Learning something new everyday is a big benefit of trawling for blog fodder. I love waking up in the morning with just so much stuffed in my head, then finding I still have room for a bit more. Not knowing which sort of info may present itself adds a wonderful element of surprise and adventure to the whole gig, which makes the process even more fun.

Of course, some days I'm assaulted by pretty disgusting stuff that sets me to fuming and ranting and plunging off the deep end of my desk.

I'm still processing today's lessons, and I'm not yet anywhere close to absorbing, so have no idea how this will end up.

Today I learned about "Restylane".

Wow.

Actually, what I learned ... from this article ... is that, and I will quote AND put it in caps:

"AGING WOMEN ARE HOT.

Unless you've been in solitary confinement, you'll have heard the new cultural mantra: aging women are hot.

We're "Juicy Tomatoes." (Conveniently ignoring that ripe tomatoes are one step away from the compost.)

Menopause apparently makes us break out into song. (According to Menopause Out Loud.)

Helen Mirren's cleavage trumps Britney's bits. (Enough said.)

Restylane is our crack cocaine. (As opposed to Restyhomes.)

So, I had to google Restylane, which was a revelation as well as providing me with my knew knowledge du jour.

Here's some other stuff I learned:

-- Every seven seconds a Boomer turns 50, to the tune of more that 12,000 per day.

-- About half are women.

-- Boomer women are willing to spend a lot of money on products that are touted to make them look younger.

-- Something called "successful aging" has come into vogue.



Sorry if I'm showing nothing more than a keen grasp of the simply obvious, but isn't one aging successfully if one is still living?

There's more, but it makes me queasy.

Then I come across this and the line of thinking continues ... sort of.

No pressure, girls, but ...

"Contrary to the hag propaganda," writes Prioleau, "the goddess in her last phase was an übersiren . . . unface-lifted, unreupholstered, dozens of senior seductresses made conquests that would be the envy of the comeliest nymphet on the man circuit."

Then there's the rise of the "cougars"—older women on the prowl for young men—which seems less about rewriting the civil code of sex and more about the powerful elixirs of diet and exercise.

Ubersiren? Cougar? Older women "on the prowl for younger men". Hmmmmm.

It's this that disturbs me about today's lesson, though:

This phenomenon isn't about liberated boomers reaching the age of retirement, the lifetime tenure of sexual being-ness, or some fundamental decline in modesty. It's about commodities. Resetting the boundaries of sexual eligibility so far upward creates vast new markets for goods and services: home gyms and diet plans, cruise lines and "rejuvenation" surgery.

Oh, my.

As I do like to take the new things I learn and pass them along, that being much of what I see as my duty as a blogger here, let me do it now by suggesting one thing ...

REJECT THE MARKETING!

We're Boomers, facryinoutloud, and that means we should get to call the shots! It's our time, and our world, and one of the good things about that should be that we can like ourselves.

Okay, so this ends up a rant, too. Sorry.