I haven’t had a bona fide Formerly Hot moment in a long time now, which I attribute to having finally acclimated to my new category in life, that of a not-young woman.
I am comfortably inhabiting this new category, much like I was when I was officially in the other category. I used to walk around simply expecting to meet men on the subway (I met my husband on the 1 train), to be plucked from the line behind the velvet rope and ushered into the club, and for pop songs to speak directly to me, as if the singer had crawled up my brain stem, inhabited my mind and was singing the very words that I would have sung if I could sing. Which I can’t and never could.
Nowadays, I kind of expect not to know what anyone is talking about when I go into the Apple store, to be let on the bus when I’m short of change out of pity rather than because I look so good, and for button down blouses to gap between the boobs because I think my rib cage has expanded in recent years.
Fine. I’ve adjusted to all of that, so now I merely notice that I’m Formerly Hot. I am no longer shocked.
And then…BAM, I’m shocked again.
I’m reading People magazine, and in the Scoop section, under Rumor Patrol, it debunked a rumor about whether two gorgeous people I have never even heard of, one of whom is in a band I’ve never heard of, were an item. It said, “Is Julianne Hough Dating Kings of Leon Bassist Jared Followill?” The blurb then went on to explain that now that Hough has split from someone named Chuck Wicks (whom I’ve never heard of), she was out a club in Nashville with this Followill character.
Now, he looks like a nice young man and in theory I wish them well, but I have to say I despise them both for being famous enough to wind up in Rumor Patrol and yet be unknown to me. I work in the media! I read People, Us, and intermittently various other celebrity magazines and blogs and plus I’m not dead! I know who Taylor Swift is and even the 17-year-old Taylor that she’s dating, even though I’ve never seen any of those vampire movies he’s in. I am in-the-mix enough to have an opinion about how Kanye acted toward Taylor at that awards show (Kanye, man, don’t be a dick) and about how gracious Beyonce was later in the evening. See, I’m in there, despite the fact that 900 of the 930 songs on my iPod are from at least 15 years ago.
I have an iPod, OK???
This latest bitchslap is like what I’d imagine losing one’s sense of hearing when you get really old feels like: You’re fine, you’re fine, you’re fine, and then all of a sudden things stop making sense because there are big holes in the sensory information you’re taking in. You panic, you cling to the sound quality you have left, and you fake it as best you can. But soon, you’re hearing less than half of what there is to hear. Whole conversations are taking place that you’re not a part of. Once in awhile, someone younger than you will raise his voice to make sure you’re included–“Stephanie, the Kings of Leon are a musical group. I said A MUSICAL GROUP! THEY PLAY MUSIC!”–and you feel grateful, yet patronized. It’s too much trouble for anyone to explain what kind of music, and maybe they assume you don’t care. After awhile, you don’t. You just sit there listening to the Best of the ’80s, and remembering when you had big hair.
For me, losing my pop cultural fluency is like losing a sense. And I feel it going, ever so slowly.
The worst part about it, I guess, is that I actually don’t care who Julianne Hough, Jared Followill, Chuck Wicks or the Kings of Leon are. And that’s as sure a sign as any that you–and by you I mean me–are Formerly Hot.
December 13, 2009 at 11:37 am
“I haven’t had a bona fide Formerly Hot moment in a long time now . . . ”
And yet somehow you manage to write a regular blog about it…Have you been mostly making it up, Steph? That would really shake my world.
A lot of dog experts recommend crating a dog, starting when it’s a puppy. That is, keeping it in a crate most of the time, letting it out only when the humans are around. The theory, and I think it’s true, is that they’re happier when their world is very limited. When they’re out around the house and/or yard, it becomes their territory, and they’re responsible for it. They need to know everything that’s happening everywhere in the territory, chase away intruders of every variety, constantly patrol, etc. A lot to worry about. When they’re in the crate, life is simple, and there’s far less for them to worry about.
For me, it was a huge gift when I allowed myself to stop worrying about keeping up with music (and entertainment in general) being my territory, keeping up with developments, knowing who was who, etc. Imagining myself to be hot feels the same way. I’ve always had this need to feel like women found me attractive, especially if I’m at a party or some other social situation. Not that I want to do anything about it, it just felt nice. I’ve been working on letting go of that too. I was at a party last night (without my wife, who was out of town) where I found myself genuinely not caring whether any of the women there found me attractive, and it made it much easier to be at the party.
And let me tell you, with that attitude, the chicks were all over me. Just kidding. I was able to have fun without feeling like it was an environment in which I was being judged, or that I needed anything from other people.
So maybe you can experience this shift not as something that’s happening to you (like hearing loss) but rather as something you’re choosing for yourself. Not as a bitch slap, but with a chuckle.
December 14, 2009 at 12:00 am
I put NJ 101.5 on the radio in the car to get some traffic info. While waiting for the report I was enjoying a Madonna track from my formative years. Then I looked up at the radio display and there was that word…”Oldies”. When did that happen?
December 15, 2009 at 2:06 am
Having one of these moments now. Justin Biber (a who?) draws thousands of fans to a free concert to an outlet mall in Los Angeles. It’s the third item on the local news (don’t get me started on that).
Very happy that I don’t know who he is and really don’t care to know. But from the amount of screaming teenage girls, I’m happy that I have a son.
December 19, 2009 at 12:24 am
Lately I’ve been wondering, “Who the fuck is this Lady Ga-Ga?” Then I reason, I know who Tom Waits is, who Leonard Cohen is, and who Garth Hudson is… I don’t need to know who Lady Ga-Ga is. And that’s how I stay Forever Hot.