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

* In 2009, when Eileen Fisher announced she wanted to target younger customers, a lot of women over fifty were pissed off! Incidentally, American women over fifty spend more than $25 billion a year on clothes. We also have more discretionary income than any other demographic group. Why'd you break up with us, Eileen?

Then, I carefully twist a length of bright yellow silk into "The Pretzel." Yes, I did watch the six-and-a-half-minute scarf-tying video on the Fisher site. A middle-aged woman dressed in a simple black outfit, no jewelry, with a close-cropped hairstyle I call the "man-do" (a look favored by Judi Dench, elderly nuns, and white-pride militias), solemnly wraps herself in colored scarves, smiling wanly each time she completes a knot. Over and over and over again. Some techniques are genuinely intriguing, but I was also tempted to lob the "Loop and Drape" over a ceiling lamp before roping it around my neck and stepping off a chair. The scarf's official purpose, like that of its older cousin, the turtleneck, is to cover the gobbler, but standing in my closet, I realize that the scarf also adds color and some je ne sais quoi. I know what the "quoi" is now—it's the last vestige of feminine flair of the pared-down wardrobe of the middle-aged woman. I cast it aside and leave the house looking like a cop.

I arrive at the store and start to panic. I don't see my Genius anywhere and I fear he has taken my computer through some kind of unconventional protocol and it will never be the same. But then I catch his eye as he emerges from behind an Apple paneled door and I break into a sweat. Is it a hot flash? Oh, God. But no, it's something else. I have fallen in love with AuDum Genius. The story of his affection for his mother, coupled with my being totally dependent on whoever can repair what has become my most essential appendage, has endeared him to me.* He smiles and I can see he's wearing that same headband and his hair might be a little greasy, but his nails are filed and the teeth are good. The teeth are good, I assure myself. I can live with that.

I'm not on the appointment list projected on the Apple screen, but he motions me over to the Genius Bar. I stride ahead, pushing through the pain from a recent tennis injury so my limp will go unnoticed. ("Recent" meaning five years ago, when I twisted my right ankle playing tennis and the orthopedist told me I had "boomeritis."†) I sit attentively as AuDum resuscitates my hard drive and reveals more about himself. It is our second date, after all. He studied urban planning. He likes to sketch and takes on small graphic-design gigs because there's a dearth of work in his field. He shares an apartment with two roommates and he is thinking of going to Norway, where there might be better employment opportunities.

"You should do that. It's the perfect time in your life to have an adventure. If it doesn't work out, you can chalk it up to 'things I did in my twenties,'" I tell him, his head buried in my device. "I have twenty-three years of experience on you, so I know what I'm talking about," I add with authority. I have now announced my age. He's a Genius, so he might have figured it out already, but he doesn't say, "You look young for your age," which I decide to let pass without comment, even though I have read that Geniuses are supposed to make the customers feel warm and welcome in the store and that would be the warmest and most welcome thing to say.

* In February 2012, iVillage published a survey indicating two-thirds of married women prefer Facebooking to sucking face, or any other sucking, for that matter.

† "Boomeritis" is an officially recognized medical term coined by an orthopedic surgeon in 1999 for injuries boomer-aged people get when they exercise as vigorously as when they were younger. I spent six months in "the boot." The boot has become something of a status symbol, a middle-age must-have accessory—it's an advertisement of your virility.

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.