A dear friend of mine recently celebrated his 40th year on the earth with a big, splashy birthday bash. For someone who remembers sixteen clearly that number seems huge. It hovers around the corner taunting me with the knowledge that I will eventually be that age in the next 10, 5, 4, 2 years, months, weeks, ah forget it! What difference does it make when I will get there, it just matters that I will get there too soon. My point is that as I celebrated with my friend, I looked around the club and thought to myself, damn! Where does the time go? As I rocked my thirty something year-old self to Michael Jackson, as I shimmied and shuffled to Mary J Blige, and as I attempted to keep up with the new tunes that requires a far more agile waistline than mine, I surveyed the crowd and had trouble reconciling the faces of the people I saw. The faces didn’t match the kids I knew from the playground or the smiling teenagers from the school yearbook. Who were all these old people? When did we all get grown with worry lines, kids, mortgages, Dodge Caravans and mommy style?

Don’t get me wrong, some of us had put up a ferocious fight with father time. There was evidence of the struggle being waged by the use of concealer to disguise dark circles, the use of spanxs to fight flab, and the determination to eradicate fashion faux pas with a steady diet of Vogue. Still time had marched on and exposed us as frauds. It showed when the music began and folks launched into the Cabbage Patch followed by the Running Man. It showed when some of us started to Bogle with a hint of Dutty Wine. It was evident when the livelier of us attempted to form what was slightly reminiscent of a Soul Train line. Many who had long ago given into laugh lines didn’t even attempt to shake their groove thing. Instead they sat in dark corners and tapped their feet to what they could catch of the beat.

It didn’t help my aging spirit that a young relative I dragged to the party with me, laughed as I attempted to Get Down On It with Kool & the Gang. Repeatedly through the night, she reminded me kindly that I looked GREAT and I only looked a little tired around the eyes. Gee, thanks. With all sincerity she said, it’s inevitable that as you get older you lose all your swag. I don’t know if I agree.

Like the celebrities that fight time with Botox, face lifts, crop tops and miniskirts in winter, should we refuse to give into time? Should we fight getting older or just throw in the towel? Do we rage against the dying of the light to quote my boy Dylan Thomas? Or do we hold on to our youthfulness and sexiness with both feet and hands?  Is being an Old Ass an eventuality or are we as Old as we choose?

My sister thinks I might be getting a little high in the instep.  She reprimanded me quiet sharply the other day when I casually mentioned that I wasn’t into men who wore wifebeaters paired with Timbs. I told her that I didn’t like the combination as a fashion choice nor as a lifestyle. “Don’t judge a book by it’s cover” she responded with heat. She then reminded me with censure that despite my persona that read Bougie our origins were in fact quiet blue-collar.  People are always taking you a part, judging you and criticizing you so don’t do it to others! It was a reprimand. I heard her message and I was duly chastised. Secretly in my heart though, I still didn’t think that a man who wore timberland boots with socks and shorts and a mesh wifebeater in a hundred degree weather would be for me.  What would we talk about? I would constantly try to rework his fashion and bring it from the 90′s into the millennium. I’m not Donatella Versace but geez.

I’m an educated woman. I work hard and I’m ambitious to the bone. I have plans and dreams. What’s wrong with dating a man who’s my style and lifestyle counterpart? In television shows like the now defunct show Soul Food, Terry, (Nicole Ari Parker) the lawyer, dated the UPS guy. In another movie 35 and Ticking, the same actress was a celebrity Sports Newscaster and she dated and married the water delivery boy. In real life would this happen?  Hmmm…maybe?

When I relayed these unrealistic scenarios to my sister she was all over me. “Would you date a construction worker, rich girl? (I’m not rich but that was her way of insulting me)? Ahh, yeah..is he the lead contractor? She grunted in disgust. “Would you date the plumber?”  Yup, I said.  “The bus driver?” On what shift? I asked quiet reasonably. My response made her stomp her feet. “Would you date the garbage man?” When I hesitated in answering she went all philosophical on me. “50cents wears wifebeaters.”  I responded by pointing out that 50cents wifebeaters cost more than my rent. It doesn’t matter she said. These guys in the timbs could be ambitious, smart and the love of your life. I don’t want you to close yourself off and be a childless spinster. Ouch. Did she have a point?

Ok, I said relenting. The next time the cable guy comes to my house I’ll jump his bones even if he starts his sentences with, “what’s up shorty.” My sister kissed her teeth and had nothing further to say. She was done, with the topic and with me. I’m not saying that every man has to walk around in a suit and tie and that blue-collar boys aren’t tasty, but is it wrong for a professional woman to give the guy with the wifebeater and timbs the side-eye?

Do professional women think they’re too good for the urban guy?

These days eligible men are scarce and the fight to land and lock down a good man has some women going to extremes. In their pursuit of Mr. Marry Me some ladies pull out the big guns and use their booty as bait. I’m not knocking the next girl’s tactics but there is a right way to do things and then there’s just plain wrong. If you’re built like a thoroughbred with a body banging enough to inspire instant lust, I’m not saying you have to keep your best assets under wraps. Get your Serena on if you must but remember the best part of the gift is the unwrapping. If you expose all your wonders to the world what is there left to see? My young female readers are rolling their eyes as I speak. They’re envisioning me at my computer writing with a half-grown-in mustache, chin hair and a long-sleeved sweater despite the balmy seventy degrees.  No, not me. The Super is all for the sexy. If our exteriors are the canvas then we should paint ourselves with beautiful strokes. That said, men are visual and upon meeting us they conduct mental mathematics about our availability based on what they see.

“Pants tight enough to restrict breathing – one date, maybe two.”

“Dress short enough to see my future – dinner consisting of some hot water and then back to my place.”

These impromptu assessments about women are usually wrong but men could care less.  The judgment has already been made and they will treat us accordingly. In my teens I once wore a hip-high semi-see through shorts set. I paired my attire with knee-high boots and a black bra and panties that showed more than a few hints of skin. Yes, I know what you’re thinking: straight Ho bag who needs a citation from the fashion police. I beg your forgiveness for my fashion faux pas, but hell, it was the nineties and I was a teen. I got the attention I was seeking but it wasn’t the good kind. Instead of attracting the interest of the honest, humble and educated men I was seeking, instead every freak, sneak and player set his x-ray vision on me. Back then I thought the body was made for revealing but the attention I got was the type I didn’t need.  As I walked the streets that day strange men attempted to pinch and prod me making me wonder what made them think that they had the right. Just because I was dressed like a stripper didn’t mean I was one. Hell, I had the grades to go to University. I was smart!  That didn’t stop me from also being stupid beyond imagining. Wearing the shorts which the Jamaicans call Batty Riders, the Americans call Daisy Dukes or Pussy Printers for those that live anywhere past Jersey, didn’t guarantee me the man of my dreams. Instead, it attracted the dudes that were only interested in the place in my shorts that formed a V.  These men admired the shape of my ass instead of the shape of my smile. They were attracted to the exterior with little to no interest in the real me. No one wants to be loved for their body parts and no one should be.  I’m not opposed to the split in the dress, a low neckline or the dress that hugs the figure just right. Accentuate the positives but allow men to see beyond the V.

Finding a good man is hard. Is it now necessary to use our bodies as bait?

The Super is not a girly girl. I’m more butch than Barbie.   I’m the type of girl whose looks are deceiving. I look like I invest a lot of time in maintaining the pretty. But it’s a lie.  Like all women I like to keep myself up but I find my beauty regime time-consuming and tedious.  The problem is that I love the fellas and men like bees are attracted to honey. So I make myself up in the morning (not on the train though I find that annoying.) I wax, not because I think a little forest ever hurt anybody, but because a strip is more civilized.  I wear Victoria Secret undies but near laundry week the pair might be ripped and unraveling.  I keep my hair tight. Michelle O has nothing on me. But I skip the expensive stylist for the bargain basement blow out for $19.99. I like to look good—on a budget.  Watching me trot down the street though might deceive you.  I look casually expensive.  Less Gucci and more J.Crew but my clothes are out of season and off the rack.  For me clearance signs evoke ecstasy.  I look like beauty is important but I’m a fraud. The truth is that I will go weeks without a manicure until my hands look like broken and chipped claws.  I only know that a pedicure is in order because my toe nails cut through my sheets.  My manicurist mutters curse words in Chinese every time she sees me.  I get my eyebrows done regularly because even I know a unibrow isn’t sexy.  Having said all that,  I recently became a slave to the pretty.

I decided that my lashes weren’t long enough.  I wanted them long and sultry.  Big mistake.  I couldn’t see. My eyelids felt like they were being held down by bricks and I my eyes were so red I thought my cornea had dropped out.  After a full day of walking around with lashes like bat wings, I gave in.  There was no point in being pretty if I couldn’t see.   A total waste of money which has led to a beauty backslash.  In protest, this week I’m wearing my granny panties,  my hair in a bun and I’m letting my legs get hairy.  Even the most ardent beauty enthusiast needs a reprieve.

Have you suffered for beauty?

I’ve been talking to my girlfriends lately about men, the state of their relationships and the status of their love lives.  This is what I found out.  It seems that in the age of the metro-sexual, equal rights for women and female breadwinners, some men have lost something essential: their balls. This writer has to wonder if the severing came with the unfortunate rise of the denim destroyer otherwise known as the male skinny jean.  Should we boycott the trousers — light a bonfire and seek out Versace for doing the unthinkable: mutilating our men’s private parts?

If the thing that swings is what separates men from women why are some men so effeminate? I have pretty friends, not seven or eights, but hard tens with legs like super models.  Their as fine as any playmate and have enough skills in the bedroom to make their own sex tape minus Pam and Tommy.  These ladies are all sitting at home with their toy of choice: the vibrator. What the hell! When asked the reason for their foray into pleasure power tools, I was told that they don’t get asked out.  Has the world gone gay? Is there estrogen floating around in the drinking water? Someone please explain.

I confronted my male friend at work with the issue the next day.  Congregating around the water cooler I pointed out pretty co-worker after pretty co-worker who sashayed by us throwing him come hither looks.   The message was plain.  ”Ask her out.” I suggested, elbowing him in the back.” He shook me off clearly irritated.  “Nah, I can’t.” he said. “She probably has a man and I’m done with rejection.” It was all I could do not to rear up and give him a backhand.  Aren’t men supposed to be brave, courageous and well…masculine?  Aren’t they taught to lead, to conquer and to eat challenges for breakfast like Corn Flakes?  When did this change?  Are we now in a world where men don’t hunt?  Is the species destined to go extinct because we are breeding men with no backbone?

I blame the jeans.

I’m all for style but I thought tight pants were for rock stars.  Where are the real men that still climb mountains, women and wear their clothes one size too big? Where are the ones that bring home the bacon but still cook in the bedroom?  As women are we destined to be the males in the relationships?  Are modern men only packin’ fashion?

The BallBra – When your only packin' fashion