One day I’m walking on cloud nine, hormones surging, confident in my new found, ‘I’m 50 and fabulous’ mindset, and the next, BAM! My body was waging war against me. From the ringing in my ears to the slew of unfamiliar symptoms, my reptilian brain went into survival mode. WARNING. GET OUT NOW. EMERGENCY!

Nothing would have made me happier than for this episode to turn out to be one of those out-of-body experiences, one which I anxiously came out of with a sigh and a bit wiser. The fear of my 10 year old son finding me on the floor unconscious, terrified me and quickly grew into this gnawing, aching certainty. At a time when a little calming oil or a Valium would have done me good, there was none to be found. Not an ounce of zen within my reach. No Dalai Lama whispering insightful verses into my ear. Not even a damn quote.

What the hell was happening? Time seemed to stand still and speed up at the same time, and I didn’t understand any of it.

It went something like this. Wake up in middle of the night in sleep stupor. Walk into living room for something. Twirl feebly like expiring butterfly. Can’t remember what ‘something’ was. Go back to bed. Remember. Walk to living room. Rinse and repeat.

One minute I’m agreeing to stop by at a friend’s for dinner, “Sure, count me in,” I say. The next day, she calls (clearly agitated) to make sure I wasn’t dead, and I couldn’t remember what the hell I did the night before. After full throttle brain-racking, I remembered making dinner for my son in the evening, and about midnight, zoning out in front of my computer screen, with full-fledged writer’s block and a mind filled with useless clutter. No, not my proudest moment. I’m way too young for dementia or Alzheimer’s and I’m pretty sure I didn’t wander out of the house and commit any felonies—at least I haven’t had a need for any alibis yet.

My symptoms: memory lapses, loss of diction, easily distracted, absent-mindedness, walking into things (mostly walls and tables) and falling down a lot, among the others—were dangerously close to the ones I experienced during my second and third trimesters. And although it didn’t take me peeing on a stick to know that pregnancy was out of the question, given the many curve balls I’d been hit with in my life, Immaculate Conception would not be out of the realm, but that’s a TLC show in the making.

It had occurred to me, the genius that I am, that given my depleted egg supply and lack of hormones—not to mention the sudden mood swings, hot flashes, random weeping and insomnia (naturally, I’m a Jew), that I was the next baby-booming sap to suffer the  shameful plight of menopause.

” You can no longer make babies? Why are you still alive?”

As if the symptoms weren’t bad enough, the looks of dread I’d get from those wretched 20-somethings, would put me over the edge. Talk about vitriolic hostility. Just about brought my Naomi Campbell phone throwing rage to the surface. Good thing my coordination was off.

Somehow, my pseudo-rational side would prevail and I’d manage to laugh it off, but under that sweet sarcastic exterior, I was muttering obscenities—and I wasn’t holding back.

I knew this bitch of a change was inevitable, and on a path of destruction. But like so many of us who look good for our age because of hard work, dedication and suffering,  the mere thought of my body going to shit, was hard to swallow—even in bite-sized chunks.

Apparently you are not officially experiencing menopause until you haven’t had your period for a full year. Lucky for me, my uterus is a team player and was willing to put in the extra mile for me to get the job done. So as I approached the ten-month mark without my period, my loyal friend revisited me. And God said, let there be blood—and all was good.

And just like that, I was able to stave off early menopause. The way Crocodile Dundee would stave off a rattle snake attack. Unfortunately, I wasn’t so lucky the next year. Twelve months had come and gone with no period in sight. Damn uterus went the straight and narrow! Menopause was here and showing no mercy. Striking  like an unpredicted tsunami and sucking me into an endless funnel of confusion and terror. A bit over the top, but true.

It really puts you to the test when the symptoms not only affect your outward appearance, but your inner motor has lost its torque. When your psyche and self-worth take a hit, you feel depleted and useless, despite the fact that others see you in the brightest of lights—as a champion… a sassy power keg of ideas. If you’re not feeling it, all the wisdom of Deepak, Oprah, and Dr. Oz combined, ain’t gonna do you much good.

Nothing like the darkness of an unfamiliar experience to shake you up. One peek into your future is enough to instill that fear of regret needed to push forward, persevere and keep that fire alive. That, and a pair of cojones.

Lucky for me I have a spare. Along with brass knuckles and a few black ensembles. I’m so glad I’m from New York.

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Oh America: Ye Prudish Prigs!

Posted on October 10, 2012 by Karen

Those stuffy Brits...

What’s all the fuss about exposed willies and ta-tas?

Unless you’ve sworn off all media recently, you’ve almost certainly heard that back in August, the royals got their knickers in a knot when nude photos surfaced of one very fine Prince Harry—and then again last month, when the lovely Duchess of Cambridge, found her naked breasts the topic of much discussion when they found their way into a French magazine (no thanks to Mr. sleazy cameraman who got the best of her)

And while the buff Prince let down his guard and neglected to keep his willie tightly under wraps and hidden from view during a friendly game of strip billiards in his Vegas hotel suite, Ms. Middleton was simply enjoying some semblance of normalcy on her few off days while vacationing on a private island with Prince William.

Needless to say, Buckingham Palace was up in arms over this. Surely Harry must have known that a camera or two would be camouflaged as a pen or a nipple pastie and used to expose his crown jewels to the common people. Outrage! Breaking out in cold sweats over the Prince’s shenanigans, and desperate for some damage control, it’s likely the royal family had to summon their own version of “The Wolf” to clean up this mess.

Of course this is all very amusing to us, given our prudish tendencies. Thanks to English royalty, nude photo scandals have become a family affair and Prince Harry, has assumed the role of quintessential bad boy—the Dirty Harry of royalty. The perils of free love have come and gone for us. We had our chance to be considered cool and madly casual about sex—to be branded the “slutty nation,” but now that the sixties have passed, we’re simply a bunch of prudish prigs living vicariously through British royalty and their indiscretions.

Stickin' it to the prudes...

In all fairness, the royals do tend to ask for it. Wasn’t it a mere 20 years ago, that Sarah Ferguson, wife of Prince Andrew, was featured on a tabloid, topless and having her toes sucked by her American lover…while she was still married? You’ve got to hand it to those Brits, they’ve got us all fooled. Toe sucking, mistresses, divorces, confessions, gaffes, Prince Philip, Diana, Charles, Camilla, Fergie, Edward….Fuck! It’s exhausting!

Stuffy my ass! Americans are the prudes by any measure. We should be thanking the royal family for relieving our prudish sentiments with all these fascinating stories. The mere visual of the royal Prince buff naked, pool cue in hand, covering his family jewels—Diana must be turning in her grave.

I'm just a guy doing guy things...

Clearly her cheeky chap of a son was enjoying himself, and why shouldn’t he be? He’s 27. He’s a freakin’ prince. He’s loaded. He’s single. He’s just a guy being a guy—having a bit of  consensual fun. Ok, yeah, so he’s a prince. And he’s naked.

Sin City? H e l l l l l o!

What the hell do they expect? Geez, let the boy have some fun. And Charles, not a sound out of you—prancing around with Camilla whilst married! I say, let freedom reign. The poor lad has had a stifled enough childhood living under the world’s scrutiny. No child should have to endure that. What good is a Prince without a playground?

I say let that willy hang Harry. The world will get over it—and we all need to get over our prudishness.

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September 11, 2001: You Just Steeled Our Resolve

Posted on September 12, 2012 by Karen

As Americans we will weep, we will mourn, and we will rise...

No words could have been more inspiring or insightful than those of Leonard Pitts Jr, a columnist from the Miami Herald, who wrote an angry and defiant open letter to the WTC terrorists, which circulated the globe via the internet. His passion and resonant voice gave our hearts words when we grappled with the shock and horror of that dreadful day. I hope his words are a source of strength for you, as they were for me:

We’ll go forward from this moment. It’s my job to have something to say. They pay me to provide words that help make sense of that which troubles the American soul. But in this moment of airless shock when hot tears sting disbelieving eyes, the only thing I can find to say, the only words that seem to fit, must be addressed to the unknown author of this suffering.

You monster…You beast…You unspeakable bastard.

What lesson did you hope to teach us by your coward’s attack on our World Trade Center, our Pentagon, us? What was it you hoped we would learn? Whatever it was, please know that you failed.

Did you want us to respect your cause? You just damned your cause.

Did you want to make us fear? You just steeled our resolve.

Did you want to tear us apart? You just brought us together.

Let me tell you about my people. We are a vast and quarrelsome family, a family rent by racial, social, political and class division, but a family nonetheless. We’re frivolous, yes, capable of expending tremendous emotional energy on pop cultural minutiae – a singer’s revealing dress, a ball team’s misfortune, a cartoon mouse. We’re wealthy, too, spoiled by the ready availability of trinkets and material goods, and maybe because of that, we walk through life with a certain sense of blithe entitlement. We are fundamentally decent, though – peace-loving and compassionate. We struggle to know the right thing and to do it. And we are, the overwhelming majority of us, people of faith, believers in a just and loving God.

Some people – you, perhaps – think that any or all of this makes us weak. You’re mistaken. We are not weak. Indeed, we are strong in ways that cannot be measured by arsenals.

IN PAIN
Yes, we’re in pain now. We are in mourning and we are in shock. We’re still grappling with the unreality of the awful thing you did, still working to make ourselves understand that this isn’t a special effect from some Hollywood block-buster, isn’t the plot development from a Tom Clancy novel. Both in terms of the awful scope of their ambition and the probable final death toll, your attacks are likely to go down as the worst acts of terrorism in the history of the United States and, probably, the history of the world. You’ve bloodied us as we have never been bloodied before.

But there’s a gulf of difference between making us bloody and making us fall. This is the lesson Japan was taught to its bitter sorrow the last time anyone hit us this hard, the last time anyone brought us such abrupt and monumental pain. When roused, we are righteous in our outrage, terrible in our force. When provoked by this level of barbarism, we will bear any suffering, pay any cost, go to any length, in the pursuit of justice.

I tell you this without fear of contradiction. I know my people, as you, I think, do not. What I know reassures me. It also causes me to tremble with dread of the future.

In the days to come, there will be recrimination and accusation, fingers pointing to determine whose failure allowed this to happen and what can be done to prevent it from happening again. There will be heightened security, misguided talk of revoking basic freedoms. We’ll go forward from this moment sobered, chastened, sad. But determined, too. Unimaginably determined.

THE STEEL IN US
You see, the steel in us is not always readily apparent. That aspect of our character is seldom understood by people who don’t know us well. On this day, the family’s bickering is put on hold.

As Americans we will weep, as Americans we will mourn, and as Americans, we will rise in defense of all that we cherish. So I ask again:

What was it you hoped to teach us? It occurs to me that maybe you just wanted us to know the depths of your hatred. If that’s the case, consider the message received. And take this message in exchange: You don’t know my people. You don’t know what we’re capable of. You don’t know what you just started.

But you’re about to learn.

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