32 and counting

I'm 32. And I feel pretty good about that most of the time. I consider myself a little too old to pull off those low-rider jeans. And after the local paper's front-page story about the seemingly ubiquitous "muffin-top" (a slow news day), I don't (recently post-partum) really dare anyway. I'm too old to listen to music standing up. I'm a little too old for jello-shots. Okay, I might be too old for Bubbalicious in public, and sequins only on rare occasions. But apart from that, I consider myself a pretty youthful 30-something, with a lot of day-time spunk and an increasingly early bedtime as I now compete with a 3-month old for sleep.

So yesterday, I was chatting with my neighbor, a mid 20's Sex-and-the-City(sort of) type --if Sex and the City had been filmed in the midwest, mental images abound--with fabulous friends hanging about who reply to my "nice to meet you" with "pleash." I gamely inquired about how her work was going (some type of personal assistant gig planning special events for the personal hygiene division of a major soap company). She waved her cigarette my way and said it was working out well right now--the people she worked with and for were a young crowd, and she wouldn't have it any other way. Mind you, she said, she'd worked for middle-aged people before, no offense, but---
I'm sure she said more, but hold the phone, stop the press, whatever, I must admit I didn't hear anything else after that "no offense." What was it? My dirty sweat pants and gardening gloves? The hair shoved back with a mid-90's tortoise shell barrette that I'd found in the bottom of a drawer? The fact that I love to garden?

This weekend I plan to do some gardening. In my stilettos.