More Than Just a Number

When it comes to aging, many people like to say “Age is just a number,” by which they mean they’ve reached a certain number – say 60, 65, 70 – and they’re still healthy, fit, and strong and don’t want to be written off as old. I get that. Old is a dirty word in our youth-obsessed, youth-oriented culture.

If you’re 60 or older, have you noticed that most of what’s on TV (shows and commercials) and in movie theaters isn’t directed at you? Are you finding it difficult to find clothing that (a) fits and (b) doesn’t look ridiculous on you? Do you find yourself not understanding the social references made by young comedians? Is it harder to find music on the radio that you like? And if you’re not super-tech-savvy (or inclined to be) do you feel out of place in the new high-tech normal? Aging isn’t about numbers. It’s about how you feel in society – and how society feels about you.

In other cultures – not many – the aging and the old are revered: for their knowledge and wisdom; for the roles they’ve long played in society and their families; and because they represent the value of the past. That’s not how it works here, or in Western countries in general.

In the marketplace, you’re over-the-hill in your 40s. In your 50s and 60s you’re viewed as essentially worthless, and unless you have your own business you’re virtually unemployable. In your 70s and beyond, you’re resented because you get government “entitlements,” or are just regarded as a drain if you’re ill, at which point your loved ones (if you have any left) might warehouse and largely forget about you.

“Age is just a number,” both as an idea and as language, makes as much sense as “Guns don’t kill people, people kill people.” Age is an important factor in our lives throughout our lives. As kids and teens we can’t wait to get older, because older means grown up and freedom. You can legally drive, vote, drink, have sex, and ignore your parents at assorted youthful milestone ages.

During our 20s, 30s & 40s, we feel we’re in our prime. After that, whether we’re in good shape or not, things begin to change. We reflect on our lives, careers, personal choices, finances, in a way we may never have before, because we know we likely have less time ahead of us than we do behind us, and there’s no way of knowing what condition we’ll be in as time marches on.

Circumstances and relationships change. People (family, friends, colleagues) relocate or die. There are friends we get rid of or who get rid of us. For lots of folks – especially women who were beautiful in their younger years – appearance becomes an issue. Teeth become troublesome, hair turns gray or falls out, gravity takes its toll on your whole body, joints hurt, your body may not tolerate the same foods.

The machine begins to show its wear and tear. And to lesser or greater extents, so does the mind. You remember less. You’re confused more often. Things just change – more for some, less for others, but change is a universal reality and that’s not about numbers, it’s how life works.

At the end of March I had a bad fall and I’m still more debilitated by it than I already was. Now I have one of those “I’ve fallen and I can’t get up” medical alert devices – sensible, necessary, and I don’t really mind. But it doesn’t exactly represent vitality.

More importantly, one of my dearest, longtime friends, a man I knew for over 40 years, died last week at age 66. Too soon, too soon. He knew he was sick and was willing to fight. He never got to wage that battle. And I have a sad void within where a bright light used to be, the light of someone who loved me, who remembered my parents and my youth, who shared many of my values and opinions, who was generous and supportive. 

When we lose such people, we lose the witnesses to our lives. I don’t have that many witnesses left. No, age is not just a number, especially as we get older. Among other vital things, it’s time to assess/reassess who and what is important in our lives. Maybe there is some “human deadwood” we should shed. But it’s time to treasure everyone and everything we care about. Because it can all slip away in a New York minute.

Bad Karma, My Ass

I’ve always liked Shirley MacLaine. I like her as an actress; as a woman who gained the respect to be treated like one of the boys instead of a bimbo in Frank Sinatra’s Rat Pack; and I like her interest in other cultures, distant lands, and spiritual/philosophical ideas that make a lot of people think she’s wacky. She doesn’t care if people think she’s a New Age nutjob and I like that, too.

But Shirley crossed a line when (as reported this week) in her new memoir, What If... (she’s written enough autobiographies for several lifetimes), she wrote: “What if most Holocaust victims were balancing their karma from ages before…The energy of killing is endless and will be experienced by the killer and the killee.” Shirley isn't the first person to suggest this connection. She’s just the first one to do so whom I like.

And not for nothing, but: killee? This is not a word. The word is victim. Not used in a sentence, one might say: “The Nazis killed more than 12 million people, half of them Jews, the rest: homosexuals, the aged, anti-Nazi political activists, the mentally ill and retarded, the physically disabled, and everybody they caught trying to help such people.”

The notion of karma – which is the Sanskrit word for action, human behavior – has been a core religious and philosophical concept since the days of ancient India and remains so today in Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism, Sikhism and Taoism.

Unfortunately, in the sense that Shirley means karma, it's bad karma and punishment in this life for crimes, sins and other really bad stuff one did in this or a past life. But the repercussions of bad karma are a small part of the larger wisdom of karma. In all the traditional schools of thought and faith there are The 12 Laws of Karma, and they are focused on how one should behave in this life in order to learn, grow and make the world a better place. (Give it a click, it’s a good read.)

Nowhere in karmic creed does it say it’s permissible for someone to deliberately harm or kill another as punishment for that person’s “bad Karma.” But, not surprisingly, western New Agers have grabbed on to a piece of a concept that appeals to them, in this case the idea that “you’ll get yours,” even if it distorts the context of the larger laws of karma. Think of it as The Cliff Notes of Enlightenment On My Own Terms. 

Which is why I have never liked the concept of what-goes-around-comes-around bad karma.  And I think it’s no accident that this aspect of karma was so fervently embraced in Asia, which for many centuries has contained styles and levels of poverty, starvation, cruelty, official punishment, criminal violence and abject suffering that are particularly (if not uniquely) horrendous, overwhelming, and seemingly beyond defeat. It’s much easier to watch a paraplegic six year old drinking out of a mud hole, or listen to the screams of a 12 year old being gang raped when you believe it’s their bad karma come home to roost.

The idea of retribution for bad karma is very dangerous right now. It places a tidy, comforting, blanket of righteous cosmic justice on the unspeakable as we move further into an era defined by terrorism, war, human trafficking, a desperate lack of the basics of survival (food, water, shelter, the usual) in many places, a lessening of human rights and an increase in oppression – especially of women and girls – along with extraordinary poverty, the ravages of climate change, and the dark side of new technology (signs of which are already apparent to some, but not to most).

I haven’t read What If..., which includes many other questions.  So, to give Shirley the benefit of the doubt, what if she was just posing a spiritual question about the victims of the Holocaust? The problem with that question is the inherent answer – which many people find insensitive and insulting – is that the victims’ bad karma would make the Holocaust comprehensible and okay. It is neither. And to possibly suggest so is a form of Holocaust Denial: yes, the Holocaust happened, but it was for a sound spiritual reason. 

Nein, Shirley. Such a conclusion would be dishonest, dishonorable and disgusting. I don’t know if you’re wacky, but you need to realign your chakras or dye your aura or change your mantra or something, because you’ve got it all twisted. You’re 80 years old. Where’s your common sense, personal growth and sound wisdom? Just asking a question.

The Good Stuff

I like to search Google Images for photos, paintings, posters, cartoons, etc., that I use to illustrate this blog (FYI, if a blog is free to view and has no advertising, you can legally use copyrighted images), as well as decorate my computer desktop (or, as we say in English, screen). The painting above is currently on my desktop; I picked it up in a search for images of summer because it really spoke to me. The blue-gray, the iced tea, the fan. I’m not a summer person, but in summer I like iced tea and fans. I also like my desktop to reflect the seasons and holidays and special occasions or just my mood.

Thinking about what I like reminded me of a thread of emails I recently had with a friend I’ve known since high school. He said he reads my posts with his morning coffee and he couldn’t remember the last time I wrote something positive, that it’s all “complaints” – a choice of words I found odd for what I regard as political analysis and commentary on contemporary culture and major social issues, which is what this blog is about. “I know there’s a lot of woe out there, but there’s a lot of good stuff, too,” he said.

That got me thinking. In my reply, I told him that the difference in our lives might explain the difference in our perceptions. He’s a healthy, busy man with a wife about 15 years his junior and two young children, all of whom he adores, as well as quite a few friends, a dog he loves; and he revels in nature and pretty much ignores politics – so I can see how he perceives lots of good stuff.

But cranky, curmudgeon me, I’m broke, alone, my handful of good friends are scattered across the country, I have no affinity with children/animals/nature and I’m a political junkie. So I don’t see a lot of good stuff. I see the nation, the world and the planet going to hell in a hand basket. I told him I didn’t see any good stuff. “Sunshine and flowers don’t make up for all that,” I said.

But I’ve continued to think about the idea of good stuff, and to ask myself why I don’t see any – or, more significantly, discount the good stuff I do encounter as not being sufficient. I’m mature enough to understand that happiness isn’t a constant state of jubilation, it’s the ability to take conscious pleasure in the many little things we do enjoy, to find at least temporary contentment in the blue-gray and iced tea and fan, to not be so quick to dismiss sunshine and flowers.

Last Saturday, I went out on my mobility scooter (I love my scooter and I’m lucky to have it). It was a hot day, but I was wearing cool clothes and it was better in the shade. The air felt lovely on my face as I scooted along beneath a bright blue sky punctuated with big cotton-ball clouds. That was good stuff. I went for a much-needed haircut to the same nice hairdresser I’ve been going to for 25 years and the shampoo she gave me reminded me of when I was a little girl and my mother washed my hair and how nice that felt. Good stuff.

Later I bought fresh fruit from a sidewalk vendor because those guys have fine produce that’s much cheaper than the supermarket, then treated myself to a multi-fruit smoothie from a food truck and lastly found a windowless building wall, parked against it and smoked a couple of cigarettes as the breeze blew through my blessedly-much-shorter hair (portable ashtray in hand, of course) and that was good stuff too.

And throughout the week, I felt the comfort of good stuff. Early morning with strong iced coffee and a toasted bagel, a slice of cheese flattened down on each half; other food I like; movies I enjoyed on TV; phone calls with girlfriends; the bliss of turning on the air conditioner on humid afternoons; and watching The 2014 Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction ceremony and listening to so much good music (I miss good music).

I also spent considerable quality time with my many Tarot card decks (which I haven’t done for ages), cleansing them with the sound waves of a strand of Tibetan bells I bought on Eighth Street back in the ‘60s, touching & gazing at & shuffling them and talking to them, getting reacquainted with these special old friends. I did some chores and accomplished a few things long left unattended. I looked for things I hadn’t been able to find and I found them, and found some other wonderful things I forgot I had. It was all very good stuff.

Sure, there was some bad stuff, too: lots of worldly woe and personal woe too. Still, I didn’t ignore the good stuff, I felt it and was thankful for it. That was an important thing and I’m going to remember to do that from now on. But I’ll still bemoan the misery of our politics and the horrendous state of the nation/world and the decay of contemporary culture – and write about it here. It’s a dirty job, but somebody’s gotta do it and I’ve appointed me. I can’t just lounge in the good stuff all the time. We are who we are.

Mind Games (no class warfare involved)

Let me give us all a break from the subject of class warfare and write about something more mundane that simply annoys (and I think damages!) us in the course of our everyday lives – namely wildly intrusive advertising on TV and online. 

I watch a lot of TV – both for news and entertainment. And I go online a lot – primarily for email, news, research, shopping, pictures for this blog and to decorate my computer desktop, and to play mind-improving brain games. I’m not into social media and I don’t find the Internet entertaining, but I do find it useful. 

However, no matter which online site I go to, even The New York Times, I am barraged with ads: ads that jiggle on the sides of my screen, ads that pop up when I click on something I want to read, ads that pop up in the middle of something I’m already reading, ads I have to endure before the video I’ve selected plays. I don’t keep my speakers on as a rule, but I suspect that if I did, I’d be equally barraged by audio ads. This crap is unavoidable and I find it very intrusive. It really pisses me off. And it feels relatively new. It seems I wasn’t being slapped in the face with an ad with every click of my mouse as recently as a year ago. What the hell is going on? 

Television is even worse. I stopped watching regular commercial TV long ago, particularly major networks. I can’t focus on a program when, literally, I get to see five to seven minutes of a show, then it’s interrupted with five to seven minutes of fast-paced ten and 15 second ads. By the time the commercials are over, I’ve often forgotten what show I’m watching and a dizzying headache begins. I’d like to watch more cable channels than I do, but they’re chock full of ads, too.

I particularly can’t watch movies that are constantly interrupted because I'm totally robbed of the mood and continuity of the film. In years past, I watched a lot of Sundance, Independent Film Channel and AMC when it was American Movie Classics (I don’t know what it is now), but even they have been overtaken with the 5-7/5-7 ad-to-program ratio. And what’s worse, Sundance is editing films (Sundance!) “for content and to fit the time allotted for this program.” Are you kidding me?

For escape, I watch a lot of free On Demand channels, where there were often no ads or you used to be able to fast-forward through them. But increasingly, the fast-forward function is being disabled just for the ads, so I’m in the same position as when I watch things in regular time. But at least I have the option of stopping programs for bathroom, kitchen and phone breaks, so they’re still worthwhile.

And of course there’s TCM, thank God, which is still commercial free and since I’m an old movie fan, I watch that a lot. But it both amuses and distresses me that “old” movies now include the 60s, 70s and 80s. They still have the 30s through 50s, which is what I consider old, but that’s because I’m old. For viewers in their teens, 20s and 30s, my old movies are ancient and young viewers don’t like them because they move more slowly and are in black & white; ‘nuff said.

As a result, I watch a lot of public television, which I love, and so far their commercials (they have them now) are at the start, end, and between programs. I don’t know how long that’s going to last, since public television is now so desperately underfunded, they may have to resort to intrusive ads; indeed, they started experimenting with them in selected markets in 2011. (I also enjoy the uninterrupted panel discussions and Book TV on C-Span.)

And then there are the pay-extra-for-them premium channels, a commercial-free panacea, but a pricey treat. Years back I had them all, then for a very long time I cut back to just HBO. Recently, I added on Starz and Epix – after a lot of negotiating for lower rates, but it still bumps up the cable bill. I justify this because I rarely go anywhere and do anything, especially go out to a $15 movie in a theater, and at home I hardly ever rent newer on-demand fare, so I think it’s a reasonable indulgence.

But it’s not really an indulgence at all, it’s a necessity. At my age, 62, I’m increasingly concerned with brain health and not falling prey to Alzheimer’s or other forms of dementia. I genuinely believe watching heavily commercial-laden programming is harmful for me and just as bad – perhaps more so – for younger viewers, because it truly lessens attention span and, I believe, increases ADD (or ADHD, but I never remember what the “H” stands for).

I recognize that advertisers, who pay a lot of money for TV airtime and Internet space, are desperately trying to get their sales agenda across and audiences are now so dispersed, they’re trying to capture eyeballs when- and however they can. I think what they don’t recognize is that most of us view them as an unwelcome interruption and I for one make a deliberate effort to ignore them and not even notice what they’re for. I don’t really have any sympathy for their marketing crisis because much of what they’re trying to sell us is crap and most of us are already buying more crap than we need anyway. But like insects, they’re determined to work their way in – and I shudder to think what they’ll try to do next.

Being and Doing

A whole lot’s been going on in the month since I last wrote a post, but I haven't enough to say about any of it to constitute a full essay. Putin’s going to keep Crimea, which a lot of its citizens seem to want and those who don’t will relocate or disappear or die. The international community won’t do anything because it doesn’t want a war, so we're just taking some of Putin’s privileges away, as if this half-naked- horse-riding, power-hungry egomaniac with lots and lots of bombs were just a naughty child, which might actually be the smart way to go. And in any case, whatever the President says or does, the Republicans will say he’s weak and wrong.

It’s unlikely we’ll ever find enough of that Malaysian plane or the 280+ persons who were on it to tell us definitively more than we already know, but that won’t stop the news channels from giving it close to 24/7 coverage until we wish we were missing. Red states across the nation will continue to take advantage of the elimination of that portion of the Voting Rights Act the Supreme Court didn’t think we needed anymore to keep advancing the suppression of voting by the young, old, and people of color.

And Republicans will keep saying outrageous things about women, then wonder why they’re not winning our hearts and minds. My current favorite is Conservative radio host Dennis Prager’s comment at a fundraiser for Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell: “A wife should have sex with her husband – regardless of her ‘mood’ – because it is one of the ‘mutual obligations’ of being married.” In other words, the New Normal will keep stupidly lumbering along. (And Generalissimo Francisco Franco is still dead.)

So my concern at the moment is more philosophical – a way of thinking that has become irrelevant and downright disrespected in a society that has made the rich, even the just comfortable, extraordinarily greedy, self-centered and cruel, while the poor, even the just making it, are preoccupied with economic survival. Ideas, language and creative culture are apparently luxuries we either don’t need or can’t afford – like a liberal arts education that isn’t a straight line to a job, or well-scripted TV programs that employ good writers and actors, because trash reality TV is not only cheaper to produce, it gives us social permission to be crass, ignorant, inarticulate, and shallow.

This is why I’m particularly disturbed by what’s happening to the English language in the 21^st century, a time in which language has become smaller, more banal, and used poorly and less creatively. This seems especially true among young adults, who just don’t care about language. But language and how it’s used is important, because it reflects the nature, values, and personality of a culture.

I believe this dangerous change began when we started to turn nouns into verbs, beginning  in the 80s with impact. Things used to have an impact on other things, but then things suddenly became impacted, as in “the sluggish economy has impacted government’s willingness to support vital social programs for the poor.” This matters because a noun is a person, place or thing - essentially being - while a verb describes action, which is doing.

I’m a natural intuitive, but I took psychic development classes for five years with a very wise and gifted woman who used to remind us regularly that we were human beings, not human doings. But because people now guide their lives with an abundance of digital devices, communicate in 140-character fragments with a whole new vocabulary of acronyms, and take pride in multi-tasking, we are increasingly becoming human doings rather than human beings. Expedience has become more important than style and the appreciation of good language is quickly disappearing, because people rarely hear or read it.

So we no longer keep a scrap book, we’re scrapbooking; we don’t give someone a gift, we’re gifting; we didn’t buy something at a thrift shop, we thrifted; during the recent Olympics, athletes didn’t win a medal, they medaled. And of course, we no longer laugh, we LOL and we don’t offer an opinion we IMHO. This has become so commonplace among younger people that I was recently told by two Human Resources managers they get résumés filled with such acronyms – along with ugly new words like incentivize (not to mention disincentivizes).

We don't have conversations, we dialogue, and we don't have relationships, we're in relationship. In business, a cohort isn't a chum it's a team, and silos aren't big towers that hold stuff they're departments or divisions. Writers no longer provide copy they write verbiage - as little as possible, of course. Artists don’t paint, draw or take photographs, they create images. Usually on a computer. I have a dear friend who's an artist and used to work in a variety of media (media used to be the plural of medium in art; today it just refers to technology and electronic journalism). Now he works exclusively by computer and brags that he makes art pieces in ten minutes. I’m supposed to hear this as a positive thing. I do not.

You may also have noticed that people have become things: “Tom is the guy I told you about that I went to college with,” as opposed to “who I went to college with.” Strictly speaking, it should be “Tom is the guy I told you about with whom I went to college,” but I guess one has to pick one’s battles (remember when one was something other than a number?).

The meanings of words are also changing - and not for the better. In fashion, there are no longer colors and fabrics but colorations and fabrications, instead; and couture, which is merely the French word for clothing, has lost its "haute" (the phrase haute couture used to mean high fashion, the expensive designer stuff). Now couture all by itself is used to mean haute couture, which must make us sound even more stupid to the French than we already do. In both fashion and food, decadent has become a synonym for sophisticated, and while they might be considered first or second cousins, they're not the same.

In real estate, house and home have become synonymous, which at the very least is insulting to those of us who make our homes in apartments. But whatever the structure may be, even when there are walls and doors (rather than "open concept"), there are no more rooms, there are areas. In general usage, I once heard someone compliment someone else by saying "You're totally superfluous," but I don't know if that's caught on. The one that has and makes me grit my teeth every time I hear it is downfall when what is meant is downside. I get similarly upset when I hear people say infamous, which of course mean famous for something terrible, as in "Charles Manson is infamous," but is now being used to mean very famous. I understand that new words must enter the language as new things enter the world, but I have no patience with the misuse and unnecessary changes of words. 

Given that language is my thing – along with many other things that were a routine part of my youth and even my middle age – this degradation of language hurts my heart and befuddles my brain. So does all this technology that was intended to increase communication but has only decreased it. One used to have a handful of close friends with whom one spent time and shared activities. Now people have hundreds, even thousands of “friends” through social media, people who give you a thumbs up when you put something they like on your wall.

I’ll tell you straight out: I’m 62 years old as of this month and I truly hate the 21^st century. I feel I have no place in it, that I’ve outlived my time, and it’s a combination of feeling deeply lonely and being totally infuriated. I saw an online ad today; it was intended to sell a new way to send photos to people. But to me, it said it all, about language and everything else that's sick and bad and lost in the 21st century: “Lots of sharing. No attachments.”

I Don’t Like Children. Yes, I Said It!

A few days ago, in my post entitled The Tyranny of Healthy Lifestyle Zealots, I clearly detailed my objection to the social disenfranchisement of fat people and smokers (I’m both) by people who are zealously committed to what they consider a healthy lifestyle and therefore blame people like me for the high cost of health care. I corrected this inaccuracy, as well as put forth the idea that: “…in a diverse, free society, people have different needs, wants and behaviors, and everyone can be accommodated if we accept that those who differ from us have as much of a right to be who they are as we have to be who we are.”  I also gave an example, saying in part: “I don’t have children; I don’t even like children. But I don’t begrudge them the health care (or nutrition, education, and protection from abuse and neglect) they require… I believe in the concepts of ‘each according to his needs’ and ‘live and let live’.”

To my surprise, three friends responded privately, not to my larger message, but to my having said “I don’t like children.” Since they know me, they mostly found it funny, but they were all a little shocked that I had the chutzpah to say this straight out because, they explained, it’s just not done! One person voiced concern that I would turn people off and give them the wrong impression of me, which might impede my efforts to draw a larger audience to this blog.

I was nonplussed. I know most people do like kids (particularly babies) and especially adore their own, but I had no idea that to express the opposite was verboten. I know I’m in the minority here, but I didn’t realize that people who don’t like children and have the gall to say so are even more hated than smokers and fat people combined. Now that I’ve made it public that I’m a fat smoker who doesn’t like children, is it still safe for me to leave my apartment?”

While on the phone with my blog-expansion-concerned friend, she searched the phrase “I don’t like children,” and the first thing that came up was a site called Heartless Bitches International, a humor/satire-but-they’re-not-really-kidding-site by, about and for women who don’t conform to all of the current ideals and ideas modern women espouse (those HBs are more radical). On the site was a “rant” by an unnamed woman entitled The 4 Words of the Pariah, in which she beautifully states my own feelings thusly: “I don’t like children. What that lonely little statement can do to people… So what? If someone doesn’t like children why does it bother you so much? Stop taking everything so personally.” Later in the piece, she voices one of my greatest complaints by saying: “Somewhere along the way this society started worshipping children. Everything must be about the children. Every law passed must protect the children. Every restaurant, every movie theater, every bar, every museum, every art gallery, every area of our lives and cities must be child friendly.”

I’ve finally gotten to the point in my quickly-advancing old age that I accept myself just as I am and I really don’t care what people think of me anymore. That’s why I choose to speak my mind uncensored. However, on behalf of myself and other adults who don’t like children, let me say the following. I don’t hate children. I don’t wish them ill. I believe that society, government, and parents (or whomever a child lives with) should ensure that children are well taken care of. All children should be loved by those who give birth to them or adopt/foster them or otherwise take responsibility for them. And as I said above: “I don’t begrudge them the health care (or nutrition, education, and protection from abuse and neglect) they require.” I think government should pick up the tab for whatever kids’ caretakers can’t afford and it’s clearly in society’s best interest to ensure that we don’t raise generations of damaged and/or ignorant people. Whatever taxes are needed to ensure all of this is money well and importantly spent.

That said, adults who don’t have children – often because they don’t like children – are not obliged to like or interact with them. I don’t like babies; they hold as much appeal for me as sacks of flour. I held one once and all I wanted was its mother to get it off my hands immediately. I don’t enjoy the company of children, especially young children. I find them boring, unsettling when they’re running around and yelling, and disgusting when they’re eating. I resent it that our culture increasingly revolves around children. I believe adults take priority because we’re adults! and we should therefore have child-free spaces. The needs/rights of children should co-exist with those of adults, not supersede them. So if parents don’t want their kids to do or be exposed to certain things, it’s their responsibility to supervise them to ensure that – not my responsibility to live or look or speak or behave in child-friendly ways.

I shouldn’t have the presence of children imposed on me. Children don’t belong everywhere. And I’m sick and tired of politicians speaking incessantly about “The American Family.” Not all Americans have families, or want families, at least not those that include children. There are millions of single and married Americans who don’t want or don’t like children. We’re not monsters. We’re grown-ups with different needs, tastes, and points of view. That’s called freedom. And in a democracy, freedom is a delicate but necessary balance between freedom to and freedom from. I choose to be free of children as much as humanly possible. And in the words of that old song, “ain’t nobody’s business if I do.”

Just For Fun

As millions of people on the Internet already know (that statement was just for fun), this blog almost exclusively comments on what I consider to be important political and social issues, with occasional schmaltz thrown in. There’s also my excellent recipe for biscotti: "Coffee Break," 4/3/2009. But since I’m world famous (uh-huh…) for my wild, wacky sense of humor, I thought I’d share with you, my vast coterie of readers, a few things I think are hilarious. I’ll continue to harass you with my wise seriousness again soon.

1) Wendy’s (fast-food, not Peter Pan) famous 1980s Russian Fashion Show TV commercial. (Stylish, no?)

2) Encountering A Star (this is a true story) – One day, a woman was traveling along a highway in Connecticut when she had a sudden yen for ice cream. Since she was in no particular hurry, she took the first available exit and drove around to see what she could find. It didn’t take long before she came upon what was apparently a large, popular local ice cream store. After finding a spot in the crowded parking lot, she went in and got on the shortest line. While casually looking around, she saw a famous face just a couple of people down the line from her: it was Paul Newman!

            Now this lady was a huge Paul Newman fan and she was so thrilled to see him in person she audibly gasped and nearly fell down. Then she started to quietly mumble to herself: “Just calm down, you’re a grown woman not a starry-eyed teenager; stop staring at him and you can’t say anything to him, he’s a regular person, just leave him alone; he lives in Connecticut, you don’t live here; just get your ice cream and get out of here…” etc.

            She was still mumbling when she found herself at the counter. She ordered a large ice cream cone, paid for it, hurried out to her car and let herself in. Just as she was starting the engine, she realized she didn’t have her ice cream. And at that very moment, she heard a tapping at her window. She looked over and it was Paul Newman! She lowered the window and before she could say a word, Newman smiled at her and softly said: “If you’re looking for your ice cream cone, you put it in your purse.”

3) Honda’s 2014 Presidents’ Day TV commercial. (That play on a popular sexy question just kills me.)

4) Out of this World (also a true story) – In 1969, when astronaut Neil Armstrong, the first man to walk on the Moon, took his first step onto the surface, he famously said: “One small step for Man and a giant leap for Mankind.” After bouncing around on the lunar surface for a while, as he was getting back onto his vessel, he quietly mumbled “Good luck, Mr. Gorsky.” For 40 years after, whenever the press asked him what his parting remark meant, Armstrong would smile but not respond.

            Then one day, while participating in a small symposium, Armstrong was again asked the Gorsky question. This time he smiled, then said that since Mr. Gorsky was no longer living, he felt he could answer. He explained that when he was a child in 1939, he was playing ball with some friends in his backyard. When one of them hit the ball over the fence into his neighbors’ yard, it landed under their bedroom window. Those neighbors were Mr. and Mrs. Gorsky. When Neil went to fetch the ball, he could hear the couple arguing. Mrs. Gorsky was yelling at her husband: “Sex? You want sex! You’ll get sex when the kid next door walks on the Moon!”

Have a nice, fun day.

Contemplating Valentine’s Day

I think it’s fair to say that, generally speaking, men don’t like Valentine’s Day and women do. Men don’t like feeling pressured to be excessively romantic and having to express their emotions, not to mention spending money. Women like it when men are mushy, especially if they usually aren’t, and getting to hear a sometimes-rare “I Love You” is a thing of joy. And we like getting flowers and chocolate; gifts, period. I believe lesbians feel the same as straight women about Valentine's Day, but their relationships are usually more touchy-feely than straight relationships anyway. I can't speak for gay men.

The best Valentine’s present I ever got was a shipment of filet mignons from Omaha Steaks. It felt very sexy to be the kind of woman who inspired a gift of raw meat. His card was restrained, but since we had only been dating for six weeks when Valentine’s Day rolled around, I didn’t mind. I gave him a shirt – pedestrian, I know, but I couldn’t afford a gold cigarette case. My card to him was one with the photo above in which I wrote a correspondingly sexy message inside. Both of us were pleased.

Some people, men and women, straight and gay, reject Valentine’s Day because they view it as a Capitalist conspiracy among the greeting card, flower and candy industries (which, in the business of marketing, would be considered a clever “cross promotion”). I think that’s rather cynical and humorless, even if it’s become true. However, historically, Valentine’s Day dates back to Ancient Rome, 270CE, when an imprisoned priest was martyred by Emperor Claudius II for falling in love with his jailer’s daughter and sending her a letter signed “from your Valentine.” Priests weren't celibate yet, but those old Romans didn't like Christians, so he couldn't win for losing either way.

What is now an annual holiday is also connected to a Roman spring fertility festival and evolved into a Day of Romance by the 14^th Century. Printed Valentine cards made their U.S. debut in the mid-1800s and traditional gifts were already chocolate and flowers, particularly red roses: the Roman symbol of love and beauty. The Valentine’s Day tradition endured and is celebrated in the US, England, Canada, France, Mexico and Australia, among other countries.

Like many women, I enjoy Valentine’s Day when I have a man in my life and don’t when I don’t. I don’t this year, but I’m not feeling bummed out. This country is in such a state of turmoil, division, anger, want, greed, and need (I really think America is having a nervous breakdown) that I welcome anything pleasant and that celebrates love when hate is going around like the flu.

I painfully miss affection and believe the lack of it is truly unhealthy. There was a study many years ago that separated a bunch of babies in an orphanage or hospital or some such into two groups. One group got a lot of holding, fondling, kissing, cuddling, etc. and the other group got none. The untouched group constantly cried and fussed, ate and slept poorly, and were just cranky little miserables all the time. The coddled group was the complete opposite. I don’t think this changes as we grow up, especially when we mature into sexual beings, as well.

And some kind of love and affection is, I believe, markedly important for the aging and elderly. I wouldn’t be surprised if some future study discovered a connection between a lack of affection and the development of severe depression and even Alzheimer’s and other forms of dementia. I don’t think it takes scientific genius to figure out that when people aren’t touched for extended periods, they literally lose their minds; affection is as basic a need as food, water, clothing, and shelter.

So, this Valentine’s Day, I’m thinking lovely thoughts. I’m remembering how lucky I was to have had a very loving, affectionate mother, and, how sweet it was when I had certain men in my life (others provided the emotional sustenance of a rock). I’m remembering my half-aunt Mildred (long story…) who, after many years of being widowed, had the courage to marry a second time at the age of 66 (and the even greater courage to divorce him at 76). 

I’m happy for everyone I know – and even those I don’t – who are fortunate to have a Valentine, and I wish all of you a happy, loving Valentine's Day. For those of you who don't have a significant other but want one, I hope you find one soon. And because I haven’t given up hope, I’m thinking positively and looking forward to my own next one. This fat lady ain’t singin’ yet.

On Losing the Strangers We Love

I was upset when Pete Seeger died last week because of what he had meant to me since childhood.  But his death was not a tragedy.  He was 94 and died of natural causes after a creative, productive, meaningful life.  But I am very sad and very angry about the death of 46-year-old Philip Seymour Hoffman – a stupendous actor and by all accounts a very sweet and decent man.  He was one of my favorites and his death is a tragedy, because he should have had at least another 30 years to work his craft on screen and stage, not to mention being a loving father, son and spouse.  Forty-six is just too fucking young to die.

I feel like my head is stuffed with ants and cotton balls, but I need to communicate several ideas here.  The first is that, of course, all of us must find a way to cope with the deaths of those we know and love; the second is that the deaths of public figures we never knew personally can sometimes be as wrenching as the deaths of family and friends; and the third is that some people are callous and judgmental when someone dies because of drugs, which pisses me off, because they have no understanding that addiction is a disease and it plays out in a confusing assortment of genetic and other physiological, emotional and behavioral ways (and that’s all I’ll say about that).

All of my blood relatives are dead, as are several people who were former lovers or close friends (or both).  A dear friend of over 30 years died last August and I was sad.  But she was 99, so it was also manageable and acceptable, if you know what I mean – in a way that the death of another close friend of over 20 years who died of AIDS at 40 was not.  I was extremely close to my mother and it took literally 17 years before I had fully coped with her death and integrated that loss into my life.  When my father died, I grieved for him too, especially because we hadn’t had a good relationship until I was in my 30s and I felt cheated out of an ever-increasing closeness that was suddenly ended.  But his passing just didn’t tear my guts out the way my mother’s did.  Death and grief, like life and love, have broad scope and many levels.

One of the things I’m keenly aware of is that the assassinations of President Kennedy (when I was 11) and Martin Luther King Jr. (when I was 16) genuinely shaped my life, gave me a view of the world as an unsafe and unjust place.  Years later, the murder of John Lennon drove me over the edge.  It reinforced my cynicism, existentialism and warped sense of humor.  I mourned him actively for more than a year and in many ways still do – just as I still mourn King.  Do we ever fully recover when a uniquely bright light goes out?  I’m an habitual obituary reader, and whenever the death of a favorite writer or artist or other public figure is announced, it takes a piece out of me – especially if they were fairly young or committed suicide.  If they couldn’t go on, with all their gifts and glory, how can I be expected to keep going?  But I have to nonetheless.

I’ve heard it said that when we loose the ones we love – the ones we know and who know us – we lose the witnesses to our lives.  I feel that when we lose the ones we love whom we don’t know, we lose a part of the structure and meaning of our lives, those who inspire in us respect, admiration, affection, and a desire to be our best selves.  You would think their passing might give us something solid to hold on to, the stability of memory.  But more often, at least for me, the loss just lessens.

It has always given me great pleasure and comfort just to know that I’m living in the same time as strangers I love, and living in New York City, I’m often living in the same place.  New York will be a little more empty without Philip Seymour Hoffman – and those of us who loved him without knowing him will just have to live with that.

The Tower is Closing

For the past couple of months, I’ve been weighing the pros and cons of ending this blog, which I started in August, 2007.  In the end, I’ve decided the pros outweigh the cons – so this is my final post.

This blog has given me a chance to express my ideas, concerns and opinions and giving up this opportunity was a big “con” in my consideration.  However, I’ve never done the enormous amount of personal and technical work necessary to bring this blog to the attention of a larger audience, and I don’t feel like doing it now.  But by not doing it, I’ve increasingly felt that I’ve just been sporadically and inconsistently screaming into an unhearing void, and what’s the point in continuing if I’m not going to do the work to promote/market Views From the Tower?  For me, the final answer is that there is no point, so it’s time to end it.

That said, I very much appreciate that those of you who have been following this blog took the time to do so, and some of you have often taken the time to send me private emails of response: much praise and sometimes disagreement.  All of it was gratifying, encouraging, and gave me the sense that I wasn’t entirely screaming into an unhearing void.  Thank you very, very much.

As a writer, I certainly intend to keep writing.  I’m working on a mystery novel, something I’ve always wanted to do.  In a way, given my politics, it amuses me and reminds me of the time in the 70s that Eldridge Cleaver moved to Paris and became a pants designer.  But I’m no Eldridge Cleaver and also have no delusion that I’ll become a modern Agatha Christie.  I just want to have some fun (and maybe make a little money).  I haven’t had a lot of fun as a writer and now seems like a good time to do it.  Equally important, I abandoned my relationship with The Tarot about ten years ago and I want to reclaim it.  It enriched my life when I had it and I want that connection again – and that’s a study/practice that takes time.  You may or may not understand what this means, but suffice it to say The Tarot is important to me and that’s reason enough for me.

In general, having turned 60 earlier this year, I’ve been giving a lot of thought to time – time past, present and future.  And December is annually the month in which I give the most thought to time: it’s filled with holidays I no longer celebrate with family and friends; it’s the end of one year and the birth of a new one; and I’m reminded of what was lost in Decembers past.  John Lennon, who was murdered at the age of 40 in December 1980, would have been 72 this year.  His five-year-old son who was left fatherless turned 37.  A dear friend of mine, Stuart Franklin, died in December 21 years ago.  Had my mother and father survived their 70s, they would be 89 and 90 now – a misery I’m glad they were spared, but I still miss them terribly.

I also think about the meaningful, functional time I have left.  I don’t have oodles of it.  Over the past few months, arthritis has settled in my left shoulder, wrist and hand.  Over the past few years, my teeth have started screwing up.  My right knee is prone to slipping out from under me.  My hearing, especially in my left ear, has greatly diminished.  My home and daily routine are both a mess and hugely dysfunctional.  I need the time to get these things together and bring some peace and order to the rest of my time.

So again, my thanks, and my best wishes to all of you, as well as my hope that you have the opportunity to do what you wish and need to do with your time.  Also, Happy Holidays and Happy New Year.  Here’s hoping the future brings better times for us all.

Silence From the Tower

In early May, I apologized for having been lax in my postings (to put it mildly), then promptly failed to post again until today, nearly three months to the day later.  It’s not that I’ve gotten tired of blogging (although I have, just a little…); I’ve just been rendered uncharacteristically speechless by recent/current political and social events – and as a result, feeling quite depressed.  I’ve been sleeping a lot (if I don’t get my 18 hours a day, I’m not good for anything).  I’ve been following the news and ignoring the news, trying to take rampant stupidity and craziness in stride and, now, successfully ignoring the Olympics (dull, insincere, pointless and expensive).

I don’t want to just be the crazy, angry, disconnected aging lady in the Tower.  I’d like to sound a positive note, be a bit more uplifting – for myself and you.  I simply can’t think of much to be positive about.  Just today, I found out Gore Vidal and Maeve Binchy died this week.  That didn’t help.  As if the world’s day-to-day goings-on weren’t saddening enough.

So, while I haven’t been writing, I’ve been reading.  I’ve taken a good crack at Edgar Allan Poe for the first time.  No pleasure or guidance there.  I don’t feel too bad though; Mark Twain, one of Poe’s contemporaries, proclaimed him “unreadable,” so it’s not just me.  And since I’m trying to write a mystery (which is why I felt I should finally read Master Poe), I’ve been reading mysteries and reading about how to write mysteries, and I still can’t fully craft my heroine, let alone come up with a plot.  This is my first serious attempt at fiction.  My mother used to tell me I had a better ear for non-fiction, an assessment I took to heart since she was just a few credits shy of her Masters in literature – and after all, she was my Mommy.  I try not to think about that too much, but it keeps popping into my head.

I’ve been cooking and baking (the heat notwithstanding) and spending time with My Friend Television.  HBO’s Newsroom is great, but True Blood has gotten convoluted and silly.  I’ve watched the films Unstoppable and Contagion several times, for interesting reasons.  Unstoppable is about the courage that average people are capable of, which is heartening.  Contagion is about how vulnerable we are and how determined the planet is to get rid of a good many of us.  We call it virus, but to the planet, we’re the virus and the so-called virus is anti-bodies for the planet.  In my own way, I find that heartening, too; I’m rooting for the “virus.”  Last but not least, I finally saw Woody Allen’s Vicky Cristina Barcelona, and while I’ve enjoyed much of his post-New York work, this is a truly who-gives-a-fuck-about-these-privileged-uptight-people irritating movie.  Woody often reminds me that I’m a working-class free spirit – and I guess that’s heartening, too.

However…I’m trying to remember that I’m fortunate to be who and where I am, and no matter what my troubles may be, there are millions of others coping with far worse.  I’m trying to remember that this campaign will end and I’ll have to cope with the outcome, whatever it is, just like everyone else.  I’m trying to appreciate clear, sunny days, even though I sleep through most of them, and bright summer flowers, even though I haven’t seen any in person.  And the Stones are going to tour again soon; if that’s not a lesson in strength and perseverance, I don’t know what is!

I’m trying.  More soon – as soon as I rally my strength and fervor.

Life Without Television

Today begins my sixth day without a working television in my apartment.  I used to have two TVs – a big one in my bedroom (big by 80's standards: modest-sized screen housed in a box the size of an easy chair), and a small one in my kitchen/dining area (small by 90's standards: small screen housed in a box the size of a large microwave).

The bedroom set died about 1½ years ago (it’s still there, because it’s hard to find someone to cart off a 100 lb. relic), and it didn’t bother me much; I’m too old to lay in bed and watch a movie, I doze off fairly immediately.  Besides, I’ve come to view my bedroom as an escape from media, a quiet place to read and think and nap without TV waves seeping into my brain.

But the small TV – which breathed its final breath Saturday night – was my friend and companion.  It kept me company while I cooked, while I ate, paid bills, washed dishes and more.  It brought some of the news of the world up here to the Tower, and comforted me with old movies and comedy and the vast wealth of public television.  I loved it.  I depended on it.  Now it’s dead, still on the small counter it’s been on since 1993, shrouded with a pillowcase, because the sight of it makes me want to reach out to it, but it’s just an empty shell now.

If you’re not a “TV person,” this probably reads like a big So What? to you, but for me, the lack of it intensifies my loneliness.  I miss the news; I missed the last Monday night of “Cutting Edge English Films of the 60s” on Turner Classic Movies; I’ll miss Real Time With Bill Maher on Friday, along with the lineup of Britcoms on PBS.  It’s like someone left town without even saying goodbye.

Fortunately, I was able to order a new TV, a 24” flat screen HDTV (you can’t buy the old kind anymore); should be here by the end of the week and I’ve already arranged for new cable equipment and installation next week.  So I’m not hysterical, just a little impatient and discombobulated.

In fact, I was determined to take this traumatic No TV event in stride.  I dusted off my old boom box and discovered that radio, FM and AM (which I stopped listening to in the 90s), is worse than ever – at least based on the poor reception I get here in the canyons of Manhattan.  Lots of mediocre music, endless talk and news, and a wide assortment of foreign-language stations.  Yuk.  Then I found a box of old cassettes, including a 4-tape set of Garrison Keillor telling Lake Woebegone stories.  That’s been fun.

It’s also been fun surfing more of the Net and discovering that You Tube shows movies.  The free ones are a largely motley assortment (and I won’t pay for the better ones), but I found a few bearable ones.

Mostly I’ve been reading more.  Over the last few years I’ve been reading more in general, but this week’s technical difficulties have increased my hours with books: actual paper books you can hold in your hands, which is how I like them.

But the point of this story – besides conveying the fact that I, a fully-addicted TV person, am handling its absence well – is that I nonetheless can’t wait for the new one to arrive.  I miss my friend and companion.  I miss its distinct sound and vivid pictures, which I hear will be more vivid in high definition, but I’m not sure.

Back in the 90s, before HDTV came to retail, I attended a demonstration of HDTV in the Capitol building in D.C. along with a few hundred other TV pros.  Maybe it was my poor vision, but I couldn’t see any difference whatsoever.  And when I heard it would hit the market for about $2,000 I was incredulous.  Who’s going to pay that kind of money for a television?, I thought.  Just another example of how expertly I have my finger on the pulse of the nation…

That said: while TV may indeed have killed radio (at least FM), the Internet has not and will not kill TV, because TV is “passive,” and because, even in its new form, it’s steady and stable and sits in your home like a combination of furniture and guests, and you don’t have to “interact” with it: you just switch it on and it interacts with you.

I suppose that in the same way, people who are organically attached to their pods and pads and berries feel the same way about their devices.  Many of them grew up with cell phones and beepers and segued happily to all that’s come since.  But I don’t like all those devices.  I don’t like seeing people in the street and on the bus, heads down, tweeting and texting, Facebooking and Kindling and calling, always calling, who knows who or what for.

But TV addicts are no better.  While I quite dislike seeing TVs everywhere: cabs, stores, doctors’ offices, pizza parlors, et al, my home TV is as important to me as a human being.  I know my parents’ generation was hooked on radio and frequent trips to movie theaters where double-bills with newsreels were easily affordable, even during the Depression.  But they were equally hooked on newspapers/magazines and books and musical instruments and conversation and people-watching and quiet thought.  Since we Boomers were born, Americans have been addicted to devices of one kind or another, all based on electricity.  God help us if the juice is ever turned off and all we’re left with is candles and each other.

On Turning Sixty

Today is my 60^th birthday.  This means something to me.  I know there are lots of people who are indifferent to birthdays, who barely celebrate them, who say “age is just a number,” but I’m not one of them.  You can dismiss anything by saying “it’s just a:” number, movie, story, whatever; all that does is give you an excuse for not having feelings about it, and I believe in having feelings about everything.  There are also folks who hate their birthdays and won’t tell their age, because each passing year makes them feel increasingly ancient and freaks them out.  I understand how they feel, but I’m not one of them, either.

All my birthdays matter to me, especially the milestones – meaning 18, 21, 65 and anything that ends in 0.  I took 30 and even 40 in stride.  Fifty was a little wobbly, but I was a little wobbly in general; my 50s were a lost decade (I don’t care to go into why, just take my word for it).  But 60 is unique.  It doesn’t just mark the start of a new decade, it’s the true start of growing old.  This feels peculiar, because emotionally I’m still about 18.  This doesn’t mean I still feel the zest of youth, but rather, that I haven’t fully matured in some way.  If I didn’t have some sense of the wisdom that’s supposed to come with age, I’d feel like a complete moron, but fortunately, I do, so I just feel kind of…stunned.

At the same time, I also feel a sense of renewal.  This may be my last totally compos mentis decade, as well as the last one in which my lifelong bad habits haven’t totally caught up with me (of course, that remains to be seen), and I have a keen desire to make the most of it.  But I’m not aiming for Grand Old Age.  I think people live entirely too long these days.  I’d rather die than live to be in my 90s –  and I’m confident that I will…

People tell me I don’t look my age, but they’ve been saying that since I was a kid.  Today, they mean I look younger.  But when I really was younger, I always looked “older and more mature” than my age.  This was often a pain in the ass, like having to take my birth certificate to the movies in order to get the children’s price, or the time I was in 6^th grade, sitting on the front steps of the school waiting for Lunch to be over, and a school aide said “you can’t wait for your child here.”  “But I am a child here!” I replied, dismayed.

But the “you don’t look your age” thing got tired when I was 22 and after being in a minor car accident, a witness described me as “tall, big, curly-haired, about 40.”  After that, I gave up trying to figure out how old I was perceived to be or give much of a damn about it.  Although, I went to the doctor yesterday for a full check-up (not deliberately timed to coincide with This Occasion) and when I told the technician who was checking my vitals that I’d be 60 today, she gave me a big sympathetic smile and said “Well, bless your heart!” which, as you may know, can mean anything from Congratulations to Fuck You, depending on the speaker’s feelings (and whether or not you’re in the south).  It just made me feel old.  And it didn’t help to find out that I’ve shrunk an inch.  I was 5’6” for decades.  Now I’m 5’5”.  So I feel old and short.  This part of turning 60 sucks.

But there is a good part.  I feel more free.  I feel more worthy of the respect I always deserved but didn’t feel worthy of.  I appreciate my accomplishments and feel less guilty about my shortcomings.  I have numerous regrets, which haunt me, but I know that’s pointless.  I’m more in touch with anger I’ve had forever but never acknowledged – and as a result, I feel more forgiving (of myself and others).  I also feel a much greater sense of gratitude about the people and things I have in my life, as well as more content and comfortable about my “circumstances” – which aren’t great, but could easily be a hell of a lot worse.

And I feel, finally, fully accepting of who and what I am.  I’ve also made my peace with the idea that some of the confusion, fear, and uncertainty I’ve felt all my life I may never resolve, and it’s okay; there’s nothing wrong with not being able to answer all of your own (let alone Life’s) questions.  It doesn’t mean I won’t still ponder them, but I’ve lost my sense of urgency about understanding them.

This afternoon, I will get a manicure and bake myself a birthday cake.  Tonight I’ll order in sushi and break open the bottle of sparkling wine I never bothered opening on New Year’s Eve.  I’ll be alone, but I don’t feel melancholy about it, which I did for awhile leading up to today; ultimately, it was my choice.  Today I feel at peace with myself, and even (however momentarily) with the world gone mad we live in.  All in all, I’m okay.  Which is good to be able to say at 60.