Several of you have asked why the blog background/header image is red lipstick. The image has changed from time to time but it’s always some version of red lipstick. The answer is two words…My Mother!
My mom, who passed away in 2013 at the age of 89, wasn’t a fancy society lady who lunched at swank restaurants with other fancy society ladies. Juanita made us pressed ham or tuna sandwiches on Wonder Bread for lunch-which we ate at our kitchen table. (In those days kids actually went HOME from school for lunch!) 
Sometimes, when were out of school and Mom was feeling a bit on the fancy side, she would make us “Eggs ala Goldenrod” for lunch–chopped hard boiled eggs served in a cream sauce over toast points, and my sister, and maybe even my brother, and I would eat in the dining room and feel a little fancy too. But Mom didn’t get facials or manicures or have other fancy beauty rituals.
Juanita was a wife, a mom, a daughter, a sister, a school teacher, a singer, a friend– who lived her entire life never believing she was attractive—she said it often…not in a way that was a sneaky plea for compliments, or a statement to be protested, but simply as a matter-of-fact personal observation about herself. And I didn’t grow up feeling pretty—or being told that pretty should be my goal—being kind, getting good grades, laughing often—these were the things I grew up thinking important-the things that were rewarded.
But despite Mom’s self-assessment as “plain,” Juanita was seriously dedicated to the idea that Cute Counts. And Mom was CUTE! Please remember the CUTE I’m writing about in this blog is much more about attitude than pulchritude. The CUTE I’m writing about is found by keeping the girl you used to be (or wished you were) alive and kicking! Other than lipstick she didn’t wear makeup until later in her life and even then it was just a swipe of drug store eyeliner pencil and the faintest brush of blush. She didn’t spend much time in front of the mirror, but LIPSTICK WAS HER GO-TO—and her hair was always done. EVERY SINGLE DAY.
I mentioned earlier (LESSON 5 – Mirror Mirror) that when my mom was in her early 80’s some fairly debilitating health issues finally slowed her down. But even after months of being house or hospital bound—she rolled her hair every night (but was NEVER seen outside of the house in said rollers) and put on her good robe and lipstick every day because she never stopped being concerned about her appearance.
Pictures of my mom early in her life—before she was a mom, and after,
tell the story. She didn’t go to work, the super market, the drug store, the dry cleaners, choir rehearsal…anywhere without lipstick! She wore red until she was somewhere in her 70’s. Then she switched to a deep rose color.
I remember being a kid (we all got home from school at roughly the same time) and 
watching Mom, somewhere between 4:30 and 5, before my dad got home from work, run a comb through her hair and refresh her lipstick. There was no lip liner or brush or gloss. Just a swipe from
the Helena Rubenstein or Coty tube (Most often without a mirror-which totally fascinated me!)
It all took less than one minute.
At the time I wasn’t really aware what that simple one minute act represented.
Honestly, I was in my early 30’s before I understood, that my mom, had not, like many other moms I knew, surrendered whatever “Cute” she possessed to motherhood. I had not understood until my early 30’s that my parents had a relationship, between the two of them, that had absolutely NOTHING to do with being Mommy and Daddy to my brother, sister and I. I had not understood that my mother cared about her appearance—not just for my dad, but for herself. I had not understood that my mother was aware that PRESENCE was important. I had not understood that perhaps lipstick was her way of countering the kind of invisibility women in general and Black women in particular were 
so easily subject to in those days (and perhaps still in these days.) I had not understood when I watched our neighborhood White pharmacist and White shoe repair man, call her “Mrs. DeBerry,” apologize if the prescription or heel replacement wasn’t ready, tell her thank you and to have a nice day- how different that was. I had not understood that my mom’s self-care and the personal dignity that behavior manifested, made people treat her with respect. I had not understood that she was teaching me, by example, (which we all know is the best way to teach anything) that it doesn’t have to be a big thing to make a big difference. It can be something as simple as combing your hair and putting on a little red lipstick.
By the time we are on the approach to midlife we have accumulated quite an extensive collection of rules—most of which we don’t even stop to question. Through repetition and indoctrination we have learned to take many these rules as gospel. Some of these edicts are legitimate, necessary and actually protect us from behavior that can be harmful to ourselves or to others. Following the Ten Commandments 
and Rule of Law, washing your hands after you use the bathroom (or ride the subway), understanding the rules of the road—including speed limits, “yield,” “pass on the left” and “right” of way are all decrees that keep us safe, healthy and enable us to live with each other in a relatively civilized society. All in all, this is a good thing.
the logic behind them. Rules like the recently done away with, but hard to get out of our heads, “You can’t wear white after Labor Day.”
And I won’t even go into the zealous dogma of wedding etiquette—who pays for what and who sits on which side of the church—what if you’re friends with the bride AND the groom?! 
inside.” This was to protect the woman’s voluminous dresses and petticoats from dust and muddy splashes sprayed up on the sidewalk from horse drawn carriages passing in the street. Now many urban pedestrians have experienced an unwanted and unpleasant shower from a speeding taxi or car while waiting for the light to change. But sidewalks are much wider than they used to be, we don’t have horses hooves tossing divots into our path and our dresses are, under most normal daily activities, hardly dragging along the sidewalk, but the “rule” still exists. I find myself, if I’m not on my guard, looking at a young couple strolling down the street and wondering “Doesn’t “he” know he’s 
“supposed” to walk on the outside?” Duh…
preference. The over/under toilet paper roll debate is a good example—the 160,000+ Google entries on the subject notwithstanding. There is no rule or right or wrong here, only what you like, and of course, habit.
like when a Christmas Eve gift opener marries a Christmas morning opener, or the jack-o-
lantern pumpkin carver decides to take up with the plastic pumpkin picker. Sorting out the “when and if” of breaking our long-held rules and flying in the face of sacred and inviolate family policies is a subjective undertaking and, I have concluded, best left to be negotiated (or duked out) by those who are involved. So you’ll get no advice (or judgment) from me about whether the dressing goes inside or outside the turkey—or for that matter, the semantics of calling it dressing or stuffing.
families with steely will and determination— the rules about things we want done in a particular way. This includes everything from declarative statements that start with “We always…” or “I never…” to the way towels are folded, the place we keep our plastic bags and our hair-dos and don’ts. (Which will be addressed in a future Lesson – Hair Story). We don’t even see it happening, but slowly and surely our own rules lead us
to trade “cute” – not as in “pretty and perky” but as in delightful, adorable (read loveable) and savvy, for being “right.” By then, we are well on our way to shrewdom—a frame of mind that is so totally non-cute.
ingredients for the sauce for basting the ham (clearly the secret to such a successful hunk of pig) and then the instructions, which said, “Cut the sides off the ham…” More than a little curious, Val asked Mary the reason for cutting the sides off the ham. Would this somehow allow the hulking haunch to absorb more of the fabulous basting nectar? Was that the secret? “I don’t know, this is the way my Mom made ham,” Mary said. My sister didn’t probe any deeper, and decided she would just use the removed sides to season some green beans or dice and add to a quiche.
she’d end up wondering why no one else had discovered this seemingly simple step before. Mary continued. “Mom said when she started making the big holiday ham, she didn’t have a pan large enough so that’s how she made the ham fit. I guess I watched her do it, so that’s the way I’ve done it in my house ever since— even though my pan is plenty big.”
neighbor—in their OWN house) chooses to do the thing differently (read incorrectly). Sometimes we are forced to hold our tongues like with our boss at work or with our neighbors, and we find ourselves secretly stewing in the bubbling juices of our rightness—a decidedly bitter brew. But lucky for us, in our own homes and families, we not only are free to let the wrongdoers know, in no uncertain terms, they have done the thing, whatever it is, incorrectly, we then set about to redo it—“the right way.” Feeling enormous justification and more than a small degree of self-righteousness, we next convince ourselves that it’s really just easier to do it ourselves in 
the first place, or we berate the other person for not “getting it.” “How many times do I have to tell you…?”
folded around the fitted sheet and the pillow cases? Obviously, the answer is “No.” Try giving yourself a break from your own rules. Ease up on the need to be RIGHT. You just might like it—and realize that the world didn’t stop spinning on its axis.
of yours, write down five of them on separate pieces of paper. Fold each piece so they are the same size (in quarters, then in half usually works well) and place in a bowl, basket, hat—any container of your choosing.
Let’s face it—the only viable alternative to getting older is not one most of us are interested in. Yes, there’s that icy cryogenic thing, 
but other than megalomaniac nutjobs in the movies, who really wants to get stashed in a freezer with the baby peas and cauliflower? So you can be thawed fifty or a few thousand years later like a flash frozen ice age T-Rex and try to pick up where you left off before you decided to try life as a Popsicle? Not me. And I suspect not you.
laughing, swear that I know as much about sports as I do about quantum 
mechanics and wait for me to make a fool of myself. But I think the comparison is apt, so I shall plunge ahead, risking ridicule and derision and hope I do know enough about sports to fake my way through this.
the miraculous ability to stop time. In real life however, we have no such power and must let the clock run—minutes, hours, days, years flying by—whoosh! Never to be seen again. We have no pause, instant replay or measures of time that hang in the air endlessly awaiting our decision to restart the clock.
t, we have to keep on keepin’ on. In addition to the magical “stop action” that occurs in sporting contests, many games also grant the competitors the privilege of a half time. A break right in the middle of the game! It doesn’t matter who’s winning or who’s losing—
Although becoming a centenarian is more and more common these days, I accept that I’m pushing it when I say 50 is the half way mark in the game of life —but since our forties and fifties have long been considered “middle age”, there is plenty of precedent for this argument. So humor me, OK?
simply amazed at the transformation, I’m astounded that Susie Schlub, in her sweats or mom jeans, oversize frumpy top (whether she is oversize or not) and sneakers didn’t do something before she was ambushed-or secretly submitted 
as “deserving” (which means they’re tired of her looking like hell) by a well-meaning daughter or friend. I am particularly intrigued by the programs that show Ms. Frump actually looking pretty fly at some point in her past. What happened?
didn’t seem to notice that her boobs were taking a nice nap on her waist before the Makeover Magician showed her what a proper bra could do. Is poor tired, tragic, overworked Susie visually challenged? Does she live in a world without mirrors? How could she not know that her hairstyle, which was probably only marginally fashionable in 1982 is hopelessly outdated in the 21st Century?
over heels need a visit to the shoemaker or maybe just to be thrown out? Never mind the help available from fashion magazines, catalogs, stores, TV shows and movies. A plain old mirror—purchased at your local discount store and nailed on the inside of a closet door or even leaned against the wall— would have done the trick. Why oh why didn’t she see herself?
coiffure and magic makeup. And in the reveal, Voila! We have the modern, refreshed, jazzy— Susie Sharp! We’ve all seen these memorable moments and old Suze looks great! Mostly not the Naomi or Giselle unrealistic/unattainable standard we’ve been taught to compare ourselves too, but so much 
better than before that she’s hardly recognizable to herself. Then Susie breaks down and begins to weep—“I didn’t know I could look like this! Oh! Thank you. Thank you….” Now we’re not talking plastic surgery makeovers here—maybe a little teeth whitening – but the rest is the easy stuff.
another way. CUTE ALWAYS COUNTS. It counted when you were a baby and your Mom dolled you up. It counted at six when you got that new dress to wear for your birthday party or Easter Sunday. It counted when you were fourteen and hoped “he” noticed how cute you looked in your heather blue box pleated mini skirt and matching knee socks. It counted at twenty five when you were trying to 
impress them on the job. It counted when you planning to say “I do.” It counted when you put on those awful, (pre-Liz Lange stylish maternity-wear) “hatching jackets” with the dumb, sweet Peter Pan collar and bow meant to conceal your baby bump. And CUTE COUNTS now too, you have just forgotten how much.
every single day. My dad, who worked in construction and dressed accordingly, had his Sunday and Friday/Saturday “Up the Street” suits, sports jackets and tuxedoes tailor made. As a girl, I remember going to Charlie Baker Clothier with him to look at fabric swatches and pick out buttons—because all of it mattered. Now back to my mom. In her early 80’s she brought quite unexpectedly to a halt by some fairly debilitating health issues. Even after months of being house or hospital bound—she rolled her hair every night and put on her good
between teenage trashy—oops! I mean teenage trendy, and resignation retirement rags. No you can’t dress like your fifteen year old daughter or the twenty-three year old hostess at your favorite restaurant, but even without belly baring shirts (no navel piercing please) and low rise pants (I also suggest that you pass on the above-the-crack, tramp-stamp tattoo) BELIEVE ME, you can stay hot—or get hot for the first time!
and relaxation–not only told you what was there, they told you how to feel about it. Of course by now, I was no longer even listening to him. I was off on my own tangent because I could already see how his Real, Imaginary, Complex, Prime, Negative, Positive, Rational, Irrational, Sublime NUMBERS fit exactly what I thought about aging.
There’s Chronological Age (We know how this one works—count up from birth), Biological Age (Medical tests indicate how well or poorly our bodies are handling the passing of time), then we have Intellectual Age (Are we too old to be this dumb?) Emotional Age and Social Age (Are we mature? Do we play well with others?)
if you feel thirty-five, so be it.
expensive cut of meat? Enough said.
Like the Harpies of mythology, she is fierce, bad-tempered and relentless. She’s the one who makes you wonder if you’re good enough. By now her nagging little voice has been whispering bits and pieces of self doubt into your psychic ear for decades, so long in fact, that at this juncture it seems like harmless white noise—you aren’t even aware of her presence any more. But she’s anything but harmless and she needs to go. Now.
first words back when you were a little girl and she was just a little Harpy in Training (H.I.T.). You hadn’t begun to “develop” yet—as they used to say, much less develop any anti-Harpy skills. So she went to work on your young, defenseless, happy little self. “How 
come you don’t have a Barbie book bag?” (Translation: The CUTE girls all have Barbie book bags while you have the practical blue one your mother insisted would last a couple of years.) “Why don’t you have streamers on your bike?” (Translation: But even if you get streamers what if 
they’re not the right color?) 
“Only a B in geography?” (Translation: Not quite as smart as Melissa huh?) “If you could jump higher you would have made the volleyball team.” (Translation: You’re too tall/short/fat/awkward— what ever gave you the idea you could be an athlete?)
And so the plague begins. Its most telling symptom is unconscious comparison—almost always to other women. We compare ourselves to our friends, sisters, mothers, cousins, co-workers, neighbors, strangers, bosses, movie stars, and sadly even to our daughters. Sometimes we know we’re doing it, but mostly we’re unaware of how many times a day we think of ourselves in terms of how we measure up to someone else, or someone else’s expectations. Those expectations are, more often than not, a presumption on our part—
because if we don’t think we’re good enough, how can anyone else possibly miss the bright flashing neon marquee on our forehead announcing our long list of shortcomings to all the world? Believe me, despite the fact that it blinds YOU nearly every time you look at yourself, THEY don’t see it until you point it out. Why? Because they’re far too busy worrying if you are scrutinizing their list of personal inadequacies.
enjoy it! Just think—you’ve been investing in your very own personal 501K (50 for FIFTY of course, the 1 is for YOU) for a few decades and it’s now time to start enjoying some dividends!
we saw exhibited by women around us—it’s the way we learned “how to be.” We barrel into our teens and twenties having acquired, mostly by osmosis, a very particular (and peculiar) skill set perfectly suited to managing relationships and keeping the peace. Women are nurturers right? And we are worthy apprentices. Years worth of subtle and not so subtle repetition have made us strong and capable, but at the same time resilient and malleable, kind of like Gumby. (I 
once called a friend Gumbyiesha because of the contortions she went through for a man.) We can twist into all kinds of misshapen versions of ourselves, ignoring the pain and discomfort, without becoming nonfunctional to the point where we are unable to respond quickly and efficiently to the needs of others— “Mom did you _______? Honey will you______? Where’s the ______?” We re-mold ourselves to fit the needs of 
those around us and keep going without even seeing how bent out of shape we’ve become. Does your back hurt? Your knees? Your shoulder? What part of yourself have you contorted for others? Sound familiar? Of course it does.
intuit what those around us want and need. We anticipate these desires and fulfill them—often before those around us even know what they need, we’ve taken care of it. And triumphantly, we arrive at fifty as sensei—teachers, masters, and in the long honored tradition, have been passing on what we know to the younger women in our lives. And so it goes.
should. This ritual, habitual, sacrifice of tossing oneself off the cliff to assure another spring or diving headfirst into the volcano in the misguided hope of preventing another eruption now feels completely “normal.”
anima rears her pretty little dissatisfied head and explodes all over the poor and unsuspecting. And while the near and dear to us stand there, stunned and dripping with our fallout, we (who can’t believe they are really that clueless) explain our sudden eruption of self-expression to the heretofore oblivious of “what we have done for them.” That’s why you hear so many women referring to their F (40 or 50) decade by another “F”. “I turned 50 and I said FUCKit/him/them!”
change until you do. And now presents a perfect opportunity re-think some of those lifelong pleasing behaviors. Apologize to your spouse/partner for years of treating them like the village idiot who was incapable of doing laundry or loading the dishwasher correctly and promise from now on things will be different. Let your grown and nearly grown children fend for themselves and work their way out of their own messes. They’ll figure it out—you did. (This will be addressed in a future lesson entitled: “NO KIDDING”)
You did the right thing at the right time for the right reasons. Now it’s your turn. You are empowered, authorized, entitled to seek self-satisfaction. So go ahead—I know it won’t be easy, but you have to start somewhere. . . or you might end up with a really bad case of the screaming meemies.
Come on—THINK. How many do you have? Guess what? If you have not murdered anyone, tripped an old lady who was crossing the street, pillaged a village, stolen candy from a baby OR you cannot come up with 50 things—congratulations—you have earned the right to give martyrdom a rest and enjoy your life!
FORGET Menopause. If you think that’s what growing older (and this blog) are about, I’m going to disappoint you. I’m not going to address this subject in the way you might be expecting— because that’s a health book, a psychology book, but not this little lesson about growing older. Every woman goes through menopause… we have since the beginning of time. It’s part of the cycle of life and it’s not gonna go away. Don’t let it become a crutch and a catchall excuse to be lazy and evil about everything else.
wet sheets, underwear ruined by a “visitor” you thought long-gone. 
And then there is the ever popular, unexpected “change-of-life-9-month- surprise.” I personally witnessed the latter when I was in high school and to their everlasting embarrassment, during our senior year, three of my friends’ mothers got pregnant, well past the time when anyone thought they would, or could.
Even worse it meant these middle-aged mothers were—you guessed it—having S.E.X., also well past the time when anyone thought they would or could. Egads! It didn’t matter that the S.E.X. was with their fathers—no that only made matters worse and implicated both parents in this untoward, inappropriate, appalling behavior. And at the end of nine months, each of my three friends had a brand new baby sister to wave “Bye-Bye” to as they headed off to college. My own parents, younger than I am now by a couple of decades, were quite probably also having S.E.X. (at least I hope so), but thank goodness, I had no new siblings to show for it.
Don’t get hung up on some outdated notion that your womanhood is something you’ll lose if you’re not reminded of it every 28 days. Or, that no longer being able to bear a child diminishes your femininity in some way. Even with the departing red sea, you are still you. And the only way you can lose you is to GIVE UP. Surrender yourself to a self-fulfilling prophecy that you allow to steal the “girl” in you right from under your own nose? Why would you let that happen just because your period stopped?
They wafted down from some exotic, contemplative mountain retreat on a cloud of inner peace to scatter their long-considered wisdom on us—the unguided and uncentered masses with our misaligned chakras and road-blocked chi. And if you don’t remember gurus, Google will.
your fuzzy slippers with a magnifying mirror examining your wrinkles, removing chin hairs and watching the life you wish was 
yours on the tube, like any other respectable middle-aged woman?”
Cute Still Counts 