Archive for the 'Adventures at midlife' Category
July 7, 2008
In case you’ve been living under a rock or partied a little too hard this weekend, the big news on the sports scene (besides Federer getting whomped by Nadal and the Williams sisters’ show at Wimbledon) is 41-year-old swimming sensation Dara Torres, who has qualified for her fifth Olympics by breaking the American record in the 50-meter freestyle. At 41! And after retiring four years ago and having a baby!
In his interview with her this morning, Matt Lauer of the Today Show (after admitting that, after 40, his knees began hurting him) prodded her about the possibility of performance-enhancing drugs contributing to her remarkable record. Her response? No way. Bring on the blood and urine tests, she said, vowing to provide ample proof that she’s clean.
She attributed her success to a great team of coaches, trainers and advisers, which is probably very true. You don’t get to be an athlete at that elite level without a small army of caretakers. And I’m sure that doesn’t come cheap. But she is the current poster child for the movement promoting health and fitness at any age.
You go, girl! I’m suddenly a whole lot more interested in watching the Olympics than I was last week. And I’m dusting off my walking shoes!
Posted in Adventures at midlife, Health, Women | Leave a Comment »
Tags: midlife, sports, Women
July 3, 2008
Liz Smith maintains that the only way to get old or sick or to retire is to have money. “I don’t think anybody can retire without money anymore, and it’s going to be proven now, in spades, with all of these people retiring,” says the legendary New York Post entertainment columnist in a group interview on wowowow.
The discussion itself is a trip, with Smith and fellow A-list (and aging) media mavens Jane Wagner, Judith Martin and Mary Wells discussing the possibilities of going to Germany for stem cell treatments, taking 200 “life-extension” vitamins a day and outliving their retirement incomes. I’d like to believe it was all tongue-in-cheek, but considering these women’s portfolios, I’m not convinced. They make bigger salaries, and likely pay less taxes, than anyone in my social set. (This type of post may be why I took wowowow off my blogroll. I just couldn’t relate.) Read the rest of this entry »
Posted in Adventures at midlife, Family, Money, Uncategorized | Leave a Comment »
Tags: Adventures at midlife, Money
July 2, 2008
Over 30 and not married? Adelle Waldman feels your pain. In an article in More Intelligent Life, she endorses Lori Gottleib’s controversial Atlantic piece that advocated, in the absence of Mr. Right, settling for Mr. Good Enough.
If I had read her essay five years ago, I would have been scornful [says Waldman]. Now, I’m 31 and a lot more sympathetic. I’m no longer able to write her off as one of those bitter marriage-crazed women I was sure I’d never be…
The truth about turning 30 is that the question of marriage, and by extension dating, becomes much more angst-ridden… Dating, however little fun you thought it was in your 20s, becomes even more fraught. It is not just heartbreak over a particular guy or general loneliness that keeps you up at night. Those will still be there, but on top there will be a new worry, the one about winding up alone.
Waldman is speaking wisdom beyond her years, because she sounds like my 50-something single friends. Read the rest of this entry »
Posted in Adventures at midlife, Blogging, Personal | 3 Comments »
Tags: Loneliness, midlife
June 30, 2008
Freakonomics has a great little article today asking the question that George Carlin probably asked in a much more “colorful” way: Why are we so attached to our stuff? And why do we value our stuff so much more than we value other peoples’ stuff? (Hint: It’s called the endowment effect.)
I have a friend who is moving half-way across the country to Mississippi, and she and her husband are currently locked in a my stuff-your stuff battle over what deserves to be thrown away or sold. The current battle zone is four big boxes of videos and DVDs. She wants to keep six DVDs, he wants to keep all the rest. Read the rest of this entry »
Posted in Adventures at midlife, Personal | 1 Comment »
Tags: Junk, Stuff
June 28, 2008
* Some background: msmeta’s two BFF, msadventure and msfit, have both become single in the last few years after 30-year marriages. Following a requisite period of litigation, anger and grief, both are expressing interest in returning to the singles scene, and both have embarked on excruciating regimens significant programs of self-improvement: dieting, personal trainers, plastic surgery, dermabrasion, the usual.
Listening to the two of them over lunch, singly and together, takes me back to my college days when I and my friends would spend hours trying to come up with strategies to attract — and keep — young men, who might as well have been bighorn sheep or striped bass when it came to their predictability. Read the rest of this entry »
Posted in Adventures at midlife, Diet wars, Image, Women | 5 Comments »
Tags: diet, Fat Acceptance, midlife
June 24, 2008
ByJane read my recent Dr. Martens blogpost, and challenged me to take a broader look at fashion for older — and often, um, broader — women. HA! Like I have anything original to say about THAT. Just try googling the topic and you’ll find endless screens of advice. A few selections:
Fabulous After Forty is one of many sites that referenced Tim Gunn’s famous recommendations to Oprah: “Women in their ’40s should always try to avoid horizontal stripes, jackets that hit at mid-thigh, pleated pants, double-breasted blazers, Capri-length pants and low-rise jeans.” GUILTY. I like Tim, but I’ve got all six items in my closet, and they’re some of my favorite pieces. (The horizontal stripes are especially thin and tasteful, so I DO know better than to walk about looking like a barber pole, thank you. And, trust me, you’d rather see me in capris than in shorts!)
Fashion writer Carol Midgely in an article in the Times Online, also disagrees with Tim. Read the rest of this entry »
Posted in Adventures at midlife, Fashion, Image, Women | 3 Comments »
Tags: Fashion, midlife
June 8, 2008
ByJane, the Godmother of MidLifeBloggers, whacked tapped me gently with her magic wand, and I am called to do her bidding. Says she, of the film debut of Sex and the City: The Movie, “I keep coming across all these comments about how Carrie’s in her ’40s and Samantha’s in her ’50s — and I’m thinking, is 40 the new 20, 50 the new 30, and 60 the new 40?” From a midlife perspective, she challenged me, what’s up with this film?
Let me start out by declaring that I have not seen the entire television opus, and I have not yet seen the movie. (I’m still in London for another week or two, and I’m planning a Girls Night Out with my friends when I get home, complete with feather boas, little black dresses and ridiculous shoes.) But I’ve read enough reviews and discussions and seen enough trailers of the film that I am willing to take a stab at it.
For me, from the very beginning, SATC has been a complete fairy tale. Read the rest of this entry »
Posted in Adventures at midlife, Fashion, Image, Personal, The media, Women | 2 Comments »
Tags: midlife, Sex and the City, Women
May 30, 2008
It’s true: The Spouse and I will be celebrating three decades of wedded bliss — or mutual tolerance — on June 1. Included in that number are one grandchild, two kids, three sets of washers and dryers, four homes, five refrigerators, nine surgeries, about ten cars, at least a dozen job changes between us and I’ve lost track of how many mortgages and refinances.
We’ve gone from a king-sized water bed to twin beds back to a king-sized mattress (he can’t sleep with or without me). Other than a three-year stint in Chicago, we’ve lived in the same little town we grew up in that, thanks to urban sprawl, isn’t a little town anymore.
We’ve married off one son and will leave London in two weeks to fly to Columbus to marry off the other. I spend Christmas Eve every year with his close-knit family, he goes out to dinner occasionally with my rather dysfunctional siblings. We’ve buried his father and my mother, and if he turns into his father, or if I turn out like my mother, we’ve both vowed to divorce each other. So far, so good.
Read the rest of this entry »
Posted in Adventures at midlife, Family, Personal | 3 Comments »
Tags: Marriage
May 28, 2008
Someone asked me why I blog “undercover,” without using my real name and other details. (It’s apparently called anonoblogging.) One reason and one reason only: I’m afraid of getting dooced. The Rubber Chicken Factory, Inc. — where I am a senior beak inspector — is a large and very conservative organization, and would likely not look happily on some of the stuff I blog about, or maybe even the fact that I blog at all.
I generally like my job and my fellow beak inspectors, and at this stage in my life I’m not interested in looking for another job. I’ve seriously thought about branching out on my own and becoming a beak inspecting consultant, but I’m too, um, chicken. Buh-GAWK! (Sorry. I couldn’t resist that one.)
Posted in Adventures at midlife, Blogging, Humor, Personal, Uncategorized | 5 Comments »
Tags: Blogging, The Web
May 26, 2008
Meghan Daum, writing in the LATimes, has managed to find a bright side to the growing recession, with its flattened house market and $4/gallon gas prices: home repairmen who come immediately, and California’s empty freeways.
Sure, things are going to get ugly very soon. Layoffs will increase, the housing market will go from dismal to awful, and pretending to be in a sci-fi movie set in the future (admit it, you’ve tried it!) will no longer be an effective coping mechanism for the trauma of filling up at the pump. But for the moment, I can’t help but feel that this recession — or at least the evanescent moment before it kicks into high gear — offers a kind of coziness you rarely feel in a booming economy.
Daum, whom I’ve blogged about before, compares the current crisis to her four bucolic years when, after nearly bankrupting herself trying to live in NYC, she moved to Omaha, where she was lucky to make $12,000 a year. Read the rest of this entry »
Posted in Adventures at midlife, Money, Personal, Thrifting | 3 Comments »
Tags: Economy, Money, recession
