You know when you sit and debate whether or not to do something of questionable appropriateness, knowing full well you’re going to do it, but you have that conversation with yourself to prove that in some small way you’re not a total asshole? And then you go and do it anyway, feeling marginally better about having contemplated not doing it?
I had just such a moment today, in the playground after my girls were done with their gymnastics class. It was the first not-sucky day of the year and they were darting around like fireflies that had finally been released from the jelly jars they’d been trapped in. I was spotting Vivian on some equipment when my husband said, “Isn’t that [Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â ]?” citing a celebrity who I’d just been telling him would be perfect to blurb my book (MY FORMERLY HOT LIFE: DISPATCHES FROM THE OTHER SIDE OF YOUNG, which is coming out in September from Ballantine.)
I’ll call her Celebrity X, because I don’t want to compromise her privacy, but suffice to say that she embodies the Formerly Condition in the best possible way. She’s not what she was when she was in her young adulthood, i.e., “hot” in that cursory-glance way that the world looks at young women. But now she’s hot in that way that only a woman who has had some time on this earth to think can be.
I only know her persona, not her person, but from everything I’ve seen and read it seems like as a Formerly, she occupies her body and her self with the authority and security of a homeowner, rather than the way younger women sometimes seem as if they’re renting (or worse, squatting), prepared to abandon who they are entirely if a better option presents itself. I know I often felt that way in my 20s, as if I were shopping for a life, that I was often just a composite of other people’s opinions of me.
Anyway, as I stood a few feet from Celebrity X, my internal dialogue went like this:
Slimy, self-promotional Stephanie: “There’s Celebrity X! What are you waiting for? Go tell her about your book and how much she’d love it and how you want her to blurb it!”
Sympathetic lifelong New Yorker Stephanie: “Sheesh, she’s with her kids–can’t the woman enjoy a day with her family without someone like you hitting her up for something for their own benefit?”
SSPS: “You’re never going to get a chance like this again. Her publicist [to whom my editor sent the book] is probably not going to show it to her, she gets so much stuff.”
SLNYS: “I can’t just go up to her…if she wanted to be seen and stalked, she’d live in LA, not New York. Oh, geez, Vivian is going over her way.”
SSPS: “Go follow her! That’s what a good mother would do, right? Pretend you’re a good mother, just making sure your daughter doesn’t get hurt. In fact, tell Vivian to go play with her kid!”
SLNYS: “I WILL DO NO SUCH THING! That’s low, even for you. And I am a good mother.”
SSPS: “Then why is Vivian eating while she’s running and climbing. She’s going to choke. Look, she’s going to drop her Tigers Milk bar in the sandbox where the stray cats pee. And you know that girl is going to eat it anyway.”
SLNYS: “VIVIAN! No! Give me the bar. GIVE ME THE BAR.”
SSPS: “That’s right. Run up to her.”
SLNYS (feeling kind of ashamed): “Well, I guess if I happen to be right next to her, I could introduce myself. I really do think she’d love the book.”
SSPS: “That’s the ticket…go on and talk to her.”
SLNYS: “Well, OK. Fine.”
SSPS: “Fine.”
SLNYS: “Bitch.”
SSPS: “Pussy.”
And so I did. After getting Vivian to surrender the bar, I plopped down next to Celebrity X and excused myself and nervously vomited out what Slimy, Self-Promotional Stephanie needed her to know about my book, and how I’d sent it to her publicist…and of course failed to say my name. Celebrity X very graciously put me out of my misery by asking for it, and gave me the opportunity to hand her a business card with my url on it.
Once that part was over, I could go back to being Sympathetic Lifelong New Yorker Stephanie and just sit with a fellow mom who happens to be an exceedingly famous actress and author and watch our kids dig holes to China in the cat piss sandbox. She was lovely and funny and normal and made me feel I could be, too. As normal as a woman who talks to herself can be, anyway.
So there. Maybe she’ll read it and relate, and maybe she won’t. But I’m glad I let the slimy, self-promotional part of myself drive, for a few moments, at least.
PHoto by ricardo.martins CC
March 7, 2010 at 1:48 am
That’s my girl!!! Good for you!
March 7, 2010 at 3:40 pm
Oh how I loved that transcription of your internal dialogue! I’m unlikely to ever come face to face with a Sleb, and unlikely to have a book to promote if I did, but I completely understood the dynamics of the conversation, and applaud you for going for it in the end. I’m guessing too the Sleb knew you’d just had that conversation with yourself and that’s probably what made her so gracious – unlike many others I suspect, at least you were considerate enough to have the internal conversation!
March 7, 2010 at 4:37 pm
Steph, this conception of Formerly is different from what I think of:
“She’s not what she was when she was in her young adulthood, i.e., ‘hot’ in that cursory-glance way that the world looks at young women. But now she’s hot in that way that only a woman who has had some time on this earth to think can be.
I only know her persona, not her person, but from everything I’ve seen and read it seems like as a Formerly, she occupies her body and her self with the authority and security of a homeowner, rather than the way younger women sometimes seem as if they’re renting (or worse, squatting), prepared to abandon who they are entirely if a better option presents itself. I know I often felt that way in my 20s, as if I were shopping for a life, that I was often just a composite of other people’s opinions of me.”
Reading this, it sounds like becoming a former is like winning the lottery: delivering jaw-dropping riches, with only a teensy downside, paying the $1 price of the ticket. Sure, you give up your edge in the “cursory-glace” competition, but that sounds so trivial anyway—I mean really, who even cares?—and besides, every other aspect of your life gets way better.
I really hope your blog is not turning into a pollyanna celebration of how cool it is to be a formerly. What has made the “formerly” concept interesting to me is the deep mixture of loss and growth. We (I know the phenomenon is more acute for you ladies, but I feel like a Formerly too, sister) have to let go of things that were (and are) important to us. If we’re lucky, and either read the blog or have some wisdom of our own, we start to notice that in exchange for a lessening of qualities that our culture defines as beautiful, and often some decline in fitness and health along the way, we have gained experience, wisdom, maturity, and ease. I have no problem with your argument that it’s a good deal, but I read your post as suggesting that it’s practically free.
Celeb X moving through the world with confidence vs. Celeb X squatting: I can tell you which image I’d rather hold onto…
Celeb X is a great example of this painful involuntary tradeoff. Maybe she’s happier now than she was at 18 or 20, and maybe she looks good, and maybe she has an all-around better life. But those characteristics alone do not make her a Formerly. She is also someone who was an A-List Star. She was on “most beautiful” lists back in the day, but would not be now. Maybe that’s messed up, but that’s a fact that she lives with. A writer or a lawyer who gets some wrinkles may be sad and feel a sense of loss, but with identity mostly intact. Some pretty baby movie star/model, in contrast, who ages needs to do some serious career and soul searching. It’s like entering another country and having to surrender all your money at the border: you may have a better life ahead of you, but it’s a vulnerable, terrified feeling. I imagine anyway.
Sorry if it sounds like I’m trying to tell you what your blog is about. But I read the post and feared it was drifting from the focus that was most meaningful for me, and wanted to say something, cuz, y’know, that’s the whole point of a blog as opposed to a column.
March 8, 2010 at 4:14 pm
Did I already hit submit? In case I didn’t: good for you for approaching said celeb. Much better than going the publicist route, where your name would have fallen into a pile of at least 50 others.