How flattering to randomly out of nowhere to be named one of UK Channel 4’s 4 Beauty Best Health Blogs! Below is the little blurby they wrote about Formerly Hot, but please click here to see the other sites that were mentioned–some really good ones. Oy. There goes another afternoon I coulda shoulda woulda been working. But hey!

For age defiers

Formerly Hot (opens in a new window)
American writer and pundit Stephanie Dolgoff’s blog is a hilarious commentary on how society sees you as old – just because you’re not 21. It’s also a poignant reflection on ageing, and she sensitively observes everything from her body, her looks, the way she acts and the way people act towards her. Fascinating and insightful.

A little piece I did for HuffPo…

Stephanie Dolgoff

My husband and I have split up, and although it was my decision to leave and it remains the right one, it sucks. We were married almost 10 years and have two daughters, so it was a hideous outcome to arrive at after trying so hard not to. Divorce was the less sucky of the two sucky options I saw before me, but that fact doesn’t mitigate the suckitude one iota.

That divorce is hard is not news. It’s like when people say marriage is hard. It’s obvious, a tremendous understatement, and yet when it comes out of someone’s mouth, everyone clucks and nods in empathy and truly seems to know exactly what the speaker means, even though they were told nothing. It’s so outrageously, undeniably true and universal that it requires no explanation, no elaboration, for people to instantly relate and silently run their minds over their current apparently intractable struggle. When you’re going through a life changing personal matter that you’d rather not discuss, lazy, somewhat cliched distillations like that can come in mighty handy. “Divorce is hard” is my go-to summary when well-meaning people ask me how things are going and I sense that they don’t want more than a fleeting peek into my emotional life.

READ THE REST AT HUFFINGTONPOST.COM

From Deadline Hollywood, the announcement that ABC is, in fact, hopefully developing MFHL into a sitcom. There was also a blurb in the Hollywood Reporter. “In development” means, well, folks are psyched on it and maybe there will be a pilot to look at. Fingers crossed, but very, very cool! The husband-and-wife writing team who are cranking away, Jon Hoberg and Kat Likkel, and the director set to work on it, Julie Anne Robinson, so thoroughly get the poignant plight of the Formerly that I feel confident that we’ll be well represented.

So I need a favor.

When I was undergoing IVF, some 9 years ago, I pulled out all the stops to make sure those hard-won embryo blobs stayed up in my uterus where they had been so carefully placed by a team of reproductive medical professionals, implanted, and grew to be the sweet, funny, eye-rolling and Wii obsessed little girls who are right now sleeping on IKEA beds in the next room.

I took drugs, I got acupuncture, I had giant syringes of syrup-like progesterone shot in the muscle of my ass and “faced the fear in my uterus” with the help of a New Age practitioner. I also enlisted everyone I knew to pray for me, even though I am an atheist, because I read a study about devout Christians in Australia and North America praying for women undergoing IVF in Korea doubling their success rates. I have no idea what worked for me, but something sure did.

Just in case it was the prayer, do me the favor of sending some positive thoughts to whomever you pray about My Formerly Hot Life going to pilot. I’m not asking for twins–just one good go at this thing.

My Formerly Hot Life has been out since August, so when stuff like this pops up, it makes me smile and reminds me people are actually reading the thing…very cool.

Hi, kids,

Folks have been asking me for book group questions, so I thought I’d toss out a few. If you have good ones that I’m missing, please comment below.

Also, a reminder that I’m happy to Skype into book groups of 6 or more who are reading My Formerly Hot Life and lead the discussion.

1. Have you had a “Formerly” moment? What was the moment you realized that you were no longer exactly young?

2. What are some of the things that you were but are no longer? How many are true losses, and which are you glad to have left behind?

3. What are some of the things you’ve gained over time that you wouldn’t trade?

4. Do you feel a pressure to “embrace your age” now that you’re on the other side of young? Is that a good thing? Or does that place just as much pressure on women as the whole “look/act younger” push?

5. What do you think of the whole “cougar” and MILF trend? Wonderful expression of female sexuality at any age or barfworthy marginalizing of “older” women to fuel some male Hollywood fantasy? Or something in between?

6. The term “Formerly” didn’t sit well with some people, who felt they weren’t “formerly” hot and that was an insult. Do you feel as hot as you used to? Hotter? Equally but differently hot? Has your definition of hot changed over time?

7. Would you swap places with your 20something self? Why or why not?

Lately I’ve been asked to personalize copies of My Formerly Hot Life for gifts people want to give their friends for the holidays, and of course unless you’re in NYC, it involves a lot of postage and hassle.

So I’m completely copying my friend Gretchen Rubin, who had a fantastic idea: personalized bookplates. Just shoot me an email with all the info–who you are giving the book to, and anything else you’d want me to say–and I’ll send you an autographed, personalized bookplate (or as many as you need) and you can stick it right in yourself. stephanie at stephaniedolgoff dot com.

Have a great holiday!

I’m going to be on Chit Chat radio tonight at 11, at which time I will be punchy tired and maybe a little drunk from dinner with visiting friends–should be fun. I hope you listen. Click here to do so.

Hey, all,

The tireless woman who is organizing the silent auction for my girls’ woefully underfunded public school asked if I’d donate a signed copy of (my bestselling) book to help raise money, and of course I said yes. I also offered to come and lead a book group discussion if the book group was reading My Formerly Hot Life. It’ll fetch a few bucks for pencils and I know it helps me feel a little less guilty about contributing paper plates and milk rather than a gorgeous spinach pie or homemade dumplings to the Fall Family Celebration, like the other parents. (Those are two incredible moms from my kids’ school–like, bionic in their energies.)

ANYway, I’m happy to do a version of the same for your school auction. If you’ll provide a book or books, I’ll inscribe and will happily pop in to any book group via Skype or in person if you’re nearby. I’m also glad to write up the blurb for the catalog, including all the hubbub surrounding the book and everything else. Just shoot me an email (stephanie at stephaniedolgoff dot com) and we’ll set it up.

Hi, kids,

Stop by Peoria Emporium December 4th between 2 and 5, where I’ll be reading and signing books and drinking any of the wine that is left after the mobs swoop through. Seriously, it’ll be a fun time–things degenerate pretty quickly into all of us just hanging out and laughing. Bring friends!

25 East 20th between Park and Broadway in NYC! It’s a really neat shop/art installation. Who knows? You might knock off all your holiday shopping in one day.

I hope to see you there. (That picture has nothing to do with anything so don’t bother trying to figure it out. It’s from this guy’s cool blog. Can you believe he made that costume?)

Steph!

On the particular crappy spot women our age find ourselves in, vis-a-vis body image. As opposed to the crappy spot women of any age are in vis-a-vis body image. Sigh.

On the upside, I would say the women I speak to about this devote but an eensy fraction of the time they used to thinking about what their bodies looks like. Oftentimes I come to the conclusion that it’s pretty rockin’, all things considered, and especially with the correct Lycra content in my jeans. Horrifying, of course, considering that clearly I, at least, still think about it a fair amount. Still, nowadays, I bang out my beef on this blog, hit “publish” and then get on with my life.  I’ll take that over being Miss Teen Bulimia 1983 any day.

Anyway, enjoy:

Of Two Minds, One Body
by Stephanie Dolgoff

Excerpted from My Formerly Hot Life: Dispatches from Just the Other Side of Young by Stephanie Dolgoff Copyright © 2010. Excerpted with permission by Ballantine Books.

Of Two Minds, One Body

As you might imagine, the realization I had in my late 30s–that I was no longer young–hardly made me want to go skipping through a wheat field, arms open wide and ready to embrace my future as an aging woman and all the joy and wisdom and reverence from society to which my new status entitled me.

Instead, coming to terms with the fact that I am in a new category of person, that of the not-young woman, was a herky-jerky, one-step-forward-two-steps-back trippy odyssey fraught with insecurity, hypocrisy (societal), hypocrisy (my own), contradictory messages and conflicting, shifting priorities. READ THE REST OF THE EXCERPT HERE.