Excerpt from I See You Made an Effort by Annabelle Gurwitch, plus links to reviews, author biography & more

His hands glide confidently over my keyboard, but my laptop keeps stalling so I have to keep reentering my password. I try to punch in the digits breezily, but he's standing so close, right next to my crooked pinky, the one with osteoarthritis. The process is laborious as I attempt to type with my pinky tucked under my palm, hoping he doesn't notice the swollen middle joint. It's possible, even probable, for someone so young to assume it's broken or disfigured from a sports injury—at least I hope so. My Genius sets the download in motion, hands me my computer, and with a brief good-bye, he promises that we'll finish what we started in the morning. I exit, cradling my computer through the mall, into my car, and back home.

* In January 2012, under pressure from Disneyland Paris park employees who insisted on keeping their goatees, Disney gave up its no-facial-hair policy.

I am an impatient person. I've never managed to carry out complicated recipes or blow-dry my hair all the way to the back of my head, but I am on a mission, and when I arrive home I leave the computer to complete the process. I instruct both my husband and son not to disturb it under any circumstances.

That night, everything I do seems supercharged with new purpose.

The next morning, after driving my son to school, I shower and stand in my closet, wondering what to wear. I have no idea. I haven't known what to put on for the last few years. I'm aging out of my wardrobe.

Skirts are too short. The legs are still good, but the folds of skin at the knee should not be seen, unless in colored tights, but even then, colored tights just don't seem age-appropriate. Many of my dresses are just too flouncy, ruffles circling the face are too Humpty Dumpty, flared skirts too flirty, tight clothing looks lumpy and anything blousy seems to emphasize my lack of a waist. Is this the moment I head into the Eileen Fisher years?

In my thirties, I glanced at Fisher's ads with fleeting interest, but as I edged into my forties, I began to linger on the images. Even with a cursory look, Eileen Fisher's clothes look like a cross between a hospital gown and a toga. What is the message? We need soft fabrics next to our dried-out skin—anything with more texture might chafe? We must disguise our bodies in flowing robes lest we appear overtly sexual—or worse, turn others off?

Eileen shows only solid colors, no patterns at all, ever, as if to suggest that patterns might clash with the lines and angles on our faces. I do seem to look better in solid colors, and though the hospital togas threaten to reduce us to clichéd depictions of elder counsels in dystopian science fiction movies, Fisher's draping fabrics do smooth out some of the indignities of aging. Swaths of material gently cascading over the area where your waistline once was can make you appear . . . if not slimmer, then longer. Leaving your house wearing a duvet cover could probably work, too. Ironically, Fisher uses young models in her ads now. Her website has just one gray-haired lady, and she isn't even modeling the clothes*—she's featured in a video tutorial on how to tie a scarf. The other clothing lines that cater to women over forty are Chico's, with their loud resort patterns and animal prints, and Jil Sander, whose minimalistic designs and color palette (ranging from gray to charcoal) are subtle and chic but so expensive I can't even afford to gaze upon them. The only thing I've found that fits both my body and state of mind is business suits, but I can't show up for my Genius appointment dressed like I'm headed to a corporate board meeting.

I try on a pair of new jeans that I was steered to purchase by a mother of four who's in her fifties. My friend likes them because they have a high waist without being mom-jeans boxy. I pair them with a dark blue button-down shirt and a black sweater. I look like a plainclothes detective. It's the best I can do. I put on a minimal amount of makeup. Have to keep it light; at forty-nine, any excess looks like Sylvia Miles's aging hooker character from Midnight Cowboy. (It's worth noting that Ms. Miles was actually thirty-seven when she shot that film.)

Excerpted from I See You Made an Effort by Annabelle Gurwitch. Copyright © 2014 by Annabelle Gurwitch. Excerpted by permission of Blue Rider Press. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.