Thank You, Mom

Thank you, Mom, and I appreciate you so much for...

...always being there for me, no matter what (and I've certainly tested that).
...loving me even when I'm not lovable.
...marrying my wonderful dad, and making it a happy marriage until the day he died.
...giving me your values through example. It was never "do as I say, not as I do" with you.
...making it safe for me to tell you the truth.
...respecting my privacy.
...being a good person through and through. You do the right thing because it's the right thing. I do the right thing because I see that it always pays off.
...having the capacity to truly love two wonderful men: my dad and Lloyd.
...showing me by example how to treat a man: adore him, don't nag him, respect him, have fun with him, flirt with him, dress nicely and put on make-up every day, be someone he always wants to come home to.
...teaching me how to shuffle cards when I was young. I still do it your way.
...giving me 7-Up and Campbell's chicken noodle soup when I was sick. Those comfort foods still soothe and heal me.
...crying when I give you greeting cards that touch you. It makes me feel like I am giving you a gift.
...analyzing the handwriting of my friends and boyfriends when I was growing up. You probably saved me from some bad situations, correction, many bad situations.
...being the mom that my friends always wanted to talk to.
...greeting my friends at the door with a loud, happy "Hello Dere!" It embarrassed me at the time but my friends always laughed and I grew to love it.
...taking me 1,000 places a year before I could drive.
...paying me an allowance.
...teaching me to save no matter what.
...bailing me out in thousands of ways from birth to now.
...doing the horoscopes for me and whatever friend I asked you to. Very enlightening!
...learning the computer and getting e-mail years before your contemporaries. You've fixed your own computer glitches for years, something I can't even always do.
...playing a zillion games of ping pong in our basement with Dad and me.
...teaching Dad how to dance and having those great dance parties in our basement. You had the greatest dance friends and you shared your love for dancing with me.
...going shopping and to lunch with me whenever I visit you. And paying!
...your sense of humor. Your humor is never cruel, and you can laugh at yourself. And when you crack up, it's contagious!
...so many pet phrases I heard over and over. Some are incriminating to either you or me so I won't post them here. :-)
...cooking wonderful dinners for us every night, even though I know that cooking wasn't your favorite thing to do.
...jerking me out of the car when I was choking on a jawbreaker, turning me upside down and slapping my back til it dislodged and I could breathe again.
...teaching me how to roller skate and ride a bike.
...making our home always warm, comfortable, clean, well appointed and a place everyone wanted to spend time in.
...your artistic talent in ceramics (nobody painted those tiny little eyelashes like you did - incredible detail) and oil painting (such lovely scenes you painted).
...giving me piano lessons, even though I fought you over practicing.
...your love of all things blue.
...surviving a near-fatal heart attack, lung cancer, polio and post-polio syndrome, and a myriad of ailments that limit you and give you pain every day.
...your grit, your nerve, your determination to soldier on despite relentless pain and the aftereffects of polio. I don't know how you've done it, how you still do it, and I just hope you know what a great inspiration you are to me.
...trusting me to help you throughout the years and especially now.
...forgiving me, usually before I asked.
...disciplining me. Being a mom when I needed it.
...being a great friend, pal, playmate and mentor, as well as my mom.

I could fill pages and pages and pages of things I appreciate you for. I love you, Mom. I am the most fortunate daughter in the world! Happy Mother's Day!

New-World Friendship

"Keep your friends close and your enemies closer" has been attributed to everybody from Chinese general Sun-tsu in 400 BC to Abraham Lincoln to The Godfather's Michael Corleone.

Friends don't always act like friends. A human resources manager told me that the worst clashes in the workplace occur between best friends. They tend to be the most volatile and the rifts often remain permanent.

I've had my so-called best friends deliberately go after the men in my life, and I know my mom's best friends did the same. Fortunately for both of us, that was a long time ago, and those women are long out of our lives.

Two very close friends have fired me, both men, both for things that, in my opinion, were not worth losing a friendship over. One woman friend long ago, one who deliberately sought out a guy I had, uh, dated and she, uh, dated him, fired me after she got fired from her job and I ended up with it a couple of months later. She was so vain that she wanted someone incompetent to get the job so she could look better. As it turned out, I didn't do much better in the job than she had, though for different reasons. (No film at 11)

Come to think of it, another so-called friend went after a guy I'd been very involved with and was still emotionally attached to, the most significant relationship in my life to date at that time. He's the one who told me about it, not her.

It's easier to be friends with people now, in the new world, I think, than ever before, mainly because less is required of each individual friend. The Internet has changed things; our mobility and wanderlust have changed things; lack of job security has changed things. We no longer grow up with, work with and are in the same geographical area with the same few people for 20, 30, 40, 50 years. We don't look to a small circle of friends to meet all of our needs. Our friends (mine, anyway) are spread out all over the country -- the world, actually. They fall into diverse categories. There's one for every mood, need, task and activity.

Now with the online world, especially twitter (which I love!), I feel that I have friends I've never met. I'm not sure I could count on them to bail me out of jail, but I can count on them to provide information, comfort, names and numbers of other resources, and most of them would do what they could to support my efforts, whatever they are. How cool is that?

I used to have a best friend, growing up. Now I have more than one best friend, a lot of good friends, many good pals, and a ton of acquaintances who turn into friends at different times. There are some I like but don't trust, some I trust but don't like so much, some I can tell anything to, some I have narrow conversations with, some who are for fun, some who keep me on track, some who help me go off track. I love my friends; I love having lots and lots of friends. I like the diversity of my friends. I like that I can cultivate so many different sides of myself with my different friends.

My spiritual advisor for the past 25 years tells me that no one is another's friend, that we are all each other's teachers. I like that idea. I can see it, that we are there for each other as teachers, sometimes in ways we like, sometimes not. I like the positive spin on it. But I am not giving up my friends!

Journalists: "Gee Whiz" Approach to Twitter Is Getting Old!

I saw yet another "Gee whiz - look at this Twitter thing" story this morning, this one on "CBS Sunday Morning." There's one every two minutes lately: On "The View," in the Wall Street Journal, on various evening national news programs and morning shows, etc. They all basically just start from zero, explaining in the most elementary terms what Twitter is and gee-whizzing their way through the story. They act like few of us have ever heard of Twitter, let alone are tweeting our hearts out.

Well, guys, as a journalist myself, I know there's such a thing in journalism as a "Day Two" story. That's when the news nugget has already been announced, either by your pub/station/etc. or in general, meaning that there's an assumption that a lot of your audience has already been given the raw news. Breaking the raw news - that's the "Day One" story. The Day Two story, then, advances the story, providing analysis and/or a deeper look.

Twitter has been around for a little over three years. Millions of people now tweet. It's not easy to find out exact numbers and they are rising exponentially anyway, but the point is that Twitter is not brand new. Just because you've never heard of it, Ms. or Mr. Journalist, doesn't mean the rest of the world is as ignorant.

Everybody whose story I've seen in mainstream media acts like they've just discovered Twitter and want to tell us about it. Gee, thanks, but a lot of us are already here and are getting proficient at tweeting, building networks and actually knowing what to do with them for whatever purpose(s) we are out to fulfill. We are ready for the Day Two story, guys!

I first heard about it at a web-oriented American Independent Writers seminar organized by Kristen King about seven or eight months ago and signed up on the spot, from my seat in the audience. (Thank you, Verizon broadband device!) I was shocked when after a couple of days some people I didn't know were following me. Why would they want to do that, I wondered? Now I have 1,452 followers, and I follow 1,256. I personally know about a dozen, yet I consider many of them my cohorts, co-conspirators, allies and some even friends.

Never have I had such access to writers; IT gurus; movie, tv & music stars (Jane Fonda, Ashton Kutcher & Demi Moore, Billy Bush, MC Hammer, Jimmy Fallon, to name just a few); fellow fans of NASCAR, "Dancing with the Stars," "Life on Mars," and people who are interested in discussing all kinds of topics. I have gotten technical advice, instructions (and a video) on cooking omelettes, recommendations and URLs on healthcare solutions, and wisdom on a multitude of subjects. There are people who are willing to promote my book when it comes out, people who pray for me when something goes wrong, people who would do me all kinds of favors and for whom I'd do the same thing. I could get writing jobs and even consulting gigs from my Twitter network, the Twitterverse, as it were.

That's what journalists need to talk about, not just what Twitter is and how gee-whiz interesting it is to microblog 140 characters at a time, but how Twitter really works for the tweeple who tweet!

And then they can write about how businesses are successfully using Twitter to expand their customer base, take care of their existing customers (@comcastcares is a great example of customer service extraordinaire via Twitter, as I know first hand), spread the word on specials or new products, or just be visible. Following @BaskinRobbins, @Starbucks, @DunkinDonuts, and @traderjoes has been fun and has been good for them as well. Individuals who are hawking their wares or services get visibility and customers. I've gone to a wonderful writing seminar put on by @Mike Geffner that I never would've heard of otherwise and joined some professional groups I hadn't previously heard of. There's a receptive audience for every product and service, if these firms know how to find those folks on Twitter or let them find them. That's another Day Two story. Hey, just trying to be helpful!

Letter to Afghanistan

I'm spoiled and selfish. I sleep in a warm bed every night. I can eat whenever I'm hungry and a lot of times when I'm not. I have plenty of clothes and shoes and coats to wear. I have creams, lotions, powders and gels for everything: rough hands, cuts and bruises, limp hair, squeaky shoes, tarnished silver jewelry, dry contact lenses, and chapped lips. I can buy or rent any CDs and DVDs I want and write on all the paper I want with as many pens as I want. I have little travel sizes of toothpaste, shampoo, conditioner, lotion, hair spray, and even baby powder so I can travel with my favorite brands. And I don't share any of these.

Until now.

Last night I went on the web in search of a soldier or other military person I could write to and maybe send some goodies to. I ended up on AnySoldier.com and spent two or three hours poring over the site, finding out what to do, how to do it, and who to write to. That's when it got interesting.

On the site, you can choose any branch of the military to support. I chose the Air Force. So on AnyAirman.com I read letter after letter after letter from AF men and women on active duty in Iraq, Afghanistan, Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates. They described their circumstances -- what kinds of buildings they're in, what "amenities" (refrigerator, microwave, etc.) they have (or don't), what their units are, how many males and females there are there, etc. -- and what they'd like to request from people who want to support them. I figured there would be lots of requests for cookies.

Wrong!

The list of things we take for granted that they don't have is nearly infinite. Here are some they listed: healthy individually packaged snacks (they already have junk food but want to be healthier), individual Crystal Light powders to put in their water bottles, travel-sizes of anything for when they're out in the field for days, magazines, small-size snacks of all kinds to stick in their pockets for the field, gum, phone cards to supplement their two 15-minute calls/week they're allowed, calendars to hang in their rooms, ankle socks (which the laundry seems to keep losing), antibacterial wipes, tampons, brand name anythings as a luxury vs. the generics they get, coffee, beef jerky, candles for birthday celebrations, mini-flashlights, deodorant, small travel reading lights, batteries, Q-tips, nail files, DVDs of TV series, blank CDs and DVDs, earbud earphones, hair ties and barrettes, stationery and notecards, and, most of all, LETTERS! Some said that some of their fellow soldiers, airmen, sailors and Marines get no mail at all and reinforced that any letters from anyone who cares enough to send them to active-duty military folks they didn't know were received like an event and shared with everyone.

How could I not respond? Those are hardly extravagances. I could probably fill up a whole Priority Mail Large Flat-Rate Box and send it for $12 just from scouring my own closets and drawers. And it would all be new!

So I'm going to do it!

I've already gotten my first airman's name and APO address, and I've written him a letter and said I'll be sending him a box for him and whoever else he wants to share it with in a couple of days. I'll send two boxes. They say to not mix food and non-foods in the same box because the food picks up the odors of the non-foods. "My" particular airman is in Afghanistan. Once I get the drill down pat, I'll go back and get another person to communicate with and send goodies to. Who knew that goodies wold be the basics of our lives that we take for granted?

Want to join me in this endeavor? Go to AnySoldier.com or any of several similar sites you can find through Google, Yahoo! or Ask.com and browse around. I'll bet you get hooked like I did.

Things I Want to Get Off My Chest

It's late at night. I'm awake, stewing. So I'm thinking that maybe if I vent and get these things off my chest, I can sleep. Thanks for bearing with me here.

1) Carry-on bags

When I went to Phoenix to see my mom at Christmas, a uniformed woman at the security line at BWI airport stopped me and said my carry-on bag was too big to go through. What?!? It's the same carry-on I've been flying with for the past three years.

I'd gone online and looked up the acceptable dimensions for the various airlines and got a bag the exact maximum size allowed for United Airlines, the one I fly the most. Then it kept tipping over when it was packed. My mom's boyfriend, a fixer-builder-inventor type, put little extensions onto the little feet, which solved the problem but added another inch or so to the length. I've taken that bag, which holds a TON of stuff, on trips all over the U.S. on several different airlines over the past three years. No problems. But all of a sudden it's too big. I was only allowed to continue through security with it at BWI when I got a United supervisor to come with me, who said I'd rearranged some things to make it thinner -- I took out a 1-inch-thick book and put it in my purse -- and I got to keep going.

I had no problems on the way back from Phoenix to BWI. But it's just a different world now (again!) and I could tell it was time to get a smaller bag. Damn! I love my bag. So I went onine and found a little smaller bag, paid for it with PayPal, and it arrived today. It's well-built, it's light, it's the right color (anonymous gray and black) and it's got all of the right handles and pockets. But even though it's an inch or so smaller on all sides, it seems tiny. It will obviously hold MUCH less than my other one. Damn. But I'm going to keep it because I think I have to. I can't risk having my bag snatched away and stuffed into checked baggage. So I'll take less. I won't like it but I'll do it.

I hate the security procedures that I feel are more for show than truly effective at airports. I resent not being able to take more than 3 oz. of liquids or gels just because some ass**** did it once and had evil intentions. Geez. How bizarre. People say, yes, but we've been safe! Well, we don't go through the same check-in trauma on trains, and we've been safe there too. Knock on wood. I'll play the game, as I always have, because I want to fly. And I'll try not to make a big deal out of it. I'll save indulging my inner drama queen for more important things.

2. Pain

All of a sudden, I've got pain in my left hip. All the time. It's supposedly arthritis, so says my rheumatologist. I didn't know what a rheumatologist was six months ago, and now I have my own. My little tiny pain gradually increased over the past couple or three years and now it's rudely intruding on my life. It hurts! It hurts when I sit, when I stand, when I lie down, when I get up from a chair, when I get into or out of a car, when I walk, when I change positions in bed. It hurts to put a sock on my left foot, the pain in my hip is so intense. I can hardly reach to wash that foot or clip or paint my toenails. I hate it. Celebrex helps but maybe 30% compared to what I had hoped.

But my paltry little pain is nothing compared to what my mom suffers from every day. It's anywhere from intense to excrutiating. And it's relentless. I admire her so much for soldiering on, going places, doing things, smiling, and living her life, despite the pain for all these years. The list of causes is longer than my arm. My mom won't take drugs, doesn't want to live life anaesthetized. It's her choice and I respect it.

Pain is a thief of energy. It makes simple tasks a challenge. It is sneaky and cunning and insolent. It's smarter than I am. But, learning a lesson from my mom, my great example in life, I will keep trying to conquer it and I will not let it stop me from living my best life.

3. The Economy

This seemingly sudden poverty mentality is tedious and discouraging. It's destructive and scary. I believe it was the fear of a recession that caused the recession. Yes, the housing situation started things off. We (let's not get into specifically who) caused it ourselves, by creating conditions of false prosperity, much as we did during the dot-com boom when people paid outrageous sums for fantasies that couldn't possibly come true. In both cases, we were bound to get caught.

But then a few people got scared. Then the media seized upon it, blew it up to ginormous proportions, and people bought into it, got scared, and backed off from even normal spending, even many of those who had nothing to worry about. Pretty soon, the whole economy was in the tank. Fear is a powerful beast, and we not only invited him in, but we set up a whole wing in our house for him.

I believe very strongly in the power of positive thinking, to use familiar vernacular. I believe we create our own reality with our mind. I believe the poverty mentality has created more of the poverty mentality. More creates more. But I believe we can think differently and achieve a different result. I believe we don't have to get swept along and sucked into the negative mindset of our society. I am picturing our nation and everyone in it, including me, as prosperous, healthy, happy, free to do what we want, and grateful for our blessings.

So I refuse to let the fear beast into my house. It is not welcome. There is no room for him here. Right now he dominates many homes in our land. But eventually people will tire of the novelty of whining and being afraid, and this beast will lumber away and the whole country will adopt a prosperity mentality again. I can't wait!

Long Time Comin'

Much to my astonishment, I heard from an old boyfriend today. "Old" meaning way over a decade ago.

Thank you, Google!

He called me. HE called ME! He actually e-mailed me, but in today's context it's the equivalent of a phone call. He reached out to me. I can't tell you how I would've killed for that, how much time I spent with him haunting my brain, how much energy I spent wondering how it came to be that I was in a relationship with him and he wasn't in one with me.

We drifted apart. No fight. No goodbye. Just kind of stopped seeing each other, stopped communicating, stopped everything. Ran into each other periodically at some function or another. Our eyes would clamp onto each other and we were aware at every moment of where in the room the other was. We'd not always say hi. More often than not, though, we'd hug, we'd hold on to each other a second or two longer than "friendly" would warrant, we'd chat about meaningless things, and then we'd move on in the crowd. I always found myself a bit disoriented for 10 or 20 minutes after one of those encounters. Couldn't walk quite straight, couldn't focus on whoever I was talking to, felt way more warm, loved and wanted than a simple hug would normally convey.

I always knew that we had a special feeling for each other. No matter that it didn't work out. The reasons don't matter -- it was a long time ago. No desire to go back. Didn't feel any desire for him to go back either. But I got a warm, glowy feeling when I read his note.

I have had relationships before that ended in ways that I didn't understand. My intuition told me one thing, but their actions told me another. I'd get over them, but they were unresolved in my mind, and my faith in what my gut told me was wobbly for awhile. Inevitably later, usually years later, nearly every one of these guys would call me or see me and confess to me that what I'd felt had actually been true. They'd fought it or been scared of it or denied it. Their finally telling me that my intuition at the time had been right always vindicated me, restored my faith in my gut, and boosted my confidence. I'd been loved.

This e-mail today was sort of like that. Just his reaching out to me was a victory of sorts. I've been smirking inside all day. Nyah nyah nyah! It is a little gesture but it couldn't have been easy for him to make it. I found myself releasing a breath I didn't know I'd been holding...for well over a decade.

Long live Google!

Shock Waves

Yesterday more astounding news about people I know came to me than in the last few months combined.

McGraw-Hill, my alma mater of 16 years, is going through their annual Thanksgiving/Christmas holiday layoffs. Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to who-knows-how-many people, many of them 25-year-plus veterans. I've only heard about a few of them, so far, with more supposedly coming (or, should I say, going), but a couple of them absolutely shocked me. There are always a couple or so in that category each year. I hope they can quickly get to the point of feeling like they have a whole brand new future in front of them. They do. Even in this recession. I have a couple of friends who started their businesses in recessions and they are thriving. Others went on to really wonderful jobs, whether right away or somewhat later. I wish the same for my M-H friends.

Then last night my ex-cousin-in-law called me. DeAnne married my cousin when I was 10 or 11, and we bonded instantly. She (very wisely) dumped my cousin after awhile, he died of heart problems in his 30s after refusing to heed doctor's orders to change his lifestyle, and she went on to marry a wonderful man and has been married to him for the last 35 years. She and I have kept in touch all these years. She is one of my favorite people in the entire world. She's got a fabulous, self-deprecating sense of humor and a laugh that sounds like pealing bells. She is adventuresome, independent, and wise. She runs headlong into life. She's always been able to finish my sentences -- she understands me scarily well, and she's never been judgemental at all. (With me that's got to have been a challenge.) We talk or see each other every two to four years, but every time, it's like we are picking up our conversation from the day before.

My step-daughter Carey and I have that same kind of relationship. In fact, DeAnne was such a gift to me and was so important to me especially in my teens and twenties, and I aspired to be that for someone else. Carey was the answer to that prayer.

It has been a couple of years since DeAnne and I last spoke, and maybe a couple of years before that when she and her husband Jim came to New York City and we had dinner at the Grand Hyatt at Grand Central Station. Jim sat there in amazement as DeAnne and I prattled on about every subject in the world, neither of us holding back in his presence. He certainly got an earful or two, and we all laughed a lot.

DeAnne told me that Jim died in May. Shocking enough. But he died of Lou Gehrig's Disease. He was always so healthy! Just like my dad. My dad was always totally healthy, and then he got prostate cancer, got it treated and it went away, and then it came back and got him. DeAnne is a strong woman, positive, spiritual, and always searching. She and I share one attitude these days: we both feel like the longer we live, the less we know. Things we were sure about when we were younger have been challenged, if not disproven altogether. So she asks what, how, why...and she is willing to let the questions lie there unanswered.

G*d, it was good to talk to her. We covered about 50 subjects in the hour and a half that we were on the phone. Great nourishment for our souls! She's missing Jim mightily but is doing well. I hope it's not another two or three years before we talk again. We always vow to phone or visit "soon" but...well, you know how that goes.

Then late last night I checked my Facebook page, and some good friends who recently got married are having a baby! Great news! Part of me was disappointed for them that they won't have more time to just be newlyweds and get to know each other and have fun. But I suspect this is what they want and I know they'll be great parents, and their families will be joyous at the news.

So the night ended well. I wonder what today will hold.

Enough Already!

Stop talking about the recession! It's only making things worse! The constant media insistence that things are getting more and more grim is making things...more and more grim! Whatever we focus on, manifests. It's a terrible cycle, a self-fulfilling prophecy. So stop it!

I'm thinking thoughts of prosperity. Prosperity. PROSPERITY! Join me?

So Much to Say, But Not Yet

This is the equivalent of sticking my index finger in the air pointing upward, as in, "hold on."

I'll be back blogging soon. But I've got a book manuscript due in early December, so until then I'll be focused on that and not this.

This is more fun but that's better for my career. And probably my soul.

So hold on.... I'll be back.

Has the Media Played a Role in Creating the Recession? YES!!!

Finance is complicated. It isn't easily learned at all, let alone overnight. And that's what many, many media folks have had to attempt to do since the stock market started its record-breaking downhill plunge.

Consequently, they don't know enough to know when their "experts" that they dredge up for such crises are truly knowledgeable or just popular, which isn't the same thing.

Media folks try to get it right. Especially on something like the financial situation, they're not trying to be alarmist. They are just ignorant. "Ignorant" doesn't mean stupid or evil. It means they don't know.

Of course, it doesn't help that nobody's seen this particular scenario ever in the history of the U.S. Even my own financial advisor, whom I trust and know is good, has admitted that this is not a scene that's been played out before.

So everybody's guessing.

But the runs on the banks a few weeks ago -- spare me!! -- were incited by the media. It's a self-fulfilling prophecy. "Things are bad. The banks could be in trouble." So people get alarmed. And the media goes from "could be" to "are." They cover people talking about how bad things are. And people panic more. And the media covers the increasing desperation. And if it's on television, presented by the networks we trust or at least rely on, it's gotta be true. Right? So things must be bad. So we start doing whatever we think will cover our butts.

I didn't go to my bank. Any of them. (I'm sure the one where I have all of $100 or so in it is thrilled that I didn't close out that account.)

Look at how the global markets and economies are in reactionary mode. Just a whiff of potentially bad news, not even anything real, sends the markets plunging and people clutching their wallets and stuffing money under their mattresses. And converting cash to gold. And where do they get this bad news to react to? The media.

It takes time to research a subject, especially ones as complex and twisty-turny as the economy; the stock market in our own country, let alone the ones all over the world; derivatives, subprime mortgages; write-downs, etc. When a crisis erupts, most media folks have to go out with a story NOW, not after they've had the luxury of researching it for however long it takes to understand it and get it right. It's just the way our nownownow world is these days. When something happens, I go online and, sure enough, usually within minutes, there's a story from one of the respected media outlets. Maybe one or more of their reporters/editors specializes in that subject and is ahead of the curve, and maybe not. Either way, the story's gotta get out there before the other guys beat them to it. It's a disservice to all, but it's so competitive that there's no other option at the moment, at least that's what they think. No wonder the cable financial news media stations, publications and web sites are more heavily trafficked than ever. Good for "ordinary people" (I hate that term) for turning to them and not relying solely on generalists for their analyses.

As a longtime journalist, I have been lucky (though it was a definite choice early on in my career) to work in specific industries -- first advertising/marketing and then design/construction, two diametrically opposed fields -- for companies that encouraged getting it right, which sometimes meant going against what the mainstream media, including the most respected ones, were saying. Or waiting until the information was truly confirmed and made accurate. Small victory to get it right when it's after the hugely visible pubs/networks have gotten it wrong for weeks. In some cases I know of personally, they never did get it right, so the misconceptions persist.

So what are we to do? My own personal plan is to stay positive, send prosperity vibes into the universe, and follow my own financial advisor. I sure hope he gets it right.

Life on Mars -- Welcome to 1973

Where were you in 1973? I was a year out of college, working in advertising in Denver, driving a Chevy Monte Carlo before the gas crisis and a Gremlin afterward. Talk about going from the sublime to the ridiculous! From the elegant to the laughable. People used to pull up next to me in my little lavender Gremlin at stop lights and shout out, "Hey, you're missing your butt!" (referring, presumably to my car). Har de har.

Geez, that was about eight cars ago.

I don't think much about 1973 these days, but I sure recognize it when I see it. ABC's new series "Life on Mars" brings it back, in the best of ways. The long, shaggy hair. The lava lamps (yes, I had a version of one). The bell bottoms. The sideburns. The cars -- that was the era of V8's! The music! The Who, David Bowie, the Stones...ahhhhhh! The tv shows (yes, I remember "Cannon"). The test pattern. Wow, I remember the stations going off the air long before I was ready to sleep. As an insomniac the last 25 years, I love being able to watch 100 channels 24 hours a day.

I don't know which attracts me more, the 1970s setting or the actors. Harvey Keitel is gritty and powerful. Michael Imperioli is gritty and fascinating. Gretchen Mol is gritty and sassy. Lisa Bonet in this role so far doesn't do much for me, but we'll see. Jason O'Mara, the star, might perpetually get upstaged by Keitel and Imperioli, which would be fine with me. The characters will settle into their roles over time. I am setting my DVR to record "Life on Mars" every Thursday night. Let's just hope ABC keeps it on the schedule long enough for it to find an audience.

One of Those Birthdays

Saturday is my birthday. (We will not speak of age; I'll just say it isn't one of those significant decade changes.) There are only two holidays each year that I personally go bonkers over: Christmas and my birthday. What? My birthday isn't a holiday, you say? Well, kind of. It's one day off from Columbus Day -- does that count? Anyway it's a holiday to me when I get presents.

I'm a logical, practical woman (no, that isn't an oxymoron). I know that my birthday is just another day. So then why do I -- every year -- get squirrely on my birthday? If I don't get calls from the right people -- at the right time, even -- I'm as sulky as an adolescent. If I don't get a present that I feel is expressive enough of the emotions I think my significant other should be feeling, I get quiet, and not in a good way. If I don't have plans on my day, even if I've lived it up for five days before and have celebrations with friends scheduled for each of the following five days, I get restless and jittery. It's quite juvenile and I'm not proud of it but that's the way it's been and probably the way it will be (despite extensive Landmark Education training that would encourage me to react otherwise).

Usually I make sure I'm taken care of on my birthday. On that very day. Who cares about the day before or the day after. One year when I was convinced that nobody would acknowledge my birthday because it was just one of those dry spells, I went on a trip to Mexico. That worked. One year I whined to a good friend that I wasn't looking forward to my birthday and he surprised me by sending a soft, cuddly bear and either chocolate or balloons. I still have the bear on display in my bedroom.

Every year one of my birthday highlights is a phone call -- or voice mail if he doesn't get a hold of me -- from longtime business friend Tom Bulatewicz. He sings happy birthday to me and always ends with "Make a great day." Thanks, Tom, your call is always special to me.

Last week I visited my mom in Phoenix, and she and her boyfriend Lloyd treated me like a celebrity a week in advance. Dinner at my favorite Arizona steakhouse, Black Angus. Lovely cards. Wonderful presents. Shopping and lunch with my mom. Really wonderful! And another longtime friend took me to dinner on Sunday at the wonderful Macayo's Mexican food restaurant. Fabulous chile rellenos!!

On Saturday, my birthday, I have brunch plans with a special friend. And I have an evening outing to look forward to with friends and neighbors. Two or maybe three of them. A movie of my choice, dinner at a restaurant I choose and a trip to Baskin-Robbins. I always get Pralines 'n Cream. I may have two scoops. It's shaping up to be a very good birthday.

Sugarland Concert -- How Sweet It Is!

Last Sunday was WPOC's Sunday in the Country at Merriweather Post Pavilion. I have lived less than a mile from there for a little over a year but have not gone there until this all-afternoon concert. Between 1:00 p.m. and 8:00 p.m., there were five acts, topping off with Sugarland. Wow.

Sugarland was awesome. The electricity generated by Sugarland was palpable, and few people sat from the moment they came onstage until they left the stage after returning for an encore demanded by the screaming, clapping, whistling fans.

Jennifer Nettles has a fabulous voice and incredible energy. She's generous to her partner Kristian and other fellow musicians. She's beautiful -- I love her tousled hair!! -- she has a light-up-the-room smile, and she's good to her fans. Their song "Stay" moves me every time I hear it, and I love rocking out to some of their up-tempo songs, though I'm not wild about "All I Want to Do-oo-oo-oo-oo" other than in concert, when it's great fun to dance along with.

Rodney Atkins, the second to last (and therefore he had second billing of the five acts), also was impressive. The other acts -- Billy Currington, Jason Michael Carroll and Laura Bryna -- were entertaining, though I absolutely hated Laura's overly big, overly curly hair. Uuuuuuugh-ly!!

Okay, so the music was great for a country music fan. But there was so much more to the day than the music.

I went by myself -- you get better seats that way, in my experience -- and I had a lot of time to people-watch. Most noticeable to me was how big everyone was. The guy next to me lopped over halfway into my chair and I didn't have that kind of room to give, not being a small person myself. His wife was large. The young couple next to them was large. All over the place I saw super hefty people; I was especially concerned to see how many large young people there were. I felt bad for them on all counts: aesthetics, health and peer pressure/judgement. Many baby boomers I saw, especially the older boomers, had trouble fitting into the seats. If we as a nation are going to keep increasing our girth, will we keep squishing ourselves into too-small seats (or stop going), or will the venues accommodate the wider butts with bigger seats?

Merriweather Post Pavilion has great acoustics. The music and voices sounded full-bodied, clear and crisp. That was the upside. It also had only porta-johns. That was definitely the downside. I stopped drinking liquid the minute I found out that there was no indoor plumbing (except for one facility marked for handicapped folks, but two women who tried it bolted out and opted to stand in line for one of the outhouses, having been nearly overcome by the stench). I only had to head to the lined-up porta-potties once in seven hours and was glad for that. Nooooo fun!! I marveled at the people drinking the very large beers because they probably had to go back more than once.

The whole Columbia Town Center, including the entire Merriweather Post Pavilion acreage, is due to be updated and revamped under the master plan being worked on by General Growth, which owns most of Columbia. It's all supposed to be walkable, with plenty of spaces for gathering and sitting -- and presumably will include indoor johns. That will be welcome in all respects -- a lot of us had to walk across uneven ground in really dark conditions back to our cars parked at Columbia Mall. But it was a fun walk with other friendly, chatty concert goers, and we were all still high from the music. In fact, six days later, I still glow when I think of that sweet Sugarland experience.

Social Networking (Online) Rocks!

With my book deadline looming, I could hardly afford to take a day off. But I am today. I braved the rain (thanks, Hanna, for sharing) and drove to George Mason University in Fairfax, VA, about an hour's drive from where I live, for a "Push the Electronic Envelope" seminar put on by the American Independent Writers group.

Fabulous!

I've got 13 years of Web experience. In Internet years, especially in the B2B (business-to-business) world, that makes me a Web granny. I brought blogs to McGraw-Hill Construction a year or more before most anyone there or in the construction industry even knew what blogs were. I've been on LinkedIn for years, MySpace, Facebook and even Gather for awhile. So I know some stuff but figured I could learn a whole lot more today.

I was right. Whew! Social networking is da bomb. I'm in the seminar now on a lunch break, and I've been online (thank you Verizon Wireless wi-fi broadband) during the whole thing. I'm now on Twitter too. I've got widgets on my blog(s) but now I know more about them. In fact, I've already, just in the morning sessions, learned enough to more than justify my $89 investment for the seminar and the drive in the nasty rain. (We'll see if I still feel that way after I make my way home at 4:00, when Hanna is expected to be at her fury here. Hopefully she'll be pretty well spent here by 4:00.)

One of the speakers talked about our network outside of our family and friends who know us well. He called it our "weak ties" and quoted somebody-or-other as touting "the strength of our weak ties." In other words, it's the people we know a little or knew well but don't so much anymore or used to work with or know professionally but not personally who can help us connect with the people and resources that can help us do what we want to do and get where we want to go.

I definitely agree. My "weak ties" are fabulous, and I've loved reconnecting with them through LinkedIn and Facebook especially. No matter what their e-mail address du jour is, those social networking sites keep us linked. How great is that?!?

Funnily enough (a British phrase, seems a little awkward to me, even though it works), it's almost like e-mail is passe with people I'm socially connected to. People who used to e-mail me now send me messages through Facebook notes instead. And I've definitely been surprised to see who's on and not on these sites. Some curmudgeons are quite active and some young, hip folks are nowhere to be found. Huh! But then, I haven't mastered the art of finding people who are already on these sites yet. I did learn how to find the NY Times sports and movies and business feeds on Twitter, thanks to this seminar. Very cool!

So look for me and I'll look for you, and we can use our "weak ties" to help each other out or just keep in touch. I'm all for that, especially since -- loner than I am, though people think I'm a social being -- we can eavesdrop on each other's lives without having to do that pesky thing of actually talking to each other. Then we reach out when we want to and if we've been keeping up with each other, or even if we just know we're able to, we tend to respond much more quickly and positively than we would if we saw their name and thought, "Haven't heard from him/her for a long time -- what does HE/SHE want?!?" So, link up, tune in, let me know you're there, and come see me on LinkedIn or Facebook or Twitter (I don't keep up my page on MySpace much)...or wherever might be the next great place.

Football's Back!

It's Friday night. I've been out to dinner with my three usual Tuesday night buds, a spontaneous make-up night since we didn't go this past Tuesday. We had our usual laughs and hoots, some at others' expense, most at ours. Our young waiter was obviously a real neophyte and we confused the poor guy by trying to use two coupons when the coupons clearly said "one coupon per party per visit." Guess who won that round. Yep, us.

We always tip a minimum of 20% so imagine our surprise when the waiter, a desperate look on his face, hurried out the door when we were in our car and ready to leave the parking lot. He looked all around for us. He was followed by the manager. What's wrong? we asked. They thought we hadn't paid our bill. Yeah, right, all of us over 50, three over 60 (I'm the youngster, don'tcha love it?) and we're gonna dine and dash? I don't think so! Turns out that when we questioned something on the bill, our dear waiter brought us another one of those plastic bill folders so we had two on our table, and he picked up the wrong one. We straightened that out in a hurry but it was pretty funny, probably more for us than them.

So now I've got the Olympics on with the sound down so low that it's merely a murmur. I just checked out the winner of the NASCAR Nationwide race. Brad Keselowski. Don't know him. I follow the Sprint Cup series, rarely the Nationwide series (which is kind of like the B team, though several Cup racers also compete regularly in the Nationwide races). I was just glad that Kyle Busch didn't win. He was 7th. He's an awesome driver but he has the charm of a mackerel on a good day and the personality of a jackal on a bad day, and he has a lot of bad days. Can you tell he's not my fave?

But my big thrill tonight is the Denver Broncos-Greenbay Packers game. I can't see it on TV. Both our D.C. and Baltimore stations have Houston at Dallas. Darn. I love getting both sets of network stations because often they have different games on. Not tonight, though. So since I rarely am able to see the Bronco games on TV, I "watch" the action (little lines that move on a stationary green rectangle that represents the field) on the NFL.com site. I can only stand a whole game of that if I can hear the audio, and that means getting a "Field Pass" every year. It's audio, live during the games. It's $29.99 for the whole season, including preseason and postseason games -- for all 32 NFL radio feeds. I usually stick to the Bronco games, but I could hear any and all of them, even simultaneously, I believe, though I haven't tried it.

The "Denver Bronco Network" is wonderful. The same guys -- who knows their names -- have been announcing the Bronco games for as long as I've been listening, and they know their stuff. Even better, they're not annoying, either in tone or constant blather like John Madden is, at least he is to me. I sometimes listen to my Field Pass audio when he's on, that's how much I don't like listening to him.

So, at the moment, just at the end of the first quarter, the Broncos are ahead 17 to 13. It's preseason and I know it doesn't count, in many ways, but I am enjoying that they're playing well. They just got a surprise touchdown when QB Jay Cutler completed a 49-yard pass to Brandon Marshall, who nearly bobbled it but saved it at the last second. And kicker Matt Prater got the extra point, so all is good in my world.

But...why oh why did the Broncos let Jason Elam go to the Atlanta Falcons??? The superkicker won more games for the Broncos over the past 15 seasons than anybody else except John Elway. He holds nearly every record a kicker can have -- longest field goal kicked, highest extra point conversion percentage, and many more, all with the Broncos. So they let him go??? I thought they were idiots for letting Clinton Portis go to the Redskins, but letting Elam go, I truly believe, was idiocy!

But hey, it's early in the season, which hasn't even officially started. Let's see what happens.

As of today, I'm an "officer" (duties: zero!) representing Maryland in the Facebook group "Displaced Denver Bronco Fans." So it's my duty and obligation to tune in to the Bronco games. I wonder if that means I can write off the $29.95 Field Pass fee on my tax return.

A Fine Line between Agony and Ecstasy

As I've been glued to my chair and computer, writing my book on building housing for baby boomers (deadline loooooooms!), I've had the Olympics on much of the time. Their schedule matches mine lately -- on all the time, including in the middle of the night.

Sometimes I can write with the sound on, but sometimes it's too distracting, mostly when I am stuck on something. So sometimes I keep it on but hit the mute button.

And I've noticed something. I've been aware of it before, but in the Olympics emotions are heightened to the extreme and, especially with the sound off, it's even more evident.

Agony and ecstasy pretty much look the same. I know they don't feel the same but our bodies and faces (especially) look the same when we're screaming in emotional or physical pain and when we're shrieking with delight.

Look at Michael Phelps -- God knows they play everything over and over and over -- at the end of the 400-meter relay race that clinched his 8th gold medal. His mouth is wide open and his eyes are nearly squinted shut. If you didn't know, would you think he was freaking out-upset or freaking out-ecstatic? Angry or disbelievingly joyful?

When contenders' parents are shown in the stands as their kids triumph or flounder, they look pretty much the same. Their faces scrunch up, their eyes close, their jaws drop, they shake their heads in disbelief, they collapse. And they burst into tears.

Maybe that explains why sometimes we are sobbing and end up in giggles, or we are hooting and end up in choking wails. The extreme emotions seem to unleash the other emotions that have been bottled up next to them.

Okay, back to writing. Just had to note that. I'll try to keep my emotions in check as I write, just to avoid confusion.

Important Men and their Peckers

So...After months of saying it ain't so, John Edwards has admitted that he lied all that time as he repeatedly disputed the National Enquirer's claim that he had an affair with Rielle Hunter, a video producer he worked with in 2006 prior to launching his campaign for president. The Enquirer contends that Edwards is the father of Hunter's 5-1/2-month-old daughter, though Edwards maintains that he's not.

Hey, I don't begrudge men their libidos. Au contraire! Men over 40 who have good libidos should, in fact, be congratulated, and the ones over 50 who still do should get a standing ovation as far as I'm concerned. Over 60ers who've still got it should have a monument built to them. I am probably in the minority in that sentiment, but I have found that men with healthy libidos are generally high achievers, greatly energized and hugely interesting.

I frankly don't care about Edwards' sex life -- who he has it with or doesn't. It's his words in the AP story prior to the airing of a story on him tonight on Nightline that really make me shake my head in wonder, and not in a good way.

Here's an example. When the Enquirer story first broke in October 2007, he said, "The story is....completely untrue, ridiculous." Last month, the Enquirer ran a story accusing Edwards of having a "love child" and reported that he had met with Hunter at the Beverly Hills Hilton Hotel in Los Angeles. Edwards at the time called the story "tabloid trash," but since has admitted that he did meet with her at the hotel, unbeknownst to his wife. But...he still maintains that he didn't really lie. The AP story says:

"He said in his statement Friday he had 'used the fact that the story contained many falsities to deny it,' and he called that 'being 99 percent honest.'"

Oh, brother! Talk about Clintonesque sex logic!

Another example from the AP story:

"He denied fathering a daughter, born to the woman with whom he had the affair, and offered to be tested to prove it. A former Edwards campaign staff member professes to be the father."

A former Edwards campaign staff member? What did they do, pass her around? I don't think so! Not credible.

Maybe this is the most believable thing Edwards has said regarding the affair:

"In the course of several campaigns, I started to believe that I was special and became increasingly egocentric and narcissistic. If you want to beat me up feel free. You cannot beat me up more than I have already beaten up myself."

I personally think the French have it right. French President Nicolas Sarkozy's rather intriguing sex life hasn't seemed to affect his political popularity. He was allegedly unfaithful to his second wife and went on to marry former model Carla Bruni, who's had a rather colorful past herself.

A word about Clinton's relationship with Monica Lewinsky. I read her book, Monica's Story. The relationship she described with then-President Clinton was not all about sex, in my opinion. He was getting something from her that transcended the physical. Something that seemingly filled a hole in his life that aides, friends and his wife were not filling. According to her account in her book -- and I found her very credible -- Clinton really talked to her in their many phone calls, about things that mattered to him. That isn't sex. It isn't foreplay and it isn't afterglow. It's a man with a void in his life and a friend who's filling it. A friend with benefits, perhaps, but a friend nonetheless.

In fact, I think many times affairs may start out being all about a guy's pecker making the decision to "go there." But a man of substance -- and most important men are men of substance -- isn't all about his love muscle. He wants to talk to the woman he's intimate with. If not, he's a hit-and-runner, not a returner.

Important men do have a skewed vision of their place in the world. They get treated differently from most men. Men and women both pander to them. They get upgraded to first class on airplanes. They get invited to private boxes at athletic events and concerts. They get fed shrimp and lobster so regularly that they get tired of it. Their jokes get laughed at, their expensive clothes get replaced often, their wishes, desires and orders get fulfilled, usually nearly instantaneously. So they see themselves as powerful and important.

Yet, most important men aren't totally sure they deserve to be as important as they are. They need assurance that they are from someone they really trust. They also find that it can be lonely at the top. They can't be pals with the people lower down on the totem pole at work -- that doesn't usually work well. They often have outgrown their wives or they've grown in different directions, especially if they've been married for many years and he's traveled a lot and she's learned to live her own life largely without him. So along comes someone who looks at him adoringly, hangs on his every word, can't wait to hear his stories, is impressed by the accomplishments that his wife and staffers roll their eyes at, is a sweet, discreet, caring and trustworthy person...and she desires him. If there's a spark between them, the temptation can be overwhelming.

Men being men, they think it's all about sex. They think their pecker led them there. But it's about so much more. That's why men have continued to have affairs all these many centuries. That's what makes them risk it all to drink that ambrosia. That's what makes them lie to their families, their colleagues, their friends and everyone else to keep it quiet, so nobody will find out and make them end it.

So for important men, their affairs are often born out of a combination of a naturally high energy level (in all areas), a big void that has been unrecognized or ignored for years, and a false sense of immunity and invincibility that will keep them from getting caught. When the affairs are exposed, the men first deny them, then (if forced to admit the truth) downplay them ("It only happened once" or "I didn't love her" or "It's been over for a long time"), then express shame and regret over their "mistake." It's more like regret at getting caught and it being over.

Interestingly, even though Edwards denies fathering Hunter's child, Hunter somehow has been receiving financial help for many months. Edwards says he didn't pay her a cent and had no knowledge of anyone on his staff giving her financial help. Ah, but after the Nightline interview tonight, they reported that one of his staffers admitted to providing her with some financial aid but claimed it was solely his idea and said Edwards had no idea he was doing it.

Yeah, right.

Well, one thing about important men is that they often have henchmen to do their dirty work for them. And protect them. Well, it didn't work too well for Edwards this time. I bet he keeps his pecker in his pants now (other than at home) for a long time.

Beheaded on a Bus -- Can You Imagine?!? What Civil Rights Will We Lose Now?

There are some strange people in the world who do some inexplicable things. And with the instant blast of electronic media, we hear about them whether we want to or not.

The latest of these incidents occurred last week when a man was sleeping in his seat on a Greyhound bus in Canada and some deranged sicko (is that redundant?) sat next to him and at some point just turned to the guy, a stranger to him, stabbed him over and over and -- unbelievably -- actually beheaded the guy. On the bus!! Holy cow.

How incredibly traumatic that must have been for the other passengers on the bus (not to mention the victim, who hopefully was already dead before the beheading started). You just can't imagine that something like that could happen on a Greyhound bus, for God's sake.

Greyhound has pulled the ads they were running in Canada touting the calm comforts of bus riding. The theme was "There's a reason you've never heard of 'Bus Rage.'"

The campaign was already over before the attack, though a few straggling outdoor billboards in high traffic areas hadn't yet been pulled down.

I feel bad for Greyhound. When there's an airplane crash or incident, the airline always gets the black eye, and often they deserve it. Well, sometimes, at least. But in this case, the bus company didn't do anything wrong. Nevertheless, you know this will hurt them. (Can you imagine unknowingly sitting in that [replaced] seat on that bus? Would you feel the vibes? Gives me the willies!)

Let's see -- when one terrorist wannabe put a knife in his shoe before boarding a plane, suddenly we all have to take off our shoes forever more when going through airport security. When one other nut boarded a plane with some liquids that could have been blended to create an explosion, suddenly we all can't take any liquids or gels (or even mascara, for cryin' out loud) over 3 oz. on a plane unless we buy it at the airport after going through security.

So far we all can board trains and buses without being X-rayed or strip-searched. What should happen after one guy goes crazy on one bus? Should we all now have to turn our pockets and luggage inside out before boarding? Should they buy expensive screening equipment and hire thousands of people to run it all and turn a 5-minute boarding process into a two-hour endurance contest? Will "officials" thus overreact as they usually do, edging us even more toward becoming a police state?

Fortunately, this wasn't a terrorist incident, just the actions of one sick bastard. So probably we'll all retain our civil rights on buses, at least, for awhile longer. At least I hope so.

Whining about Word, Media Monkey and "Progress" in General

Grrrrrr!!! I want to throw Word 2007 out the window! And whatever idiot created the so-called simipler user interface. What the hell were you thinking?!?!

I got a brand new Dell laptop a couple of weeks ago, fortunately with Windows XP. (Thank you, Dell!) Vista's there too, or at least the disks if I want it later. But at least I didn't have to learn a new operating system. Whew!

Then...I opened up the Word program. You've gotta be kidding! I didn't recognize anything in the user interface. The toolbar and, in fact, the whole top is entirely different. I can't find out how to do anything that I used to do quickly and easily. And it's not like Microsoft Office is the most intuitive suite of software on the planet. PowerPoint is about the most intuitive, at least the old version was. I haven't tackled the new one yet. And I've got this book deadline....

The author's guidelines are helpful -- for Word 2003! They don't translate to Word 2007. Grrrrrrrr! Fortunately, by searching on Yahoo (I prefer it to Google) on "hate Word 2007," I came across the Word 2007 Cheat Sheet, kindly put together by Computerworld. I knew I was in the right place by just reading the first paragraph: "Baffled by Word 2007's new interface? Join the club. Making the switch to Word 2007 can be exceedingly disorienting -- like coming home and finding out that not only has all your furniture been rearranged, but the house itself has been moved to the next county." Thank you, Computerworld! (There's also a cheat sheet for Excel 2007 and PowerPoint 2007 accessible from that page.)

Then there's Media Monkey, which I use to keep my music organized. I love Media Monkey. But...I have run into a snag. Media Monkey on my new laptop doesn't recognize my iPod. It always did on my old computer; why not this one? Grrrrrrr!

Whenever there's a new update for one of my software programs, I used to automatically install it. Now, after getting burned a few times, I am more suspicious and hesitant to just say yes. Those sneaky software folks often "upgrade" and "simplify" their software by cutting off some of our abilities to do what we want. That especially holds true with anything that allows a person to move data from an old computer to a new one. It's like the software makers are afraid we're going to steal something from them, not use the same data from the same program on our own new computer. Grrrrrrr!

Okay, I'm done whining. I'm not really, but I have to get back to work. Well, not get back to work on "work," but get back to work on figuring out how to make my work work with the dastardly new "simpler" Word. Grrrrrrr!

The Real Deal vs. Generics

I like real drugs. Of course I'm talking about prescription drugs. As a clean and sober person for 23 years, any other kinds are irrelevant to me. But I do take a couple or three prescription drugs as my body dictates. I could probably eliminate them altogether if I'd eat fruits and veggies, fish (broiled or baked), and organic lotsa things, but I'm too hooked on the stuff that, as far as I'm concerned, make life worth living. But I digress. Let's not get into that right now.

My doctors prescribe whatever they have ascertained will work to get rid of whatever we're trying to get rid of. Sometimes there's a generic available. They call it the generic "equivalent." I'm no expert, but from what more than one doctor over the years have told me, generics are not equivalent to the real thing. At least not all of them. So I choose to stick with the real deal even if it costs me more. And oh boy, does it cost me more!

One of my prescriptions erroneously got filled with a generic, and it was dirt cheap. I can't remember how much ir cost but it wasn't worth budgeting for. The brand name, the original, the real deal cost me $75 for one month's worth. Whew! And that's with insurance that includes prescription coverage!

Worse, when doctors do prescribe brand name drugs, often those busy doctors get called back or faxed back with the question, "Do you REALLY want to prescribe this and not the generic?" It's a pain in the ass for the prescriber, and somebody has to pay the pharmacy staff person who has to follow up to confirm that the idiot prescriber really, really, really means to pass up the wonderful generic. One of my doctors speculated that somebody's gotta be paying somebody something (graft, premiums, bonuses) for that to happen as a matter of course.

So what's my objection? I'm a lay person; I don't know squat about drugs. But enough of my doctors have said that generics aren't the equivalent of the original forumla that I believe them. Generics (some, most, whatever) often have different (usually more) fillers; they don't have the exact same active ingredients; they don't work with everybody's body. So give me the one that we know works, I say.

Even with OTC, as they affectionately call "over the counter" drugs, I buy the brand names. Anacin (hard to find nowadays) over aspirin. Robitussin over just tussin. Etc.

Same with other types of products -- food, bottles and jars of creams and lotions, cleaning products, etc., ad infinitum. I like brands. I trust them more and I like their appearance better. (Typical of a Libra)

I looked just now and out of several hundred products I probably have at home, I have exactly two generics: Duane Reade Alcohol Prep Swabs (sexy name, eh?) and America's Choice Tall Kitchen Bags (since Glad changed theirs to a thinner bag, and Hefty's always been Flimsy, Flimsy, Flimsy, not Hefty, Hefty, Hefty). That's about all there will ever be in my household.

So that's what 15 years in the advertising business did for me. Although...a friend of mine who's been in that biz far longer than I recently bought something generic, which I gave her a ration of shit for. (But she's not a Libra)

Anyway, I'm paying more for my real-deal drugs and, at least for me, it's worth it.