Madonna & Me

I spend a lot of time thinking about how to deny my age. Not overtly. Just pretending it doesn't exist. But the truth is it's 2013 and most of my friends were born, like me, in 1963, and that means that this year is our half century. I don't know why I'm ashamed of it. My friend Jack, who is, quite honestly, the chic-est man I know, always says you should add age to your years so that people say, "Oh my goodness, you look AMAZING for 63." But feeling a perpetual 32 (I do, that is the age I feel in my heart) facing 50 is quite literally terrifying. For example, it's the age that you can join the AARP. It's the age when you become a confirmed invisible. (There is no whistling at fifty year olds). You become de-sexualized, in the media at least, and somehow cease to exist.

But then I remembered Madonna. Who is older than me. (There is a God!). And who looks SO MUCH BETTER than I do, but in a brilliant way. Check out her new Instagram feed here. Here is Madonna, who is sleeping with a younger man, who is fierce in her approach, who doesn't give a flying fuck what anyone thinks, and has pictures of her boobs and her mouth and her body and her 54 year old self and I look at Madonna and I think, Hallelujah! I mean, look at her. She may have had work on her face, but look at her body! She's worked hard on that thing! She's great.

We grew up with her. We love her. Despite it all. Remember this:



Aren't we lucky? I mean, aren't we lucky to be pushing 50 with an icon who it's still okay to sexualize? That we, somehow, have someone out there to represent us, our generation, who looks like we think we do?

There are days that I worry about not being one of a two. It's really not about the sex (tho' thinking of Madonna does bring that up a wee bit, pant, pant) but more because I have so many revelations every day, great, sweet, beautiful (sometimes hideously mean) I'd love to be able to share with someone else. And it does bear pointing out that tea brought to you in bed by your beloved tastes sweeter. Also most of my friends are twos not ones. Some of them not very happy twos, hanging on to the two by a thread, but a two nonetheless.

But if being a two involves dating, I'm out. Out.

I had dinner with a girlfriend last week who told me, "my friend sees dating as a second job; she goes on six dates a week. That's what you have to do. Take it seriously. Make it your job." Um, let me stop you there. Six dates a week? Six? No, I don't think so. I'm not sure I was bred for dating and I'm not saying that in a Nancy Mitford way (or maybe I am!). Is that terrible?

Which brings me to Mrs Leshem, of whom I don't see enough. We had lunch on the Warner Brothers lot -- where she works -- last week and she told me this:
"It's not about you, my love. You are interviewing them. Like a new client. Is there chemistry? Is there a fit? It's what YOU think about THEM and not vice versa. I mean who gives a rat's ass what they think about you. Just think of it as a client interview." Like Madonna, this gives me strength. By the way, I'm not some snooty-patooty. Not at all. I'm just a nervous, shell-shocked, PTSD-riddled female, who's a little younger than Madonna who is absolutely petrified of the thing they call "dating." Is that okay?!

Tomorrow, for those of you that care, is Thistle's first birthday. I hope by her second, I will be able to tell you about the thirty year old Brazilian soccer star that escorts me down red carpets.