I was at the BlogHer conference in New York when one of the panelists commented that “even” her own mother blogs. She called her mother “one of those elder bloggers.” Meaning, she said, “anyone over 50 who blogs.”

I pried my gnarled fingers off my Underwood, slammed down my Ensure and quaked, “Say, what, girlie?” That’s a joke. I would never say anything so ageist, but I did gulp and turned to my daughter to ask, “Might she be talking about moi?”

I am well over 50 and my daughter is well under and yet, blogging wise, she is the senior one. Someone might call her a hottie blogger. She probably wouldn’t object.

But elder blogger really pushed my buttons. Is Maya Angelou an elder poet? Is Annie Leibovitz an elder photographer. Is Madonna an elder rock star?

Not surprisingly, the blogging world is dominated by youngish people. A story in the New York Times said that 53 percent of bloggers are between the ages of 21 to 35. Only about 7 percent of bloggers are over 51. In the world of blogging the young are old hands, the old are newbies.

At the BlogHer conference there were more than 2,400 women bloggers and certainly the under-50 demo outnumbered the over-50. And over 60, like me.

It could be worse, I guess. They might have called us “geezer geeks.”

I asked Beth Blakely from the website Vibrant Nation, which is for women age 50 and over and has a number of regular bloggers ,what she thinks of the term. Beth says it can be helpful to identify a blogger by her subject just as you would any writer with a particular focus. But the general tag of elder blogger doesn’t work for her.

My friend and contemporary Michele blogs about food and wine and some might call her a foodie blogger. But elder blogger? Never. She colors her hair egglplant and hula dances. I can’t imagine she will ever be an elder anything.

The problem is the word. In some cultures “elder” is a sign of respect, as it was once in our own and might some day be again. But in our mainstream youth-happy world it creaks.

I will embrace my gray hair, my funky sore back and that I know most Beatles lyrics. But elder is a description I am not ready or brave enough to own. It makes me feel old. Blogging makes me feel like a player.

Pattie Heiser has the website 50 Fabulous and doesn’t consider herself an elder blogger. “It gives me hives to think of it.” She has the same problem with the word. “Our culture does not revere our elderly and to be so means that you will be disregarded and discarded.”

On the other side, Joan Price is fine with elder. Joan writes books about sex after 60 and blogs about it at NakedAtOurAge.com In her mid-60s, Joan calls herself a senior and considers her audience boomers, seniors and, yes, elders. She credits her late husband with putting the right spin on elder, as someone who had “the wisdom of a lifetime of experiences.”

Were elder to deliver such a strong, respectful vibe it would be something to aspire to. It would be a designation that you earned, not something automatically granted when you become a certain age, like Medicare and movie discounts.

Then, if someone called me an elder, meaning that I was experienced, wise and worldly, I would flaunt it like a new Pashmina.

But elder as in elder blogger? No, in the blogging world I’m pretty much a juvenile.

There’s a new trend in women’s faces and it’s called real. Hollywood no longer wants faces that look unnatural, according to a story in the New York Times. Talent agents are advising their clients to avoid cosmetic surgery. Some directors are even saying no to obviously augmented breasts. Having a hard time finding believable faces in LA some casting directors are going to England and Australia. And get this - they especially appreciate older faces that look honestly mature.

Be still my pacemaker. This is good news, although I wouldn’t want to be a Hollywood hopeful swathed in bandages coming out of anesthesia and read that I could have saved a bundle and retained the family nose.

Yet it is encouraging when Hollywood, which sets an impossible beauty standard for actors as well as ordinary people, suddenly declares a newfound love for character lines.

They toy with us, these image makers. They say old is ugly and young is beautiful and skinny is even more beautiful. And foreheads shouldn’t move and necks should be long and chins firm. And then one day they yawn and say perfection is so boring.

And why should we non-movie stars care what someone in LA decrees is good box office? I guess it’s because as a culture we sometimes lapse into being vain and insecure and turn our attention from important things to wonder if life would be more fun if we looked like Julia Roberts.

This new Hollywood trend is akin to the fashion industry changing its mind every season, proclaiming that bell bottoms are back just as you’ve invested in new skinny jeans.

But this whimsical yearning by Hollywood for the new natural is more diabolical, it being a lot easier to alter hemlines than a profile.

Any trend toward natural obviously hasn’t been heard by those standing in line for the latest anti-aging cream, including one hotly advertised beauty product said to make eyelashes as lush as a cocker spaniel’s but which, in some cases, can cause permanently discolored eyelids and change blue eyes to brown.

When I was in my 20s I went to an eyelash salon in New York where someone applied individual long lashes over my own skimpy ones. I felt fabulous for about a week. And then my eyes started to itch and the new lashes all fell out, taking the old ones with them. Fortunately my lashes grew back, teaching me to be grateful for short stubbies and good mascara.

Lynn Redgrave didn’t look like a movie star and still did all right. An obituary for the British actress included an early description of her by critic Rex Reed. He wrote that she was “Treetop tall, all kneecaps, with hair that never seems to have met a stylist, a little round mouth invented for devouring hot fudge sundaes and a chubby figure that changes weight according to her mood.”

You can imagine Redgrave and her agent wincing when they read that, but considering her long, varied career I bet she came to enjoy her distinctive non-star looks.

There’s a lot to be said about a person who is more than another pretty face which is a good thing to remember when the image-makers change their mind again. And they probably will, declaring real was interesting but Barbie’s better.

As healthy debate is replaced by screaming matches and goons run amok, it is refreshing to observe that a passionate people can still engage in civilized protest, like the one over a local movie theater.
If you live here in Wine Country and go to movies you know what I’m talking about. The demise of the arty little Rialto theater in Santa Rosa, Ca. A theater with a name larger than itself, like that landmark bridge in Venice.

The theater is a plain, squat building that could morph into a pizza house or a new age church or back to its beginning as a skating rink faster than you could say “pass the popcorn.” There’s nothing fancy inside, nothing like those long-ago theaters people have fought through history to save. No velvet curtains or private balconies. No art deco nymphs in the ladies room.

Physically, the space is as boring as any movie complex in any town. But it has an elegant soul, a grand mission, a high-minded approach to the art of film and community dialogue. It’s an art movie house, a cut above mainstream theaters, which appeals to varied types, progressives and traditionalists both. People seeking foreign and independent films, movies they just read about in the New Yorker. Opera lovers spending an afternoon watching full screen productions from the New York Metropolitan and the likes of Helen Mirren from the National Theatre.

The Rialto even shows movies in the morning, puts real butter on its popcorn and serves fresh brewed coffee.

When news came last month that the current operator and creator of the thriving beloved venue was losing his lease to an entertainment group with a number of Bay Area theaters, fans began to mourn. They started a Facebook objection. They wrote letters to the editor. They delivered love notes to the theater which are posted on a big board in the main lobby like many multi colored Valentines. This was their neighborhood theater – too little, too charming, too essential to fail. Yet, it looks like a done deal.

But the protesters have kept to the high road. Some harrumphed about what they fear will replace the top drawer offerings – loud, shoot-em-up blockbuster pap appealing only to young men of arrested development – but more focus on what the Rialto has given them and what they will miss.
The Rialto engaged with the community. It worked with teachers to let school classes see important movies for free. It introduced opera to some people who before didn’t know a coloratura from a corndog. When it featured films on AIDS, homelessness or hunger it had advocates in the lobby dispensing information on how to deal with the issues right here in Sonoma County.

It opened up for fund-raisers, like one for the library where you get to eat chocolate from local patisseries and see an old movie like “The Philadelphia Story.”

The new owner states he won’t change things and protests he’s no Starbucks, referring to that famous goliath versus little guy scenario. But people continue to be upset and sad and vocal although no one’s going Tea Party over it. The objection has been more a wake than a fight. We are peaceful movie-goers, as you might expect of people willing to watch movies in subtitles, including the latest Swedish mystery thriller. We have manners. We don’t talk during the show and we don’t leave candy boxes under the seat.

If the honorable Ky Boyd and his crew take the Rialto to another spot we will take off our black arm bands, get our money out and cross that bridge when he comes to it.