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My former boss at Self, Lucy Danziger, just co-wrote a book, The Nine Rooms of Happiness, all about how to figure out, when you feel like crap, exactly why you feel like crap, and how to de-crapify your life.

Or at least change your feelings about your life, which is really all that counts, when you think about it. Most all happiness research uses measures of “subjective well-being” to gauge what is happy-making and what fails to deliver lasting joy. In other words, they ask folks what makes them happy, super jazzed, and off-the-hook ecstatic and for how long. Then they analyze the data and come up with truisms that the likes of Cyndi Lauper, George Michael, Bette Midler and countless others have been singing about for decades: Girls just wanna have fun, you gotta have faith and you gotta have friends. Oh, and for what it’s worth, money can’t buy you love, nor does it lead to lasting happiness.

Good reminders, all, and I appreciate when there’s solid research that confirms what we know or dispels conventional pop music wisdom. It’s just that I live in fear of the day that science figures out where on a woman’s body to attach electrodes to measure how “objectively” happy she is. After that, it’s only a matter of time before certain people are declared sub-optimally content, even if they were pretty sure they felt fine (they’ll call it SOC Syndrome), and market old drugs under new names to treat it. Pretty soon, the women who feel fine will start to feel sub-optimally fine and want the pill. There will not be a generic until it goes off patent…you know the drill.

In any case, I’m enjoying the book, and not just because I know and like the author and see lots of little interactions we had over the years in a new light. There are lots of dishy women’s stories about the little irksome negative things that vex us every day, along with some interesting insight as to how to untangle them.

Lucy’s nine rooms refer metaphorically to each of your emotional spaces–the bedroom, in which you sort through intimacy and romance issues; the bathroom, in which you deal with health, body image and aging, and so on. (That’s the last time I make fun of my husband for spending too much time in the can. Apparently I practically live in the bathroom.)

The idea is to make sure the stuff in one room stays where it belongs, so you don’t, say, spew old “basement” problems (like that your dad never thought you were good enough) in your actual or metaphorical office, where you deal with issues of success. You also want to work on keep your rooms as tidy as possible, so you don’t open the metaphorical cabinet door and get concussed by a metaphorical can of chick peas in your metaphorical kitchen.

Living as I do in a two-bedroom apartment with a husband, two six-year-olds,  every single one of the elaborate glittery arts and crafts projects they’ve ever made and an inexplicable surplus of chick peas, I can’t help thinking that nine rooms (plus one that’s all mine to do what I want in it) would make me happy in the literal sense. But according to the book, it probably wouldn’t. What’s more, nine actual rooms would be hard to keep clean, just as it can be hard to keep all nine of your metaphorical rooms clean.

But it’s a worthy pursuit, and if the rambling Victorian mansion imagery helps you organize your thinking about how you take care of yourself, the book has lots of interesting new ways of looking and old problems (the co-author is a psychiatrist who has a lovely, non-judgmental way of approaching things.)

What I liked most about the book was that while I understood many of the aggravations the women in their 20s and 30s discussed–the needy friends, the belief that the behaviors of those close to me reflect on me–having lived through them, I have far fewer of them than before I was a Formerly. Whether my rooms are cleaner than they were, or whether I’ve come to embrace a certain amount of messiness, I’m not sure.

One thing I do know is, now that I’m a Formerly, my life isn’t objectively better than it was when I was in my 20s and 30s. I just feel better about it. And, like I said, that’s all I care about.

Question for you: Is it more important to change your circumstances to improve your life, or to change your feeling about your life, as is, including all or most of its preexisting conditions? I’d love to hear from you.

You know when you sit and debate whether or not to do something of questionable appropriateness, knowing full well you’re going to do it, but you have that conversation with yourself to prove that in some small way you’re not a total asshole? And then you go and do it anyway, feeling marginally better about having contemplated not doing it?

I had just such a moment today, in the playground after my girls were done with their gymnastics class. It was the first not-sucky day of the year and they were darting around like fireflies that had finally been released from the jelly jars they’d been trapped in. I was spotting Vivian on some equipment when my husband said, “Isn’t that [                 ]?” citing a celebrity who I’d just been telling him would be perfect to blurb my book (MY FORMERLY HOT LIFE: DISPATCHES FROM THE OTHER SIDE OF YOUNG, which is coming out in September from Ballantine.)

I’ll call her Celebrity X, because I don’t want to compromise her privacy, but suffice to say that she embodies the Formerly Condition in the best possible way. She’s not what she was when she was in her young adulthood, i.e., “hot” in that cursory-glance way that the world looks at young women. But now she’s hot in that way that only a woman who has had some time on this earth to think can be.

I only know her persona, not her person, but from everything I’ve seen and read it seems like as a Formerly, she occupies her body and her self with the authority and security of a homeowner, rather than the way younger women sometimes seem as if they’re renting (or worse, squatting), prepared to abandon who they are entirely if a better option presents itself. I know I often felt that way in my 20s, as if I were shopping for a life, that I was often just a composite of other people’s opinions of me.

Anyway, as I stood a few feet from Celebrity X, my internal dialogue went like this:

Slimy, self-promotional Stephanie: “There’s Celebrity X! What are you waiting for? Go tell her about your book and how much she’d love it and how you want her to blurb it!”

Sympathetic lifelong New Yorker Stephanie: “Sheesh, she’s with her kids–can’t the woman enjoy a day with her family without someone like you hitting her up for something for their own benefit?”

SSPS: “You’re never going to get a chance like this again. Her publicist [to whom my editor sent the book] is probably not going to show it to her, she gets so much stuff.”

SLNYS: “I can’t just go up to her…if she wanted to be seen and stalked, she’d live in LA, not New York. Oh, geez, Vivian is going over her way.”

SSPS: “Go follow her! That’s what a good mother would do, right? Pretend you’re a good mother, just making sure your daughter doesn’t get hurt. In fact, tell Vivian to go play with her kid!”

SLNYS: “I WILL DO NO SUCH THING! That’s low, even for you. And I am a good mother.”

SSPS: “Then why is Vivian eating while she’s running and climbing. She’s going to choke. Look, she’s going to drop her Tigers Milk bar in the sandbox where the stray cats pee. And you know that girl is going to eat it anyway.”

SLNYS: “VIVIAN! No! Give me the bar. GIVE ME THE BAR.”

SSPS: “That’s right. Run up to her.”

SLNYS (feeling kind of ashamed): “Well, I guess if I happen to be right next to her, I could introduce myself. I really do think she’d love the book.”

SSPS: “That’s the ticket…go on and talk to her.”

SLNYS: “Well, OK. Fine.”

SSPS: “Fine.”

SLNYS: “Bitch.”

SSPS: “Pussy.”

And so I did. After getting Vivian to surrender the bar, I plopped down next to Celebrity X and excused myself and nervously vomited out what Slimy, Self-Promotional Stephanie needed her to know about my book, and how I’d sent it to her publicist…and of course  failed to say my name. Celebrity X very graciously put me out of my misery by asking for it, and gave me the opportunity to hand her a business card with my url on it.

Once that part was over, I could go back to being Sympathetic Lifelong New Yorker Stephanie and just sit with a fellow mom who happens to be an exceedingly famous actress and author and watch our kids dig holes to China in the cat piss sandbox. She was lovely and funny and normal and made me feel I could be, too. As normal as a woman who talks to herself can be, anyway.

So there. Maybe she’ll read it and relate, and maybe she won’t. But I’m glad I let the slimy, self-promotional part of myself drive, for a few moments, at least.

PHoto by ricardo.martins CC

A woman I work with (she’s around my age and has, like me, an extensive background in an industry that everyone’s predicting will be as dead as spoken Latin in the next decade, i.e., print magazines) was talking about an online project for which she needs to hire someone. The job, she says, is incredibly basic, but one that is nonetheless daunting to those of us Formerlies who need to learn an entirely new language comprised entirely of acronyms to even begin to fathom what is required.

“What I need, a trained monkey could do,” she said. “A trained monkey, or anyone under 25.”

I knew exactly what she meant. Yes, I blog, which makes me less hopeless than many people of Formerly age, and you, too, by virtue of the fact that you’re reading this. Still, there are quite a pack of us who are sticking their fingers in their ears and saying, “Lalalalala” in hopes that all this noise about the Internet will just go away so they don’t have to learn how to function beyond ordering shoes from Zappos. Fewer and fewer, but it’s a learning curve, that’s for sure.

Anyway, coincidentally, my friend Ronni sent me this. Says it all, no? Ignore the fact that it says “blond” goes back to work. It seemed more like “Formerly” goes back to work. Or at least needs to break herself of the carriage return habit.

The final title of my book (unless, of course, it changes again) is…drumroll, please…

MY FORMERLY HOT LIFE: DISPATCHES FROM JUST THE OTHER SIDE OF YOUNG

Opinions, por favor?

You know you’re a Formerly when you would seriously consider–even for a moment–relocating to a country in which the culture is more embracing of women with your particular Formerly-related body changes. I hear that overfed women are considered prizes in some parts of Africa, and that facial hair is not entirely frowned upon in East Asia. This might just be urban beauty legend, but right before my period, I cling to these probable myths as signs that there is a place for Formerlies like me who are dipping their toes in the shallow waters of perimenopause.

My family and I just got back from a vacation in Culebra, a tiny Puerto Rican island (population: 3000ish) and I’ll tell you, I was ogled by the (very few) men I saw in the street like I haven’t been since I was in my 20s.

In case you think I’m bragging, I am not. I didn’t look my best, as the above picture of me getting a shot of Benadryl in the ass in the Culebra emergency room will attest. The day we arrived, I broke out in a full body rash of unknown origin, and spent much of our trip as an itchy, groggy, doped up mess. What’s more, I was on a 6-day bra strike, shaved nothing (for fear of rupturing one of my many scabs) and due to the humidity, my hair was Gilda Radner as Roseanne Roseannadanna, circa 1978.

And yet.

I have no explanation for the attention I received, save facile observations about cultural standards of beauty, none of which include festering pustules, as far as I know. The point is, I had a flash of thinking, Hmmm, maybe I was meant to grow old in Culebra, where it seems I still hover around the physical ideal, even at 42, with my pasty white, sweaty, braless mom body that’s covered with hives.

In the taxi ride back to the airport in San Juan, my daughters were playing “Would you rather,” in which they pose two unappealing alternatives and press one another to choose between them. Vivian said, “Would you rather…be cold the rest of your life or put mustard on your toes for the rest of your life?” Sasha asked, “Would you rather drink 1000 gallons of water or eat a spoonful of lava?”

What went through my mind: I’d rather be a Formerly surrounded by gorgeous young aspiring supermodels in New York City than a much-flirted-with rashy disaster on a small Caribbean island.

How’s that for priorities?

This morning, this guy got up and offered me his seat on the subway.

That never happens. Truly, never. When I was pregnant with my twins, I remember having to foist my Bosu-ball sized belly into the face of the seated (who were pretending not to see my obscenely protrusive abdomen) and threaten to vomit on them in order to take a load off. As you might imagine, I was not at all shy about asking– just shocked at how often I had to.

So today, when the guy offered me his seat (without my asking) I said thanks and wedged myself in between the other two passengers. My emotions went in succession as follows:

1. surprised

2. pleased

3. grateful

4. completely horrified.

He must think I’m pregnant, I thought. Should I tell him I’m not? But what if he didn’t think I was and was just being nice? No way. Who the f**k is nice?  He thinks I’m PREGNANT. Do I look pregnant? I must look pregnant. It’s the damn puffer coat! No, it’s my damn puffer tummy! I know: I’ll ask him if he thought I was pregnant, make a joke out of it, so he doesn’t think I’m a lunatic. Holy s**t! I AM a lunatic.

And on from there for at least two stops. God forbid I should take it as the lovely gesture of simple human kindness that it quite possibly was. Perhaps he was just a nice person who didn’t feel like sitting. Maybe he thought I looked tired (which I did, because I am, and because that’s just how I look now that I’m a Formerly.) Maybe he’s from the Deep South or some planet on which men are not afraid of women accusing them of paternalism for doing something that might be construed as sexist.

There are many possible explanations for his baffling behavior, but the first and only one that I thought of in the moment was that I looked as if my water was about to break.

In years past, I would have assumed he was about to hit on me, but that doesn’t happen with any frequency anymore either, and, well, he didn’t. The fact that I defaulted to the pregnancy panic place was…I don’t know, maybe 30 percent my own ridiculousness and 70 percent the fact that people rarely give up their seats except to pregnant women, and even then, it’s not a given. I’ve since decided, after looking at the skinny mirror at my office (the only mirror I now consider accurate) that he was just a nice guy.

Which is…kind of nice, actually. I’ve noticed that the older I get–I know, 42 isn’t old, but it’s oldER–the fewer ulterior motives people have in being decent. I hear that shifts again when you get really old and people start targeting you with scams to bilk you out of your Social Security.

But for now, I like being an adult tween, not old, and not young. And not to proud to pass up a seat on the subway.

Photo by  Ed Yourdon CC

Things are generally more complicated than they seem. That’s something you learn as a Formerly, or at some point before then, but usually after college, when things are pretty simple: War is wrong, men are dicks, sisterhood is powerful and horizontal stripes make you look fat.

Yeah, no. Almost nothing is that simple or consistently true. Hence the “It’s complicated” relationship status option on Facebook, and my slack-jawed, wide-eyed awe as I explore how, exactly to make my book (Formerly Hot…Finally Content, coming out in September from Ballantine) a success.

Not that I thought it was as simple as, You write a book, people like it, they say nice things about it, more people buy it and boom, you can go off and do your little happy dance. But I didn’t realize exactly how much you could conceivably do to sell your book, and how little is known about what works and why.

My latest scheme involves niche marketing to polygamous Mormon communities, in which women far outnumber men, and praying they don’t share books as they share husbands. I have high hopes for that plan. I would have sold my virginity to the man responsible the biggest bulk order (size matters), but I lost it sometime in 1983, I think in the Bronx, and haven’t seen it since.

Do me a favor: Think back to the last nonfiction book you bought. What made you buy it in particular? You can comment below or email me.

Photo by Janetmck CC

No, not in the postpartum weakened-pelvic-floor-muscles kind of way that I was for a while right after I had the girls. Just laughing so hard that I figuratively cannot contain my bladder.

If you haven’t already seen this, you must check it out. He’s a 29-year-old guy who lives with his dad and just jots down the pearls of wisdom that spew forth from his lips. http://twitter.com/Shitmydadsays

Has nothing and everything to do with being a Formerly, but no matter what, it’s hilarious. (What’s more, it’s already sold as a book and a movie, per my agent.)

I think this may be the beginning of a protracted personal vendetta against the singer and Disney Channel starlet whose name I dare not write. I’d call it a feud, of the variety that Hulk Hogan would have to weigh in on in Us magazine, except that I know far more about the 17-year-old hair-extension-wearing, child-corrupting, model-dating reluctant role model whose catch phrase is “sweet niblets” than I care to, and she has no idea I exist.

After the classroom debacle, for which I arbitrarily hold MC entirely responsible, I wrote about it on Formerly Hot, and have since gotten hundreds of pieces of spam and a threatening letter from my web hosting company because apparently I’m hogging up too much of the shared server’s resources. Luke, the lovely guy who built this site for me, thinks one reason may be because I’ve been getting so much traffic on my MC post. That’s not because it was a particularly brilliant post, but because people have their Google readers set to search for the little chippie’s name and so Formerly Hot is getting overloaded.

Will the indignities never end? I might–might–forgive her if she comes to speak at my daughters’ school and says that I’m her BFF. No, her BBBFF. Otherwise, girlfriend should watch her back.

Photo by hodgers CC

This month, all the moms and dads in my daughters’ first grade classes have been taking turns being interviewed by the children about their jobs. It’s all very sweet–the kids learn how to be polite, to listen, to take notes (or draw them), and how not to poke one another in the neck with their pencils while the special, exalted adult guest has the floor.

I am an editor at a magazine, but I decided to go with “writer” because I do that, too, the kids are learning to write and I thought writing for a magazine would be easier to explain. Never mind that when they are old enough to read magazines, magazines will mostly have gone the way of LPs and rotary phones. In Sasha’s class Monday, I unpacked some examples of articles I’ve written, and pushed that thought right out of my head, as I do a horrifying number of times each day. I then carefully lowered my 160 pound body into the tiny child-size chair at the edge of the rug, and turned my attention to the fresh-faced, impressionable youngsters arrayed before me.

All the kids in Sasha’s class were sitting criss-cross applesauce on the rug, pencils at the ready. Sasha was right at my feet, beaming up at me proudly, whispering little secrets to her friends to show that she had the inside track on what I was going to talk about. I passed out the articles, several of which had photos of Sasha and her sister, thus elevating Sasha to the status of major media personality among her peers. Then I fielded a few softballs from Scott, Luigi, and Kasar. Milla asked me what I liked about my job, and Olivia asked what I didn’t. Scarlet asked if I also took all the pictures to go with the articles. I answered that I did not, that was someone else’s job. It was all going swimmingly.

Until up shot the hand of a little boy whose name escapes me. He had big brown eyes and a reporter’s dogged curiosity. “Do you ever get to interview any, like, famous people?” he asked. I replied that yes, occasionally I do, but that I find regular people much more interesting.

“Well, like who?” he asked.

I thought about it. I haven’t interviewed Elmo or Dan Zanes. What the hell does he care? I wracked my brain trying to think someone among the celebrities I’ve spoken to over the years who he might have heard of. I write about health, mostly. There really aren’t many celebrities in my area, and when I do interview them, it’s usually about breast cancer or bulimia or something equally inappropriate for such a setting. I hesitated, then answered, “No one you’d know.”

Silence. Sasha looked a bit stricken. I could tell I’d lost my credibility, my sparkle, my mojo. The kid said, “Like, who?”

Have you ever scrambled to name drop in front of a bunch of 6- and 7-year-olds? It’s really humiliating.

“Well, I write for grown-up magazines, so I tend to write about grown-ups. Not, like, Miley Cyrus or the Jonas Brothers or anything.” A collective “Awww” rose up off the carpet. (It was a lie, anyway: Elle, a grown-up magazine I haven’t but could conceivably have written for, had Miley Cyrus on the cover a few months ago, another thought I pushed out of my mind.)

Murmuring in the crowd. “No one from Disney Channel at all?” asked Scott. Scott! Scott was my little buddy, not moments ago asking me about whether I prefer to use a computer or write longhand. Scott, you’re killing me over here! Who knew Scott was a star f&&&*r?

“No, no one from the Disney Channel.”

Just then, Erika, Sasha’s teacher broke in and urged the class to thank Sasha’s mommy for taking time out from her very busy schedule interviewing boring nobodies to come in to speak about her very important job in the very important world of very important grownups. Polite applause. I collected my articles, and beat a hasty retreat.

Miley Cyrus. What. Ev. Er. May Miley Cyrus not have kids anytime soon, for her sake.

Photo by BitchBuzz CC