sorry, my dear followers, it's been a while. I really am trying to get you updates on my life more regularly.

I'm cutting my hair, off, I've decided. Off, all off, embracing my Tina Chow, Jean Seberg, OK, even Jamie Lee Curtis (for lack of a better short-haired icon). I have consulted with my co-workers and ever-so-critical boss who asks me, "what are you looking for, a man or a woman?"...like long hair has worked well for me so far???? I am so over this long-hair-for-a-man thing. so over the woman-on-top whipping-the-hair-around fantasy. if some man wants to judge me by the length of my hair then fuck him, he'll need to get passed it. the women i've referenced above have had no problem finding good men. Princess HATES the idea. The more people that say no to the idea and give their shallow reasonings why, the more I am into doing it! I will need to be hyper aware, admittedly, to reapply a more red lipstick and heels more often. those things I have already embraced more of late anyway. just need to keep the lesbos at bay...

watch me be a man magnet..I CANNOT WAIT for the new me!!!

(hmmm, could the negativity from my friends, family and co-workers mean that I am just too ugly and fat to pull off that look??)

you know what I love about growing older? how roles shift. I am not going through a mid-life crisis, I'm going through a mid-life SHIFT. my role as a mom shifts, my daughter's roles shifts, my sep-husband's role shifts for me.

my sep-husband has become the brother I never had. after living together and being husband and wife for thirty years, we share fond memories of when we were young together, we give each other tips on dealing with or dating the opposite sex, we pride ourselves in our daughter's successes like a new pet puppy's successes on a wee-wee pad. (pet owners can relate to this sense of love and adoration), he witnesses changes in my physical body from an over-the-clothes point of view (inflating and deflating, sagging and stretching, though, in different ways). we have actually, on occasion, caught each other in our underwear and had found ourselves about as un-aroused as we were two years before we split up. there will be no mercy fuck here. no passionate, horny, why-the-hell not sex here. that was never our forte anyway. jeez, what the hell WAS our forte anyway?? though we don't share the same blood, he is like a brother to me, and like all loving, dysfunctional families, I will always love him no matter what stupid choices he makes for himself. He is my daughter's blood family, therefore he is mine. having said that, I will struggle with these thoughts, like any family member, when his actions drag us along or down with him. Thanks, Dad, I got that from you!

I'm going to post this on my "things about me" when I eventually succumb to dating websites. Men that run? shallow assholes anyway. men that respond? hmmm could be my future sep- husband!!

Next up...if it ain't stiff, it ain't worth a...and other matters of the over 50 male.

friday night is the new sunday night. so here I am.

what is it about a native New Yorker when they are stopped on the street for directions from poor, lost souls?? something about knowing the answer to the question gives us such glee. on the way home tonight I was asked TWICE for directions and I knew exactly where they were going. one man startled me Alex Trebek-style, and interjected, "WHAT STREET IS THIS?", (he could easily have said, "stick 'em up.."). without even looking up for a street sign, I spat out, "CORNELIA ST!". he scurried down the street like a late-night rat (not talking Leno, here...you're welcome Coco). a few moments later on Bleecker a woman asked where Grove St was. I haughtily asked her if she was looking for the Pink Teacup...it has, after all, been saved from termination. I told her it was about four blocks down on the right...

and don't you always want to stop and help a lost tourist when they mistakenly ask the wrong person who tells them the wrong directions? oh, I have.

so, my sister's architect...

I snuck uptown "to have coffee with my sister". when I entered the kitchen, the plumber was under the sink (sans crack), the architect, dressed in suit, tie and waxed Barbour jacket was standing next to the attractive, blue-eyed contractor. my thoughts on said architect? let's put it this way, if I was playing a game of Mystery Date (ok, credit colleague), I'd hope the door opened to the plumber. I am pathetic. a man with a career and job is all I need. money and power, really not a turn-on for me. not what my sister had in mind. within 20 minutes I was back at my glorious office in the sky. talk about speed dating...it's not over yet, we shall see.

my sister wants me to come and "check out" her architect tomorrow as he works on her family's pied-a-terre on the upper west side. she thinks he's single, she googled him and sent his picture to me and is considering a set-up. what am I supposed to do... leave work in the middle of the day and just... drop in? does she think I have nothing better to do in the middle of a workday?? I suppose people have done worse. hey, with my endless refusals to join dating sites, I need to make any effort that is put in front of me at all times! his picture isn't bad actually, and the thought of dating an architect sends fantasies racing through my mind of him re-doing my large, cheap but desperately-in-need-of-a-makeover apartment. (certainly I can please a man to get at least to that done for me.) maybe he has yellow fever, prefers the submissive asian every now and again. I will be sure to wear my hottest fashion editor ensemble. I have been lucky with genetically blessed calves so I will be sure to work them in my black-tights-and ankle-boots-best.

ladies, if you're single, in your fifties, and looking for a man who you think will complete you, please don't come to new york. he might be here, but the women who live here already have first dibs. I mean, really. it's no secret there is a severe shortage of available and stylish (very important) straight men here in this fine city. new york seems to be getting gay-er and gay-er every day! now don't get me wrong. I LOVE gay men, really and truly ADORE!! they can be the best friend and confidant you will ever have. come on, now...we've all seen Will and Grace. it's the true life story of many, many single women in new york. gay men are magnificent...as friends. I feel sorry for the girls who have lived through the trials and tribulations of the gay man as lover (I can change him) challenge. for me, a big bust. for others, a temporary fix. so stay in des moines, it would be better for all of us.

when I was happily married, let me correct that. when I thought I was happily married, I always thought desperately single women are single for reasons they can't see themselves. that it is something they put out, what they generate, what they will upon themselves in some way. there is a large part of me that still believes that. one has to remember, and be present to the fact that a relationship, unto its self, will not make you happier. that saying, you need to love yourself first, I don't really get. but I do truly believe that you need to be happy, just plain and simple happy, and that that energy is what will bring someone special to you. ( beware that men who are also not ideal are also drawn to this energy) I do try to live by that when I can remember. practice what you preach, Mona.

(I know what you're all thinking..what does that mean for of all of us masochistic new yorkers who LOVE to be miserable. I guess we're just shit out of luck...)

gotta go and watch men of a certain age. great show.

will edit later...

Mrs Robinson Is A Fictional Character: why the hell not?

Mrs Robinson Is A Fictional Character: why the hell not?

laugh, cry, share, bitch, comment here...

why the hell not?

after much support from my friends, therapist and psychic, here I am. blogging. my nineteen-year-old daughter, ("honey, do you want to be anonymous in my blog?"), who wants to be known as Princess (for christssake), is appalled and supportive in that way only teenagers can be.

"why, Mom, why???"

why? because I turned fifty AND lost my adored father in june, have a unique marriage/non-marriage with my husband/non-husband, I have a crazy, demanding career as a fashion editor in new york, and last but certainly not least, I am mother to two of the most gorgeous mixed asian daughters you'll ever lay your eyes on. (spoken like a true mom, huh?)

I have a lot to think about, write, feel, write...

oh, I forgot one other thing. I am learning to date again...AGAIN!!!! I never knew how!!

I have recently been unceremoniously dumped by a man (that word needs to be redefined) who is 51 and never married, hello...a major sign I was in denial of, about a week after my dad passed away. the black and blue marks he left on my heart (and ego) have finally turned back to a healthy shade of pink, pumping blood in haste. you live and learn, so they say, time heals everything. yep.

getting naked again at fifty is not fun, and I'm talking about when I'm alone, never mind in front of someone else! it wasn't even fun in my teens and twenties when one was taut, for god's sake. one thing my daughter's have picked up early on in their lives from me is the hatred of their body...great. all my doing. the stares in the mirror complaining of my fat stomach, flat ass, and tiny boobs are so etched in their brains that years of therapy won't erase them. all my doing.

today I am having a lazy day, one I rarely take, thanks to the efficiency of a chinese-restauranteur father, who instilled a sometimes needless sense of urgency in his daughters. still in my pj's with my girls by my side (that's my daughters, not by boobs) at 4:00 in the afternoon, allows me to begin my new life as blogger...