Naughty...

Nice guys may finish last, according to the cynical proverb attributed to baseball manager Leo Durocher, but they come in first in my Fab Over Fifty book of wisdom. Despite how we felt when we were dating in our twenties, FOF women have learned how nice nice really is.

How nice it is when your husband, partner, boyfriend (whatever he is in your life):

Smiles his way through your whims and idiosyncrasies

Doesn’t seem to notice you’re not the same size as when the two of you met. And  if he does, doesn’t give a darn

Loves your children, even if they’re not his

Walks the dog every morning before he goes to work (and lets you sleep)

Enjoys shopping with you (and has impeccable taste)

And Nice

Is unequivocally loyal

Urges you to see a doctor when you’re under the weather

Offers to go out of his way to pick you up at the airport

Listens to how your day was (at least half the time)

Agrees to take your 85 year-old-mother to dinner with you (every Saturday)

Agrees to spend every Thanksgiving at your sister’s house (every year)

Doesn’t pout when you announce you’re going out to dinner with friends (two nights in a row)

Acknowledges how Fab you really are

Passionate sex, sarcasm, looks that could kill, and all that jazz may seduce us when we’re 25, or perhaps even 45. They don’t, however, stand the test of time.

Millions of Fab Over Fifty women are entrepreneurs, and superb entrepreneurs at that. Why not? We possess all the qualifications necessary for success:  We come up with great ideas backed by drive, passion, creativity, resources, diligence, industriousness, emotional security, wisdom, contacts, personal and professional networks and a willingness to take risks, to name a few talents.

Some of us became entrepreneurs when we were young. Lois, one of my oldest friends, left her editorial job at Fairchild Publications when she was 26 to open her own public relations agency. Over 35 years later, HWH Public Relations is as vibrant as ever. Lois plunged ahead while her co-workers at Fairchild (including me) were too timid to leave secure jobs.

Others waited. I got the entrepreneurial calling when I was 51 and had spent 23 years with Fairchild. The company was good to me and I to it, but I knew that if I didn’t finally “do my own thing,” I’d never leave.  It was one of the best decisions of my life.

Once we become entrepreneurs, we also have the magical ability to reinvent ourselves at a moment’s notice.  Lois calls her PR firm HWH Public Relations and New Media. As the media world began changing, Lois knew she had to change right along with it.  Now she’s become an expert in social networking.  I mean an expert. She could have run the Obama campaign. If John McCain had known about her, he probably would have won.

Sandy, whose thriving interior design business was impacted by the economy, came up with a brilliant idea this year called www.decoratortagsale.com. Interior designers will be offering their samples and unsold merchandise on her site at great prices. It will be launched soon, but you can sign up now.

And I happily spent most of this year conceiving of and working on www.faboverfifty.com, which will be the first social networking site and resource guide for smart, stylish, accomplished women over fifty. Whether you’re an entrepreneur or work for someone else, raised a family or raised the glass ceiling, dress in designer duds or don’t know Dries from Dior, it will be the place where we can share the things that make us so fab—the shops we love, the creams we swear by, the books we can’t put down, and the wisdom we’ve amassed.

We’re the best group of women in history.

It’s time to let the whole world know.

We spend $25 billion on clothes, but exactly who do we want to impress? Celebrities put on a show for us when they prance around the red carpet (in borrowed baubles and ball gowns). But are we putting on a show for anyone?

I used to. When I had a date during my first semester at Syracuse University in 1964, I ran to buy a pink sweater to go with my lipstick red skirt because I wanted to look nice for Walter  (how I still remember his name after 45 years and a single date astounds me). I spent hours choosing my outfit for my first dinner with my future in-laws in 1967.  They lived in Manhattan and I lived in Queens, so I had to show them I was stylish although I lived in a borough.

After losing fifty pounds in 1988, I couldn’t wait to show off my new clothes—and shape—to my co-workers.  I even loved department store dressing rooms because I could parade around in front of all the other women.

When we were young, we used our wardrobe to impress, attract and fit in. We could change our style on a moment’s notice. If our friends wore Bass Weejuns, we wore Bass Weejuns.  Clothes play an entirely different role for me now.  Sure, I’m glad when my husband, friends, relatives, clients and children say I look nice, but I’m not thinking about any of them when I shop.  I dress for myself first.  If I feel good in what I’m wearing, I don’t really worry how anyone else feels.

I don't think twice about wearing chartreuse, even if I know everyone else will be dressed in black

My style is my own.  It’s one of the nicest things that come with being Fab Over Fifty. Just wait till you meet all the spectacular shops that are associated with www.faboverfifty.com from coast to coast.  We love every single one of them because they help us bring out our style like no one else.

When I prepared for my date with Walter over four decades ago, I looked at myself in the mirror and said: “I hope he likes me.”  When I look in the mirror now, I say: “I like me.”

“If Botox sponsors Fab Over Fifty, I want nothing to do with it,” a California woman told me. She’s against anything unnatural.  “Hmm,” I thought, “I see nothing wrong with ‘cosmetic facial injectables’” (a phrase used by the American Society of Plastic Surgeons.) She was emphatic, so I didn’t plan to debate.

Over 10 million women every year swear by these non- and minimally-invasive cosmetic procedures and the number keeps climbing.  They’re not cheap (think $2,500 a visit) and they should  be repeated about every six months. But over 75 percent of women 35 to 69 say they’d have the procedures to make them “look better,” according to a 2005 Harris Interactive survey for the ASPS.

Personally, I put these injections in the same category as capping teeth, dying hair and jumping around in aerobics classes. If we look better and even feel better as a result, I say, “Go for it.” You might prefer gray hair and slow walks. And you think your laugh lines are pretty cute. We can be Fab Over Fifty, whatever we decide.

On average, women 35 to 69 would prefer to look 13 years younger than their actual age, according to the Harris survey. That’s just about right as far as I’m concerned. When someone tells me I look fifty, I’m tickled pink.  Why not? Does it make me vain if I’d rather not look my age?

Just enough

More than a tad too much

Of course, there’s a big difference between wanting a natural looking, refreshed appearance, and trying to defy your age and look two decades younger. That’s not going to happen. One too many injections or skin that’s pulled back just a tad more than it should be will make you look perfect one day a year…Halloween.

Just a minute, I have to answer the door.