Beth Broderick: Wit and Wisdom for the Ages from the Aged Podcast

Wit and Wisdomby Beth BroderickIt happens on a regular basis. I will poor myself a glass of wine from a favorite bottle of Chardonnay and think, “Ewww. Yuck. I hate this.” I have learned from experience, however, not to pour it down the drain in disappointment. I simply pour it back into the bottle and re-cork it and plan to visit it another day. This is because there is a very good chance that a glass of wine from the very same bottle will taste delicious on the morrow.This is happening with a wide variety of foods and beverages now. One day I love that bite of cheese, the next day I spit it out in distaste. This is especially true of the condiment that I adore and cannot live without. The item that is always stashed in my carry-on in small portable packets. The great, creamy wonder sauce that makes all things more delicious. Mayonnaise.I f—king love mayonnaise.I have four different kinds of it in my refrigerator at any given time, because I go off first one then another and so need a variety in rotation in case my steadily declining faculties of taste and smell decide against a former favorite. There is the vegan one, “Just Mayo”, which I love until I don’t. There is another plant -based one from Hellman’s that is not bad and is faintly reminiscent of Miracle Whip, which my mother ate exclusively. An acquired taste to be sure, but it was all we knew as kids. It was not until I moved to New York City and tried real proper mayonnaise that I knew what I had been missing. There is also the kind made from olive oil and of course the standard Best Foods cholesterol-be-damned classic mayo.A quick dive on the internet reveals many, many articles which discuss the phenomenon of changing tastes in us as we age. This is mostly attributed to a decline in our ability to smell, though I have a strong aversion to many odors, particularly body odors. Some people just smell weird to me. So, my sniffer, though unreliable, is definitely intact. Our taste buds themselves also begin to deteriorate. This makes sense, of course. Mother Nature is sending some not so subtle hints, as she begins the long process of convincing us to slide off of this mortal coil.My Dad spoke of this often and with great frustration. He was a foodie and for the last two years of his life would wax poetic about foods he missed, wanted to eat again. Brown bread in a can. I loved it as a child; it is a weird Midwest thing, I think, though the name of it is Boston Baked Brown Bread, so who knows. We found it and ordered it for him and warmed the can, then we all shared a bite. I must report that from my adult point of view it was some nasty stuff. My palate gave a hard no to it. and no amount of re-tasting could change that. No just no.He dreamt of lamb chops with mint jelly. I had to have the jelly delivered, because no store in his small town carried it. I carefully marinated the lamb chops and seared them in a hot iron skillet. He took two bites, then sat back with his arms folded. The taste was not what he remembered. This went on with a large eccentric menu of dishes that he longed to eat again, but ultimately could not. He said the only taste he really could register was sweet. This led to him asking for candies and cakes and pies that he remembered from childhood. I searched out Mincemeat and Look Bars and Necco wafers and I never arrived to visit without a box of See’s Candies peanut brittle.My Mom’s last years were one big trip to sugar town. Her freezer was chock full of sweet foods:Honey Dipped Corn DogsDrumstick Ice Cream ConesRocky Road Ice CreamNeapolitan Ice Cream SandwichesTrader Joe’s Orange Chicken (Also full of sugar, but a nod to nutrition,)Her countertops overflowed with her absolute favorite Caramel Popcorn, which she lost more than one tooth crunching into. Her refrigerator contained Coca Cola and champagne, both of which soothed her throat, which was always sore from chain smoking and the slowly growing cancer it had caused.If I took her to her favorite place, Denny’s, she would order the French Toast platter with extra syrup and gleefully drench her meal in it. Afterwards we would stop at Ross and pick up more Caramel Corn and cookies. Then we would head to her favorite bakery for brownies and blondies. They also served ice cream, so I would get her double scoop to eat in the car on the way home. Mom was rail-thin and had zero interest in eating right or exercise or any of the recommended behaviors we are supposed to pursue for our health. She sat in her big chair, watched her programs, read People magazine, washed her cigarettes down with Cola and scotch, and had an ever-present bowl of gooey corn by her side. She lived to be 83 and died on her own terms. Dad made it to 93 and heard his own drum to the last. They had a pretty darned good run.Here is the conclusion from a study run by Pub Med:Conclusion: Losses of taste and smell are common in the elderly and result from normal aging, certain disease states (especially Alzheimer disease), medications, surgical interventions, and environmental exposure. Deficits in these chemical senses cannot only reduce the pleasure and comfort from food but represent risk factors for nutritional and immune deficiencies as well as adherence to specific dietary regimens. Chemosensory decrements can lead to food poisoning or overexposure to environmentally hazardous chemicals that are otherwise detectable by taste and smell. Use of flavor-enhanced food can increase enjoyment of food and have a positive effect on food intake and immune status.Whew.SEASONED.The take-away? We are all going to experience change in our tastes as we grow older. Both of my parents ended up eating very little toward the end and what they did consume was not exactly healthy stuff, but it kept them alive. Why drink Ensure when there is champagne in the house? They both spent their lives working in hospitals. They had seen a lot of illness and more than their fair share of death. They knew they were lucky to live so long, and they weren’t about to compromise in a vain attempt to extend their stay. They wanted what they wanted, and they got it, death be damned.There is a good chance I will end up taking a page from their playbook. After a lifetime of discipline, of food combining and rigorous exercise, of zero-carb days and step-counting, it might be fun to dive headfirst into a plate of maple-laden French toast. I am not sure how I will approach those final years when they are upon me. Right now, it seems doubtful that I will indulge in Dad’s favorite breakfast of pie with ice cream and champagne but check back with me if I make it to 91. All bets will be off.I draw the line at candied popcorn though. Ewww. Yuck. I hate that!On we go …We extend our heartfelt gratitude to our valued subscribers whose support makes the publication of Wit and Wisdom possible. Thank you! This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit bethbroderick.substack.com/subscribe

Wit and Wisdomby Beth BroderickThe note was written on a legal pad. It was a bit Catty Wompus, had been written hastily and not within the lines of the paper, but rather at an angle. There were other, more orderly scribblings, such as: “Call Elizabeth” and “Pay Insurance,” but this one read:“My hands are too crippled to apply the anti-wrinkle cream. Haha!”It sounded promising enough. “Anti-Wrinkle Film and Contour Body lotion.” It had popped up on Amazon as I searched for body lotion. Maybe the algorithm suspected (rightly so) that a woman of my dotage would cotton to the idea of firming and contouring. I am 66 and still modeling, sometimes in swimwear, so you betcha! I ordered a bottle of it toot sweet. I added Biotin capsules, DIM supplements and eye cream to the delivery list. All of these items are supposed to fight off the inevitability of wrinkles and bags and dull lifeless locks of hair. I have no idea if it works—I suspect that there may be a placebo effect in play—but I am a sucker for this stuff. Given its popularity, it would seem that I am not alone.I try to buy as much as I can from brick-and-mortar establishments, but these days the shelves in most have limited offerings. Also, many of the items I wish to purchase are locked behind glass doors, which means I have to push a button to “call attendant.” Then I have to stand there while a voice booms from a speaker throughout the store, “Assistance needed in the wrinkle cream department.”Some days I give in and consent to enriching Jeff Bezos, in spite of the fact that he is not a shining example of rich-guy-dom. He is busy spending his gazillions hurtling rockets into space and hosting ridiculous, lavish events. Not my favorite human, Mr. Bezos, but he has figured out how to satisfy my needs almost instantaneously, and some days I have needs that want meeting right quick.The miracle lotion came in a long cylinder with a cap that could be twisted into an “ON” or “OFF” position. This took a bit of doing, as my hands are, as the above note would suggest, a bit stove up. I managed to wrangle the thing into the “ON” and then tried to squeeze the bottle. No dice. I grimaced as I forced my toddler hands to press into the plastic, which finally produced some cream that I could apply to my legs. This went on for a bit, me wincing as I tried to get my ridiculous hands to wrestle the promise of firm, contoured flesh from the rigid bottle. I gave up after one leg’s worth. Life is too short. I am just gonna go ahead and live it without a “miracle repair regimen.”We all want to look our best. I think this is true at every age, but the pressing, desperate need to be attractive is meant to wane at a certain point. When your hands are too crippled to apply the anti-wrinkle cream, there is a good chance you have reached that nadir.“No matter how you tell yourself, it’s what we all go through …… those lines are pretty hard to take when they’re staring back at you.”—Bonnie RaittThat is from a song titled “Nick of Time,” which is featured in an album of the same name. Bonnie writes eloquently about finding love later in life when she really doubted the possibility of doing so. She married an old friend of mine, the lovely actor Michael O’Keefe. He adored her, and they had a good run, but it was not to last. Life is like that sometimes.“I have to do it.” I told my nephew Journey. “I have never done it, and I do not want to do it but, it’s got to be done.”“Never?” He looked at me askance. For him and his peers, it is par for the course.“No. The thought of it makes me want to lie down and smother myself with seven weighted blankets.”I am working on ideas for a book. I do not have a deal yet but, it has been strongly suggested that it might be time for me to seek one. In the book I plan to write about the topics that you all have empowered me to cover. I am trying to tell the truth about aging and how it feels to be in the third, bordering-on-fourth quarter of life. And stories, of course. I am telling stories.In order to write about the experience of “later dating” I am going to sign up on one of those sites. I have no interest in swiping right or left or whichever way one is supposed to swipe. I have zero interest in dating and even less in being in a “relationship.” I am not good at it, have never been good at it, and I am good with not being good at it.I had a friend for years, what the kids call a “friend with benefits.” A brilliant fellow who had a schedule as busy as mine. We met in a random way, made time for each other when we could, and developed a deep friendship over the years. We made no plans of any kind and had no intentions towards one another. It was perfect, and then I moved. Such is life.“Turns out, you are hard to replace.” I told him the last time we talked. He laughed.I may run into another person with whom that kind of arrangement could be made, but I am not holding my breath. I have a great life, a good dog, and work to do.Part of that work is imagining the makings of a book.THE PLOT THICKENS.So. my nephews Journey and Conor have agreed to help me sign up and create a profile, or what have you, so that I can write about dating from at least some experience of how it is done these days. It is done online for the most part. A whole nation of singles are swiping away, all of them signed up on sites with hopes and dreams of meeting their true match.It happens.My sister was on a dating site for years and found it wildly discouraging, and then one day her wife appeared. They have made a fabulous life together. Another friend of mine met his match on a site very late in life and will soon marry for the first time. Both are in their seventies.Another pal who lost his wife signed up with a heavy heart and found a woman who has given him his smile back.I know plenty of others who have had a rough go of it and who swear off dating for months at a time, only to find themselves resigned to trying again. It can be a painful experience, an exercise in frustration for those who are really looking for a partner. In Los Angeles, especially, it can be daunting. This is a tough town, and folks are not inclined to explain themselves, or let one another down easy. They don’t care enough or are afraid to care too much. Hence the new and pervasive habit of “ghosting.”Not communicating is the new communicating. It’s weird. This does not just happen in dating, but in many aspects of showbiz. Folks have simply disappeared from each other’s orbit. This even happens in friendships.I had a young man contact me recently who really wanted me to sit down for coffee with him. I finally made time, because I believe in being there for young folks. I mean, what’s the point of old folks if we are not available to assist the young? He was super smart and fun, and we had a great conversation. We talked about movie ideas and what we are both working on. We exchanged screenplays and made plans to meet up again to discuss them. I read his pilot and wrote back to say that I thought it was terrific; a good, muscular piece of writing with great characters and a thrilling plot.I never heard back.I got “ghosted.”I think it’s pretty hilarious. I mean, really. If I thought he could hear me, I would say, “You can steal the movie idea I have that you liked so much. I don’t have time to write it anyway. We can still be friends.”I wish the kid well; it’s a good idea. Ghosting is on trend in Hollywood.If you are going to sign up for those sites and swipe away, chances are very good that you will be “ghosted.” The internet has hardened us, made it easy to walk away from others, to avoid dealing with people or situations that disappoint us or don’t hold our interest. I am wary of the habit; my old-fashioned sense of manners tells me that it is rude. But it is the new normal, and that is that.Meanwhile, I have a profile to fill out. How about this?f“Older female seeks very, very busy older male who will not expect much. Poor eyesight a plus.”That oughtta dazzle ’em.On we go …We extend our heartfelt gratitude to our valued subscribers whose support makes the publication of Wit and Wisdom possible. Thank you! This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit bethbroderick.substack.com/subscribe

Wit and Wisdomby Beth BroderickBINGO! The story of how it came to be that I called BINGO wearing feathery garments and (for a time, at least) a tiara for two hours at Hamburger Mary’s. For a worthy cause, of course, why else?It all started when Jeff mentioned that he was going to see a student’s dance performance in Alhambra. Jeff is one of the premier acting coaches in town, and he often goes to see his students in plays, recitals, and performances of varying kinds. He is deeply invested in their well-being and shows up in their lives.In Los Angeles, this can mean fighting hellish traffic to go to a remote locale and see a very iffy production full of well-meaning young folks who aren’t quite there yet. I accompany him on occasion. We try to find a great place to eat beforehand to take the sting off what we may be in for when we arrive. We could be in for spotty “reimagined” Chekov, all-new Shakespeare featuring roller skates and flaming batons, or spoken word events that reveal limited vocabularies and bizarre proclivities. If it’s weird, we’ve seen it and seen it and seen it.For a variety of reasons, a dance performance in Alhambra sounded like a very heavy lift. First, Alhambra is not a place one hears of often. There is the rare review featuring one of the many Asian restaurants that line the main artery of town, but otherwise, the word on Alhambra is crickets.There is no word.Then dance. There are some wonderful companies that make their home here, but there is also the chance that one might run into an “experimental” revue featuring clogs, rubber chickens, and who knows what else. I once sat through a performance in downtown L.A. where a very small woman was shoved into a sack and dragged off stage, only to find her way back out and get herself shoved back in. I was in the middle of the second row, so there was no way to escape without causing a scene. Ugh boy. That was a long night.“Dance in Alhambra, huh? Okay, Jeff, I’m in. I can’t let you go there alone.”On the day, we piled into his Mini Cooper and made our way to the exotic locale just east of L.A. proper. It was actually a pleasant drive wherein two people who know a lot about Los Angeles learned a few new things. There were a lot of nice tree-lined streets and housing stock that charmed with historic Craftsman domiciles and classic ranch-style spreads.Jeff had his sights set on dinner at a place he had read good things about, but we could not find it. The address did not exist. Maybe it was a food truck that moved on to greener pastures? Who knows. We punted and turned toward the main street and “Eeny, meeny, miny, moe’d” it to a place called “Sichuan Impression,” hoping for the best. It was fantastic. The food was off the charts. We ordered the crab and literally moaned with delight at the perfect blend of spice balanced with the sweetness of the seafood. Also, and this is a big one because Asian joints are not notorious for their beverage selections, the waiter poured me a damned good glass of Chardonnay. Heaven.Alhambra. Who knew?YOUR NUMBER IS CALLED.The performance took place in a very cool space and was so well attended that we were lucky his student had thought to reserve our seats. And it was good. Really good. Three different choreographers had pieces in the show, all of which showed talent and poise, but one stood out from the rest. Jeff’s student, Chasen, had created something truly unique. We made a note to be sure to see his next show.There would, on the surface, seem to be no reason for a person such as myself, a person with two left feet, zero athletic ability, and no aptitude for dance, to be the newly elected president of the board of directors for The Realm Ballet Company. I just kept seeing their work and believing in the artistry of Chasen Greenwood and our in-house composer, Taylor Briggs. They asked for my help, and I could not say no. It will be a steep, steep climb to fully establish our new dance company, but we are selling out performances and grinding away at the task of finding financial support.I have, in the main, served on boards that dealt with politics or social service delivery. Though I have made my living in them for 30 years, ironically, I don’t have much board experience in the arts. Nonetheless, I dove in because we need the arts, and they are under attack in some cases, underappreciated in others, and underfunded at every single turn.The fellowships and grants are dropping like flies. The NEA recently ended its decades-long writing fellowship. Numerous theaters that had secured federal grants have been told that they will now not be forthcoming. At a recent conference of ASCO, the Association of California Orchestras, several groups from across the state shared that they were considering shutting down their programs. The money just is not there.Markets are roiling. The price of gold is skyrocketing, a sure sign of instability on the horizon. Artists from every walk of life are feeling the pinch. Good jobs are few. Jobs that pay well are even fewer.“The drag queen who calls with me isn’t coming. I need you to step in.” he said it as a matter-of-fact. A done deal.Bingo Jeffrey was calm. He had decided before I got there that I was the solution. The Realm Company had invited friends and family to come play BINGO as a fundraising effort. Jeff is the king of BINGO in L.A. He gives charities a 75/25 split of the take on these nights. There are prizes for the winners and a few live auction items. My fellow board members and I stepped up to the plate and donated great loot. The drag queen who was supposed to call the numbers was MIA and it was decided that I would need to take her place.“Okay, I’ll sub in. I got you. But can you find me something to wear? You know, give me a bit of drag glam?” I asked.“There are a few things upstairs.” Jeff went up the steep, winding staircase to look for drag-worthy items.Michael ordered me a veggie burger and insisted that I take a few bites before the show started. I got through half of it and tossed back a few fries before the thing began.I made my entrance sporting a giant rainbow boa made of some kind of synthetic fabric that weighed a ton and was hot as Hades.“Let’s start with B-12!” I called out into the microphone.“The vitamin shot we all need!” Bingo Boy, a.k.a Jeffrey, called out after me.“I… IIIIII… I have an inkling that the number is I-29.”“Good, but slow it down,” Jeff nudged me.“Whoop! I have a naughty N! N-70! N-70! Everybody got that?”There was a murmur of consent from the crowd.“G! Let’s hit that G-spot!” Jeff said next. “G-54!”“Oh! OOOOOOOOOO my! I’ve got 0-14!”Folks were having fun. The winners were told to run through the dining room while the rest of the players pelted them with used bingo cards.I got rid of the boa after two rounds. It weighed more than me, I swear, and was a nasty, stuffy thing. Being a drag queen takes serious stamina. I made the effort. I kept the tiara on for a bit and entered after the break in a wacky red peignoir that Bingo Jeffrey had scrounged up.“BINGO!”My sister Laura had dutifully shown up to support me while her wife stayed home with the new baby. They are both always in my corner.“Oh my God! That’s my sister! She got BINGO!” I shouted into the mic. That was not BINGO protocol, but who cares?I was thrilled. Laura won! Then another winner came forward, and the game ended up in a tie. My sis lost the “ball” draw to another gal, so she didn’t win the prize, but she once again won my heart. It’s a blessing to have sisters like mine.After ten rounds and a successful live auction, our winnings were not stellar, but we were happy. Many of our dancers were in attendance, the stakes are high for them, and they know it. My friends and family showed up in a big way. Thank you, loves.Just another day in the life of a group of artists determined to succeed. The odds are against us, and so what? We will keep plugging away at it because it is what we do. It is who we are. All of the screens in the restaurant showed clips from our ballet seasons over the last three years, and everyone commented.“Oh wow. They are really good. They are really are something spectacular, so original and gorgeous,” one attendee after another said to me.Yes, they are, and I will do all I can to give them their shot, to promote their singular vision. I have had a great run as an actor, writer, and model. It’s my turn to give back.It’s a lot of work, but there is joy in the doing.Art matters. Art makes us better. Art helps us heal. Art is an essential component in our lives.If the boa fits and that’s what it takes… I am gonna wear the damned thing.On we go …We extend our heartfelt gratitude to our valued subscribers whose support makes the publication of Wit and Wisdom possible. Thank you! This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit bethbroderick.substack.com/subscribe

Wit and Wisdomby Beth Broderick“Hey. I think I should check in with you more, like a lot more, if you are going to be on that medication.”My sister Laura found out about my new prescription by reading this column. We see each other once or twice a week, but I had not discussed it with her yet.“It seemed like the lesser of two evils,” I told her. “But yeah, that ‘black box suicidey’ thing is a little worrisome. It would be great if you could keep tabs on me.”My old medication had stopped working, and the pain had been breaking through. There are a lot of treatments for my disease, but we were looking for one that specifically blocks the N17 immune response. The two new ones the doc offered both have “black box” (potentially fatal) side effects. There was the one that causes heart attack and stroke, and the other, which carries a great big dose of depression and can lead to the above-mentioned suicide. I went with the latter because… stroke… Ew! Plus, it seemed less likely to kill me out of the gate.The new medication, Bimzelx (where do they come up with these names?), worked like gangbusters for my skin, which had been sporting painful psoriatic patches for so long I had forgotten they could be cured. The jury was out on the joint pain, but I was willing to bet that with time that would improve. One week in, things were looking good.Of course, I knew better than to get excited.I was on a medication a while back that worked really well until the day I got into the shower and screamed in pain as my whole body turned lobster red. The touch of even a drop of water was excruciating. Turns out that sort of thing was a mean old “side effect.” I was given steroid shots and pain pills, and we moved on to a different regimen. You win some, you lose some in this game.In the main, this stuff is a blessing. Notwithstanding the ridiculous assertions of our new administration, modern medicine is a wonder. It has completely altered the future of people living with diseases like mine. We are thriving. I have a crippling illness that has been chasing me for years. It has not caught up. I can still walk ten miles a day, hit the gym, and lift my gorgeous nephew to the sky. Modern medicine rocks big time. I am grateful for it every damned day.Still, there are cautions.THE FINE PRINT.Most of the time, the warning labels on medicines are laughable. I gave up reading them a long time ago, but I will have Laura do it so she can recognize it if I have taken a bad turn. She dutifully combed through the many mishaps that could befall a gal on the new shots. Laura surmised that if the patient managed to not kill themselves, then the worst of it was the potential for serious IBS (Irritable Bowel Syndrome). A person can live with that, I thought.Then the dreams started, or rather the nightmares. They were the worst I have ever had. They had a psychotropic quality that assaulted my nervous system. I woke up crying a few times, screaming others. My sleep patterns were disrupted. I felt edgy and weird, but I was pretty sure I could overcome that. I started adding a quarter dose of trazodone at night, and it helped for a minute. I got eight hours of sleep the first time I did that and was sure I could navigate the troubles.Then the depression landed. It felt like an alien had straddled my cranium and was sucking up whatever good stuff might exist inside my head. The thing was the very definition of a “killjoy.” I was numb and had trouble focusing (let’s face it, I can have trouble focusing on any slow Tuesday, so I did not count that part). I kept on walking the dog and trying to work, but my body felt heavy, my eyes ached. I tried to take naps, but that made me anxious. I just kept plodding on, sure that the clouds would lift. The “black dog,” as Winston Churchill used to call depression, would stop barking.“Hey. Just calling to see how you are doing.”“Not great.”My voice felt tight, my breathing shallow. I had been on the verge of tears for three days, and at last they fell and fell and fell. Laura listened as I tried to articulate what was wrong. I was worried that I had failed somehow, had given in to the power of suggestion. I was certain that the problem was me.“No. Sis. It’s the medication. When did you take your last shot?”“Eight days ago.”“Ah, we’ve got a ways to go, but it WILL wear off, okay? This is not a permanent situation. It will wear off.”She called every day, and Michael checked in every evening. I worked, I wrote, I did a few auditions, I went to the gym… whether I wanted to or not (I did not, but I went). I visited the girls and played with their baby boy. His joy can lift even the saddest of spirits. The days passed, and I felt lighter, more myself. Most of my friends never knew that I was struggling; I am a very good actor, after all. The stuff wore off eventually, thank God. My joint pain had never lessened, and in a way, that was a comfort. The medication had not worked, so it was a no-brainer to get off of it. I wasn’t taking any more chances.My doctor and I decided to forgo the other new N17 blocker. That heart attack/stroke business held little appeal for me. We settled on Enbrel. It’s been around for years and has a good track record. It is more broad-spectrum than the other two, but there are no “black box” warnings. It is delivered by a weekly shot into the abdomen or thigh. I took my second one about an hour ago, and there have been zero side effects so far. It will be a month or two before we know if it will work, but as long as it keeps me at a pain threshold that I can cope with, I will be happy to muddle along.There were a lot of black clouds over Los Angeles last week as various storms threatened our city. They have passed, for now at least. The tropical storm headed out to sea, the interference of the newly politicized FCC finally challenged. The skies are clearer for the moment, though none of us knows what lies ahead. We are in for a lot more weather, and some of it could get very bad indeed. We know for certain that it cannot be good that so many of us are afraid to watch the news, afraid to look at the phone past a certain hour. Every news cycle presents us with a whole new set of reasons to lose sleep. I was lucky to have something to blame for my wakeful, watchful nights.We need to remember to check in with each other. It’s been a rough go, and it’s going to get rougher before things take a turn toward the light. Even an antelope knows that there is strength in numbers.I pulled a full Lucy in the park with Fairness a few days ago. I went down hard, and my right knee is not happy about it. It has been giving me fits. I’ve got it in a brace by day and am soothing it with an ice pack at night. I am still doing my ten miles, ‘cause that’s how I roll. Going uphill is a piece of cake; the trouble starts on the way down. I have come up with a solution of sorts, whereby I descend going sideways, crab-walk style. Fairness gives me the side-eye whenever I use this technique, but he slows his pace and sticks close by in case whatever cockamamie thing I am doing trips me up again.Yesterday, at the top of the hills, my knee carefully wrapped, my head blessedly clear, I looked down and could see the whole of Los Angeles. I could see to Century City and well beyond. It was a crisp morning, and the skies were cloudless and the bluest of blues. The words of the great Maya Angelou rang in my head:“Every storm runs out of rain.”Yes. Yes indeed.On we go …We extend our heartfelt gratitude to our valued subscribers whose support makes the publication of Wit and Wisdom possible. Thank you! This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit bethbroderick.substack.com/subscribe

Wit and Wisdomby Beth Broderick“You shouldn’t be pretty. I mean, you are, but you shouldn’t be.”I was 27 years old at the time, and my friend proceeded to go down a list, feature by feature, of what was wrong with my looks.“Your hairline is too low. I think your eyes are too close together. Your nose has a hump, and your cheekbones are too square.”He went on and on, and I allowed it, because I was 27 and did not know that I could say:“Thanks for your thoughts, but please don’t share any more on this topic.”I didn’t have that in me then. I have it now. Now I would most likely say:“I love you, and you can feel free to shut the fffff up!”I guess it is human nature. If you hold yourself up and out as a looker, folks will hunt the flaws. And we all have those… except maybe Gisele Bündchen, not counting her taste in men.I get a lot of compliments. People often comment on my looks, almost always in a positive light. I barely register it, except to feel that I have done my job, which is to solicit that response.“It’s always so great to see you!”A man who also hikes on the trails I love says this every single time he sees me.“You and your dog are just beautiful. Always look so nice.”He often slaps his knees for emphasis. His wife, meanwhile, sports a look on her face that says, ‘Not all of us are happy to see you.’ I can’t say I blame her.My dog drinks in compliments. He loves to be told he’s beautiful. He is remarked upon more often than I am these days, and I am good with that. Let the dog have his day.Of course, I have always had my critics, a great, good gaggle of them. My favorite was a powerful casting director who regularly told anyone, and often whole crowds of people, how little he thought of me.“Beth Broderick. Ugh. I mean, I don’t get it. She’s ugly, and she can’t act.”It hurt my feelings, of course, but they were assuaged by the fact that I was getting great roles and more than my fair share of positive attention. If you put a shiny object in their path, some folks are going to shoot at it.I have heard so many women who are over 50 say that they feel invisible. I have certainly experienced that. Last year, I attended a Christmas party with my pal Jeff at a young friend’s place. The attendees ranged in age from 28 to, say, 34. They were not impolite; they just had zero interest in we two oldsters. We made the rounds and attempted a few conversations, then turned to each other and made the mutual decision to head on home. We had dogs at home, pajamas, and a few Times puzzles yet to be solved. Home sounded great.TURN THE OTHER CHEEK.In the main, though, I don’t feel invisible. People know, or are pretty certain they know, who I am. I still feel obligated to look my best when I go out to restaurants or a show, but I have made a new resolution about that. My new mantra is: You are 66. There’s no time left for trying to live up to who you once were. You can’t. It’s impossible. There are wrinkles and spots and droops and drags. It’s time to let that go.For the most part, I do. I know it’s a part of the laws of nature. We need to attract mates so that we can keep this species going, at least for as long as nature can abide us. She’s showing signs of wanting a few billion of us to take our leave. We are draining the life from this planet, polluting the waters, fouling the air, and crowding out the wild places with Walmart fulfillment centers. You can’t blame her for tossing a few hurricanes our way, a good-sized earthquake here and there, or the occasional tsunami or two or three. She’s a wee bit angry with our lot.I am certainly not in the “mate-attracting” business anymore. I can barely remember to get a massage. I have to write it down.GET MASSAGE! NEED HUMAN TOUCH. MUST HAVE CONTACT.I’ve been meaning to for six months. It’s, you know… on the list.It was only a matter of time before this topic took us to the subject of young people today and some of the “beautifying” features they are adopting, because this stuff drives me nuts. I have become that old lady who tsk-tsks at the new trends I see around me. I know that the young need to be concerned about appearances, but in this age of artificial everything, some of it is getting out of hand.There are four young women (at least; there could be more that I just haven’t run into) who have had their behinds enhanced to the point of parody. They are huge, and they don’t move in a way that resembles human flesh. Each butt cheek looks like it contains fifteen baby raccoons fighting in a sack.One young gal has a teeny frame. She has a waist about twenty-four or twenty-five inches, tops, and above it an obviously fake set of breasts, much too large for her body. But when she turns around, the mind is boggled. She has a prosthetic posterior that is enormous, wildly out of proportion. I try not to stare at the poor girl, but my eyes are drawn to the sight, like those of drivers straining to see the accident on the other side of the freeway. I have to force myself to look away. I saw her seated on a machine the other day, and the material beneath her bubbled up around her like a balloon squeezed from the middle.There are three others that I have counted with the same sort of glaringly obvious artificial behinds. They also have enlarged lips so pouty that they threaten to be sucked into nostrils, breasts that do not match their body types, and my pet peeve, those weird fake lashes that look like spiders perched on eyelids.I blame the Kardashians. They are just doing it to hold our gaze; I guess that’s their job. But their influence is startling and pervasive. They are the actual accident on the other side of the freeway. It seems we are all staring at them, trancelike, trying to figure out what new surgery they’ve had. It’s actually reported in the news. The unveiling of each new procedure is an event. “Khloé gets new knockers!!!” It’s news!!!Gone are the days when folks had to slip in through the back door at the surgeon’s office. The K’s dispense the “gift” of surgical advice as words from the wise. Young women flaunt these dubious enhancements like badges of honor.I am sure that older people looked at the fashions and glamorous posings of my generation and thought we were outrageous, silly, and lacking decorum. They were probably right. Americans have not dressed well since the 1940s, and this surgery stuff has been around in my business forever and in the general population for a good while.I am guilty of wanting to look my best, of submitting to the siren call of beauty trends, so I suppose I am not one to talk. But those butts! Seriously? I mean …… Dang! Double dang!On we go …We extend our heartfelt gratitude to our valued subscribers whose support makes the publication of Wit and Wisdom possible. Thank you! This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit bethbroderick.substack.com/subscribe

Wit and Wisdomby Beth BroderickI am writing this while seated on a train, heading west to the historic Union Station in downtown L.A. My friend Don and I are returning from Anaheim, where we spent the night at Howard Johnson following a fun jaunt through Disneyland’s “Oogie Boogie Nights.” The party celebrates Halloween several nights a week from now through All Hallows’ Eve proper. It is a very popular attraction.There were the rides, of course. My personal faves were the “Incredicoaster” and “Little Mermaid” ride. We did as many as we could while making sure to take in the “Villains Grove” and the parade. We even went on a trick-or-treat trail and cadged some free candy. We also ate the obligatory weird foods, a burrito stuffed with Taki corn chips and French fries, and an ear of corn dipped in shrouds of cornmeal coating and then deep-fried. One bite of each, and the obesity crisis in America needs no further explanation.It was fun, and if you had told me 20 years ago that I would not only agree to such an excursion but suggest it, I would have told you the notion was ridiculous. And yet.“Don, did you see this? The Oogie Boogie thing. It’s starting next month. Dare we dive into this?”Don replied in his most sensible way:“Let me do some research, but yes, it looks fun. Maybe we should.”Don knows everything about Disneyland and its sister park, California Adventure. He religiously checks out the YouTube channels offered by park guides and experts. He knows not just the physical details of each park, but the stories behind their creation. It is great fun to be there with him, though he is a hard-driving “parktaker” (I just made up that word, and I’m not sorry). My smartwatch clocked 28,315 steps: 12.5 miles at the end of the day. We see it all, by golly, or get damned close whenever we go.Don is a moderate conservative, and I am a moderate, leaning left, but we both share a passion for and commitment to using transit. This means catching the DASH bus to Hollywood and Vine, then hopping on the subway to Union Station and catching a ride on the Metrolink to the park. Then a free city bus that runs every 20 minutes picks you up and delivers you to Disney’s door.It’s a great way to get there, and if you had told me 20 years ago that I would be a devotee of Los Angeles public transit, hopping on the buses and trains on a regular basis, I would have looked at you like you were from crazy town. Of course, 20 years ago there were no subways to speak of, and the bus back then sucked big-time, but you get the point.LIFE ON MARS?Things change. David Bowie famously said, “Aging is an extraordinary process where you become the person you always should have been.” He believed that as we grow older, we often realize and embrace our true selves. I think there is some truth to this, though you must be pretty darned lucky to discover it. A lot of folks who are getting older are so broke that they split their pills in two, eat cheap frozen foods, and watch This Old House on an endless loop.Getting older is a privilege, but it’s not a guarantee of the good life. To age well, one needs, firstly, a big giant serving of luck, topped with a sauce of hard work and dedication to fitness of body and mind, the cherry on top being the willingness to embrace the new.I have a few friends in my orbit who are stuck. They are stuck in living situations that no longer serve them, in locations that make them feel isolated and old before their time. They are stuck in mindsets that tell them change is too scary, the future too uncertain to think of taking a new direction. They are not thriving; they are depressed mentally, and they are challenged physically.“I can’t walk that far.”“I can’t bend that deep.”“I can’t get on the floor; I wouldn’t be able to get back up.”“I hate it here, but moving is too hard. All the packing and then learning a new neighborhood, a new system, being around new people. I just don’t think I can.”We have tried to help, but they don’t want help. They are happy being miserable, comfortable being uncomfortable, and that’s just how they are going to roll. I have learned to love them and leave it be.Meanwhile, I am finding out that who I “should have been all along” was apparently a Disney-loving transit freak who wants hiking gear for Christmas and a ticket to a place where she can kayak.I spent the last thirty-plus years of my life in high heels and glamour make-up, when I would have been happier in sweatpants and a pair of Chucks. I have toiled away at yoga and Pilates when I really should have been cresting the hills and mountains in my beautiful home state of California, kayaking on clear lakes, and canoeing down serene rivers.It turns out I love opera… What????!!!! Yup. Opera. Also, I think traveling in a Winnebago sounds fun. What????!!!!! A trailer kind of a deal? Yup. And I want to learn bridge. What?!!!! Bridge??!!!!! Bridge??!!!! Yup.“Who are you?”“Um… who I should have always been?”I am still resistant to the notion of camping, but there is starting to be some wiggle room there.In the past, whenever a friend or partner tried to talk me into going camping, I was absolutely having no part of it.“I will hike up to the waterfall or whatever with you, but when we come back down, there needs to be a hotel or lodgings with at least a four-star rating and a decent restaurant in the vicinity. No tents, no porta-potties, no sleeping bags.”Now I would consider a yurt, say, in a national forest. I would maybe, maybe cotton to a campground for the fictional Winnebago with clean restrooms and shareable outdoor grills. Or one of those “Airstream” luxury resort areas.I still like to “slam the glam,” going to theater, dance, and art openings. I love discovering great new restaurants and falling into the comfort of the old, stalwart dining establishments. So maybe I am not becoming who I always should have been, but rather finding out there is more to the story.I still work hard. I am still driven to create, to make, to do, to offer, but I am making time—sometimes forcing myself to make time—to play and wander and dream.Odd that toward the end of life, when we are running out of time, we find ourselves with more of it on our hands. What a gorgeous irony. What a great gift.On we go …We extend our heartfelt gratitude to our valued subscribers whose support makes the publication of Wit and Wisdom possible. Thank you! This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit bethbroderick.substack.com/subscribe

Wit and Wisdomby Beth BroderickI was sitting with an old friend in a comfy booth in the back of a very good Mexican restaurant on Ventura Boulevard. We were lingering after a hefty serving of fajitas with all the fixings.“How is Lanny?” (Not her real name) I asked.“Good, I think. She seems happy being retired. She got old … went gray, the whole shebang,” he answered.I looked at him. He had, at that point, been sporting a head of gray hair for over two decades. The irony of this didn’t occur to him, nor did it cross his mind that the woman he was talking to (yours truly) had silvery white hair at that time. Our pal Lanny had gone gray, gotten old, and this was a simple fact, as far as he was concerned.“Oh,” I said.I thought better of pointing out the obvious contradictions. He is a Hollywood guy, and that is a common perception.Man X gray = major movie star in a leading role, often with a wife in her 20’s and kids young enough to be his grandchildren.Woman X gray = got old.My natural color is reddish-brown, which I enhanced with red pigment in my younger days. Being of “Irish” (also Scottish, Swedish, and American Indian) descent, my hair began to turn white when I was about 27 years old. My sisters also experienced this. I had to touch up my roots on a constant basis to hide the pesky white invaders. My sister Laura and I both migrated to Los Angeles. In the early days, we took turns applying color to one another’s roots when money was tight. Our “salon nights” were fun, filled with good wine, card games, and our beloved “Spill and Spell,” but they were short-lived.FADE IN.As my film and television career blossomed, I became a regular at a high-end salon, and my hair color got more sophisticated, with subtleties like highlights as well as low ones. Laura’s fortunes shifted, and she found herself courting a more polished look as well. I played a lot of vamps back then, as well as call girls, and other assorted naughty types. My hair color and my deep voice lent themselves to “siren” roles.“Broderick!” John exclaimed loudly into the phone. “I’m stuck here in the hospital, and I keep seeing you in movies. Why are they giving you the sexy part? You’re not, you know. Nice legs, I guess, but no ass, and your boobs aren’t more than a B. I mean, you’re no Kim Novak!”John Randolph was nothing if not straightforward in his communications. He introduced himself to any and all as “John Randolph, the actor.” He was a dear man; I loved him, and in that instance, one had to admit that he had a point.I had a manager who suggested several times that I engage in some strategic surgical enhancements. I never did. I had seen a lot of boob jobs at the gym. Some of the young women looked pretty good, but many more looked mutilated. They had weird rock-like protrusions jutting out of chests on frames too small to support them naturally. This was thirty-some years ago. The procedures have improved, and no judgment to anyone who does it, but it’s just not my style. I was getting the parts without all of that, so I pressed on with my B cup and size 27 jeans.It wasn’t until the show Hearts Afire that I began tapping into my comedic side. I sported heavily padded bras and the shortest of skirts, my hair blazing with red, auburn, and a hint of gold. I played Dee Dee Starr, a gal who was several cans short of a six-pack, reputed to be “the dumbest girl in Washington, D.C.” I loved doing a half-hour show. It just felt right.I switched to blonde for a role on the next series, and it was weird at first. It took some getting used to, but it turned out to be a whole lot easier to maintain. The white that was bleeding in was barely noticeable. The red hair of my youth was gone, and I missed it for a time, but not enough to hit the salon every ten days. A newly blonde Beth was born. A platinum blonde.I continued to play ditzy sexpots for a while, which kept me in my beloved comedy. I also started getting cast in mom roles and some professional parts: doctors, lawyers, and the like, which were off-limits when my hair was red. The lighter locks gave me more flexibility. Win-win. I never looked back.It was not until the pandemic that I really gave any thought to my hair color. It was a fact of my life, and nothing more or less, and then I suddenly had to think about it, really think about it. There were elaborate precautions of masking and testing in order to visit a salon. The effort to maintain my dyeing routine seemed silly at a time when so many were battling with the virus, in some cases losing the fight. I decided to let it be for a bit. No one was working. We were all jammed up in our respective homes, trying to “Zoom” away some of the accompanying loneliness.I kind of liked my natural color and decided to run with it. The modeling agencies that I signed with were 100% in favor of the silvery white. It was a great relief not to have to color my hair every three weeks, and it helped me relax about getting older. My acting reps did not quibble with me about it; the natural look was “on trend.” Several potential employers took exception, though; some offers for work came with the proviso that I return to the color that had been on my calling card for decades. I switched to a golden hue once for a movie, and it was hell trying to grow it back out. I swore I would never acquiesce to that again.Never say never.I have given it some serious thought and weighed the pros and cons, and I’ve come to the conclusion that it’s time to hit the bottle, or the bottled blonde, as it were. It is not because I feel older this way or because the white makes me feel less attractive. I still think I’m all that and a bag of chips. I have worked steadily, both in modeling and acting, with the new look, but something feels off. The blonde is more in line with the kinds of roles I have traditionally played and that I am still sought out for. There is that, but the truth is, at the end of the day, I just miss it. I miss the blonde reflection that was so familiar for so long.I love being the age that I am. I have never tried to hide it, and I never will; that would be pointless in our digital times. I am proud to be 66 years old and fully aware of the privilege it represents. I don’t have a dog in the hunt when it comes to trying to look younger. I just want to look more like, well … me.I’m not sure if it’s true that “blondes have more fun.” I had some rip-roaring times as a redhead and some fine adventures with the white. I have certainly had my fair share of the good times, so color me grateful. I’m fixing to have some more …On we go …We extend our heartfelt gratitude to our valued subscribers whose support makes the publication of Wit and Wisdom possible. Thank you! This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit bethbroderick.substack.com/subscribe

Wit and Wisdomby Beth BroderickIt sits in the space next to mine, someone’s hot little brown car. I am told that it has been in the garage of my apartment building for two years and some change. It is covered in layer upon layer of dust and grime, but one can see that it was a sassy machine in its day—a Mazda sports coupe. Hot stuff. It has been waiting patiently for its owner to recover from whatever is keeping them apart, hoping for a wash, a jumpstart and a tune-up, so they can once again sail down the streets of Hollywood in style. I feel badly for the abandoned car and have long wondered about the owner.Last week, I went down to the laundry room. (Yes, it is on the first floor, and yes, I hate that particular part about this place, but there were so many positives, I have made a reluctant peace with this situation.) There were two people there whom I did not recognize. They were busy filling all three of the machines available in the space. I tried not to frown or sigh or make evident my disappointment, but they must have sensed it.“Sorry. We are doing laundry for our patient. We are from Hospice.” the woman said.My heart sank. I have been through my share of hospice scenarios.“Oh, no worries. You all do what you need to do. I can come back.”When I decided it was time to set my dad up with hospice care, he was absolutely against it. He was certain that the personnel would arrive on day one, armed with killer narcotics, ready to put him down like an old dog.“Dad, it doesn’t work that way. People can be in hospice for a long, long time. They offer care that we cannot get any other way in this town. There is no one here to hire, except hospice. They will just be here to help you out. You and Sara need some help.”Sara, Dad’s wife, was furious about it. She was always pretty rough on me, but she became vicious. She did not want the intrusion; did not want what she felt would be scrutiny in her own home.She needed help but would never admit it. My Dad was a huge fellow, not particularly fat, just huge. I often described him as looking like a refrigerator with feet. Helping him with the shower and other daily needs was too much for her to handle. I persisted with the arrangements, despite her angry protests.“You have to trust me, Sara. They will be a Godsend.”They were, in fact, a big help, and my dad adored them. It had been a long time since he had a pedicure. He was showered and shaven and felt as good as one can feel in his condition, which, though he was unsteady, was overall pretty damned good. He especially loved the registered nurse that oversaw his case. Her name was Meaghan, and she was fantastic. Even Sara eventually came around and was glad to see the caregivers when they visited.Dad went along with his cancer diagnosis for a while, but then decided to reject it entirely, while very much appreciating the services that came with it.“That was someone else’s blood work. It’s a mix-up. I am perfectly fine.”“Dad. You’ve lost eighty pounds in the last few months.”“Well, old people lose weight. You’ve all got this wrong. I don’t have cancer. Period.”He was a character.Before I left the laundry room, I wanted to ask the two hospice workers about the person in their care, but I did not. None of my business, really. Folks dealing with life or, in this case, death, have a right to their privacy.It was only a few days later when items began appearing in the lobby. Someone had hastily scribbled on a piece of lined paper and taped it to one of the boxes. It read:“FREE”That first day, it was just a few things. Mostly a collection of vases of varying sizes and shapes. They had a distinctly feminine flair and sported swirls of pastel color and dainty patterns. Over the next few days, there was an avalanche of personal belongings. Too many for the lobby, so they were set on the street outside. A larger sign, now scrawled across cardboard paper, said again:“FREE”A tall lamp with a chipped shade, a table and chairs which seated four. The art was mostly posters from art shows and fairs of different kinds. She, it was definitely she, got around in that hot brown car of hers… saw lots of exhibits and frequented antique shops. From the looks of the sophisticated barware, she also threw her fair share of parties.The sight of all her possessions caught in my throat. Her carefully curated belongings, which had once been arranged just so on the bookshelves, were now scattered on the lawn, and the bookshelves themselves rested along the low walls that line the sidewalk.“FREE”It’s just stuff. I know that, but it is also evidence—a testament to how a person conducted their life. When I left Austin, I brought only my artwork (which is a sizable collection), and my clothes, plus a few odds and ends. A gorgeous bench that I knew would look great in Jeff’s yard, a few treasured pots and pans. The rest was given away. Yes, I know I could have listed it on Facebook Marketplace or what have you, but I am not that person. We have pretty well established by now that I do not have a practical bone in my body. The pizza plates went to the family next door. The teens will use them on a regular basis. The woman who helped me with housekeeping got the place-settings and some of the glassware. I gave all the rest to pals, and it was a good feeling to leave bits of my life in the possession of folks that I love.ONE MAN’S TREASURE.The bad news for many of us is that most of the folks you love don’t want most of the stuff you own. That antique doll collection? Nah. The kids don’t want it. Nor do they have any appetite for Grandmother’s china, no matter that it is still intact, every piece accounted for. The prized collection of art books? They might take one or two. They have houses crowded with objects of their own curation.There might be an estate sale, where strangers will set upon your prized goods with relish, asking if the price is negotiable. Some of your things will be got rid of that way, but much of it will one day, one way or another, be free for the taking. Goodwill may pick it up, or the kids may find another way to donate it. What do you care? You’ll be dead, and from what I can gather, there are not a lot of knick-knacks in the afterlife, so let it go.I had hoped to see someone resurrect the hot brown car from its dormant state, but as of yet, she remains abandoned. I wish I were more of a driver; I’d offer to buy it just to see the poor thing washed and shined and gassed up.Dad was in hospice for three years. They all got a kick out of him. He was awash in champagne and high hopes until the last. Much to their surprise, but with their generous assistance, I was able to soup up the wheelchair and take Pop on a few trips. We even flew to Los Angeles. Only in the last three months of his life did he finally agree to give up the ruse of being misdiagnosed. He was bedridden and forced into diapers, which he hated, but he still managed to hoist a glass of the good stuff on occasion. He had one possession that he cared about: his grand piano. He was a deeply talented and soulful musician. When he could no longer play, he got mad at the instrument as well as himself. He wanted rid of it, so in his second year of hospice he cajoled my sisters into transporting it down to their home. A happy ending for the beautiful thing that had brought him endless joy.I talked to him for hours at a time on the phone. His mind was still sharp, though he had grown fuzzy on the details, and many times the conversation was a repeat of one we’d had before. He was a good patient. Having gone blind several years before, he had cultivated a profound level of patience. His nurse Meaghan called me after he passed. Said he cracked her up until the end.“You know, Meaghan, I think this thing has finally caught up with me. Seems like it has.”He winked at her. and just a few hours later, he died. After we cremated him, we offered his ashes to his wife, Sara.“I don’t want that. It’s just a box of ashes. That’s not my husband.”She had a point. The urn sits on my brother’s mantel, where it will rest until he goes on to the next plane of existence. Then it will just be a jar of ashes that someone will dispose of. It will just be part of some dead guy’s belongings.We are all just borrowing these bodies and renting our time on this planet.I like to think of my neighbor behind the wheel of her snazzy car. There was a time when they were both hot stuff. There was a time when Dad was too, a time when we all were. I like to think about that.On we go …We extend our heartfelt gratitude to our valued subscribers whose support makes the publication of Wit and Wisdom possible. Thank you! This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit bethbroderick.substack.com/subscribe

Wit and Wisdomby Beth BroderickIt was a rare sighting. I was on the floor at the gym doing some fancy ab moves, which required holding both legs straight up in the air and reaching for them in alternate lunges, with hands holding 2½ lb. weights. This is meant to target the upper region of my relatively flat but, to my mind, under-toned abdomen. (A six pack is hard to come by when one is 66 years old and enjoys life a tad more than is recommended for such things) As I proceeded to work those muscles, my loose-at-the-bottom exercise pants followed gravity toward the earth, exposing my legs. In a rest period between moves, I looked up and over to my right, and that is when I saw it. A lone pale hair jutting out of my right shin. I made a note to address this when I got home, which I, of course, forgot to do. I looked yesterday and it might still be there, but I cannot find it. It is only visible in a certain prism of light that is apparently only on offer in the ab room at the gym.I suppose if I actually cared about this, I could tuck a cordless razor into my gym bag and assume the exercise position and reach up and nab the sucker, but as of yet I have not worked up the energy to enact this plot.I have never had much in the way of body hair. My Mom was part Plains Indian and she had almost none. Not on any part of her body that would have been visible to a child, anyway. No armpit hair, none on her legs. I take after her in this regard, though I had a few strays in both areas in the past. As my age advances, they have all but disappeared along with my eyebrows, which went missing a while back. I have no argument with this regarding body hair, as we women spend a lot of time and effort trying to remove it. The eyebrows, however, had to be addressed. Two sessions with a tattoo artist gave me a fair semblance of fringe. Add to that a quick once-over with a charcoal pencil in the morning and…. Voilà! Good as new-ish.Of course, men also spend their early years wrestling with unwanted hair. Fuzzy backs are a source of stress for many. Men endure waxing and the application of depilatories, just like women do. Ironic that we all spend so much time trying to be hairless in our youth and an equal, if not greater, amount of it trying to preserve hair in our dotage. This is especially tough for men. Almost every man I know over the age of 58 has the “donut” in the back of his head. This is torturous for many of them, and that irritation is exacerbated by the presence of newly grown sharp hairs in their ears and noses. There are devices created specifically for the removal of these errant whiskers, and their use can be unpleasant if not downright painful.Our ears and noses continue to grow as well. Getting older has some good things to offer. This is not one of them. Easy to spot a gal who’s had a nose job in a retirement home. Hers is still a petite little ski slope of a thing, while the others have schnozzes which have developed sizably. Gravity, which is NOT our friend in these later years, will also give our noses a tug and create a bit of a hook on the end. If nature did not take things away from us, we would never agree to leave this life. “Stick around if you must,” she seems to say, “but you will have Dumbo flappers on the side of your head and a beak like W.C. Fields. Your call.”Her plan is brutal, but she gets that job done. Most of us exit peaceably enough.Women also have hair issues as we age. We look up around the age of 60 and think, “Is my hair getting sparse on me? It looks a bit lackluster.” Yes, it most likely is thinning. There are remedies, of course. I take DIM supplements daily as well as Women’s Saw Palmetto and copious amounts of Collagen and Biotin. It helps. On my head, at least, my hair is hanging in there. It is not the great swinging mop I sported when I was in my younger days, but it looks okay. And it’s gray and white, so I am sure that not many folks are looking closely at it or me for that matter, so it will do just fine. I don’t know why these supplements work on hair in one area and not the others, but, the eyebrows notwithstanding, I am happy to bid adieu to the rest of it.SPLIT ENDS.Turkey has become the destination du jour for those looking to restore their locks. I have heard tell that flight attendants on planes from Turkey walk down aisles full of men returning to the U.S. sporting hats or some type of covering over their newly transplanted heads. It’s the place to be for a new or restored thatch of hair.The politics over there are getting pretty dicey. Their “president,” Erdogan has recently arrested the Mayor of Istanbul, the country’s most populous city. Ekrem İmamoğlu is one of the biggest and best-known politicians to stand in opposition to the growing fascism of Erdogan’s regime. So far, his arrest has not gone over well. Millions have taken to the streets in protest. There is a lot of this sort of thing going on in the world around us, some of it too close for comfort. Totalitarian ambitions abound in many a nation, and they are gaining traction. So, we all managed to survive a global pandemic just in time to see a wave of fascism wash over the world.Life is a b***h sometimes.That said, Turkey is a great place to get some repair work done on the old noggin. I am told that they also do a bang-up job of replacing or adding veneers to the teeth, and I think they are doing major plastic surgeries as well. That last offering gives me pause. Hair, though. That’s the biggie. That’s what started the whole stampede across the pond, so, my dear male readers, if that donut is giving you fits, save those miles and trot on over to Turkey. Maybe do it while a few freedoms are still enjoyed and the talented weavers have not been locked up for disloyalty or what have you. I say go get some now while the getting is good, because over there, hair today could be gone tomorrow.On we go …We extend our heartfelt gratitude to our valued subscribers whose support makes the publication of Wit and Wisdom possible. Thank you! This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit bethbroderick.substack.com/subscribe

Wit and Wisdomby Beth Broderick“There’s a new injection that is proving very effective. We are seeing great results. It does have one black-box side effect, though. (A black-box side effect is one that is potentially, but not often, fatal.) Do you have a history of depression?” she asked.I was in my Rheumatology office with Ashley, the Physician Assistant to the Big Cheese doctors in the practice. She is whip-smart and stays on top of my case, insisting on doing blood work every three months and giving me a thorough once-over. I prefer to work directly with her as she is more familiar with my health than the docs are and she’s just as knowledgeable.“Well, I struggled with it in my 20’s and 30’s but have not had a bout of it in a long, long time,”I answered.“Okay, because with this drug, there is some history of suicide involved with its use. Depression and suicide.”Suicide. Huh. I wrinkled my nose. That’s a pretty bleak black box. Depression is one thing (60% of the country risks falling into a funk every time we turn on the news), but suicide sounds a bit off-putting.“We got anything else?” I asked.“Yes, there is another one, a pill. How is your cholesterol?”“Okay, I think. My GP says my ‘good cholesterol’ is off the charts, so I’m assuming I’m fine.”“We don’t believe in ‘good cholesterol’ anymore,” she said, scrolling through my labs. “Oh boy. Yours is high. We don’t like that.”“It’s high?”“Very high.” She pointed to the number on the screen, but my poor eyesight could not grasp the image from so great a distance.“Okay, okay, but it’s just because of the ‘good’. It’s the good that’s high, right?” I protested.“The ‘good’ is bad.”“The good is bad now? Well, shoot!”Shoot and Gol Dang it! I was so happy about my “good.” I was planning on living forever and such, and now they tell me that it is actually bad. That doesn’t seem fair. It’s like when they told us to quit coffee and we Californians (who are wont to comply with those sorts of suggestions), clutched our respective pounding heads, only to be told two years later that it’s actually good for us. Now there are studies that confirm that coffee is the ONLY thing that actually aids with memory loss. Forget about that stuff made from jellyfish and all the other crap they are trying to sell you. Just enjoy a cuppa and get on with it.“The pill is raising those levels for some people. Its use is associated with a higher risk of heart attack and stroke.”I have first-degree AV Heart Block, Mitral-Valve Prolapse and a hole in my heart (ASD), none of which are terribly worrisome, except the latter makes folks more vulnerable to stroke.“Heart attack and stroke. Huh.” I pulled on my ear.This is why I had hoped to stay on the current medication, which is not very effective, but has exhibited no side effects over the last year. I was hoping to stick with the devil I know, but it has proven impossible.It stopped working. The N17 blocker I have been on for a year just up and quit. They all stop working … even the best biologic medicines, after two to three years. Just one year felt like too short a time to be changing meds, so we had decided to muddle through a while longer. It was worth a try, but this disease made a mockery of our optimism. It broke through with a vengeance.Pain. It’s mostly pain, which hits my joints, hands, feet, knees, back and jaw. It is sharp and brutal but short-lived. To turn a doorknob can be agony, but not for long. Thankfully it comes and goes. Then there is the burning sensation in my feet, which flows down in wave after wave. That is just plain weird, but it doesn’t hurt and is mildly entertaining, so it’s my favorite symptom. The skin issue is mostly confined to my heels and soles where the psoriasis creates lesions and hard scabs … I call them carbuncles. This makes it hard to walk without copious bandaging. I order boxloads of Band-Aids, the healing, rubbery, disc-shaped kind. My feet look like they have been through a war, which in some respects they have. But as my pal Kat once said when I was worrying about how unsightly they are: “They are just feet!” Overall I felt flu-Ish and achy and fatigued. We would have to deal with it, because things promised to get worse, and when things get worse with psoriatic arthritis it’s no fun; no fun at all.I am not complaining. Compared to a lot of folks, I’ve got it good, and I know it. Everyone I know in my age group is dealing with some kind of malady. This is mine. It’s a b***h, and it would have been a catastrophic diagnosis 25 years ago, but now there’s good medication and, when that fails, a shot.When I lived in Austin, no one told me there was a shot. I went through many a flare with my doctors nodding empathically and prescribing pain pills which I will not take. I fill the order in case one of my pals has a dental emergency or some such, but I don’t take any because if I took medication for the pain, I could end up taking it every day and we all know that’s no bueno.BURNED BEFORE. I had only been seeing my L.A. docs for a short time when I had a serious flare.“I was in a car accident and ever since, everything is on fire and I feel like I have the flu, but I don’t,” I explained. “I guess the blunt trauma triggered it. I know there is nothing we can do; just thought you should know.”I was at my three-month check-in at my new doctor’s office in Los Angeles. His practice is renowned in the Rheumatology field. My physician at the time (he has since retired) was a pre-eminent specialist. He was also a likable fellow.“I have a shot for that,” my new doctor said confidently.“You do?” I asked, mouth agape.“Yes. I’ll have the nurse prepare it. You’ll feel better in a few hours.”He was right. It worked quickly and I felt myself again. I was grateful, but also had half a mind to call up my docs in Texas and tell them such a thing exists. Why had they not known? That sort of thing baffles me. American medicine is oft times a crapshoot.When I was back in Ashley’s office last week, she stepped out to get the syringe and vial we would need, and I contemplated my options. The black-box side effects of the two new meds did not sound appealing, but I would need to pick my poison. When Ashley returned, I stood up and pulled my pants down slightly so she could give me the blessed shot.“I think I’m going to go with suicide. It has got a nice ring to it,” I said.She might have smiled, but I don’t know because she was wearing a mask.“Okay, we’ll start you with one dose per month, but it’s approved for two if we think you need more. Let’s do some more labs and I’ll get you some samples.”“God, please let the one shot work. Two shots a month is a lot of suicide-y shots,” I thought as I wandered down to Room Five to squeeze the ball while the nurse tied on the tourniquet. She couldn’t find a good vein, so she had to go through my hand, which left a nasty bruise, but we got the blood drawn and according to Ashley everything except my formerly good, but now bad cholesterol is stable.The shot worked wonders, and I will start the new medication in July, so things are looking up. Now I suppose I will have to get after the whole high cholesterol thing. Or maybe I will just pour a big ole cup of java, slather some mayo on my B.LT. and wait a couple of years. Might not be long before “bad” is “good” again. Or is it “good” is “good” again? Tossup really; hard to say.Let’s go with the latter. More my style. I am pulling for good, no matter the evidence of bad all-around.I’m pulling for good every damned day.On we go …We extend our heartfelt gratitude to our valued subscribers whose support makes the publication of Wit and Wisdom possible. Thank you! This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit bethbroderick.substack.com/subscribe

Wit and Wisdomby Beth BroderickI was in Fredricksburg Texas, sitting across from the twins. John and Don have been known in some circles as “The Gay Twins from Arkansas” for as long as we have been friends, which is a long, long time. Mostly, though, they are just known as “The Twins”. Both men are tall and lanky, with the kind of impressive physical strength that comes from labor and not the gymnasium. They can lift anything, fix almost anything, and think through problems that leave the rest of us mouth-breathing and adrift.“Well, I don’t know if you should do thaaaaat,” John remarked with his trademark laconic drawl. “You are kind of clumsy. No offense.”None taken, of course, because I am not just “kind of” clumsy but notoriously so. I have walked into walls, through screen doors, fallen up the stairs as well as down, and banged my head on countless cupboards. I am strong and fit, but do not possess a whit of hand-eye coordination. I could not hit a ball with a bat if my life depended on it.A call from my modeling agent had prompted the discussion.“I need you to come in and do a runway-walk audition for us. They are looking at you for Milan.”Milan, huh? Could be fun. A good story to tell, at the very least. Y’all know by now that I love a good story.“I think I can walk down a runway,” I chirped back. “I mean, I am not going to attempt American Ninja anytime soon, but I can walk!”John took a big sip of his morning tea.“Well, an awful lot of those gals fall during those shows, and most of them are at least 40 years younger than you. Seems like it’d be a lot easier for them to get back up. That’s all I’m sayin’.”He had a point, but I have fallen enough in my lifetime to have lost the fear of it. And also … the runway in Milan. That sounds like an adventure, and I am ALWAYS up for an adventure. I have done some runway stuff in the past and have managed to stay upright, so it seems doable. It is, of course, highly doubtful that they would call a woman of my years to model for them, but if Gucci rings me up, I am fixin’ to go. They had me at Milan.The day before the runway-walking audition, I was up in Griffith Park with Fairness. We go up on a regular basis to hang out with some nearby residents and let the dogs off leash to play. The whole scenario has been master-minded by Dave, the neighborhood dog walker/expert. He has culled a group of like-minded folks with well-behaved (or at least mostly so) mutts to join his cadre. It has become a ritual for many of us.To say that Fairness was hesitant at first is to greatly understate the situation. He hid behind me, tail between his legs, and shook with fear from head to toe, poor thing, even his teeth chattering. Folks were nice about it; these are serious dog people, and they have seen their share of terrified rescue pups. I felt for him, and kept our initial visits short, but we continued to make the trek. We always go on foot. I like to start the day with a solid 10,000 steps under our belts.“A tired dog is a happy dog.” That has been my motto with each of my big dog rescues, and I swear by it.Slowly but surely, Fairness warmed up. He is not big on playing with the other dogs, but he greets them politely. He mostly visits their owners, sniffing pockets for hidden treats and nudging hands for pets and ear rubs. He has only gotten into a tiff on one occasion, when he and another male, that one non-neutered, took an interest in the same female, a gorgeous white retriever. The other dog went after mine and when I ran toward the scuffle, Dave was already there, having immediately headed into the fray and Steve, a regular visitor, had hoisted my 86 pound pup into the air and held him aloft until the aggressive male could be corralled. These guys are very experienced, and any scuffle is instantly de-escalated. Fairness was fine. He is generally nonplussed by naughty dog behaviors. He came to me as soon as Steve set him down and we walked to a different side of the park. No harm done.He runs now, has begun to act more like a canine, and sometimes we play “hide and seek” behind boulders and up the small hills. Just last week my formerly too-scared-to-play pup brought me a stick to throw and then flabbergasted me by chasing it. He has a special friend named James who always has a pocketful of peanuts. He carefully places the shelled ones in strategic nooks and on high ledges for the crows to find. The birds watch and clock their location, swooping down when the dogs have retreated for the day. James always has a few shelled treats held back for the dogs, who know to ask for them. Fairness caught on to this immediately and has learned to sit for the soft-spoken man in order to get his nut.My dog has also figured out how to follow in James’s footsteps looking for shells left behind by the birds. On that particular day Fairness trailed James and his pal Tom up a very steep hill on the assumption that where he goes, shells will often follow. In addition to caring for the wild birds, the two men often carry water up that incline to nurture some of the rare native plants which are struggling to adapt to our warming climate. Two other dogs, Max and Blue, both Huskies, were looking for rabbits in the bushes. They have never found one, but this does not dissuade them from the search.“Fairness! Come now!” I said with authority while clapping my hands slowly and deliberately.He ignored me. He was climbing higher and higher, searching for treats. This was absolutely unacceptable. Our deal—the criteria he must meet in order to be off-leash—is to come upon command. He also has to stay where he can see me and return to my side the moment of my asking. That morning, he broke all of the rules. And one thing for certain with a giant dog: they MUST obey the rules. Any dog, but especially a big one who does not, is a danger to himself and others. That is that. I asked him several more times to come down, and he continued to ignore me, so up I went, intending to physically retrieve him.That hill is steep! The two men and their canine company made the whole situation seem a lot more approachable than it turned out to be. I kept climbing wobbly and awkward, having to turn sideways in hopes of getting some traction that way. I was about five feet from my naughty pup when I slid the first time and found myself on the ground. Max, a normally not-too-observant dog, was immediately by my side with a curious look on his face. I reached over and used his ballast to hoist myself back to my feet and called for Fairness one more time, then promptly fell again.The humans were really not able to help at that point without risking a multi-person tumble. Max again appeared by my side, this time a bit more concerned. As I reached for him, Fairness, having finally realized my predicament, came up to my opposite flank, and I used a bit of both of them to get back up and then sort of ran-hopped back down to firmer ground.Fairness kept a close eye on me after that and did not leave my side for the rest of the morning. My attempt to establish dominance over him failed completely, but he has never gone back up that hill. I saw him consider doing so the other day, but he eyed me sideways and thought better of it. I could see him thinking: “Maybe it’s best not to risk my idiot human falling down the mountainside, else who then would prepare my mashed potatoes?”FROM DOG-WALK TO CATWALK.The next day Sabrina, the lovely gal who often does my makeup for such occasions, gamely covered the scrapes and bruises on my left side. It was time to go for that runway audition. I headed for my agent’s office downtown, clad in the model/digital photo shoot uniform of shorts and a snug tank with a low heel. The president of the United States had unleashed the Marines in the area the night before, in response to every level of government in California—from city to state—including the police and other safety organizations, asking him to refrain from doing so. Nuts is the new normal I suppose. The streets seemed dicey and uniformed officers were visible from the freeway in every direction. Many of the off-ramps were closed, but 7th Street, my exit, was undisturbed and there was no commotion anywhere during the five blocks I drove to meet with my representatives.Two interns were assigned to shoot me first in digital form (stills from every angle—some full body, plus three-quarter and close-ups) Then we headed out to the streets to shoot my “runway” walk. I walked. I posed. I smiled. I un-smiled. I turned from side to side, showing every detail of my imaginary Gucci outfit.“Great!” said the young man behind the camera. “We got it.”Except that we didn’t have it. Stasia, my lovely and entirely brilliant agent, sent us back outside.“The walk is good, just do that. Just walk. No turns or pauses; they don’t do that these days.”There seems no end to the number of ways a person can show their age, when one is my age.Back out we went, and I walked and walked. They filmed me doing this from the front and from the back, and once we were confident that we had it this time, we again headed in to show Stasia. She looked at the footage and gave us the thumbs-up.“The walk is good.” I was happy to hear it. I mean, she could have said, “You walk like there’s a rock in your sock,” or, “The walk is good, but we can see the cuts and bruises … you are scuffed up like an old shoe.” I could have caught a heel in a rut of the decidedly irregular sidewalk and gone ass over teacup, but I remained upright, and that was an accomplishment of sorts. The whole thing felt a little silly for someone of my years to be doing, but I made the best of it. You can’t win if you don’t play, and there are still stakes for me in the game of it all.Also, the runway in Milan. That would be a story, wouldn’t it?On we go …We extend our heartfelt gratitude to our valued subscribers whose support makes the publication of Wit and Wisdom possible. Thank you! This is a public episode. If yo

Wit and Wisdomby Beth BroderickFour A.M. The alarm woke me out of a deep sleep and interrupted an odd dream. I have lost the plot of it now, but it involved my old colleague Nate Richert, who played Harvey on Sabrina. We were college students, and he was in trouble, and I was trying to get him out of it. That’s all I’ve got; the particulars of the story are lost to the night. The dream is good news in that it means I was actually asleep and not in the fitful twilight which often precedes a plan to bash into an early and very long morning. Nate is not, for the record, a guy who gets in trouble. There is no readily discernible meaning behind the meanderings of my subconscious mind. I know folks who find real value in the analysis of dreams. I am not one of them. Dreams are weird, just like life. I am always grateful to have slept and even more so to have wakened.As I write this, the clock has just ticked past 5 A.M. The morning is moving on with things. The shuttle from the airport Marriott arrived promptly at 4:45 and delivered me to Terminal 2 in under five minutes. I had carefully packed two carry-on bags, so I breezed through security and headed for my travel refuge: the Delta lounge. It was too early for food, but I could make myself some tea and maybe pick at a bit of fruit.The airport lounge at daybreak is sleepy. Most folks are rumpled, their bodies still trying to adjust to the brutal hour. There are always a few couples, though, who wing past dressed impeccably in designer wear, every hair in place. They insist upon sartorial competence, and my hat is off to them. There was one such couple here this morning, and if we are going by appearances—and this is America, so we mostly do—they look fresh, confident, and sure-footed, while the rest of us appear shell-shocked and are scuffling about. This morning, I wrestled myself into comfy loose pants with a mussed T-shirt half tucked in and threw an old sweater around my shoulders. I am not a particularly stylish flyer, though I do wear clothing and attempt to at least start the trip with well-combed hair. It will be matted if I am lucky enough to take a long nap taken pressed into the sides of my seat by arrival time, but I made the effort. There is a trend amongst some travelers, (most of them young) these days to arrive for their flight clad in old pajamas and clutching a home bed pillow. If you are tempted by the sound of that, try to resist the urge. Do it for me.Most of the people in the lounge are sipping coffees and waters, but there are always a few, and today I counted seven, who are consuming alcohol at 5 A.M. Made of stronger stuff than I, those few. One couple has, respectively, a good-sized glass of what looks like a Sauvignon Blanc, and a deep red, maybe a Cabernet. Dang. Another fellow has procured a beer, and the remaining partakers have chosen champagne, a more traditional morning drink, but a drink all the same. Yowza. If I drank that at that hour, I would need to board the plane on a stretcher; would definitely need “extra assistance”, which is always the first zone to board. Mostly, the people who line up for that first call are in wheelchairs or have serious and obvious mobility challenges. I have, though, noticed of late that there are a lot of spry, gray-haired folks pushing down the aisle on the pretense of needing extra time who are clearly able-bodied. I guess they are taking the whole “age has its privileges” thing to heart. (In truth, there aren’t that many, so go ahead and fake your way down that aisle, Grandma, but you aren’t fooling anybody.)“Don’t tell her that I’m coming. In case the plane gets delayed or some such,” I warned.Her mom kept the secret. Maya had her big high-school graduation party yesterday, and I was determined to show up but had only one workable flight option (hence the pre-dawn wake-up call), and air travel can be dicey. Texas had major storms recently. Hail the size of oranges, they said. That’ll delay a plane flight right quick, but blessedly clear skies prevailed, and, with just a few minor bumps, we cruised into Austin right on schedule. I sent flowers ahead of time just in case, to ensure that I had some kind of presence on her big day. “To marvelous, magical Maya. Congratulations on this major milestone. I cannot wait to see how your future unfolds. I know you will make your mark. I will love you always … Auntie Beth.” Corny, I know, but heartfelt. Corny is often how I roll. Not sorry.Maya is one of several young people who think of me as a relative, and I am honored to fill the role. She is a wonderful young woman, and I have been close to her and her family since she was six years old. I am so glad that I was able to surprise her. I was late to the party, but not by much. I got a bit discombobulated en route. So, there was much urgent texting with my friend Kat, her mom, who, of course, had her hands full with forty guests, but graciously hid any annoyance I might have been causing.“I cannot find La Trattoria. Did you mean La Traviata? I am heading there.”The LYFT driver was almost to that location when her text came back. “Trattoria Lysine.”“Oh, okay; so no ’La,’ I thought. It was the “la” that had thrown me off course. Doesn’t take much, as we know. I leaned forward:“Um, sir. I am sorry, but I have to change the destination. We are going the wrong way.” The driver was very patient as he made the U-turn that this news required. I was a full twenty minutes out, and the party was in full swing.“Don’t wait for me. I am goofed in the head, but finally heading in the right direction.”PRESENT AND PROUD.As we drove through the scenic Texas Hill Country, I made myself put the phone down and just observe the beauty of it. I arrived at the scene a full thirty minutes past the starting hour, toting my carry-on suitcase and a big, ugly backpack. The hostess spirited them away into a coat closet, and I headed in and snuck up to my darling niece. “Hey, kiddo.”She turned and burst into tears when she saw me, and I held her tight. “These are the moments in life that matter,” I thought. There had been some debate in my mind about whether I should make the journey. This trip, coming on the heels of a quick jaunt to New York City to participate in a memorial for my pal Harvey, was another elective expenditure, the likes of which I have been holding myself to account for, trying to rein in.As I contemplate the coming years, I am trying to conserve now, so that I may have more options in the future. I want the freedom to travel and live with gusto, and wherever I choose. I hope to be unencumbered by financial worry. That’s what we all want, of course, what we all have spent the last forty or fifty years working to ensure. We all want to be certain of things, to be secure in our dotage.Good luck with that. The markets are roiling, their future is unclear, and from many vantage points, things look pretty grim for Americans who are invested in them. That includes everyone with a pension or savings, so pretty much all of us. What if things crash? What then? Now what? The one thing I know for sure is that I don’t know a damned thing. There is no point in trying to predict what lies ahead for any of us.A colleague of mine recently passed. It was unexpected to most who knew her. We weren’t close, but I enjoyed working with her years ago and always thought very highly of her as a person and a talent. Valerie Mahaffey was just 71. The cancer took her quickly, which may or may not have been a blessing. I hope it was the latter for her.We won’t know, until we are faced with it, how we will greet our impending death. Maybe I will want to fight for breath with every fiber of my being, cling to every moment left to me on this earthly plane. I hope not. I hope I will agree to my fate with equanimity and allow it to come in peace, but I have not had to make that choice.One thing for sure, though: I hope Valerie didn’t spend the year prior to her diagnosis worrying about the cost of living later. I hope she bought plane tickets and spent too much on art, and went to expensive concerts, and dined on the finest foods. I hope she was free.If time is money, then for now I am rich. I have my health, albeit compromised by the damnable psoriatic arthritis, which I am trying to learn to be grateful for because it does not kill, only maims. Ding, ding, ding! A lucky draw, I tell myself, and most of the time I mean it.For now, I am blessed with a foreseeable future. That is not something that everyone gets. So, I am going to go for it. When I get the chance to put my arms around the people that I care about, to celebrate the milestones or commemorate a life well lived, I am going to leap at it. I am going to spend whatever it takes to show up for love. I have the time, and I will find the money.These are life’s precious and priceless moments. Money comes and goes. Time is all we ever really have, and there is no way to know how much of it we will be afforded. The long and short of it is, that if time is indeed money, then by God I plan to make it count.On we go …We extend our heartfelt gratitude to our valued subscribers whose support makes the publication of Wit and Wisdom possible. Thank you! This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit bethbroderick.substack.com/subscribe

Wit and Wisdomby Beth BroderickI said goodbye to a dear old pal on Sunday. Harvey “The DON” Siegel was one of the first people to truly befriend me when I was young and stupid and on my own in New York City. My first year there I got caught up in a crowd that lived hard and long into the night, courtesy of cocaine and a few other substances that were favored at the time. I loved the drug, a little too much, to tell the truth, but thankfully I hated the life. I did not want to stay up until dawn with a host of folks who had never read Truman Capote. People who had never wept into the pages of a Hemingway novel, or at the very least, laughed their heads off at P.G. Wodehouse and his brilliant Jeeves.I just had to get away from the druggie world, they were not my tribe. I moved downtown from the Upper West Side and made sure that every new friend understood there was to be no sharing of illegal substances. That is when I met Harvey, who never did drugs, so did not need to be told, though I did anyway.“If you offer me drugs, we cannot be friends. I mean, thanks and all, but no, that is a line we cannot cross.” I was serious about it and all but one or two of the new people I met respected my wishes. I was no saint. I still ran wild and drank cocktails (often with “The DON” until closing time), but at least we talked about theater and music and the arts. It was an upgrade in every way. Harvey and I were both hired as staff for the opening of a new restaurant in Midtown, the heart of the theater district. That was where I longed to be, and working as a waitress at J.R. at least put me in the vicinity. I was twenty years old and had been on my own since I was sixteen, so I put on a semi-good show, but was in many respects still a kid. The chef was Barry, the original “The Bear”, and he would become another dear buddy. He and Harv went back a ways and shared an ironic sense of humor and a love of good whiskey. They were street-smart city guys who did a poor job of hiding their hearts of gold. I was a terror. I challenged customers to push-up contests, used a railing near the kitchen as a ballet barre and was, in short, wildly inappropriate. I was also whip fast, could memorize five tables’ worth of orders without trying, and was a hard worker. Harv and Bear interceded on my behalf many times when the owners caught the drift of my shenanigans and were thinking maybe I was not right for their store. They also tried to rein me in, and though I was fired eventually for talking back to a customer (for which I was not sorry), they did help shape me into an adult-ish human. Harvey was a lot of things. An actor (a good one), a restaurant guy, a doo-wop singer from the Bronx, and a veteran. He had served, had been a medic in Vietnam, and though it haunted him, he could not be persuaded to talk about it. I saw him in a play once where he took on the role of a medic in wartime, and it took my breath away. He gave a nuanced, lived-in, heartbreaking performance. He was a brave guy. When I first knew him, he was a bon vivant, a man about town. He seemed to know everyone, and where the ladies were concerned, many of them intimately. He was also quite scrappy and resourceful, at one point living in a windowless room on 69th Street which boasted a shared toilet and shower down the hall. He called it his “artist’s garret” and found romance in the notion. Harv was a salesman and lured many a fine woman up to his lair. He was a dynamo; he could sell ice to Eskimos, as we said back then. Harvey knew folks from every sphere of city life; could wrangle his way into any Broadway show or live concert. Half of the cabbies drove him for free. He knew how to live large on very little. We were all essentially broke, dreaming of a better life and scrounging our way around a city we loved but could not afford to live in. Looking back, I really do not know how I survived, even thrived with so little, but Harvey was a great spirit guide through those lean times.Our paths would diverge. Harvey fell in love with a woman named Lorraine and built a beautiful family. He applied himself to the real estate trade and became a good provider and a great dad. It was his kids who gave him the moniker of “The DON.” He was gruff, but playful as the head of household in their “Kool-Aid” home. All of the neighbor kids knew and respected him. He loved his children, loved being a dad. It was hands down the favorite role he ever played; beating out any job he had ever had. I gave up the acting life for several years and dedicated myself to founding and running MOMENTUM, one of the first programs for persons with AIDS in America. Some of my friends wanted nothing to do with me as a result. That was a period in our history as a nation when discrimination against gay folks was the norm. AIDS was a terrifying, deadly disease, which came with an average life expectancy rate of six months. People were afraid and folks were never at their best when they are scared. It was a desperate time for those living with the disease. In the early 80’s we did not even have a name for the illness nor an understanding of its origins. “Gay Men’s Cancer” was the best description available, though it was never correct. AIDS was never just a “gay” disease. Those of us on the ground in the early days saw plenty of families coping with the illness. That continues to be true to this day, as there are still quite a number of new infections in the heterosexual population. “The DON” and “The Bear” pulled strings all over town to help me get donations. Barry even came and cooked on-site at our weekly events. We provided a sit-down dinner and free grocery and clothing stores. The young men and women who came through our doors were trying to get by, having lost their jobs the minute they showed signs of the disease. They had no money, and many had no family support. They needed the basics like food and clothing, but they also desperately needed community, and in those early ugly days, we were the only place they could turn to.I met two other lifelong friends at that time. Eric (yes, the same Eric who edits this column) and Larry were fellow volunteers and offered me support at every turn. I learned how to produce benefit concerts with them by my side and my old pals Harv and Barry were also there, helping to cadge champagne from Elaine of the famous Elaine’s, finding volunteers for every function, offering themselves in whatever capacity was needed. I continued to live on nothing, really, barely able to pay the rent. I ate canned goods from the same free grocery store as our clients and though I had financial woes, I somehow never thought twice about it. I just didn’t have time.The day before my flight to New York to speak at Harvey’s memorial, I got a message from the airline (DELTA always, trust me on that) asking me to choose my entrée. As a Premium Select passenger, I would be privileged with meal service. After checking in the following day, which was a breeze, since I could afford the designation of CLEAR and have been approved for Global Entry, I headed for the DELTA lounge to grab a cup of tea and a few nibbles before heading to my flight.BLESSED BEYOND MEASURE.My life is different now. I am writing at a desk in my friend Judy’s apartment in Manhattan near the legendary Lincoln Center. There is a doorman, something I could never even dreamed of having when I lived here. There is also a gym and a swimming pool located near the lobby. My experience of New York City these days is quite comfortable compared to my early years. There is a marked contrast in how the place feels to me. I can afford a taxi now, though I still use transit whenever possible. My younger self walked, because half of the time I could not afford train or bus fare. I remember looking into the windows of the wealthy apartments near my scrappy, crappy one, taking in the chandelier elegance of them with awe and a touch of envy. I never reached the heights of success that a person needs to live here these days. To be wealthy enough in New York City is to be very wealthy indeed. I will never be that. I am grateful to be comfortable, for now, at least. Nothing is guaranteed in this life of ours, and as the markets roil under America’s newly elected regime, many of us are all too aware that our meager fortunes could fall. I am blessed to have the love and support of great friends and family, and that is a true comfort as we face an uncertain future. I can also look to the past, to the steadfast Harvey who, as time went by, never missed a column, never failed to watch my shows, always, always had my back. A tough guy, he was “The DON” on the outside, but he was ever generous and gentle to those he loved, and I am humbled and grateful to have been among them. We saw a lot of life together, and he taught me that there are many ways to count a person successful, and almost none of them have to do with money. That never equaled value to Harv. “The DON” knew his worth and helped to convince me of mine. He was something. Truly.Goodnight, dear pal, and thank you.On we go …We extend our heartfelt gratitude to our valued subscribers whose support makes the publication of Wit and Wisdom possible. Thank you! This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit bethbroderick.substack.com/subscribe

Wit and Wisdomby Beth BroderickSome time ago, I just had to admit it: I need help. I have always been headstrong, determined to handle everything on my own. This has often sent me careening down the highway to the hell of burnout. I would collapse for a day or two and then dive right back in at warp speed. I take on a lot. I have a wide variety of creative interests, as well as a keen drive to contribute to the common good. This is part pathology, of course. My mother liked to say of someone who merited her ire, “You are wasting precious oxygen that a worthwhile person could be breathing.”It seems that I have spent a lifetime trying to earn my oxygen.I am also, in truth, a bit of a workaholic, but that is in my nature. I love making stuff and making stuff happen. My housekeeper and friend of twenty-plus years, Gloria, used to say to me:“Oh, Mrs. Beth, you is like that bunny de la television! Somebody put a key in you back!”I had a therapist back then named Gary, who was a truly big influence on my life. He used to try to get me to understand that a balanced life would include eight hours of work, eight hours of nourishing activities, hygiene, and play, and eight hours of rest. This was in an era of my life when I would hold my pee for hours to avoid having to take time out to go to the restroom, especially if it meant pulling over and getting out of the car. If I managed one hour of play, that was a high achievement.In those days, I was busy working on a series and writing on my off-days, and throwing big parties and fundraisers for politicians and causes that I believed in, and cooking for folks. Always cooking for folks.These days, I have taken on a modeling career that I rather enjoy, in addition to the regular rigors of writing and acting (though the acting part is strangely moribund of late). I am the Chairman of the Board of a new ballet company and still involved in some political activity. I continue to be dedicated to the folks at the Good Shepherd Home and try to show up whenever I am asked by other organizations to give my time or talent. I am still cooking for folks, a form of “making stuff” that is just built into my brain and body now. I can count on one hand the times I “order in” in a given year. I tried to force myself to do take-out during the pandemic to help out the local restaurants, but I could not do it. I ended up buying groceries from as many of them as I could, but I still cooked. Oh, and I am helping to produce two projects with my dear friend and colleague Ant.Like I said, I take on a lot. Lately, this has had the effect of being both exhilarating and a tad worrisome. I wondered as I turned sixty-five years old if I would start to live life differently. Would I want to slow down and shift my priorities? Apparently not. My response to that significant marker of age has been to load myself into a cannon and shoot myself into an orbit of constant activity. A touch of mania, perhaps? I’ll grant you I may be a little loony, but it’s how I am rolling, for now at least, while I still have wheels.But Gary, I do get eight hours of sleep every night, so there’s that, and I always stop to pee now—well, more often, at least.… MAKES THE DREAM WORK.There is one big change in how and on which endeavors I spend my time. Today I have help. Talented folks who can do some of the legwork, assist with aspects of the technology, and back me up on projects when I need it. There is the lovely Rebecca, who helps format this column and finds wonderful photos to accompany my words. She does a host of other things, too, and thank God. Tucker assists with audio recording and editing and has bailed me out in a myriad of ways. Most recently, Arkin has arrived on the scene, wildly over-qualified to help sort out the other manuscripts I am working on. My friend Eric edits this piece for free, and while I frequently exasperate him with poor grammar and typing skills, he shows up to the task time and time again. A special thank you to Mr. Eric.It takes a village.“You are wicked smart. You could learn to do that on your own,” a friend recently said to me.Fair point. I suppose that I could. I could learn how to format and improve my keyboard prowess. I could record my own audio and figure out how to edit that. I could learn all the things that Rebecca knows about social media posts, Dropbox, etc., I could, in theory, become a whiz-bang Final Draft expert. I might find the wherewithal to do my own taxes, for that matter, but I cannot emphasize enough how much I would rather not.I don’t wanna. It would take oodles of time and, let’s face it, I am running out of that. I am a good bit closer to the end of things than the beginning. I greatly enjoy writing this column and I am genuinely excited to hand it over to Rebecca to see what her creativity can add to the mix. Same with Tucker and his audio expertise. I am equally keen to work on the other projects that have made their way to my desk, and that is due in part because Arkin adds the finesse and exactitude that I am in short supply of.This allows me to pursue the things I love and still be able to take my beloved hikes or make that meal for pals, maybe even read, or watch a program. If I am going to learn new things, I want it to be advanced Spanish and maybe beginning French. At some point, I want to take a deep dive into bird watching. I love birds. If I have a break in my schedule, I want to spend it seeing where the rare off-day takes me.One thing for sure about getting old—and I am not there yet, not old old, but the specter looms on the horizon—we are all going to need help. Humans require assistance as they come into this world and a near equal amount as they exit. A lot of folks fight that; insist that things remain as they have always been. Time laughs at this. Time sighs and shakes its head and mutters “bless your heart” under its breath. Time doesn’t care that you want to be able to sit in the exact chair you have been in for years and watch the exact thing you have viewed from that perch while eating Skinny Pop. Time is gonna snatch away your eyesight, diminish your capacity to hear and dull your taste buds.Time is gonna knock your feet out from under you at some point. If you are dead lucky, someone will be there to help you in and out of an adjustable bed, someone will be assisting you in the handicap-equipped shower. If you are hella blessed and have stashed away some serious cash, all of this may take place in your home. For most Americans this will all take place in a home, where they will be surrounded by other people in the same predicament. Some of those joints are better than others, but none are first-choice, best-case scenarios. It’s the way it is … it is the American way.Whatever goes down in the final stretch as we head to a different plane of existence, we will need help on the way to our exit. My old pastor Monsignor Torgersen, the wildly charismatic head of Saint Monica’s Catholic Church, once told me of last rites and tending to the deathly ill:“I can walk them right up to the door, but I cannot see them through it,” he said. “Once there, once the dying have reached the precipice, they are in the hands of God.”I love being the age that I am, and so far, I have not slowed, nor do I show any signs of doing so in the near future. I love the challenge of staying fit enough to model, the newest of my career pursuits. It’s a new business and one that’s interesting. My model agents in Mexico City use an app called WhatsApp for absolutely every interaction. Contracts, videos, and photos are all maintained and distributed on the tiny telephone platform. This is apparently the preferred mode of communication in most countries these days. I am catching on, managing to use it fairly efficiently, and I have to say it’s workable enough. It does not allow for the luxury of extended communication that an email affords, and I miss that, but it gets the job done and I suppose, in this new era, that’s all that matters.I love all of the creative endeavors that I am pursuing and the wildly talented folks that I get to collaborate with. I am blessed to have the health and the help to keep living my life on my own terms.I am not digging in and going full Luddite, but I don’t want to spend my waning years forcing myself to catch up to speed in a world that will inevitably grow beyond me, will surely leave me behind. Learning all of the new technologies does not interest me terribly much. I am an old-school gal. I am not gonna Chat-GPT my way through an essay anytime soon. I appreciate the wonder of it all, but no—I am happy to leave that to the young burgeoning experts. It’s their world now.On we go …P.S. If I tell you that I have done my own taxes, please call an ambulance, for I will, one hundred percent, have gone completely off my head.We extend our heartfelt gratitude to our valued subscribers whose support makes the publication of Wit and Wisdom possible. Thank you! This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit bethbroderick.substack.com/subscribe

…there, I said it. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit bethbroderick.substack.com/subscribe

Wit and Wisdomby Beth BroderickI have a lot of lists. Long lists and short ones, memos and notes. They are on my phone, on rolls of paper in my kitchen, sticky-noted to my laptop, and pasted on the walls. These lists are meant to keep me on track, keep the larder stocked and the business of life flowing. The problem is not that there are no lists. I’ve got them up the wazoo. The problem is that I do not look at them, or if I do, I quickly forget their content and go on about my day accomplishing none of the items their presence demands.Hence, I have failed to make a reservation to take a “Mature Driver’s Course,” the completion of which would significantly lower my car insurance. I really should take the class; that’s why it has been on the docket for months now. Months.There is also a need for change of address on my renter’s insurance, for example. Should have been done in January. Still not done. The roster of things that I really ought do is ever-growing and any day now, the items on it will surely be attended to.Any day now.“Oh my God!” I wrote to my accountant, Jerry. “I totally forgot to drop off my W-2’s and 1099’s and other tax info! I am so sorry. There were notes everywhere reminding me to do it and I just screwed the pooch. I do not know where my mind is; it went missing some time ago. I am so sorry!”I sent that note on April 17th. The subject line read. “Oops! Shoot! Dang it!”“It’s okay. I have already filed your extension,” he assured me. “And you have until October for the state because of the fires. Don’t break anything getting here, but as soon as you can get the paperwork to me, I can figure out what lies ahead.”Whew. Thank GAWD for Jerry. He is an absolute gem. The fact that I got bailed out on that one does not excuse my lack of basic planning. I mean, what the heck??? Taxes are important—well, most things on the list are, or at the very least, are prudent and worth doing.I promised Jerry that I would drop by the following day. In order to assure my follow-through with this, I stuck notes all over my home that just said, simply, “TAXES.” That worked. I couldn’t open the fridge or a cupboard or sit at my desk or open the front door without seeing that simple sign. The next day, I went to the very formidable offices of Platinum Financial Management, where Jerry has worked for decades, and we sat and chatted and caught up. Both of us were lamenting the steep-cliff drop-off of work in the industry we have loved and spent 40 years in. There was also talk of our families and the general state of things in our lives. It was good to see him, and I am grateful for the rescue.I am a very busy person, of course, but I have ALWAYS been a very busy person. It is only now, in my dotage, that I have become a keeper of copious lists. Lists that never seem to get checked off. If I have not seen or talked to you in a while, it is likely that your name is written down somewhere. If I don’t write it down, even the keenest desire to see a friend or loved one can get buried in the haze of activity that clouds my aging brain.I am sure that there are clinical reasons for this, and equally sure that I do not give a fig what they are. I mean, this is how my life rolls now. I figure I will manage to get most of the stuff I have slated “to do” handled at some point. It also seems like if enough time has passed and an item is still on the list, well, then it’s perhaps not that essential, and I can just waltz on by it on my way to lunch with someone I love or a stroll in my beloved park. Okay—let’s face it—a HIKE in the park. I’ll leave the strolling to y’all.Mike A. staged a lay-down flat-out on the living-room floor after the final hike of his visit, and I snapped a picture. This was after a three-day stay filled with many glorious treks into the hills. I sent it to Russell, who felt the same way after a week with me and my obsession with fresh air and exercise. This was his reply:“You are a mean b***h. Leave us alone.”Poor darlings! The two of them have been traveling down the road of life with me for 50 and 35 years, respectively. They are in it for the long haul, and while they may occasionally protest, they will keep logging the miles. We all know that it’s good for all of us. Our minds might be a tad fuzzy, but our bodies still work like gangbusters. A bit of grace there.Gangbusters may, in my case, be a wee bit of overstatement. I have been in the midst of a prolonged allergy attack. I wake up sneezing, nose running a hundred miles per hour. That last bit annoys me. My Dad had a runny nose every day of his life. We swear we will not grow up to be like our parents, and yet here I am. I’ve got Dad’s fountain of a schnoz and Mom’s testy attitude toward her fellow drivers. I refrain from yelling, though I would dearly love to at the L.A. driver who is often a callous and careless sort. I have to placate myself by holding up the middle finger below dashboard level. So we differ there. Mom would have stuck hers out the window and hurled epithets to boot. I take comfort in that. My temper is as hair-trigger, but the way I express it is at least a tad more restrained.STICKY NOTES, SNIFFLY NOSE.As for Dad’s runny nose, I try to tame it with a tab of Children’s Zyrtec every morning. The adult version is too strong for me, makes me wiggly, and worsens my already severely challenged ability to concentrate on the task at hand. The tricky part of this equation is that, due to stupid dang Psoriatic Arthritis, my hands barely work in the morning. I cannot open the pod with the pill inside. I have a pair of scissors which dwell permanently next to the chair I use to help get dressed in the morning. They are in a jar with the allergy medicine, which also holds special thick healing Band-Aids for my feet, the outer casing of which I cannot for the life of me open without a tool to cut into them. If it’s not one thing…it’s another.You have to love getting older. It is annoying as hell, but also pretty hilarious. Another friend came early to work in my office before dinner with a group of pals. He was on the road and on a deadline for work.“What is your Wi-Fi?” he asked.I had to think about it. Then remembered the name.“Look for roxeymotel6.”“Ah, okay. Password?”‘Dang it,’ I thought. I know this one!“Happyhootowl345?” I exclaimed hopefully.He tried it. No go.“I am probably typing it in wrong,” He said charitably.The thing is written on the back of the router. Yes I am still using the password that it came with. I have big plans to change it to something of my own choosing. That is written down on a list somewhere.I had to get down on hands and knees and twist my body around, tipping my head just so to get close enough to see it. Then I had to whip out the giant magnifying glass thingy that I keep on my desk, because even with a strong—as in Mr. Magoo—strong prescription, I still cannot see well enough to read the tiny type or, for that matter, at least half of the stuff that I really must read. Which is why it is written on another list somewhere that I need to make an appointment for an eye exam.“Here it is. Got it. Happyhootowl354!!!”“Bingo!” he cried.On we go …We extend our heartfelt gratitude to our valued subscribers whose support makes the publication of Wit and Wisdom possible. Thank you! This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit bethbroderick.substack.com/subscribe

Wit and Wisdomby Beth Broderick“You’re doing that? You’re up in the hills alone like that? On steep ridges?” my sister-in-law Sarah asked with a look of concern.When she put it that way, I had to admit it sounded a tad off the beam. I had been explaining that I feel more confident hiking in the hills and on the ridges alone with my dog Fairness, because my pal Dean gave me a cane with a stun feature on it that can ward off an attack from human or animal, should need be. It can also stabilize me on steep paths and prevent me from going ass over teacup down the slope to my doom.One particular ridge, which is a route to the caves where my neighbors and I often meet with our dogs, is very frequently populated by several coyotes. I love coyotes and I am never afraid of one or two, but when there are several, I get a bit tense. It’s also steep with a sheer drop-off, so one has to place one’s feet just so. The cane gives me confidence in the precarious situations that, to my sister’s point, might be best avoided in the first place. Hmmmm. Got me thinking.My friend Russell recently visited for a week. He brought his dog Ted, and I was excited to show them both my morning routine of hiking in the hills of Griffith Park. They were willing, if not exactly eager, to head out first thing in the morning on those expeditions. Ted was especially unenthused, but they joined me and Fairness—good sports both of them. The mornings were chilly and wet with dew and even a few bouts of rain, but we trekked on. Russ and I pointed out particularly gorgeous bits of architecture on the streets and vistas in the heights. There is a lot of beauty in these parts, a tonic for the soul. Ted is not a morning dog, but his resistance waned with the passing days, and he began to look forward to our five-mile heart-starter mornings.Working it!Then, of course, we hit the gym. I try to go five days a week minimum—a goal seldom achieved but always aimed for. Ted was grateful to be left out of that part. He and Fairness stayed home and rested up for their 5 PM night walk, a short but still challenging hike up to the horse ranch area in Beachwood Canyon.“You are a maniac,” Russ said, pulling on his sneakers for one such evening stroll.He was sore from all of the hiking and gym-attending and general go-go-go of being with me. His body hurt. Ironically, when we first met some 35 years ago, he was my physical trainer. I was the one who was sore. He is still a fit person, but as the owner of a wildly successful restaurant/nightclub, he now has a lifestyle that has taken on a more laid-back vibe. To put it more succinctly, he is making a great living in a way that does not involve being on the internet in a bikini at the age of 65.Outtake from the crazy internet ad I did in a bikini which caused a bit of a stir. 65 and modeling swimwear. NO hash browns were harmed in the making of this photo.“I wish you didn’t still have to work in front of cameras,” he said. “I wish you could just relax now.”We were at breakfast. He ordered a scramble with hash brown potatoes and toast. I ordered sausage and eggs, no potatoes, no toast with sliced tomatoes. The morning meal of ancient swimwear models everywhere.“A few more years. I have promised myself that when I am 68, I can have toast. Like whenever I want it, not just on holiday. Gluten-free, of course.” I smiled ruefully.In addition to maintaining my appearance, I am working desperately to stave off the progressive degeneration of my joints due to Psoriatic Arthritis. The disease is a b***h. I box with her daily and mostly have her on the ropes, but she is persistent, biding her time. She knows she has the upper hand; knows I will one day need that cane for other reasons.I went to Palm Springs last weekend on a mission to find some new pieces for my new apartment. I needed a grown-up-sized dining table and some patio furniture for my giant balcony. There are a few other random items on the wish list: light fixtures, gold mirrors of varying shapes and sizes for the hallway. And there is always the chance that some magical item is out there that will put the right finishing touch on one room or another. I was hoping to score, but the searching itself is a delightful activity. My pal Michael was willing to accompany me, and that would make the experience shine.Score. I fell in love with this Danish Modern table and ladder back chairs. It was wobbly though so I was uncertain. I really wanted it and hated to leave it, so Michael suggested I ask them if they could repair it. They did and it's mine and ya now Char.I have put off decorating due to… well … the turbulence of the times. My industry has flatlined, and the market fluctuations are putting the nation’s entire financial future in question, so I have been cautious about feathering my nest beyond the basics. Have been afraid to make any big outlays of cash in anticipation of “TrumpMageddon,” but now that it is here, now that there is a definite feeling of freefall in regards to the fate of the nation, I am just going to go ahead and give myself the gift of beautiful surroundings. I will at least have a lovely place to land at the end of each upsetting day.I took Fairness down to Palm Springs with me. Turns out he is a good traveler—not terribly antsy in the car and very willing to adapt to new environments. I brought my computer and a script I am working on, but Mike and I just sort of drifted into vacation mode. Something neither of us is wont to do or is very good at, but we managed to put work aside. It was fun.We set out for a gorgeous walk every morning, admiring the hills that surround the part of town where Mike lives. Just four or five miles. Nothing too strenuous. I was looking forward to pool time in the afternoons and then, of course, a lovely sunset walk to cap the day. Mike was game at first; he is an active guy and likes to move.“Honey, I am sore. My body aches,” he said to me on the third day of our visit.It began to dawn on me that perhaps I am pushing the envelope of exercise to a bit of an extreme. I am not really sure when my pace began to accelerate. At first, 10 thousand steps a day felt like a good number, but now I am not satisfied with less than twenty. I give myself a break regarding the gym some days. If there is a chance to see a good friend or complete a fun project or even just cook for my clan, I am likely to choose that option, but still, the drive is there.Russell told a friend that he thinks I never stop moving because I want to live a long life and am determined to be fit for it. When he repeated that theory to me, I shook my head. I have zero thoughts about my longevity. I have watched far too many friends ushered by fate to an early grave. There are not enough steps one can take to ward off our individual genetic destinies. Fate does not care a whit if you did your ab workout as prescribed by the Fitness Gods. Fate knows where you live and will decide how long you live there.I think my obsession with moving comes from the fear that I will one day not have the ability to do so. Like many folks my age, I hobble my way into the day. I take my first steps in the morning with a body so stiff that I just sort of lurch from one painful foot to the other. I pay that no mind; just finish my tea and ablutions and then bandage both feet, shove them—wincing—into my clown-like orthopedic shoes, and go. And go and go and go and go.NO PAIN, NO GAIN.There is a price. I took a long walk before I headed to my desk to finish this writing. When I sit down after strenuous activity, it can be very hard to get up. I will have to push myself out of the chair by placing both hands on the desk and pulling myself toward it. An inconvenience to be sure, but not one that has any influence on my behavior. It’s just the deal now.That’s a bit of an odd response, I suppose, but I have loved my fit life. I loved the way it felt to move through the world, when my toned muscles responded to the ground below with snap and vigor. I am determined to love moving my body through space for as long as possible, to see as many gorgeous views and hear as much birdsong as time will allow. I am okay with the disease card that I have drawn. We all draw one, and mine makes a kind of cosmic sense. After all, if nature did not take faculties away from us, we would never agree to leave this life, and she needs us to go, needs us to cede our floor time to the next generation. She’s figuring that crippling me ought to be fairly persuasive. Smart gal, that Mother Nature. Knows her audience.When that time comes, when the cane is needed and the hands gnarl, I will cope with it as graciously as I can, but until then, I am stepping out. I am stepping on it.On we go …We extend our heartfelt gratitude to our valued subscribers whose support makes the publication of Wit and Wisdom possible. Thank you! This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit bethbroderick.substack.com/subscribe

Wit and Wisdomby Beth BroderickLuck.“The definition of luck is when preparation meets opportunity.” My mother said this to us many times when we were growing up. It has a nice “pull yourself up by the bootstraps” Americana feel about it, a nod to the work ethic bestowed upon us by our Puritan ancestors.That is not, however, the definition of luck. This is how it is described according to Webster’s, Oxford, and Cambridge dictionaries:“To prosper or succeed, especially through chance or good fortune.”“Success or failure apparently brought by chance rather than through one's own actions.”“The phenomenon and belief that defines the experience of improbable events, especially improbably positive or negative ones.”I have a good friend who, over the years, has consistently referred to the relative success of my acting career as being due to a string of good luck. Of course, my not terribly tender but still existent ego has always bristled at the suggestion. After all, I have clocked the hours, spent years building and earning a good reputation. I have been working steadily for nearly forty years, so maybe it’s not just “dumb luck.”Nanny Nanny Nanny Goat!!Or maybe it was. There is, after all, the accident of our origins. I am white and born in America, a country which has historically partial to white folks. I am tall with a pretty good set of genes, and I was drawn to and gifted at acting from early childhood. That seems pretty lucky on the face of things. I have mentioned the matter of luck quite frequently in these pages because I am often confounded by the concept.Had I been born in a Third World nation—what our charming president often refers to as a “shithole country,”—my chances of applying myself to any craft would be slim to none. The meaning of luck would change drastically. I would be lucky to be alive, to find food for myself and my family. Lucky not to succumb to a disease that I was unlucky enough not to be vaccinated for. Of course, we are all lucky on that count, but opportunity is a gift not afforded to everyone. So maybe Mom was right about that part.“Luck, let a gentleman seeHow great a dame you can beI know the way you’ve treated other guys you’ve been withLuck be a lady with me.”From “Luck Be a Lady”I find myself singing this song under my breath from time to time. I have no idea how I learned it. I know it was a Sinatra song and a huge hit and that it originated in the Broadway musical Guys and Dolls in 1950. I find it interesting that luck was given a female characteristic back then. Women’s lives were pretty much determined by the men they were fated to be born to or to marry. While some fortunate women were able to earn salaries and thereby could ostensibly take care of themselves, they were prohibited from having bank accounts in their names. This made things a bit difficult.So, were they lucky because they could work or unlucky because they were denied financial services?Feels like a trick question sometimes.IN THE CARDS.I played in a charity poker event recently. I was one of the “celebrities” that anchored the many Texas Hold’em games strewn around the room. The place was lively; the tables packed with eager participants. A dozen or so alternate players were waiting in the wings for one of us to go bust so that they could take their shot. I was at a table with mostly very amateur players, and I would count myself among them. I had not played in a very long time and was rusty on the rules, and wracking my brain for strategies long forgotten.The dealer was very professional and kept us all on track. I had several good hands, but a few clunkers too. I folded when I should have bet and bet when I should have folded a few times, so there was plenty of “user error,” but I was doing well overall, and it was for a good cause. Fun.The “blinds” kept being raised, which is poker’s way of determining the minimum bet. It was about two hours in when it began to cost $6,000 to see the cards that would be dealt in what is called the “flop.” Double dang. I bided my time. My fairly substantial winnings would head down the drain quickly with 6K as merely the opening bid. There was no limit on what folks could raise. Things could get really expensive, really fast.By that time, a lot of people, including many of the alternate players, had gone bust, and the mood was still friendly but had a bit more edge as the more talented players were trying to secure a place at the final table.…the Holy Grail of competitive poker. I folded rotten hand after rotten hand—a 9 of clubs with a 4 of diamonds, and on and on. Non-starters all. Then I caught a break—Pocket Queens—a very good draw.“I’m all in,” I said, pushing my chips forward onto the felted part of the table in front of me and trying to maintain a neutral expression. I was pretty sure I had that hand in the bag, and the stakes were high enough for me to rake in quite a bundle. The fellow to my left called me and showed his hand. Pocket Aces. Dang. I was out of the game. It’s not real money anyway--it was all for charity--but I still felt disappointed for a minute.Was I lucky to have drawn the queens? Unlucky because my tablemate drew the aces?Tough question in some ways, but then there is the whole “accident of our origins” thing, so I am going to go with lucky.When I was sixteen, I moved to Pasadena to attend school at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts. I found a room in the home of an older woman, Mrs. Snyder, the mother of someone my mom had worked with. Lucky. Once I had my few possessions stored, I began in earnest to look for a job. I had to support myself during the year, and when you were under 18, it was very hard to find any decent-paying work.So, I lied, of course.One of the places that I applied was a coffee shop located on Colorado Blvd., which, at the time, was the great dividing line of the old city. Pasadena had a very racist bent back then: Blacks could live above Colorado Blvd., while whites stuck to below. This was fairly carefully observed. A few of my white classmates who had strayed into the black part of town were pulled over by police and warned that they did not belong there.I lied on the application, fudging my birthdate and my work experience. I was in the waiting area with several other women who were also applying for the position, many of whom were people of color. All of us needed the work, and most of them were more qualified and more importantly of legal age, but I got hired. It was a grueling year—working long hours in the afternoons and evenings and attending class during the day—but I knew for sure that I was lucky.There are those who would say it was a hardship to have to pay my own way, to have to work so, so hard to get where I wanted to go. It was hard, sometimes very hard, but I knew the day that I got that job, and have known every day since, that I was lucky to have the chance to find work that could sustain me while I pursued my dreams. Sure, there were lots of my peers who drew the Aces, who had parents who could foot the bill for their education, but I got the Queens, by God. I got to take my shot at succeeding in class, and I did not waste it.Tens of thousands of Americans have lost their jobs in recent months. Whole swaths of California and North Carolina have burned, decimating homes and businesses. Then there are the park rangers and flight experts, and Social Security Counselors deemed to be a waste of funds by the Doge folks. However you feel about that, those people are hurting. In order to pull oneself up by one’s bootstraps one needs to have boots. In order to work hard one needs to be able to find work.If luck is chance, if luck is just happenstance, then we can definitely report that a lot of us have been unlucky of late …Stupid, damnable, dumb, bad luck!Now more than ever, I say this with conviction:On we go …We extend our heartfelt gratitude to our valued subscribers whose support makes the publication of Wit and Wisdom possible. Thank you! This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit bethbroderick.substack.com/subscribe

Wit and Wisdomby Beth BroderickThey are everywhere. Lemons, oranges, and grapefruits are the most obvious, but tucked into corners or looming in the back are also figs, and, this being the Southland, avocados. My new neighborhood is ripe with produce which tempts me at every turn. I look up wistfully at the lemons I cannot reach without risking serious bodily harm. The low-hanging ones are picked off by passersby as soon as they look remotely ready, so I have to keep a keen eye out.Yes, I know I can just go pick up a bunch at the grocery store, but it’s not the same as holding a freshly plucked prize in my paws. I fear that I may have inherited my Grandma Edna’s penchant for lifting. Of course, I am no match for her in that department. She would stash as many as twenty items of contraband in her pockets, purse, or bra, and even sometimes her shoes, and walk out of the drugstore with her head held haughtily high. I could never do that, but I have been known to cadge a lemon or maybe an unwanted free paper left wilting on the sidewalk. I don’t have her penchant for outright thievery, but I do love to encounter a treat on my walks.“Excuse me, sir?”I waved as I said it because he had those earpod thingies stuffed into the sides of his head, and I wasn’t sure he could hear me. The fast motion must have startled him because he jumped slightly, and then looked up and pulled the miniature speakers out of his ears.“Do you think it’s okay if I take some of those?” I asked, pointing to a lemon tree in front of the building he was leaving, which was bursting with fresh gems.His gaze followed my finger.“Yes, yes; they’re for the neighborhood. Please take whatever you can reach.”I grabbed a half-dozen, annoying Fairness in the process. He does not share my fascination with local citrus and would prefer to get on with our walk. This brought my total of gathered lemons to ten. I scrubbed them all and then put them whole into a pot, then covered them with water, and put a weighted pan on top. Simmered for a few hours, they take on a jammy quality. I let them drain and cool, and then removed the seeds and processed them—skins, pith, and insides. This turned into a lemon paste which I have been using to perfect my recipe for lemon blondies. It can also be used to make a sauce, or dressing, and the punchiest lemon curd you have ever tasted.It is interesting to me to note that my old Beverly Hills ’hood had almost no offerings of this kind. It was full of beautiful gardens, but all of the plantings were ornamental. There was no food growing there—at least none that was visible from the streets and sidewalks. I grew up in Huntington Beach, which was for a long while redolent with the scent of citrus. Groves of orange trees surrounded my Park Street neighborhood and also fields of strawberries. There were sidewalk fruit stands which sold berries so ripe and fresh that they exploded with sweet juice when you bit into themThey are gone now. The real estate has grown too valuable for cultivation of that kind. The whole shebang was once the property of the Standard Oil Company, so a drive through our town full of orchards included the odd mix of oil wells—the kind that look like horses reaching for water in a trough as they go up and down. The oil folks are more concerned with profits than preservation, so that landscape is long gone. Even most of the wells have been replaced by condos and tract homes. Still, many yards in the area are rich with remnants of its agricultural roots. Guava trees hug the walls, and all manner of citrus persists in the remaining patches of soil.Perhaps in some of the neighborhoods fruited trees had taken hold and were simply incorporated. I don’t have any idea why some parts of town, including the poorest, are still rife with food trees, while others, including the richest, are not.My neighborhood is so rife with it that one needs to stay sharp to avoid being beaned by a grapefruit grown too ripe for the spindle of branch which nurtured it. They hit the sidewalk regularly with quite a thud.BITTER TRUTH.I had a hairdresser for a while on Sabrina whose name I cannot recall. He was tall and reed-thin, with a thatch of white-blond hair. He was struggling mightily with depression and confided in me that he was taking medication to try to ease the weight of it. John? Tim? What the heck was his name? Such a nice, talented fellow. He lived in Palm Springs and stayed at a friend’s place in town during filming.Palm Springs is another anomaly in the agriculture department. The climate is meant to support cactus and shrubbery, but its dogged citizens have planted and planted and watered and watered, thereby creating an unlikely topography. In addition to the odd greenery of a gazillion golf courses, the place is lousy with fruit trees. Many of the sidewalks that wind through its low-slung buildings on the way to their equally out-of-place swimming pools boast canopies of Meyer lemon and tangerine.“The medication is not working,” (dammit, let’s just go with Bob) confided to me while running a curling iron through my hair. “I still just feel like lying down and never getting up.”There is almost no topic too personal to be discussed in the hair and makeup chair. It is a very intimate environment. We talked about things he could try. Exercise? More protein? Maybe an extra dose of the pharmaceutical stuff just for good measure? We got through the day just fine. He never let his problems interfere with his ability to do his job. He was talented and steadfast.The next week, when we reconvened, he arrived in Hair and Makeup with two grocery bags bulging with grapefruit from his backyard tree in the desert.“You all need to take some of these! My tree is loaded this year.”A lightbulb went off in my head.“Bob, have you been eating grapefruit?” I asked.“Yes, of course. These are delicious, but there is no way I can eat them all.”I explained to “Bob” that grapefruit is forbidden when one is taking antidepressants. (If you have been reading me for any length of time, then you understand how I came upon this particular kernel of insight.) The enzymes in the fruit block the absorption of the medication and prevent it from working. Voila! The secret to Bob’s ongoing struggle had been revealed. He threw his hands up in the air and laughed, relieved to have an explanation.Then he died.Turned out that depression was not the thing keeping him down. He had contracted the AIDS virus in the early days, before we had medications that could keep folks asymptomatic for decades. He had fought hard and lived long enough to be eligible for the new life-saving treatments, but the disease had ravaged his health, and it was too late to reverse the damage. So, yet another talented young man left us too early because of that damnable disease. I cried for days. He was a lovely person.The moral of this story is:If you are depressed, make sure that you know which foods and medications can interfere with your treatment.Also, go to the doctor. The reason you cannot get up out of it may be health-related. I had another friend who thought he was depressed, whose therapist finally urged him to get a physical. It turned out that he was in dire need of open-heart surgery. He went straight from the doctor’s office to the operating theatre and lived to tell the tale.As for me, my life is good—on balance for the most part—but I struggled with depression for years in my twenties and thirties, so I exercise and eat right, get plenty of protein and such. I am blessed to have family and friends who love and support me and lift me up. I am lucky, and I am grateful, but I am leaving nothing to chance ….I have not eaten a grapefruit in thirty years.On we go …Lemon Almond BrowniesIngredients:• 1/2 cup poached lemon purée (see below)• 1 cup granulated sugar• 3/4 cup brown sugar• 4 oz. melted butter• 1 large egg• 2 1/4 cups flour• 1 tsp baking powder• 3/4 tsp salt• 1 tsp vanilla powder (optional)• 1/2 cup almonds, toasted and coarsely choppedToppings:• 3 tbsp raw sugar• Zest of one lemon* Preheat oven to 350°F.* Place almonds in an 8x8-inch square baking pan and toast for 8 minutes. Transfer to a cutting board and coarsely chop. Wipe out the pan, then spray the bottom and sides with cooking spray. Set aside.* In a food processor combine the lemon puree, both sugars, and melted butter. Process for a few pulses, then add the egg and process until smooth. * Add the dry ingredients and pulse until well combined, scraping down sides as needed.* Transfer batter into a mixing bowl, and then add the almonds, stirring to mix in thoroughly.* Spread the batter into a prepared 8x8-inch pan. Bake for 30 to 40 minutes.* Remove the brownies from the oven and let stand for 5 minutes. Meanwhile, in a small bowl, rub the lemon zest into the raw sugar and sprinkle over brownies.* Let cool completely.Lemon Purée* Take several whole lemons (and any leftover pieces of fruit hanging around in the fridge) and place them in a saucepan. Cover with water and bring to a boil.* Reduce heat to a simmer and place a weighted pan or plate on top to keep the fruit submerged. Simmer for at least two hours, adding water as needed to keep the lemons covered.* Drain and let cool until safe to handle, then remove the seeds.* Process the lemons in a food processor until they form a smooth paste. Do not add sugar or salt. We extend our heartfelt gratitude to our valued subscribers whose support makes the publication of Wit and Wisdom possible. Thank you! This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit bethbroderick.substack.com/subscribe

Wit and Wisdomby Beth BroderickMy hair is really short—way shorter than I wanted it to be. It looks fine, I guess, and blessedly is no longer purple, but dang it, why so short? The fellow who has been taking care of it for me is lovely and kind, and I am a bit fascinated by him, so I was maybe not paying enough attention to the “hair” part of the appointment and too much to the “him” part. He does house calls, and I needed a trim. It all felt very casual and chatty and delightfully social, and while I sat there being charmed, he just set about cutting, cutting, cutting, which I did not take note of until three inches of my tresses lay strewn across the kitchen floor.The thing about short hair is you have to style it. When I poof it up and put some energy into it, it looks great, but on a soggy, foggy morning, plastered to the sides of my head, not so much. I can go from fashion model to Mary McGillicutty in mere moments. From Ralph Lauren matron to Appalachian crone in one block of high wind. Of course, I suppose that can be true with any length of hair.My mother always insisted that I keep my hair short because hers was, and she looked great, and I guess the theory was that I would, too. I was a pudgy adolescent, and my cheekbones had not fully announced themselves, so I looked a bit like a redheaded Cabbage Patch doll. In short, short did not look good on me. But back then, I never wore it long, so I really have no images from those days to compare it to. Maybe I just didn’t look so good. The teen years can be unkind in that regard. I am still haunted by the specter of that deeply unpopular Junior High gal.“You have a face like the moon!” the very high-powered director exclaimed. “I cannot shoot a face like yours.”I had just appeared in a film for the studio he had a deal with, and they cottoned to my performance, so they were pushing him to hire me for his new movie. It was about a tree that eats babies, and they thought me perfect for the role of the valiant nanny who takes on the Evil Oak. He did not share that opinion and had a young woman whom he was very “close to” in mind.“You are obese. You need to lose at least thirty pounds.”“Sir, I am 5’8” and I weigh 118. If I did that, I would be dead.”“Well, maybe so, but at least I could shoot your face. You’d have better angles.”This went on for another ten minutes before the casting director thankfully ended our meeting.I went home and lay on the floor and sobbed for hours. I cried for days, because there was no way I could lose weight and still be healthy. Of course, the whole thing was ridiculous. I had starred or co-starred in several shows and movies by then, and folks had no problem shooting my face. My face was considered by most to be a good one, but his words stung.I proceeded to lose five pounds and was pronounced “scary thin” by the tabloids–a no-win situation. It would be quite a while before I recovered from that meeting.NOT A HAIR OUT OF PLACE.I will be 66 years old tomorrow, and I know better, but I confess to wasting several hours worrying about my hair being too short, wondering if that means my visage would suddenly morph into “Moon Face.” Would I suddenly be 12 years old again and shunned by most of my peers?This fear has been widely contradicted by the considerable number of people who have complimented my hair, some going so far as to call my cut “terrific.” So, I have largely let go of the worry, but I felt it was worth reporting about, because so many, many girls and women harbor these negative ideas about their appearance. We spend way too much time caring about such things. This affects men, too, but mostly not as deeply or woundingly as it does the females of our species.After a spell in my early twenties where I carried a whopping 123 lbs. and two brief run-ins with minor medication-related weight gain, I have spent the whole of my lifetime toggling between 116 and 118. And that is the least important thing about me, I mean, who gives a hoot about that? Are we going to write on my gravestone: “Here lies Beth. She sure did keep her weight down!”? And yet …. It all makes me wonder how old a gal has to be to come to outgrow these silly, time-wasting thoughts.Older than 66, I guess. Dang.66 is a bit of a letdown after the whiz-bang antics that surrounded turning 65. It’s a dull number, salvaged only slightly by having a famous highway named for it. One I have only sporadically traversed, but going the length of Route 66 remains on my bucket list.I ended up guest-starring on a procedural show that was helmed by that “You have a moon face” director twenty years later. He was highly complimentary, told me I was a terrific actor. His baby-eating tree movie had been a bomb, and folks had long ago stopped being willing to finance any of his feature ambitions. He seemed content to be doing the rather routine and comparatively mundane job of capturing actors discovering murdered folks and then trying to figure out who done it. Most of us in TV and film love what we do and are just happy to be doing it.I did not mention having met him before or the brutal nature of that event. Showbiz is a tough game. He wanted his chosen actress to star in his movie and was hell-bent on destroying anyone who got in the way of that. I was simply introduced to him for the right reason at the wrong time. His movie tanked, and it would soon be his turn to take some tough hits, to find himself unwanted for the job. I did not feel the need to remind him of his cruelty nor to relive a complicated exchange with him.I shot the show, and he was completely lovely, and bygones were bygones. Mostly.My birthday will be a low-key event this year—a weekend in Palm Springs with Michael. Dinner with my sisters and their new baby, a young lad named Kalen with whom I am borderline obsessed. A few dinners with pals, but no great ten-day excursions to a foreign land. The celebrations of the day of my birth will not drag on for a month as they did last time. I had a slice of good carrot cake at lunch yesterday, and we sang The song. That’ll do.Also, I am starting to really like my hair. Life is long if you are lucky. I’m a lucky gal.On we go …We extend our heartfelt gratitude to our valued subscribers whose support makes the publication of Wit and Wisdom possible. Thank you! This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit bethbroderick.substack.com/subscribe