360 Days - Andie MacDowell Can Bite Me

There’s this unwritten rule out there that says that a woman should “dress her age” as if when we’re born we’re handed a gift package from world leaders that includes a sterling silver rattle, “Miss Manners Pocket Guide to Excruciatingly Correct Behavior,” something pink, pressed powder (one doesn’t want to have a shine!) and eight laminated flash-card style guides showing you what is appropriate to wear for every decade between your single digits and your eighties.  It was originally ten cards but the world leaders (all men, of course) decided that if you lived past eighty-nine you could wear whatever the f*ck you wanted in celebration of not experiencing death. Yet. Thanks, guys. As they say down here in the women-doting (sarcasm) South… ‘Preciate it.

In February of this year, Andie MacDowell was asked for one piece of advice that she could give to her fans during a television interview. One piece of advice. Think about that for a minute… if someone said to you, “Hey, person, you have millions of people (men and women) who adore you, with some even hanging on your every word. You can say one thing to them. One. JUST one. They are listening and may just follow whatever piece of advice you give them, so make it good!” I would fall apart, personally, maybe more so by the fact that there was millions of anything following me that wasn't bees after that honey and pollen-bath spa incident. But that Andie, man, she wowed ‘em in her Southern style flauntin’, L’Oreal makeup wearin’, fifty-three year old bein’, advice-givin’ way… by telling her minions to ditch the short skirts and dress their age. Well done, Andie. Well done. So, you apparently didn’t think “wear sunscreen” was good enough advice for those who, oh, I don’t know, want to not die a horrible death from skin cancer? Or, say, maybe mention the health hazards related to sodium intake? Or smoking? Or FIFTY MILLION OTHER NOT F*CKED UP PIECES OF ADVICE?! Dress your age? That’s the best you could come up with? Screw you, Ms. MacDowell. Screw you and the gay personal trainer you rode in on (not that there’s anything wrong with that. I once rode a gay personal trainer and it’s actually a damn good hamstring workout, so I recommend it.) I got your ‘dress your age’ right here, a-hole.

I wore a mini skirt today. Actually, at roughly six feet tall in the boots I have on, I would even go as far as to say I wore a micro-mini skirt today. To work. In my office. Where I am Senior Vice President of my Forbes’ Magazine highly-rated company. It didn’t halt my creativity, distract my co-workers, or bring my productivity level to a halt. I didn’t get cancer from it, nor did it make me need a new kidney. I was still able to drop both children off to school, after I made them a hot breakfast and washed their faces. Still drank my coffee in the exact same way that I did yesterday, when I wore pants. Way back yesterday. I still loved the same people that I love, and loathed the ones I loathe, with the exception of having added one fifty-three year old South Carolina-born brunette who starred in the highly denounced, overly titled “Greystoke: The Legend Of Tarzan, Lord of the Apes.” Imagine that. I wore an article of clothing, and… why… it didn’t even affect me, or my life, or those around me. As a matter of fact, my choice of apparel didn’t negatively affect anyone today (though, I'm pretty sure it positively affected a few of the older gents in my building.) Especially not Andie MacDowell. Or Tarzan, grey, stoked or not.

In case you haven’t been slapped in the face enough with this fact from reading a previous blog post here, I’m a believer of a different age-old rule… that one goes “if you got it, flaunt it.” You want to wear leopard print to a funeral? Carry on, Cougar. Have the desire to hoist your boobies up higher than your collar bone? Perfect! Who needs a neck? Unless it’s holding diamonds it’s useless to me anyway. Do what your momma told you not to, gals, because rebellion isn’t just for teens and liberals any more.