IN WHICH I DECIDE TO REINVENT MYSELF INTO A GLAMOROUS CREATURE, IN THE MOLD OF SHE WHO DREW ME TO NEW YORK IN THE FIRST PLACE, HOLLY GOLIGHTLY.
Growing up in the monotonous, gray winters of the Midwest, I was struck by the revelation of Breakfast at Tiffany’s at the age of eight. I declared, “That’s for ME!” and never looked back; since then, no matter where else I’ve tried to live, I’ve come crawling back. New York City has been the one constant lover in my life: the organic glamour, the style, the chic of-this-moment momentousness of a place — indeed, a perspective — perpetually on the cusp. As a repository for the best in every field, like its soaring architecture New York is a mecca for those reaching for the best they can be, a dynamism which calls me body and soul. I spent the early years as a writer, married and divorced, and — what could be more appropriate — a fashion designer.
In the last couple decades, however, a grueling reality check had shaped a different, less Hollywood trajectory. An abrupt life change — part conscious, part improvised — meant years of single motherhood and indenturehood in a highly stressful public sector job. Trading in my Manolos for the comfort of clogs, my pencil skirts for the LL Bean utilitarian denim uniform of an asexual public employee, my existence was transformed into galley slave rigor and monotony. The only relief, I soon found, was medicating the relentless sorrows and stress through marathon evening couplings with my sofa and whatever junk food could propel my serotonin to barely functional levels. This torrid affair with comfort — Cheetos and a side of chill — had the unsurprising effect of creating a markedly UNcomfortable, UNhot body more evocative of Jaba the Hut than the sleek, Avedon-ed greyhound that was my Audrey Hepburn avatar.
The metabolic effect of an early menopause had had its way, as well, practically assuring that every carb might just as well be rubbed on my expanding derrière; even as I was tasting it, the calories were racing to the warm embrace of my capacious buttocks. As if the horror of the gathering storm of thunderous thighs weren’t enough, the shockingly unconditional surrender of my face to gravity was the coup de grâce. The apple cheeks of my youth, so annoyingly pinchable, had teasingly withdrawn in my thirties and forties, then re-emerged with my weight gain, only to sink slowly into a jowly sunset in my fifties.
I was miserable, weighted down by my job and the burden of daily wrestling matches with the textbook testosterone terror my fatherless teenage son had become. My sagging face and body were a walking testimony to my middle aged defeat, my down state of mind echoed by the force of gravity on me physically. My life had headed south, and my body had gone along for the ride.
In this state I weathered two decades of sexual privation, a spell of celibacy so draconian, it conjured the distinct possibility of vaginal tumbleweed. Not only had abandonment by the love of my life — at five months pregnant — gifted me with an unremitting case of PTSD and distrust of men, the child resulting from this union was beyond possessive. When I was on the phone, even, he would get jealous. My love and loyalty precluded me from spreading my affections elsewhere and risking a double abandonment for him: once from his father, then again from me.
Then one day, finally, my son went off to college. I was no longer just a mom but free to return to whom I had been twenty years before, a woman. And so I left my job from hell, began a life as a writer, and in my late fifties, Mrs.Hot.
These days, the acronym MILF — Mom I’d Like to Fuck — is the most popular search term on porn websites. But in an era when 60 is the new 40, or even 30, it seems apt to accord a new moniker to what seems to be an expanding demographic, the Grandmother I’d Like to Fuck. Because MILFs, after all, are aging like the boomers, only looking good while they do it; Botox, Pilates and $350 highlights have created a new demographic, the GILF.
The endgame destination for every Real Housewife who sweats not the laws of physics, but daily bouts of Bikram yoga — this hot new genus celebrates the enduring allure of Jane Fonda, Sophia Loren, Catherine Deneuve. Let us see, now, going forward, where this phenomenon takes us: once 100 is the new 80, then, we might see the death bed as the culminating transformative experience of sex and death. Fuck the Grim Reaper — literally!
Though I can’t magically recapture my youth, the end game I’m now crafting for myself is one of hot health, beauty, glamour, love and importantly, sex. Determined to make up for the loss of two decades as a woman, I’ve not been idle, and I can’t wait to share with you the countless adventures I’m logging under my black lace garter belt! Next: My epic makeover begins, and with it, the hardcore male response I’ve been aching for.
Yours truly,
