She waves her ink-filled wand and…poof! From frumpy to fabulous! Marvel at Prudence’s dedication to the magic of the makeover.

Like an annoying jingle that—with the right prompt—goes viral in a neural nanosecond, there’s a bit of pop culture ephemera skulking near the surface of my gray matter, ready to be triggered any time a certain visual cue crosses my line of sight.

And what, you might ask, is that cue? I’ll give you a hint: Drab to fab.

Yes, I’m talking about the legendary “Mademoiselle Makeover,” a regular installment of the now defunct Mademoiselle magazine, that glossy monthly that competed with Glamour and Seventeen magazines for smart young ladies’ attention for 66 years before it finally folded in 2001.

Maybe you can relate if you, like me, were a devotee of the column that featured normal-looking (okay, somewhat dowdy) young women, who, with the help of the Mademoiselle fashion and beauty editors (and products from the magazine’s advertisers) morphed into beauties from their former beastly selves. This monthly step-by-step narrative implied that behind every lumpy Plain Jane lurked a paint-by-numbers Anne Hathaway-like princess yearning to emerge from her cocoon and fly off to a new-and-improved life on gossamer wings.

The message: Magic can happen; all you need is the right makeover!

I once yearned to be among the chosen—the one lucky girl a month who was singled out to be made-over for the entire world (or at least the readership of Mademoiselle) to admire. But the magazine’s New York-based editorial staff simply wasn’t looking for a ragamuffin in frayed jeans, vintage Hawaiian shirts and huarache sandals, smoking in the student parking lot of a large public high school in Pasadena, California.

But that didn’t stop me from perseverating on the makeover ideal; the concept that changed looks could change lives.

Author Malcolm Gladwell, in his book Outliers: The Story of Success, examines the factors that contribute to high levels of success. He found that individuals who have changed human history with their achievements, enriching both themselves and mankind, have been subject to what he dubs “the 10,000 hour rule” meaning they have invested at least 10,000 hours becoming experts in whatever field of endeavor in which they’ve made history.

Bill Gates, Robert Oppenheimer, even the Beatles, all put in their dues practicing their art, their science, their passion for the equivalent of 417 days. Nonstop.

Instead of programming computers, perfecting my performance of a musical instrument or developing the atomic bomb, I somewhat sheepishly admit that I have devoted at least 10,000 hours making over friends, relatives, classmates and the occasional complete stranger. Old yearbooks bear witness to my passion, with faces transformed with eyeliner, plunging necklines, upswept hair and lipstick, dutifully drawn in Bic pen blue.

This is a talent I cannot turn off.

Everywhere I go—and I mean everywhere— my makeover machinery grinds into gear with the sight of a woman who could use a little this and a little that.

Yesterday, for instance, at my son’s high school, I saw another mother, a 50ish woman in man-tailored pin-striped pants and high heels, long stringy hair and Sarah Palin’s old glasses. She reeled down the hall, the white buttons on her two rear pockets tracing invisible infinity symbols as her 42-inch wide hips swayed from side-to-side.

Instantly, I had her out of those pants, and into a tiered, earth-toned peasant skirt, cowboy boots and shoulder-length, blunt-cut, lightly waved hair. Squarish glasses were replaced with Annie Hall retros, a tapestry vest with brass buttons added polish to a dolman-sleeved blouse, and a warm Pashima was casually thrown over her shoulders against the 45-degree night air. Her Cruella D’Ville blood-red lipstick was switched out for a soft, pinky buff, and dangly brass earrings completed her Vermont mom ensemble; perfect for the woman with few wrinkles and a wide bottom.

Am I right or am I right?

When I studied for my master’s degree, I often sat in round-table seminars facing the other, mostly female students. While my classmates dutifully checked their Facebook accounts, pretending to attend to the lecture, I systematically—and in my mind’s eye, of course—made over each and every one of my fellow students, down to the last detail.

One day, a bushy haired woman in her mid-50s plopped down next to me and blurted out, “I wish I knew what to do with my hair.”

Kismet! I whipped out the class roster that featured horrid little black & white mug shots of each of us next to our names.

“Check this out,” I said, my pencil moving at lightning speed, taming the mass of wiry brown and grey locks into a neat bob, short in the back and with tapered long bangs that covered her crows feet. She stared at the photo as if seeing herself for the first time.

“Wow,” she marveled. “Can I take this to my salon?” she asked, laying a tentative hand on the page.

“Of course,” I chuckled indulgently. After all, with 10,000 hours under my belt, I qualify as a Mademoiselle Makeover Outlier, keeping a rich, albeit somewhat shallow, tradition alive. I can afford to be generous.

I wonder, what have you spent 10,000 hours doing?

December 2007, photo by Michel Bocande

Cathy Fischer’s third and final installment of her “hair trilogy”

I thought of writing about a topic other than my hair, but my dear friend and chemo companion Wendy (who accompanied me to all four treatments, where we’d yak for a few hours, leaf through magazines, then go out for a fabulous lunch) insisted that I update those who are anxiously waiting to know if I’ve gone gray or returned to being a slave to color.

First, a quick recap/update:

In January, I posted “Wigging Out” which chronicled my going from hirsute to hairless, in just three days. It started when my hair began falling out after my first chemo treatment for breast cancer. I shaved my head, preemptively, to avoid the horror-induced depression of finding clumps of hair on my pillow or even worse, having a head resembling the cruelest of all male baldness patterns—the Franciscan monk look.

In hindsight, the quote about the “joy” of being hairless was true. It was a relief not having to shave or pluck, cut or color, for a few months. I’m pretty sure that most of the money I saved on hair maintenance went directly to shoe purchases. “Do what makes you feel good” was my motto, which often manifested itself in the form of new shoes, dry vodka martinis or extra crispy french fries.

In late April, I wrote “Gray Matters”. It was soon after the Susan Boyle phenom and a New York Times piece about how the perception of age—not gender, ethnicity or race—is the most difficult to change. I pointed out how I tend to date younger guys (although it’s been so long since I’ve had a date, all bets are off), wrote about working in a young industry and confessed my fear that going gray would make me look dukes of haggard-like.

Fast forward to the near present.

I went back and forth on the color thing. A lot. Finally, I made an appointment with a new hairstylist who does great short cuts. My plan was to shape and color it all—except for the cowlick in front that grew in as a swirling shock of silver.

That was my plan but Julie, the hair genius, convinced me otherwise. She said the gray smatterings made me look soft and if I didn’t like it, I could come back and she’d color it for free. So, I decided to brave it for a week and see what happened. Two weeks later I’m still au natural, and I actually like it. I’m getting pretty good reviews too.

This chic new look has me fantasizing about Japanese designer clothes and moving to Manhattan. And when I’m not thinking about how much I hate my neck, I’m groovin’ on the cropped hair, which for the first time, has a Josephine Baker-esque wave going on in the back. Luckily my eyelashes have returned, and that’s important since now it’s all about the eyes. (Melissa says it’s the lips, but, really…it’s all about the earrings.)

In “Gray Matters” I did some heavy pondering. Could I make a crack in the stereotype, or would I be seen, as mentioned in the Susan Boyle article, as “harmless and useless”? I’ve yet to determine how our ageist society will respond. I haven’t been job or man hunting, and I haven’t had to change my makeup or style, so far….

Will I stay gray and let it go all the way? It’s freeing and fabulous, but, as I recently learned from What Not to Wear, “Hair is an accessory and you should treat it as one. It’s not a permanent fixture.”

From Rapunzel to Samson and throughout the ages, hair has been a metaphor for transformation. I too have been transformed, and like brilliant sunshine after the rain, the outpouring of love, humor and inspiration—from friends old and new—has been the shiniest silver lining of all.

I was standing in the grocery store line the other day perusing magazine headlines: “Madonna Gives Birth to Satan’s Love Child,” “Brad and Angelina Adopt Cat,” “Bulimic Brittany Barfs Barrels—Spagos Diners Disgusted,” when something so mind-boggling, so shocking caught my eye, I gasped.  Glamour magazine’s cover page, in all its glossy glory headlined, “What to Wear at 20, 30, 40, to be Your Sexy Best.”  I was aghast.  All I could think of was when did it happen?  When did I fall off the fashion radar?  What about MEEEEE?????

It hadn’t occurred to me that I would be facing this dilemma so soon.  I’m standing at the crossroads of Juicy Couture and Talbot’s.  I’m pretty clear that at my age wearing the word “JUICY” on my ass is just false advertising, but I’m also not ready for the muumuus and leisure wear that I see in the next department, and I sure as hell don’t want to look like a Republican, all coiffed and suited up so tight I squeak.

One of my favorite TV guilty pleasures is the fabulous What Not to Wear.  Our experts, Stacy and Clinton, take a mousy, blousy, wrong, wrong, wrong frump and transform her into a magnificent, self-confident creature.  I love them (tho’ if I hear the word “chic” one more time, I think I’ll barf barrels), and they are right about how you turn up on the outside says oodles about how you feel on the inside, BUT—what about MEEEE?????  I’m not in my granny years yet, am I?

I have yet to see anyone really stand for our age group.  I ain’t dead yet, so I’m not ready for shroud wear.  Where do I shop?  Not at the mall….Abercrombie and Fitch doesn’t make a size that one of my breasts will fit in and their music makes my ears bleed.  I’ve never seen Stacy or Tim Gunn (love him) take on anyone in their fifties, sixties or beyond, and here comes that “invisible woman” feeling again.

Our Boomer generation has pushed the lines of age, health and wealth far beyond anyone’s expectations.  Can we not insist that designers market something stylish, wearable and economical for us?  And because it’s just the kind of gal I am, I am willing to offer myself to Stacy and Clinton, body, soul and wardrobe, as the sacrificial lamb for all my fifty-plus sisters.  Or—turn me in, I promise not to be offended.

I’ll admit it. I need reading glasses.

It took some time for me acknowledge this publicly. A few years back, this was the scenario: I’d be out to dinner at a dimly lit restaurant. It was bad enough that I couldn’t hear (that’s the fashion these days, over-packed rooms with hard surfaces feigning a ‘happening’ atmosphere), but I couldn’t see, either. Casually trying to hold the menu a few inches away, then farther, a bit farther, finally at arms length—didn’t fool anyone. While my girlfriends of a similar age would whip out their fashionable specs, I would scoff because at age 48, I was still able read the fine print, in the perfect light, that is. But alas, I got older and Gumby got fuzzy.

Gumby, the beloved claymation character of my childhood, straddles my showerhead. (Pokey used to shower with me too, but I believe he trotted off during my last move.) Not long ago, while washing my hair, I noticed that greener-than-green Gumby was looking kind of fuzzy. And the print on the shampoo bottle, had also taken on new characteristics. A soft blur surrounded the product name, and the directions: lather, rinse, repeat—undecipherable. (Do we really need those, and why are they so small anyway?)

So I succumbed. I surrendered. I purchased a cute pair of 1.5 reading glasses; the size of a pen, they fit in the smallest handbag or clutch. They are not only practical, but conversation starters as well. I wear prescription glasses at the computer—after all I have to do my job. And while it is almost painful to say, I now own a pair of progressive glasses, stronger at the bottom than the top. But I only wear them part time.

Don’t get me wrong. I think glasses are a great fashion accessory, and I’m all about accessories. (Just ask my pals at my fave store Jest Jewels.) But, accessorizing by choice rather than necessity is what I’m talkin’ about.

Recently, I noticed that watching end credits on the TV screen has become more and more like unscrambling secret code. A little voice that I’m doing my best to ignore, is telling me that this is the dawning of a new age; that somewhere, in the not so distant future, I will most likely need to wear glasses…full time.

This realization is challenging at best for one who has taken pride in her once perfect vision. So, to better cope with this and other uninvited changes, I try to find the lesson in it, and have come to this realization—an epiphany perhaps—about why our eyesight goes soft when we reach middle age:

It’s more important to look inward than outward!

Corny perhaps, but true, don’t you think? As Elizabeth Cady Stanton said, “With age comes the inner, the higher life. Who would be forever young, to dwell always in externals?” There’s even a bonus. When we see our reflection in a softer focus—like the Vaseline lens glamour shots of a 1940s—it presents a kinder, gentler picture.

Now if I could only keep away from my magnifying mirror…

The market for these older fashion goddesses is so hot that a former supermodel just endowed with a graduate degree in psychology decided to put off practicing psychotherapy in favor of the ever-so-fulfilling art of auditioning. Talk about going backwards. But, that’s just me being judgmental. The money’s probably a lot better, if you can get it. Plus, I think it’s a fine idea. “After all,” the author of the piece says, “what middle-aged woman wants to buy moisturizer from a model who’s too young to order a martini?” Indeed.

The only chink in this armor, though, was the part where they talked about a model I’d never heard of, but who was obviously somebody named Carmen Dell’Orefice (I did not make up this name). She will be appearing in a Rolex ad in the July issue of Vanity Fair, and she’s not just older, she’s in her seventies. Great, you say? The problem is this seventy-something woman looks like a younger version of Dolly Parton, who is 61 but looks 50 on a bad day. Take a look at Ms. Dell’Orefice in the ad above. The capper on this caper is the tag line for the ad: Class is forever. Just like wrinkles.

So, let me get this straight. They hope to relieve us of our dollars by featuring women who supposedly reflect us—the ones who drink martinis—with LIES. Last time I looked, the average woman in her seventies bears no resemblance to Ms. Dell’Orefice: she does not have a make-up artist hiding in her private boudoir; and, she certainly does not keep an airbrush artist on hand to make her look 30 years younger in the pictures gracing her family photo albums. I’m not saying they should go back to using 18-year-olds to sell us anti-aging serums. It’s just that I would prefer the martini-drinking 50-year-old hawking my next watch appear to be at least capable of having a hangover the next day.

Coach cashmere sweater, $148

I love my 14-year old cat Cleo. She’s the sweetest, softest, most sensitive little creature on the planet. She demands little except for the basics: food, affection and having her bottom smacked firmly and often. I can understand how people become pet-obsessed—especially when they don’t have kids. But really, Coach collars and Gucci leashes? Quilted handmade booties? I just don’t get it!

From L.A. to New York, Chicago to Austin, beautifully appointed pet boutiques are popping up in the most fashionable parts of town. We’re talking a $30 billion dollar annual industry here, with a projected growth rate of 5 percent—all this while food shortages are occurring around the globe. Not to mention people going hungry right here in the U.S.! Hullo? Is anyone home?

My Miss Cleo wouldn’t wear a dress even if Calvin Klein designed it himself. Yes, Cleo has her special vet diet food, her $80 Sherpa carrier—she is not deprived. I’ve noticed it’s mostly dog owners who force the issue, making Fido conform to whatever fashion trend suits his owners’ whim-de-jour. Have you seen photos of dogs modeling Polo shirts? They look truly miserable!

Back in the day, dogs were dogs. As a child we had an Alaskan Malamute, a big, affectionate canine, who wore her own god-given coat, even in fashion-conscious Los Angeles. On rainy days, the neighborhood Dachshund would do his short-legged wattle-trot down the street, wearing a horribly hand-knit sausage encasing disguised as a sweater. The toy-sized Yorkie next door always pranced around in a little pink bow smelling of her owner’s flowery perfume. It was cute. What was considered quirky and eccentric at the time is now commonplace for city animals.

One of my fellow bloggers, Melissa, has a fashionista dog. Really. Dot the Jack Russell Terrier is a ham. She loves to dress up and pose for pictures, and without being bribed. So, ok, there’s a Coco Chanel in the bunch, but most animals just want to keep it simple. Eat, drink, play, cuddle, stretch and be lazy. Hey, I think they’ve got something there.

Gucci backpack, $410

I may be a cliché: a middle aged single woman living with her cat, but when the gap between the haves and the have-nots is so large that domesticated pets are sporting unnecessary “clothing” such as bridal gowns and tuxedos and Paris Hilton pajamas, I just don’t know what to do, except rant, I guess.

So next time you see a four-legged creature dressed up as a human in credit card debt, just say no! Don’t remark about how cute they are. Don’t coo and ahhh. Do not encourage their humans! Instead, gently tell them they could donate the money they would spend at the cutesy pet boutique to the humane society or a non-kill shelter. Now that would be animal loving, wouldn’t it?