Interested to find out more, I emailed the theater and learned that it should have said the actor was "an avid Sox fan and Soxaholic," but their electronic proofing system had missed it. So 17,000 copies (!) had to be redacted by humans at the box office. And still, it was legible to anyone with an eagle eye, like me.
As a former editor and proofreader with years of experience, I would have caught the error for sure. Just another example of how people are better than machines.
Since then this blog has received "hate mail" from an anonymous lesbian over the fact that I used the word, I assume; I can't imagine why else. She said some awful things which were not only mean-spirited but incorrect, rife with erroneous assumptions about what had and had not actually happened.
Since then, the readership numbers of that particular post have skyrocketed to heights never seen by me before. (She said she hoped my "bigoted blog post" would be read by a lot of people.) Conclusion: Lesbians are very touchy.
My husband has an identical twin brother who has three children. Through marriage, they are my niece and nephews. Starting when the oldest, now 37, was just a baby, I was a doting aunt. Then two more came along, and I was even more doting, meaning that at Christmas, birthdays and Easter I would shower the kids with love and affection, and of course gifts.
Since I have only one child -- a son-- and we are Jewish, Christmas shopping for my only nephews and niece, who despite their Jewish father were raised Catholic by their mother, was a blast. Money was no object. I started in October and spent countless hours wrapping their gifts, then shipping them off to Maine from my home in Washington, DC. Eventually we moved here and I could present their gifts in person. It was fun for me and for them.
But it wasn't just gifts. They loved my cooking, especially my apple pie. I drove one of them to horseback riding lessons every week. I gave wise counsel when asked. I cared about them.
Fast-forward to today. I honestly cannot remember the last time I laid eyes on any of them, or spoke with them on the phone. Fifteen years, maybe? No texts, no emails, nothing. They all live far away but even when I hear that they are in town for a visit, none of them get in touch. Are they married? Are they happy? Did the girl transition or is she just a pronoun-touting lesbian who works in construction? I have no idea, as I no longer communicate with their mother and their father barely mentions them.
If I could live my life over again, I wouldn't do any of that.
Moods come and go, often for no reason we can identify. Hormones? Bad dreams? Lack of sleep? Or that old devil, dehydration? Who knows? Certainly not that shrink you tell your troubles to, usually at a very high price. The fact is, some days are better than others. Our job is to get through the bad ones somehow. If you're having one of those today, remind yourself:
1. You woke up this morning.
2. You are not in the hospital recovering from surgery. (Skip this one if you are.)
3. You do not have an upcoming surgery scheduled. (Skip this one if you do.)
4. You are not homeless, have food in the fridge and indoor plumbing.
Then go take a hot shower and clean something: Your garage, the refrigerator, a closet, whatever. It's very therapeutic. Soon enough it will be tomorrow, which for all you know will be one of the good ones!
Synonyms for artificial: unreal, contrived, hokey, stilted
Similar to artificial: affected, arranged, dummy, ersatz, factitious, fake, false, faux, imitation, simulated, staged, substitute, synthetic, unnatural
Related to artificial: unreal, counterfeit, imitative
Call me old-fashioned, but I still prefer reality. While it's currently all the rage, in the long run, "AI" might not benefit society even a little.
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| Today's puzzle, in case you need help..... |
I started doing the Sunday crossword in the Times magazine section when I was about 12 or 13, with my mother. I never stopped, and today I do it with my husband as we have for our entire marriage, going on 40 years. Not once have we needed help to complete it. But never mind getting help -- the column I mentioned gives the answers, right there in print! Not all of them, but many.
Now you tell me what that says about the level of intelligence of the typical New York Times reader, not to mention their editors.
Our next door neighbors haven't spoken to us in the 14 years they have lived here. Several others who we were once close with shut us out a few years ago when we put a Susan Collins sign on our lawn, realizing possibly for the first time that we vote Republican. One particularly virulent Democrat whose vast gardens I watered daily for two weeks when she vacationed one hot summer, actually marched over to my house to say, "I don't like the way you think."
Here's the funny part: At the entrance to our street there are two lawns signs. One says, "Love Is All Around," and directly across the street from that, the other says, "Be Nice."
But that was then, before the dummies took over. In today's Wall Street Journal, the bylines of four of the five front page stories carry either three or four names. WTF? What the heck are they all doing -- looking up words in a thesaurus? And many of the quotes are attributed to "people with knowledge of the situation" and "someone in the room at the time."
John Lennon foresaw this murky future years ago in his song, "Strawberry Fields Forever":
"Living is easy with eyes closed, misunderstanding all you see.
It's getting hard to be someone, but it all works out
Nothing is real, and nothing to get hung about."
Photos of Hollywood starlets in revealing clothing
Meghan Markel and how much her life sucks because of the Royal Family
Different ways President Trump is an asshole
How Jew-hatred is growing globally
Anne Hathaway's exposed pregnant belly (see photo)
The rise of socialism in America
Kate Middleton's latest outfits, hairstyles and children
Old women like Martha Stewart trying to look young and stay relevant
Parents who murdered their children
Husbands who murdered their wives
Celebrities walking around New York City
The latest weight-loss craze
Violent Black crimes on the rise
Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce's marriage
Transgenders in sports
New Netflix series
The war in Iran
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| The Real Maine starts 20 miles north of the city of Portland. |
Consequently, my sense of has humor died through disuse. So this blog, started in 2007 with the aim of being funny, has morphed into something else. Call it musings on society, which more often come in the form of complaints about the downward slide of intelligence among my species. While it may be true, it's not very amusing.
Comics like Jerry Seinfeld rake in big money talking about silly, inconsequential quirks of mankind, while edgier comics like Anthony Jeselnik push the envelope way past the edge and have fewer followers and less name recognition. Meanwhile, fallen stars like Louis C.K. attempt a comeback with questionable material that even I, once a big fan of his, find objectionable. (Rape and jerking off are not funny.)
My current hero and go-to when I am down is Mike Berbiglia. His four Netflix specials continue to crack me up and feel better about life no matter how many times I've seen them. His subject matter is his own life, told in story form with absolutely no holding back on the gruesome details. I applaud him but I cannot be like him. The events of my painful childhood might make others laugh, and have, but I no longer feel like sharing anything personal for fear of inviting the vicious slings and arrows that lurk on the Internet.
So this blog has no raison d'être other than my love of writing. With the hope of bringing a nugget of worthwhile information to any stray reader, I suggest that the city of Portland is no longer worth a visit if you come to Maine. I was there recently and was appalled by the number of zoned-out druggies asleep on street corners, on bus stop benches and in doorways. Homeless encampments, needles littering the gutters and empty storefronts add to the city's bleak feeling. If you come to Maine on vacation, bypass Portland and make your first stop L.L. Bean's in Freeport. It'll give you what you're looking for.
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| Danny, giving his fans what they came for. |
Pacino plays Danny, a fading superstar who's still raking in the dough from sold-out concerts filled with aging fans, married to a girl one-third his age who cheats on him with the pool boy, and hates his life. Sick of filling his empty soul with booze and drugs, Danny has an epiphany when he learns that a letter from Beatle John Lennon written to him eons ago, inviting him to get in touch, never reached him. Stunned, Danny realizes how different things might have been if he had gotten it!
Deciding it's not too late to start over and do good, he tracks down the adult son (Bobby Cannavale) he fathered with a one-night stand 35 years ago and never met. As one might expect, Danny's flashy arrival at his son's middle-class New Jersey suburb is not met with open arms. But soon enough Fate steps in and makes all things possible.
Pacino's over-the-top performance as a buffoonish, drug-fueled lounge-lizard is as far from The Godfather's Michael Corleone as one could get, making it clear that he is one of our greatest actors of all time. Transformed by love and an adorable granddaughter, Danny's
good heart comes to the surface. By the last scene, I needed tissues.
The next day my husband spent five hours doing so, first going to the crime scene to assess the situation, then going to the Home Depot half an hour's drive away where he spent $100 on a new mailbox and post, and stick-on numbers for the box. He then returned to the crime scene and, using his post-hole digger, installed the new mailbox, making sure it was to local code. The outside temperature was 87 degrees that day.
I could have left -- my car still drove -- without giving the lady my name or phone number, leaving her broken mailbox on the ground. After all, I was incredibly traumatized and confused by the whole incident and was anxious to get home, crawl into bed and weep hysterically. But I didn't.
Have we gotten a thank you call or text from either her or her wife, the two ladies of the house? No. Draw your own conclusions regarding Americans, Mainers or lesbians. I have.
We ditched our old toaster a few weeks ago for only toasting one side of the bread at a time. Ditto our electric coffeepot, which refused to keep the coffee hot once it was brewed.
Old clothes are annoying, what with the stains and rips and the not fitting anymore. Out they go in the trash, or maybe to Goodwill if there is anything left to recommend them.
Parents of course get better treatment, either moving to in an in-law suite if their kids are nice or an assisted living facility if they are not.
Humans cannot abide living with old things, but when it comes to our pets that's a different story, much worse than wet clothes or demanding parents. For example, my 19-year-old Maine Coon Lurch is in his ninth life. He has been disintegrating before my very eyes for the last year. Once weighing in at 16.5 pounds, he's down to about ten, and all bones.
Lurch is 75% deaf, 50% blind and 100% demented. Still, we feed him and give him fresh water and change the litter and brush his lackluster fur and try to play with him and cuddle him, although he has no interest in much beyond treats and sleeping. He also likes to go outside and sit on the deck and stare into space. Usually he comes right back inside, but today, in a hot 85 degrees, he has wandered off, causing me to cancel all plans so I can stay home and hop from window to window looking out for him.
Since he is deaf, calling out his name is useless. There is simply nothing I can do but wait, which is the worst possible tool in the Doing Department. Sadly this is not my first rodeo so I know how it will end. I just don't want it to be today.
Now I keep thinking of what might have been. I could have killed a mother wheeling her baby in a carriage. Or an elderly couple out for a walk. Or a cute little doggie. Or a jogger. Or maybe two or three joggers. Or myself.
Instead I broke somebody's mailbox.
Instead of sitting at my kitchen table writing this I could be on life-support in an ICU. Paralyzed. A vegetable for the rest of my life. Instead I am awaiting for the body shop to call and give me an estimate for the damage. I am also depressed, alarmed, sobered, scared, tearful and stunned. After driving for 64 years without ever having an accident, I can't say that anymore.
Moral of the story: If you are very tired, don't drive. Also, if you are alive today, thank your lucky stars.
Something else I find very confusing is this: It's very "In" to be obese and call yourself "curvy" or "plus-size" and pose half-naked on TikTok in your underwear exposing your grossly sagging stomachs and elephantine legs, and get lots of comments like, "You go girl!" and "You are beautiful!"
At the same time, it's very "In" to take Ozempic or Wegovy or Zepbound or Mounjaro or any of the other GLP-1 weight-loss injections or pills even if you are already thin, just to lose a few pounds. This is applauded as a sign you are taking care of yourself and looking your best.
This is like saying it's great to be smart and it's also great to be stupid. Which is not possible, and I'm guessing you know which is better.
The museums, a paltry few, all show the work of the same artists ad nauseam: Winslow Homer, Alex Katz and anyone named Wyeth.
They move the paintings in their collections from room to room. They rearrange the groupings. But believe me, if you've seen them once you've seen them all.
Forget seeing a real-live Picasso, Dali, Matisse, Renoir, Van Gogh, Rothko, Kahlo, O'Keefe, Vermeer, Degas, Monet, Manet, Turner or anyone long-dead. Not even a Hockney!
Oh wait -- forgive me. There is a Picasso at the Portland Museum of Art. Small, but nice. I've seen it 100 times in the past 17 years and I always like it.
Naturally I went over to speak to her, having been that loner myself at some parties in the past. It turned out she was the nanny to two young children, ages six and eight, who were present. Also in attendance were the children's parents, grandparents, an uncle and an adult cousin. Yet for some reason that escapes me, the nanny was brought along to keep an eye on the children.
And so she did. In fact, that's all she did. As the rambunctious youngsters ran around the vast property, she tailed them like a hired private eye while their numerous family members were busy drinking, talking, eating and yukking it up with the other guests.
I hope that nanny was being paid handsomely. Very handsomely. And I also hope that when those kids grow up, they'll love their nanny more than their shithead parents.
So it will be some day with Barack Obama, who in a 2008 campaign speech vowed to "fundamentally transform the United States of America," sowing the seeds for the destructive ideologies that are quickly overtaking what we know as the Democratic Party.
According to multiple recent surveys, most Democrats agree with the principles of the DSA, a group that is reproducing like bunnies, with 250 chapters nationwide. Here's what they want:
Tax the rich until there are no more rich
Universal health care and rent control, i.e. sick people living in government-run squalor
No aid to Israel
Free food in government-run groceries, i.e. waiting in line for potatoes and rice is always nice
Abolish ICE, police and the prison system
Abolish the Senate
Abolish our country's borders, everyone is welcome
Amnesty for all illegal immigrants who are already here
A 32-hour work week (if you want to work, but no need really)
Just like Dr. Anthony Fauci is finally being held responsible for the COVID-19 debacle four years later, so Obama will eventually face the music on the unraveling of the United States. I can't wait.
Exactly what is the reason for the existence and continuing explosion of "social media"? It's simple. While nobody wants to die, at the same time they know they eventually will and so are desperate to figure out what to do with their Life. They're simply looking for answers.
The invention of the Internet, the engine of social media, has enabled a certain subset of human beings to spill their guts to millions of strangers who are bored with their own lives and eager to hear about someone else's, hoping to feel better about themselves in comparison or at least get some helpful hints. This subset has been identified as Influencers.
Many Influencers are brave and egomaniacal, trolling for accolades and glorification online, sometimes even sharing their deepest, darkest self-loathing thoughts. One popular trend these days involves troubled individuals opting to live as the opposite sex to see if that feels any better. They are called "transgenders," which is a silly term since one cannot change genders. (It's impossible.)
Transgenders are the current darlings of social media. There's no telling how long their reign will last, but eventually a new aberration will come along and grab the spotlight. All it needs is a couple of tweets from the right Influencers to get it going.
And there you have social media.
I found my first paying job as a fine artist in the classifieds of The New York Times in 1968. It required me to make the exact same watercolor painting 300 times. They would then be framed by the employer and sold in five and dime stores in the south under the pen name Anne Saville. As I recall it looked something like this, only better:
I forget what the pay was -- something like three bucks each -- but as an already starving artist living in New York City, it was good enough for me. After the first hundred I got a little sick of doing them, but I kept at it since I had signed a contract to deliver all 300 by a certain date. Boy, was I glad when that was over and I was free to paint whatever I felt like, whenever I felt like it.
I assumed all artists must feel that way, but not here in Maine. Many of them, if not most of those who want to earn money that way, paint the same scene over and over again: Casco Bay islands covered with green trees, floating in blue water, underneath a blue sky dotted with white clouds. The tourists like those. I have painted that scene once or twice myself. Here's one of them:
Meanwhile, I paint what I feel, which varies from day to day. My latest painting is this:
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| Alas, this was not meant to be at my house. |
For example, take the Hydrangea bush that I planted in my side yard about five years ago. I have nurtured it through harsh droughts and harsher winters, through bleak seasons of no blooms and then finally one or two, until this year when eight glorious white snowballs appeared. I reveled in their beauty, imaging how many there would be next year. One morning I went out to revel some more, only to find them gone. (I realize it's odd to find something gone, but that's what happened.)
I know it was deer because I recognized the bitten-off stems from the Hostas in my front yard every year. Despite sprinkling shavings of Irish Spring soap on them, the deer have somehow feasted heartily on what amounts to my shared hobby with God. Now I hate all the deer, including that little brat Bambi, and although I have never even held a gun I fantasize about blowing their heads off. Is that wrong?
These are but a tiny fraction of the horrendous things that have happened to other people in the past few days. Meanwhile I have fretted over a sore hangnail, a poor night's sleep, my husband's impending birthday and too much laundry.
Try as I might, I am unable to put my life in perspective and see how fabulous it truly is. To me, everything bad that comes along is a disaster. I wish I could but have not succeeded thus far. Sadly, the tendency to blow problems way out of proportion is all too common. Everyone should just stop doing it and see their lives instantly improve.
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If I were as fat as Lizzo I would stay at home sobbing, drinking soda and eating pizza and cinnamon buns. But then, I'm a white Jew and nobody is celebrating us these days, certainly not the mainstream media.
I wonder what they will do with that money. Print some bumper stickers? Maybe some lawn signs? Or perhaps pay some flunkies to go door-knocking in the burbs? None of which will have any impact on Collins getting elected or not, since Republicans will vote for her no matter what and Democrats won't, lawn signs and bumper stickers be damned.
Consider this: There are starving children, or maybe they have cancer, and abandoned dogs and cats in need of food and shelter, and people suffering from rare diseases and homeless junkies sleeping in doorways, and earthquake victims all over the world, not to mention that $1,200 diamond pendant I lust for, yet my husband thought giving a thousand bucks to a pampered white lady who either will or will not get re-elected despite his drop-in-the-bucket donation was a good idea. SMH.
Her pinned-on name tag said "Eleanor." She was quite pretty, with a lovely blond braid cascading down the front of her feminine blouse. She wore tiny stud earrings and lipstick . But the voice was deep and her hands were huge and an Adam's Apple was quite evident. Eleanor was male, plain as day.
This troubles me. I find it unacceptable. I've tried, and failed. Whenever I see one, I feel like either laughing or crying, usually both. Does that make me a bigot? Because I don't want to be one, with a couple of exceptions (fat people and Jew-hating Muslims). The worst part is, it's too late for me to get over it. After so many decades of thinking there were two sexes, I can't stop now.
Anyway, Eleanor was certainly very nice. But I couldn't help wondering how his grandmother felt about the whole thing.
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| This is not a good size to be, but you chose it. |
To all fat ladies, please don't post videos showing us your gross naked stomachs hanging over your gross naked legs. Don't try on different dresses and ask us which one is more flattering. None of them are. You look bad in everything.
And don't call normal-sized women who look perfectly fine "too skinny" just to make yourselves feel better. Being thin is admirable. Being fat is not.
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| Muslims praying in Times Square. |
The Democratic Socialists of America -- they only keep that first word to hoodwink clueless followers into thinking they are -- want to defund the police, get rid of the U.S. Senate and the Electoral College, and abolish prisons. Imagine living in such a world.
Incredibly, they are growing in number, mostly because many young people eschew working for a living and applaud the idea of free food, free health care and cheap housing. They see Mamdani as the Santa Claus they idolized as toddlers. Also, most of them are ignorant of facts, one of them being that their chosen form of government has been tried and failed before, many times.
Lucky for me I'm old, so I won't be around for the fall of NYC and the rounding up of Jews. Now if only I could magically make my young son older and have him also avoid those disasters, I could just relax and watch it all fall apart.
Hardly anyone reads anymore. Certainly not an obscure blog written by an 80-year-old that doesn't tell you how to get rich, lose weight or find true love. So why do I write it? It's fun for me. Few things are anymore, at least after you've done whatever it is about a couple dozen trillion times. But as a former professional feature writer, writing still gives me a kick. And afterwards I get to edit it, and freely make changes wherever I choose.
That's something that's possible almost nowhere else: The Do-Over. If it were, life could be perfect. Everything that haunts me would be erased and I could finally get a good night's sleep. One thing I would definitely change is I would watch Star Trek in my youth, or maybe the later remake with those Klingons with the weird foreheads, and understand so much more about modern life.
Today I heard a dastardly rumor swirling around in the darkest reaches of said pool claiming that Senator Lindsey Graham was having sex with a transgender prostitute when he suffered his heart attack. That really irks me. I was deeply saddened to hear of Graham's death over the weekend. One of our finest Senators of all time, his fatal condition was unknown and yet not all that uncommon. Actor John Ritter died of the same thing -- aortic dissection -- in 2003.
Graham had just returned from a trip to Ukraine and had spoken with President Trump two hours before his heart attack. He was scheduled to appear on "Meet the Press" the following morning. If he was consorting with some skanky underworld character, it seems highly unlikely that he would have done so under those trying circumstances.
The Internet is a sickness we all have, spreading lies, stupidity and misinformation everywhere. The galloping growth of AI has only made it worse. Nothing is real, no place is safe and nobody is held accountable. Someone should pull the plug on the whole damn thing. If Jesus Christ really is coming back, now would be a good time.
The ways to make money are through advertising and finding a niche, the article went on. Since I find advertising morally reprehensible, that's out. As for finding a niche -- mine used to be Humor, but these days being funny can get you sued, or worse, cancelled, and nobody wants that.
Next. I'm supposed to charge money for reading my blog. That's insane. How much could I possibly ask? And how would I ask it? Should I just post a photo of me holding a cardboard sign scrawled with, "Anything helps"?
So while my blog continues to create content, I remain niche-less and penniless, except for all the dough my husband has and is kind enough to share with me. And of course all my past earnings before I became a social media content creator and only made content for stone and mortar businesses, for a fee. As for finding a niche, I'm considering one of these:
1. Crimes against humanity, who's committing them, and how to stop it
2. Abuse of the English language by almost everyone, led by people who say,
"At the end of the day" when they mean "ultimately" or "when it's over"
3. Dumb Hollywood movies that get huge audiences because the audiences are themselves dumb
4. Things that are wrong with living in Maine and how they get worse over time
5. How anyone with a head can find Timothy Chalemet sexy, or even male
6. What foods will help you live longer and not get cancer, as opposed to what foods won't
7. Lists of things. (Apparently they get more clicks.)
Indiana Man Accused of Cutting Off His Genitals And Lighting Them On Fire Charged With Arson
"Little House on the Prairie" Star Melissa Gilbert Discovers She Has 3 Older Brothers
Comparing our lives with those of famous people makes as much sense as comparing our lives to those of squirrels and ants. More sensible is comparing our present lives to our past lives. If there's been no progress, perhaps it's because you've wasted so much time voyeuristically envying other people's lives that you forgot to live yours.
I had gone out to do some errands which took me about 45 minutes. Arriving back home, I was stunned to see my front door wide open. It wasn't just ajar -- it was as wide open as it could be, letting in a parade of moths and mosquitos. WTF? I was 100% certain I had shut it hard when I left, still paranoid about break-ins from 30 years of living in crime-ridden Washington, D.C.
After checking with my husband and son to see if either one had come in during my absence and left the door open -- they hadn't -- I undertook a full-scale search of the premises, fearing I was about to be murdered by some intruder hiding in a closet. I found none, but the call to my son was disheartening.
He recounted an article he recently read suggesting that aging does not happen gradually, but at three distinct times in life: at about age 34, then at age 60, and finally at age 78. So apparently I am now an old coot who leaves doors open without knowing it. I wonder, does plastic surgery help with that or is Jane Fonda, looking fabulous and spry at age 88, also wondering who left the door open, or who went and closed it, or why did I come in here anyway?
Last night I attended a performance at a local theater. When I got home I studied the program, reading with interest the bios of the cast me...
