GRAY IN L.A.

  Santa greeting me at UNION STATION I will be alone for Christmas (and hopefully New Years Eve, too). "Oh, you poor lonely creature", some might think. And I did feel a tinge of sadness, too. But, "lucky you!" yelled a younger friend, a mother of several younger kids, a huge family and a husband - and I quickly saw it her way. Totally.  She's been running around in a frenzy for weeks, and her eyes glittered with sheer envy when I told her that I will be reading, writing, eating delicious foods, drinking champagne and thinking about the state of the world. (Which is dire and I won't have enough champagne to drink it away.) In short: I'm making Christmas totally mine, shape it, bend it, give it new meaning all to my taste! Well, if that isn't classic feminist living , freeing yourself from the role of an overworked family-servant - then I don't know what is. Why am I alone? Does it say something about me or the times? Sure. I'm...

The Future is Female - Really? At the Women's March in Los Angeles 2017 There it was again, one of those earth-shaking not exactly new or surprising articles online. The AgeLab informed and promised older women like myself that the future will be female. Just like that. Yeah, no kidding? I'm listening. I'm waiting! Joseph F. Coughlin, director of the  AgeLab   at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology even wrote a new book, “The Longevity Economy: Unlocking the World’s Fastest-Growing, Most Misunderstood Market.” He claims that older women are changing the workplace, mostly because they don't want to retire (sure, they've been taking care of everything for so long that it would feel "unnatural" to lazily lean back). They also live longer, are very experienced and finally more self-assured and ready for another round of real life. Oh, and they get a lot of divorces after 50, so no one is bothering them with menwhining (my kne...

There was a bit of a kerfuffle when that all too eager chatterbox Megyn Kelly pestered our 79 year old Jane Fonda about - yes - her obvious facial "improvements". To be sure, Jane looks terrific, there were true masters (have you noticed that the plastic surgeons are mostly men?) at work on her iconic Fonda-face. And, obviously, she wants a different face than her "natural" one. She grew up in the limelight and the tendency to keep things kinda unchanged is a given among the famous females. Now comes the good part, and I hope it sets off a copy-cat-fever in other women who are grilled like a suspect in a murder case. Jane beamed a laser-gaze from her very blue eyes right into Megyn's bland face and snapped,                 " Do we really want to talk about this now?" YES! Finally, someone is putting a visible barrier to silly, actually demeaning, intrusions. Sure, Jane Fonda wasn't sitting in the studio because she has no...

Maybe it was even called "Beatles Day" when "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band" finally arrived in the German record stores in 1967 . (WHAT??? 50 Years ago?)  It was such a big event that we were like jittering kids who needed to be emotionally prepared for such excitement. In those days you didn't just get the newest records fresh off the press everywhere . No, we had to wait torturous weeks for them all: The Who, Led Zeppelin, Cream, Pink Floyd, the Stones, Bob Dylan, counting the days and weeks for their arrival. You could actually order records in your favorite record store while the lucky Brits and Americans already owned the treasures. The ritual for Beatles records was always the same. So, again, I stood in a long line in front of my fave store at 9 am, bought Sgt. Pepper and raced home as if on a mission , happily smiling in anticipation of the wonders waiting for me. This almost religious feeling of anticipation because of a pop-L...