This little ad for the Chicago and Alton rail line promises that they’re always on time. Look closely at the photo (below) and you’ll see that a woman appears to be sitting with the train’s engineer. Is *that* why this particular rail line is always on time?

Probably so.

This little ad appeard in the 1905 American Carpenter and Builder.

Close-up of the woman driver

To buy Rose’s book, click here.

To see more great old ads, click here.

*   *   *

Continued from Part 1.

Beautiful women, such as my daughter, don’t need help in attracting men. As proved by my experiment, they can post a head-shot and write a meaningless profile and within moments, hoards of eligible bachelors will magically appear, sniffing around their virtual yard and begging for a date.

But Mother was right. Beauty does have a price. And sometimes, beauty exacts a price from men, too. Like 20 years of alimony payments.

Many of these newly-divorced men liked to tell an obviously well-rehearsed and emotional story about how much they despised the mother of their children. Speaking as a woman who’s read four billion self-improvement books, I can not imagine sharing this type of story on a first date, where you’re (supposedly) investing your best energies in hiding your personal psychoses and neuroses and bad habits.

“My first wife is such an unbelievable witch,” these middle-aged men would often tell me (and that’s “witch” with a capital B).

“She’s depressed and she’s depressing and she’s lazy and she’s crazy as a loon. And she sleeps half the day and she drinks like a fish and smokes like a chimney and swears like a sailor and she’s a lousy mother, too. And she likes to eat cheezy fizz right out of the can. She’s really disgusting.”

On and on they’d go, telling me how utterly awful their ex-wife was. When they’d exhausted themselves, I’d look ‘em right in the eye and ask a single, simple question:

“What attracted you to her in the first place?”

Their answer was always, and I mean always, the same. Sometimes they used different words, but the meaning and import never changed.

“She was so beautiful,” they’d tell me with their eyes glazing over. “She was a real knock-out.”

The more troubled men would often continue with, “When I walked into a room with her on my arm, all the men would turn and stare. They were so damn jealous, their eyeballs would pop out of their head. Man, she was gorgeous.”

In Between Men, Eve Sedgwick says that men are often more interested in having a relationship with other men, rather than having a relationship with a woman. She says that a man’s sense of self-worth is fueled and fed by the envious gaze of other males. Women become pawns in a game, and Sedgwick says their purpose - in the eyes of men - is to cement the “bonds of men with [other] men.”

To read another excerpt, click here.

To learn more about Rose’s new book on internet dating, click here.

Last week, I spent countless hours bundling up the children and getting them ready for their new homes. Shipping books is a lot of work and time-intensive, and standing in line at the Milan Station (Norfolk Post Office on 38th Street) is a foretaste of hell, but…

It sure is fun to think about this book - Montgomery Ward’s Mail-Order Homes - leaving home to be enjoyed by others. Dale Patrick Wolicki and I spent five years researching and writing this book, and it’s new research on a new topic. As I’ve told my husband and my friend Dale many times, this book will still be in use as a reference work many years after we’re all gone from this earth.

If you’d like to learn more about Wardway Homes, click here.

If you’d like to give your friends and relatives the perfect Christmas present, click here.

And if you’d like to support your local library by donating a copy of Wardway Homes, click here.

Wardway books leaving home

Handsome hubby poses with the new book. Two cuties together in one photo!

In just a few days, my newest book (co-authored with Dale Wolicki) will roll off the presses. Montgomery Ward’s Mail-Order Homes will be my 7th book. Writing is tough. This most recent work represents five years of steady effort. Kit homes are something about which I’m passionate. Good thing, because the financial benefits of writing aren’t that great.

In 2003, Illinois sponsored a gala event to honor the state’s authors. It was a black-tie affair with an elegant meal served on fine china edged with gold leaf. Only 50 authors were invited to attend and thanks to my book (The Houses That Sears Built), I was one of them. It was quite an honor.

There were three speakers at the formal dinner, all of whom (unlike me)  had hit the big time with their literary works. The first speaker spoke at length about the contributions of his beloved wife.

“Without her,” he told the audience as he gazed lovingly at his gorgeous wife, “I could never have accomplished this.”

I squirmed in my chair a bit. I’d already noticed that everyone had entered the spacious hall in pairs. And I thought about how the event organizer had pleaded with me to find someone to bring along. Now I understood.

The next speaker was a woman who followed the first author’s lead, and also waxed eloquent about her husband’s specific advice and honest encouragement and how she could never have done it without him.

Third speaker. Same talk, different body. And that’s when I excused myself and went into the bathroom. I don’t like crying in public. Leaning over the glistening white sink and staring into the oversized mirror, I told myself, “When I write the book that hits the big time, and someone asks me how I did it, I am never going to say that I could not have done this without a romantic partner in my life.”

I know the speakers’ comments were innocuous and well-intended, but to the lone unattached, one-partner-shy-of-a-full-pair woman in the audience, it was a neon-sign that flashed, “Writers are without hope unless they’re in love.” My dating life and my romantic life were already in the ash heap. Was it really necessary to throw my dreams of a magnificent career onto the smoldering ruins too?

That was seven years ago. Now, I’m re-married and yes, the new husband has been an incredible blessing in my writing career. But if my newest book on Wardway Homes hits the big time, I get invited to address a large audience, I don’t think I’ll say that I never could have done it without him.

I’m just not willing to believe that there’s always a romantic partner behind every successful woman.

Conscious worth satisfies the hungry heart, and nothing else can. - Mary Baker Eddy

In the 1995 remake of the movie A Little Princess, there’s a scene where Miss Minchin, the black-hearted school marm, is confronted by Sara (the little princess). With an astonishing measure of boldness, Sara tells Miss Minchin that she is a princess and that all girls are princesses regardless of their station in life, their physical appearance, their intelligence or even their age. With innocent eyes, Sara stares into Miss Minchin’s hardscrabble face and asks her, “Didn’t your father ever tell you that? Didn’t he?”

Judging by the look in Miss Minchin’s eyes, she never heard those words or even that sentiment expressed by dear old Dad. And judging by the current epidemic of low self-esteem among women, I’d venture to guess that most of today’s fathers follow the parenting model of Miss Minchin’s dad, rather than Sara’s.

Which brings me to the first of four basic theories regarding beauty and self-esteem.

First, there’s The Little Princess Theory of Beauty. You are miles ahead of most of us if you were raised on a steady diet of compliments and kind words. Bonus points for hearing these compliments and kind words from a man with an important position in your life. You might have a third eye centered on your upper forehead with one massive, circuitous eyebrow over all three of your lovely gray eyes, but the fact is, if your father (or a suitable alternate) told you that you were beautiful, you’re going to act, feel and behave like someone who is beautiful.

The self-confidence that has its roots in childhood is like the tap-root of an old, established tree, which in time, has grown down to the water table. Such a tree will not be adversely affected by the summer’s heat or prolonged drought or the other storms of life. Self-confidence that’s nurtured and developed in the early years is a powerful, enduring quality that lives on, completely independent of the mean-spirited opinion of others.

If I were queen of the world (and it shouldn’t be long now), I’d tell all the fathers of the world this one thing: “You possess the ability to make your daughter - your little girl - feel good and confident about herself and you wield a powerful influence over her ability to attract a desirable partner. Further, the man that she selects as her life partner - good, bad or horrific - will be determined largely by your words and actions. You’re teaching her what kind of man she should select, accept, or settle for. You have the potential to make her adult life perfectly lovely or unspeakably hellish. Open your eyes and your heart before you open your mouth and think about the far-reaching implications of your word choices.”

I have met many women whom the world might define as “less than beautiful” and yet they possess the surety and self-esteem of a beauty-queen. After talking with them, I invariably learn that they had a father (or father-figure) who conscientiously made an effort to develop and grow their sense of self-worth. Conversely, I’ve met women who were drop-dead gorgeous and yet they imagined themselves to be quite unattractive. Those women often had a sad story to tell about a father who degraded them or belittled them and/or called them ugly names.

If throughout childhood, you were frequently surrounded by a cloud of negative, ugly comments about your physicality, that’s very hard to overcome in adult life.

In The Beauty Myth, Naomi Wolf writes that women’s magazines make their money by selling women on the idea that they’re suffering from a disease of “terminal ugliness,” and that this opens the to sell billions of dollars of “cures.”

Too many women already believe that they’re afflicted with this “disease.” The painful throes and agonized wails imposed by this disease can be heard in the ladies’ dressing room of any clothing store in America. Next time you try on a blouse or a dress, stop for a moment and listen to the cacophony of criticism that women unleash on themselves as they’re squeezing into clothes in adjoining stalls. Their self-inflicted vitriol and disparagement will make your blood run cold.

“I’m such a fat pig,” they snarl out loud at their mirrored image, or “If I don’t lose 20 pounds, I swear I’m gonna kill myself.”

In a perfect world, all girls would grow up hearing and eventually believing that they are little princesses. Throughout their formative years, their self-confidence would be tenderly cultivated and nurtured and developed. However, none of us live in a perfect world and most of us don’t have that deep taproot of self-worth. And that’s the reason for The Bootstrap Theory.

It’s also named the Eleanor Roosevelt No-one-can-make-you-feel-ugly-without-your-consent Theory. (You can see why it’s easier to call this The Bootstrap Theory.)

So your father was a louse and your uncles weren’t much better and no one ever told you that you were a little princess. The Bootstrap Theory states that if a woman lacks self-esteem, she should go right to work on this particular short-coming and pull herself up by her own bootstraps.  This theory holds that improving one’s sense of self-worth is entirely an inside job and something that you must do for yourself and by yourself. According to this theory, there are a myriad of ways to raise self-esteem, such as affirmations or meditation, or perhaps accomplishment and success, or achieving long-awaited goals.

As Eleanor Roosevelt once said, “No one can make you feel inferior without your consent.”

This notion is expressed in different ways, such as “No one is going to love you until you’re able to love yourself.” Or its derivative, “You’ve got to be the first one who sees your own beauty. Then, and only then, will the world be able to see it.”

There are some elements of truth to The Bootstrap Theory but it also has many, many flaws. No woman is an island. We are swayed by the opinions of others and that’s especially true in those places where we’re already feeling unsure and insecure.

Fortunately one of my heroes, Virginia Woolf, agrees with me on this one. In a Room of One’s Own (originally an address given to college students), she writes, “Moreover, it is all very well for you, who have got yourselves to college and enjoy sitting rooms of your own to say that genius should disregard such opinions, that genius should be above caring what is said of it. Unfortunately, it is precisely the men and women of genius who mind most what is said of them…Literature is strewn with the wreckage of men who have minded beyond reason the opinions of others.”

The “opinion of others” is tough enough, but the opinions of our so-called loved ones cut especially close to the heart. In the secret sanctuary of our soul, we assign each person a value and a cherished place in our world. Their words - directly proportionate to their assigned value - wield ever more power. For a sensitive soul, it’s tough enough to shake off the criticism from an ignorant stranger, but dismissing the sharply worded critique of a loved one is darned near impossible.

Recently, I drove to Cape Charles to photograph some of the kit homes there. First off, let me say that I *LOVE* that community and if anyone would like to bequeath The Sears Lady (that’s me) a piece of property in Cape Charles, that’d be just dandy. It really is a beautiful place and I’m surprised it did not make Forbes’ “Best Places to Live” list.

Really and truly.

I’ll be expanding this post as the days go by (these picture-heavy posts take time), but here’s a few very interesting homes I found on the main drag into Cape Charles.

To read more about Sears Homes, click here:

The Aladdin Sheffield was a very popular house for Aladdin.

Here's an Aladdin Sheffield in Cape Charles, Virginia (on the Eastern Shore)

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This was one of Sears' biggest and nicest homes.

Right down the street from the Sheffield (see above) is the Sears Glenn Falls. Although it's partly obscured by the trees, you can see the familiar lines of the Glenn Falls.

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The Pheonix is one of Sears' most unusual kit homes. Interesting design and lots of fun details.

Sears Pheonix - in the flesh - in Cape Charles, Virginia

Side view of the Pheonix

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Sears Somerset

The porch has been altered, but I'd be willing to be money that this is indeed a Sears Somerset.

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Sears Walton

This "Walton" is one of two, side by side, in Cape Charles, Virginia

When I hear about the millions of gallons of oil spewing from the Deepwater Horizon Oil Rig, I wince (as do most Americans, I’m sure). When I hear that this enormous flood of oil is headed for America’s shorelines, it makes me want to cry.

Several times in the last six years, I’ve toddled down to Corolla, North Carolina in the off-season to spend a few days at the seashore. It’s quiet, serene and too beautiful for words (hence, the photos below!).

My dear friend Margee allows me to stay in her beautiful summer place in Corolla, soaking in the magical ambiance of a brightly decorated and airy vacation home and taking in the delightful aroma of those salty sea breezes.

I’ve done some of my very best writing by the seaside. In fact two of my books (including The Ugly Woman’s Guide to Internet Dating) were composed (in part) by the sea.  My muse is nature, and there are few things as inspiring as the quiet, beautiful beaches of North Carolina’s outer banks. I hope and pray that America’s shining seas and beautiful seashores survive BP’s horrific oil spills.

Dawn at the beach in Corolla

Another view of sunrise at Corolla's beach

Today I was in court, watching my 70th first date do his thing. It was really only a hearing, but it went on for three hours and it was quite interesting. Mr. 70th First Date (aka my husband) is a lawyer and today, after many days of preparation, was his day in court.

He objected to several things that were said by the adversarial counsel, and that was my favorite part of the experience. He sounded so authoritative and competent and well-versed in the law, and it was fun to watch him jump up out of his chair and say, “I object.”

Just like Perry Mason.

He was all dressed up in his “going to court” clothes, which also happens to be the black suit he wore to our wedding 3.5 years ago. Standing before the judge looking all lawyerly and smart, my mind drifted a bit and I thought about all those guys I dated through the years and all those guys that ditched me through the years.

Thank heavens they ditched me. I was a lost soul after my divorce and didn’t have the emotional wherewithal to see that I deserved better than those not-so-nice guys that I was drawn to. Took me five years, but my self-esteem eventually became healthy again.

There are some days - like today - that I still wonder how I scored such a smart, honest, interesting and well-educated guy.  (And there are some days that I wonder why on earth I married someone who is so tough to live with!) But today was one of the good days. It was a lot of fun to watch him at work and watch him perform under pressure.

And he looks so darn cute in that black suit.

This ad from the 1926 Ladies Home Journal was interesting (as they all are) but also had a surprise. Look at this graphic below.  The “economy rules” line in the advertisement makes sense, but “The Little Red Schoolhouse of Retailing”?

To my further shock, a google search for the term “Little Red Schoolhouse of Retailing” turns up zero results.

I’d love to know what that’s about. From my 21st Century perspective, I’d say that A&P was striving to be the antithesis of Walmart.

Interesting advertisement from a 1926 Ladies' Home Journal

Larger view of the same advertisment

It was Christmas Eve night 2001 when Mom and I said our goodbyes. Our family (my husband and our three daughters) had come to town to visit her for the holidays. Standing at her back door the night before Christmas, we made plans for Christmas morning, and then Mom and I said our good-byes.

She threw her arms around me, pressed her soft cheek against mine and held me tight as we swayed left and right. She unclasped her arms and grabbed my upper arms and pushed me back a little bit and looked into my eyes. She put her hands up on either side of my face and said, “My beautiful, beautiful daughter. I love you.”

She hugged me again and said, “I love you, I love you, I love you.” I responded in kind. That was the last visit I had with my mother. As good-byes go, it was the best.

It was my expectation that she’d live far beyond January 2002. She was so healthy and strong. I had no inkling or idea that Christmas Even 2001 would be our last goodbye. This was an impossibly hard lesson to learn. Sometimes, people go to bed at night and leave for heaven in their sleep. Sometimes, there are no second chances to ask one more question. Sometimes, the last words you may ever hear someone say are, “Shut the door fast and don’t let the squirrels get in the house.”

It’s been eight years today and I still miss her so very much.

My mother with three of her granddaughters (about 1986)

Mom with her new granddaughter in Summer 1987

Merry Christmas from Teddy the Dog!

Teddy has been with us for one year now, and we’ve hit a few bumps along the way, but she’s turned out to be a delightful little dog. And at 30 pounds, she’s not so little anymore. She’s a very sweet and polite dog, and even tolerant of being asked to sit in a little red wagon for a Christmas photo.

Speaking of good gifts, check out this one.

Teddy the Dog hopes you have a good Christmas

When people hear that I’ve had 70 first dates, their reactions are varied and usually interesting. The married women cozy up to me and in a tone that can only be described as slightly voyeuristic, they whisper, “What was it like to have so many dates?” The married men snort out a laugh and say things like, “You must have been a busy girl.”

The single women adopt a serious tone and look deep into my eyes and say, “Which dating site would you recommend?”

Between Eharmony and Match.com, I much preferred Match.com and that is where I met my last first date.  I like Match because you’re in the driver’s seat and that’s appealing to us proactive types. At Eharmony, I met several so-called “Christian” men who had the morals of an alley cat. Not impressive.

I wasn’t looking for a fling and I didn’t want to spend the rest of my life dating men (or even one man). I was looking for a man who shared my interests and shared my morals and shared my ideas about life in general. I wanted a man who wanted a life-long romantic partner.

From 2003 - 2005, I was a semi-regular, somewhat faithful subscriber at eHarmony. That’s where I met the semi-retired hand-surgeon (and self-professed “good Christian”) who took me for a ride on his sailboat, and invested a lot of time and effort in convincing me that he was wonderful and then dropped me lot a hot rock. That’s also where I met the other “good Christian” (my 32nd date), who told me that I wasn’t pretty enough for him, but asked if we could just get together and have hot sex from time to time. He earned himself his own chapter, which I titled, “Good Christian Man Seeks Good Christian Woman for Friday Night Booty Call.”

For about 90 days, a male friend keep me apprised of his matches at eHarmony.com. During that time, I also kept track of my matches at this website. A week-by-week comparison consistently showed that he was getting eight-to-ten times more matches than I was. In other words, there were eight to ten times more women than men at eHarmony.com.

I did not fare well at eHarmony.  During one 90-subscription period, I received 11 matches and way too many of them “closed communications” before I could even shoot them a quick note. My male friend received more than 100 matches during this same time period.  I asked my friend why these guys were “closing” communications before we’d even “met” and he said, “I’m inundated and overwhelmed with ‘matches’ and I don’t have time to investigate all of them. I just pick the best looking in the bunch.”

There’s a lot wrong with that sentence, but that’s another blog for another day. Suffice it to say, there are a lot of fishies in the Match.com stream. That’s a big plus. And Match.com introduced me to my favorite fishie.

Next:  How to read between the lines when reading men’s profiles.

Want to read about something different? How about an article on how the germ theory changed American architecture - almost overnight!

Buy an autographed copy of Rose’s newest book here.

Match.com worked for me!

In 2002, when my long-term marriage ended, I sat down and wrote my four-page mission statement detailing what I wanted in a man. That mission statement said nothing about finding a man who bore a strong resemblance to Santa Claus.

In my previous life (like so many good wives and mothers) I’d spent 20 years “playing” Santa and doing Christmas for others. It was a wife’s job to handle all the organizational details for Christmas. I was the one who ran myself ragged buying things and making things and cooking things. One year, I spent countless hours writing and editing a 130-page memoir, a typewritten manuscript for the kids, filled with memories of their growing up years.

In short, Christmas was a fantastic amount of work. The ex didn’t believe in giving Christmas presents beyond a token gift. I gave a lot and got a little. And so it went for many years. I looked to my left and right and saw many other wives and mothers in the same boat as I was. A woman’s lot in life, I’d decided.

And then, when I was 47 years old, I met my 7oth first date. And then we were engaged. And then came Christmas. I was touched to my core with the number of gifts I received from him. And they were all delightful surprises and thoughtful gifts and beautiful things.

But wait, there was more.

He did the Christmas errands, too. He fetched the tree. He decorated the tree. He purchased fresh wreaths for the house and fancy bows for presents. He handled Christmas cards and bought holiday stamps. It was an amazing thing to behold.

“It makes me very happy to be able to enjoy the holidays with a woman who loves me,” he said when I expressed awe at the gifts and the work and the errand-running. “And this is our first Christmas together. I wanted it to be special.”

Turns out, my 70th first date didn’t just look like Santa. He has St. Nick’s warm heart and generous spirit, too.

The fake St. Nick gazes up at the real Santa with a measure of reverential awe and envy

In one of my favorite movies, Fried Green Tomatoes, there’s a scene where the young woman dies and her attendant immediately arises and covers a large mirror and then stops a nearby clock. I’d always been fascinated by this old tradition/ritual and wondered about its meaning. I assumed that these practices must have a reason , but I had no idea what that reason might be.

And then I happened to talk to an old friend who explained the reasons for these “odd” traditions.

Let me tell you about my old friend. Her name is Joyce and she’s in her late 70s now, but was raised in the backwoods Georgia of the 1930s. Translated: It was a land and a time more reminiscent of Victorian America. When Joyce was growing up, she had a little sister named Louise that died at the age of three from whooping cough. Joyce remembers “Granny” rocking the child through the night and praying for her, hoping against hope that the little girl would pull through. It wasn’t to be.

Sometime in the wee hours, the little girl looked up at Granny, smiled broadly and passed on quietly. Later that morning, someone in the family went outside and rang the large bell in the front yard.

“It was almost like morse code,” Joyce said. “The bell was tolled a certain number of times for different things. When Louise died, they rang the bell a certain number of times and everyone knew what it meant. Almost immediately, people started coming to the house to help.”

Joyce said they sent the little girl’s body to the mortician who embalmed it and returned the body to the family, for the wake at home. In preparation for the wake, the mortician brought heavy, deep red draperies into the front room of the old house and hung them over the windows, blocking out all sunlight.

“I’m not sure why they put up those drapes,” she said. “Maybe it was to give a solemnity to the wake.”

During the two days of the wake, the little girl’s beloved dog sat dutifully beside the coffin and emitted a mournful wail. The mourners commented on that lamentable howling, and it left them all with a chill. After the wake, the coffin was moved to the church where a service was held. The child’s body was buried in the church cemetery.

The dog followed the family to the cemetery. Some time later, the dog’s body was found along the road. It appeared that the little girl’s pet had literally laid down and died.

My friend Joyce knows a lot about the old ways and about these old rituals.

When one of her elderly aunts lay dying, a family member sat quietly by the bedside. When the old woman breathed her last, the family member arose and draped a heavy cloth over the mirror and opened the clock’s glass face and stopped the clock.

“I saw someone do that in a movie,” I told Joyce. “What’s that about?”

“The cloth over the mirror is for the protection of the departed,” she said. “It’s believed that the spirits of our loved ones may glance into a mirror and become frightened when they see no one looking back.”

That had a resonance of truth, as I’d heard stories about people with near-death experiences saying they couldn’t see any reflection when they looked in a mirror. Wonder how they knew about that back in the 1930s?

“And the clock was stopped for a much more practical reason,” she said. “The clock was stopped so that the mortician would know the time of death.”

There was also a requirement - never to be breached - that a loved one sit with the body until burial. I’d imagine this was a throwback to olden days before medical equipment when the dead occasionally came back to life (much to the surprise of the watcher).

It was all fascinating.

As Tevye sings in Fiddler on the Roof, “because of our traditions, we’ve kept our balance for many years.”

Traditions should be remembered and honored, because oftimes, they were created for very practical reasons.

Note at the bottom of this old tombstone, the macabre reminder, "Reader, you must die." Photo is courtesy of Crystal Thornton, copyright 2009, Crystal Thornton.

A gorgeous 25-year-old woman named America Ferrera plays “Betty Suarez” on the popular ABC sitcom “Ugly Betty.”  The Hollywood-inflicted “uglying” of this Hispanic beauty is a paper-thin veneer, and really does little to hide Miss Ferrera’s natural good looks. It’s not hard to look beyond the extra-bushy eyebrows, gray-metal braces, uncoiffed hair and unattractive glass frames, and see that Ms. Ferrera is quite beautiful.

In addition to her lovely facial features, Ms. Ferrara has a well toned, shapely, feminine form. Slap on some braces and stir up the extra-bushy eyebrows and voila, you’ve got instant ugly? If that’s the case, there’s little hope for the rest of us.

If “Ugly Betty” is the measure of an ugly woman, we’re all in trouble deep. We “average women” are in trouble. Mainstream media is constantly force-feeding us the crazy notion that we have to be beautiful to be worthy, or even worse, to be loved.

In the powerful book, Flesh Wounds author Virginia L. Blum talks about an interview she had with a famous plastic surgeon. He told her,

The way you look has a lot to do with whether you’re going to attract somebody else. Let’s be pragmatic about the fact that if a woman cease to be attractive physically, it affects the physical, intimate relationship. I’ve seen women who have not had particularly good relationships or haven’t had a relationship with men for a long time and I make them look younger and prettier and they go on to get married and have wonderful, stable relationships. There’s absolutely no question that the face-lift helped them. We live in a real physical world (p. 127).

Ms. Blum responds to this with her own insights:

[The plastic surgeon] spoke with such authority. Yoked to his honesty is a kind of fiction about the transformative possibilities of plastic surgery. You can change her life. You can make her someone whom someone else would be willing to love. More to the point, if she isn’t succeeding on the dating/marriage market, it must be because she’s not attractive enough. That’s the most unsettling part of his account, isn’t it?

The self-evident undesirability of the woman who isn’t young and pretty. Young and pretty. You can’t have pretty without the young. As a feminist, I am indignant. Outraged (Flesh Wounds: The Culture of Cosmetic Surgery, Virginia L. Blum, p. 127).

Like Ms. Blum, I also feel indignant and outraged. And Ugly Betty may be an award-winning sitcom, but the problem with it is, it perpetuates the tiresome message that’s been drilled into women’s heads for decades now. Ugly is a problem. Fix ugly with money. Spend money. Get pretty and then you’ll get love, because then you’ll be worthy of love.

In other words, money buys love.

In The Beauty Myth, Naomi Wolf writes that women’s magazines make their money by selling women on the idea that they’re suffering from a disease of “terminal ugliness,” and that this opens the to sell billions of dollars of “cures.”

And that seems to be the subtle message of Ugly Betty. We “less-than-beautiful” women need to spend a little more money on better glasses and better haircuts and invisible braces and electrolysis and then - only then - will the burdensome mantle of “ugly” be lifted off our shoulders and our true beauty will be revealed. And then, maybe then, we’ll find true love.

We just need to spend a little more money to be cured of that horrible disease of “terminal ugliness.”

I live for that happy day when I turn on the evening news and find that the male news anchors are young, svelte, well-coiffed and gorgeous, and the women news anchors are pudgy, untanned, hairless and unkempt. That’ll be my proof that the age of enlightenment has begun.

The older I get, the more I yearn to know something of our family history. My timing for all this  has turned out to be rather poor. My mother and her siblings passed on years ago. My father is still around, but his long-term memory is not. We recently looked at an old picture album together and I remembered more than he did about relatives I’d never met. After I was born in 1959, I became extremely ill and required a three-week hospitalization. My elderly father had no memory of any of this.

After my Aunt Engie passed away a few years ago, I went through an old shoe box I found buried in her closet and found several photographs from the 1920s and 30s. Sadly, there was no information scribbled on the back of the black and white snapshots. Now I can only make educated guesses as to who these people were.

During the years my children were growing up, I faithfully maintained photo albums, replete with names and dates and places. These many years later, those photo albums are the source of much joy. My oldest daughter Crystal told me recently, “If the house catches fire, and you can only save one thing, save the photo albums first! Everything else can be replaced!”

But what to do with all these early 20th Century photos that I found stuffed in a shoe box? These were my ancestors - I think. These were people my mother and her sister loved - I think.

Back in the day, photographs required an investment of time, effort and money. Photos were reserved for important days and special events. Who were these people? And what were the stories? All I know is that these pictures were taken in Rockford, Illinois (early 20s) and then sometime in 1925 or 1926, my grandfather (Edward Brown) moved his children to Alameda, California.

I wish I knew more.

The only person I recognize in this photo is my late mother (center on bottom row).

This is a photo of my mother (youngest girl) with her sister (Engie) and older brother Harry.

This is probably a picture of my maternal grandmother with her first son, Harry. It was probably taken in early 1910s.

Mom (the younger girl) and Aunt Engie with unknown person, perhaps a nanny?

Unknown person at unknown house in unknown place (house is late 1910s or early 20s)

I believe this is my Uncle Harry with his father (my maternal grandfather).

When reading men’s profiles, you need to learn to read between the lines. It’s a lot like looking at the real estate ads in the Sunday paper. The advertisement might read, “Cozy cottage in the woods that needs a little TLC,” but you understand immediately that it’s actually a hunter’s shack with a dirt floor and a privy out back.

Salesmen often engage in a little puffery when promoting their product and nowhere is that more evident than when we’re selling ourselves to a romantic partner.

In that spirit, here are some of the phrases you’ll often find in men’s profiles. Following each phrase is its honest interpretation.

I prefer slender women. I don’t care if you’ve had a frontal lobotomy and drool out both corners of your mouth, as long as my drinking buddies get jealous when they see us together.

Hey, I’m a guy. Looks matter. You’ll be replaced as soon as the new sleek models hit the street.

I prefer women with a little meat on their bones. I weigh 1200 pounds and haven’t left my bedroom in seven years.

I’ve lived alone for a time but now I’m ready to share my life with someone special. I don’t know how to change the bag in the vacuum cleaner.

I’m financially secure. I just made the final payment on the Yugo.

My home is spacious and beautiful but so very empty. If you’ll come live with me, I’ll give you money.

I’m recently widowed. I haven’t found the pots and pans yet.

Intelligent, powerful women are a real turn-on. At least one of us should have a real job.

I don’t have a subscription on this site, so please include your email address when you write to me. For our first date, I was hoping you’d meet me at the Quickie Mart, pump number seven.

I feel strongly that women should be treated as equals.  Be sure to bring your wallet on our first date because you’re paying for your dinner.

Looking for a woman who is down to earth and practical. And willing to live off the grid in an isolated mountaintop cabin in the pacific northwest.

Looking for someone who wants to spoil her man. I wouldn’t be at this site if I could teach the dog how to open the fridge and fetch me a cold one.

I have been to college but I didn’t get my degree. One time, I made out with a girl in the parking lot at the local community college.

I’ve had an interesting and varied life experience. They let me out for good behavior after serving only six years and four months.

Looking for a real woman. My inflatable doll sprang a leak.

I’d like to have a partner so that we can work toward common goals. Behind every successful man is an exhausted woman and I’d like you to be my exhausted woman.

My children are my first priority. You’ll fall somewhere between the dog and my favorite remote control.

I’m new to this country. And desperately in need of a green card.

I’m currently separated. And looking around to see if I can find someone better before I give this one up.

My home needs a woman’s touch. The maggot eggs in the kitchen will be hatching soon if someone doesn’t get in there and do some cleaning.

I’m just a regular guy who needs some loving. And I’m sick and tired of paying for it.

Next: Read Rose’s “Little Princess Theory of Beauty” here.

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Today is Pearl Harbor Day. I can’t help but wonder how many people alive today know the full import of this day. For my parent’s generation, it was their September 11th. More than 2,300 Americans died in the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor and about 1200 were injured. After Pearl Harbor, recruiter’s offices were full with patriotic young men (and women) signing up to serve in the armed forces.

My mother was one of them. She enlisted in the WAVES.

“When we enlisted, we signed up for the duration plus six months,” she told me. “We didn’t know how or when or even if the war would end. Hitler looked unstoppable. There was talk that the war could go on for years and years. The media called us ‘the lost generation.’ We were an entire generation that missed the years of our youth. That time of our life was lost to those war years.”

Her true love - the young man she’d spent months getting to know and love - also joined the Navy. About a year into the war, his boat was hit by a German torpedo and he suffered severe injuries and required extensive physical rehabilitation. When he came home from the war, he told my mother that he was now only “half a man” and according to my mother, he said that she deserved better and that she should forget about him and find someone else.

When she was in her late 70s, she finally told me this story. And that was only because I found a well-hidden 1930s photo of my mother and this fellow. When I showed this photo to my mom and started asking a few questions, she finally told me the whole story.  When she looked at the snapshot, tears came to her eyes, followed by a soft smile. When she spoke up and started talking, she described him as “the love of my life.”

That’s one couple, and one story. And two lives changed forever by the war. And one of millions of stories, I’m sure.

Click here to read more.

Pearl Harbor

During the time I was dating my (now) husband, I had lunch with two women friends, and one of them (who’d never met Mr. Fiance)  asked if I had a picture of the new man in my life. I whipped out my cell phone and showed her a picture on its diminutive screen. In fact, I showed her this picture:

The one in the glasses is mine (1961)

A few days earlier, I’d used my cell phone’s camera feature to take a picture of this old photo, prominently displayed in my fiance’s home.

Once my friend focused on the tiny screen, she laughed out loud and said, “Is he the one in the glasses?”

To which I replied, “Yes, that’s him.”

My other woman friend glanced over and saw the photo. In a very serious tone she said, “Keep in mind, he’s much older now.”

Read more about Rose here.

Wayne all growed up

The time really does go by so quickly. It seems like a couple years ago that my youngest daughter Corey (now 22 years old) was just a baby. When she was little, my dear Mom would drop by our little house on Arizona Street in Portsmouth, just long enough to hug me and hug the baby and drop off a little gift. Sometimes it was a potted mum or sometimes it was a box of Little Debbie’s or sometimes it was a $20 bill to buy ourselves a little treat.

She’d look at my babies and say, “I know this is hard to believe, but this chapter of your life will be over before you know it. In no time at all, they’re grown and gone and what remains are the memories. I know this feels like an intense time of life, but enjoy it. Relish the moments because you’ll have the rest of your life to reflect on and remember these happy days.”

My mother was very wise.

On Thanksgiving Day, my husband and I sat quietly with each other in our spacious dining room and enjoyed our freshly-cooked turkey and home-made stuffing and yams and pumpkin pie. I’m sure we were both thinking about our children. I’ve had a couple Thanksgivings utterly alone and I can tell you, it’s 5000% better to have someone with whom to share a holiday and yet, your thoughts return to those days when there were little kids running around the house making their happy noises.

Corey - about seven months old in this photo

From 2002 - 2006, I had 70 first dates. And I learned a lot about men during this experience. And based on what I’ve observed amongst the current crop of single men, I believe that for many of them, this is their first incarnation on two legs.

If you want your own examples of this swinish behavior, log on to an internet dating site and scan a few male profiles. Just do a search using the keyword, “fat” or “overweight.” Another fun word is “chemistry.” (And if you want to see how unoriginal most men are, look up “Prince Charming.”) Or if you really want to see the ugly side of single men, do a keyword search of “bitch.” (Men freely use that word to describe any woman who does not conform to their twisted notions of Dream Woman.)

“Sorry, but physical appearance is important,” writes a 40-something man in the space where he describes his ideal mate.

Another man writes, “If you are overweight or obese, please don’t waste my time” or worse, “If you are grossly overweight, please get some help.”  And then there’s the kinder, gentler version, “I am only attracted to slender women.”

The part that is almost funny about this is the men’s profile picture. Many of the guys that are making the most outrageous demands for their life partner have serious weight problems of their own. And yet, despite their own glaring inadequacies and defects (and bloated bellies), they have a very perverted and distorted sense of entitlement.

Hollywood fuels the fire. From Beauty and the Beast to Hitch, it is always about the pathetic loser man hooking up with gorgeous, perfectly-shaped, well-endowed and legs-to-die-for babe. How many movies offer the contrary theme, of an ugly woman scoring the gorgeous guy? None that I can think of. The only good thing that happens to ugly women in movies is that sometimes, they’re portrayed as powerful women. But somewhere in that 90-minute flick, those powerful ugly women are stripped of their independence and strength and left in a lamentable state; powerless, beauty-less and usually, alone and lonely.

In the popular book, He’s Just Not That Into You, the co-authors suggest that perhaps some of the onus is on women and that we should expect more from men and stop putting up with pig-like behavior from the less-fair sex. In their concluding comments, they suggest that men might be forced into better behavior if women started demanding it.

Sounds good in theory, but I’m not sure I agree with this in practice. Women are already assigned with too much responsibility for men and their recalcitrant ways. We’re already overwhelmed and overloaded with the busy-ness of trying to stay “attractive” for men and grow our careers and shrink our bodies and make healthy life-style choices and make sure that our children don’t end up on a psychiatrist’s couch before the age of 15 because their single mother screwed them up for life. Let’s not heap “101 ways to subtly improve the bad behavior of the male species” on women’s plates, too. We’re all busy enough with our own lives. Why should we busy ourselves with the improvement of men, too?

To read more of Rose’s new book, click here.

The Velveteen Rabbit is a children’s book that tells the story of a little plush toy that dreams about becoming “real.” The real hero of this story is the old Skin Horse, who’d lived in the nursery longer than any of the other animals. He was the resident old soul and he was wise and kind and knew much about life and love and truth. The Velveteen Rabbit longed to become real and it was the wizened old Skin Horse that had the answers.

The Skin Horse told Rabbit, “Generally, by the time you are Real, most of your hair has been loved off, and your eyes drop out and you get loose in the joints and very shabby. But these things don’t matter at all, because once you are Real you can’t be ugly, except to people who don’t understand.”

Beauty - true beauty - is about being real. It’s about becoming the real person that our Creator intended us to be. It’s just as Margery Williams said in The Velveteen Rabbit. “Real isn’t how you are made,” the skin horse told the Velveteen Rabbit in this meaningful story. Rather, “it’s a thing that happens to you” (when you are loved).

Conversely physical beauty - that beauty which is skin-deep - is about conformity.

“Beauty is in the Eye of the Beholder,” was a Twilight Zone episode that told the story of Janet Tyler, a grotesquely ugly woman. Checking into the hospital for her 11^th and final plastic surgery, she desperately hoped this surgery would be successful. All prior surgeries had failed and in this modernistic society, there was a mandate to conform. Ugliness (as defined by their government) was a failure to conform and a criminal offense.

Down the hallway from Janet’s room, we hear Dear Leader giving a speech about “glorious conformity,” broadcast into the hospital waiting rooms via a large television set. The Hitler-esque voice booms with ominous messages about the importance of conformity. Differences, he tells the masses, are dangerous and will weaken their culture. Conformity is essential to their very survival.

A few days after the woman’s surgery, the medical staff slowly removes the bandages and we see the young woman’s face for the first time. She is a real beauty, a blonde bombshell, perfect in every way.

The doctors and staff gasp in horror. The operation was a failure - again. The camera pulls back and we can now see their faces. They’re hideous-looking creatures, with swinish faces and long snouts, oversized mouths and deep creases. They are the beautiful people in this alternate reality.

Next, Janet is sent away to a special village, where people like her go to live out their lives. A handsome man escorts her out of the hospital with a promise that she’ll now know how it feels to belong, and to be loved. (Originally airing on November 11, 1962, this episode was very well written and absolutely haunting.)

The “glorious conformity” of skin-deep beauty is a moving target and its standards are forever changing, following the lead of the rich and famous, and their copious leisure time. In earlier times, the beautiful people were fair-skinned, un-tanned, pleasingly plump and soft. Most “working women” of that same period toiled in the fields for hours every day, developing muscle mass, dark tans and calloused hands. When women went to work in windowless cubicles, stuck behind a desk for eight hours each day, the beautiful people became the ones with deep tans, hard bodies and sleek figures. Beauty follows wealth and leisure.

True beauty - authenticity - is not about the world’s standards but about rediscovering that kingdom of heaven that is within you. It’s not a moving target, but a changeless standard with its roots in the divine.

The above is from Rose’s book, The Ugly Woman’s Guide to Internet Dating. To read the rest, click here: