A "Matronly" Rant...

Okay, I am not jetlagged, more like car-lagged. I have made the trip between Greensboro and New Bern 4 times in the past 48 hours, so maybe I'm just dazed and confused...But here goes anyway...

I am 51 and I am not dead.

Neither am I "matronly."

Or immune to trendy fashion and low-cut jeans.

I like my hair wild and my music alternative.
I don't delude myself- I have put away some things as juvenile or "too young," but on the whole, I do consider myself somewhat hip...

Which brings me to another thorn in my side...

While I live south of the Mason-Dixon Line, I am not walking down dirt roads in my bare feet. I don't live in a trailer or shop at the Piggly Wiggly. I don't "lunch" at the club and feign shock at the goings-on of my scandalous neighbors.

So why then are so many of the books I've read lately stereotyping 50-ish, Southern women as practically ancient, over the hill, dummies who long for a good man to take care of them or to take care of?

I would name names, but that's really not the point...

The point is...Whose delusion is this? Whose reality?

Are the editors in New York all 20-something? Are they too Yankee to realize we in the South have attended school and have the same level of education and sophistication?

I just sick of finding myself stuck on the long drive through the middle of nowhere listening to books about women who are round, dowdy, boring and completely asexual.

Am I stuck in adolescence, unable to move forward and fall in step with the march of time?

I would think so were it not for my friends...They're not dead either! We listen to Led Zeppelin, sure, but we're just as ready to switch our i-Pods over to Patty Griffin or Lucinda Williams. We work our asses off, but we play every bit as hard.

Don't get me wrong...I do not want to go back in time and become a teenager again. I've come too far for that foolishness. I love the wisdom and depth age has given me. But damn, if I read one more book in which ladies of my age wear elasticized pants and red hats, I'll just...Well, I will really just...

I'll just write my own damn book and fill it with ripe, juicy, bawdy, savvy, smart,sexy women who may not wear four-inch Manolo Blahnik pumps but who can still take charge and kick ass, on the job or in the bedroom! Even in the middle of damned Walmart...

Yeah, that's the ticket...

I'll just go write my own damned book!

You just hide and watch!