Today I Am a Ma'am
and Other Musings On Life, Beauty, and Growing Older
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5.0 • 1 Rating
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- $16.99
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- $16.99
Publisher Description
Valerie Harper has a message for women of a certain age: "Work those laugh lines!" With the irreverence and wit that made her one of television's most beloved personalities, Harper (a.k.a. Rhoda Morgenstern) takes on those phony "fabulous at 50" books written by women whose skin is free of laugh lines and who wouldn't know a cellulite pocket if it bit them on the backside. With her trademark shoot-from-the-hip, call-'em-like-she-sees-'em style, she helps women celebrate, with humor and grace, what it means to be middle aged.
Harper's essays explore the treacherous terrain women must travel -- from the tyrannies of fashion to the unmentionables of menopause. She tackles the most perplexing questions of the day: If you wear a size zero, do you exist? Would menopause be revered if it happened to men? Do calories count if you eat standing up? Are dressing rooms fitted with fun house mirrors? Today I Am a Ma'am is the perfect antidote to the youth obsession of our culture, offered by America's most reliable girlfriend. It is Humor Replacement Therapy for midlife women, a book you can pick up when ever you need a laugh or a reminder that midriff drift is not the end of the world.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Once readers get over the shock that Harper (who won four Emmy awards playing Rhoda Morgenstern on The Mary Tyler Moore Show and Rhoda) is now in her 60s, her gently funny and age-positive ruminations will soothe the aftershock ("How old does that make me?"). This light, sincere, cartoon-filled guide for "women of a certain age" pokes fun at this age group's lack of representation in films and plastic surgery mania ("The transformation isn't from old to young. It's from old to scary"). Mainly, though, the book celebrates an age at which women can finally relax. Following advice from Ruth Gordon ("I decided to get older instead of getting old. Because old is a destination; older is a process and a path"), Harper embraces her "senior moments" and droopy upper arms and thighs that are "like dimpled twin dough boys, nestled together against the cold." Wry and wise, Harper dares women to be "real" and reminds us that those "fabulous at 50" women on magazine covers have a hidden crew of professionals and technicians who labor to produce that look. (On sale date: Apr. 10)
