LOOKS COUNT!

"you can only perceive real beauty in a person as they get older" - Anouk Aimee

i looked that up on the internet, there were thousands of quotes like that saying the same thing. Anouk and co obviously didn't spend their saturday night at an advertising guru's 50th birthday party themed "DISCO DECADENCE AT THE PLAYBOY MANSION".

i did.

apparently people were going to great lengths to dress up. i dressed down. to my underwear. i stepped into my landslide stilettos taking me all of about 30 seconds. it was cool. there's something about wearing a suite of tattoo covered muscle that never leaves you feeling naked.

i arrived, and there they were. my peers from 20 years in advertising. i felt like John Cusack in GROSS POINT BLANK at his high school reunion where everybody's lives had carried on as normal while he'd become a hired killer.

i had not become a hired killer, but i sure wasn't in advertising anymore. i'd been living la vida loca for the past few years, well, because i could so i was showing none of the wear and tear of everyone who had.

thanx dad.

the party gave me the opportunity to scan the crowd thoroughly. i wanted to see whether i could lick the bottom of the barrel of my inner-self and find a man in my age group attractive. something i have not been able to achieve to date.

i tried. i really really did! but as the night grew older and i watched them wolfing down high calorie finger snacks with their glass of whatever, name dropping and ass licking i called it quits.

the nail in the coffin - or in my case, the stiletto into the eye socket - came when a movie director person with his hammered face sliding off his skull, started hugging me to his greying aging hairy man-boobs and tried to do his version of shiatsu on my back at the same time. up until then i felt perfectly comfortable being the least dressed guest in the room (including the entertainment). but THIS was making me feel every bit of my semi-nakedness and i had to get away before i screamed in panic or stabbed him with my shoe - the latter being the better weapon because no-one would've heard my cries for help over the music.

i sort of slid away under his armpit - gross - and headed for the door.

now it's over, and i'm glad. because i learned my lesson. one i'd known all along anyway: LOOKS COUNT and don't let anybody tell you any different!

so let me end this the same way i started off. with a quote:

"after 50 you get the looks you DESERVE" - Richard Avadon, my favorite fashion photographers of all time.

and let me tell you, he was looking pretty hot at 80.