Unfriending Is Hard To Do,
But Toxic Friendships Take Their Toll
By Suzanne Braun Levine
Huff/Post50
Like most women my age, as the years accumulate I get more and more selective about who I consider real friends, while at the same time, more and more committed to those who form my “circle of trust.” The trouble is that paring down my inner circle can be hurtful, guilt-making, and very hard to initiate.
I practice the “drift” technique — fewer calls and dates, slower responses to e-mails — hoping that distance and silence will dissolve the tie.
WHITE HAIR – A New Kind of Beauty
When my mother was my age, long hair was considered “inappropriate” in an older woman, unless it was wound up in a bun or a “chignon” (who remembers chignons?); when I was my daughter’s age, I thought white hair was synonymous with “old lady.”
I have kept my hair long, but have been “covering the grey” for decades. Like many of us, I wish I didn’t, if for no other reason than the skunk line that appears along the part within weeks after the $100 treatment. It is clear from those roots that I would be completely white if I went natural. I haven’t gotten even close to going there. I am afraid I would look “washed out” or that I would send the message, as someone said, that I had “given up.”
Is Meryl Streep Our Generation’s Next Helen Gurley Brown?
Suzanne Braun Levine
Huff/Post50
The fact that Meryl Streep’s new movie “Hope Springs” opened and Helen Gurley Brown died in the same week seems to me a passing of a very important baton. The baton our Post50 generation needs to get us moving toward an honest and candid discussion about sex. Helen did it for us back in the sixties in her books and her magazine; Meryl is getting the conversation going with her movies.
ENOUGH ABOUT “HAVING IT ALL”!
Suzanne Braun Levine
Huff/Post50
“Having it all” is probably the most misunderstood phrase since, as the late great Erma Bombeck once said about the ERA, “one size fits all.” It has come up whenever there is a backlash — and there have been many — against the increasing empowerment of women. The implication that the women’s movement promised or even endorsed that greedy notion is still with us.
Women At Woodstock – Women in Midlife – Gathering, Sharing, Inspiring!
by Ann Voorhees Baker
Owner of Net Markting-123
I’ve been getting lots of calls and emails lately asking about room fees, schedule of events, transportation, and how to register for Women At Woodstock.
Here in one place is a neat and tidy overview of Women At Woodstock from start to finish. I welcome your comments and feedback!
Seeing Charlie’s Quilt Up Close…
When I got to the end of the Mall where the stage is, my friend and AIDS activist Sean Strub was there waiting to greet me. So was Jennifer Morton of POZ, who had finally managed to find out where Charlie’s quilt was; what’s more she had brought it to the front of the whole exhibit, right at the stage. What a doll!
It more beautiful than it looks in pictures; there is so much more artistic detail. It was lovely to be able to look at it up close and among so many touching and imaginative panels.
A Quilt For Charlie: Remembering
My Brother Who Died Of AIDS
By Suzanne Braun Levine,
Huff/Post50, GAY VOICES
When my brother Charlie died of AIDS in February 1985, the epidemic had barely begun. The disease, first reported in 1981, had come out of nowhere, and no one had any idea what caused it or how to treat it. But there was plenty of uninformed panic and prejudice.
Women at Woodstock, A Life-inspiring Retreat for
Women 50 & Up
By Ann Vorhees Baker
Emerson Spa & Retreat
October 7-10, 2012
How Women at Woodstock Came About…
When I turned 50, I decided to celebrate in my own way; not with a glitzy party, not with a spa weekend, not with a blowout shopping spree or a Caribbean cruise; but with a croning.
Women’s Health: Why Friendships
Are Good For You!
Suzanne Braun Levine
Huff/Post50
The surest route to decline as we age is isolation. Older people fade away psychologically, physically, and socially, if they don’t have the emotional or intellectual stimulation we take for granted earlier in our lives. So the post 50 version of “an apple a day” is “nurture your friendships.”
THIS IS WHAT “40” LOOKS LIKE
Ms. Celebrates a Birthday!
Gloria Steinem memorably said, when on her 40th birthday, someone said she didn’t look forty, “This is what 40 looks like!” Now, the magazine she co-founded and I edited for 17 years is turning 40.
To commemorate that occasion the New York City Council – the city of its birth – issued a proclamation to honor the magazine, the women who created it and its readers. Signed by Christine C. Quinn (for the Entire Council), the first woman New York City Council Speaker who hopes to be the city’s first woman mayor and Council Member Gale A. Brewer honored Ms. for “40 years of service to its readers who have shared their struggles, achievements and stories within its pages, and by so doing, have changed the world.”