On not really being that ladylike

At the very delightful breakfast Rosie and I attended recently, I got a chuckle out of a table where all the ladies had made a point of covering up the LadyLike logo on our book promo pamphlet. One explained to me that none of them were ladylike. I wasn't sure if I was allowed to say that I don't really feel like I am either.

Does this book make
me look ladylike?

I am getting my cosmic comeuppance for having once said that I don't get along too well with the Christian ladies crowd. Honestly, that's still true. To me, "lady" carries a sense of propriety and dignity that I can't claim. I'm fundamentally a slob, too lazy to pick up my house right and too secure in my vice to care. I wear clothes only acceptable enough to let me pass as acceptable, and am squeezing every molecule of resistance from an age past which I really should be wearing makeup. I yell a lot.

But golly, the world is full of what in our house we teach the kids to identify as trashy ladies. The book of Proverbs has less nice names for them, but the fact that they're in Proverbs is a helpful reminder that they're nothing new. And whereas I don't much care for that tasteless, shameless unladylikeness, I think I can make some claim on being, if not quite a lady, at least lady-like. I brush my hair in the morning and try not to buy too many jewels with my husband's money. I think it's sad that feminism's most successful campaign was switching the great American sport from baseball to pornography. I would like not to be too lousy of a wife and mom and Christian.

Oh, and I am female. I think . . . I think? that despite the grubby shirt and debris-filled dwelling and propensity for attempting too many not-quite-funny-enough jokes . . . that adds up to something not unlike Lady.