Journalism in the 22nd century

I woke up this morning -- yes, I am 141, which apparently I accomplished through mosturizer and my new vegan lifestyle -- to find that my boyfriend (a spry 92) had broken his Kindlette.

For those of you still reading this in the 21st century, that's Kindle gone all Jetsons on ya, so small that I can only see it when my fake eyeballs are lasered up with biojuice. Sometimes it's hard to pick the right pair in the dark, but I do my best.

Anyway, the news story we read today is about Britney Spears III inheriting a fortune from her best friend, Lindsay Lohan XI, and then blowing it all on, well, blow. I wasn't too happy when coke made a comeback, but at least it woke up the 200-year-olds at my mom's convalescent home.

I seem to recall vaguely that the US, all but California that is (which seceded from the Union in 2071, and shame on you for forgetting that), was going to war with Canada. I know you 21st century readers won't believe that, but gosh darn it's true. Do you honestly think a century of fighting over the Keystone XL pipeline would come to anything useful? Screw fracking and risks to the water supply. All that drilling set off the kind of seismic activity we haven't seen since 1906 in San Francisco, though admittedly, the fifty mile fissure in the Sierras made Cali's secession a tad easier. Sometimes I miss flying into LA, but oh well. Who needs a tan with so much radioactivity?

Well, after Bart (my 17th husband) handed me the Kindlette and I rummaged for what felt like hours (audio commands stuck), I finally found what I was looking for: we bomb Toronto tomorrow at noon. No more element of surprise. After all, our president can't take the stress: he's now 141, too. And good on you, Barack Obama, who made it into your 21st term with nary a broken hip! Though it doesn't help having Michelle---Moms gone wild--Obama still doin' the Dougie in the East Room. Let's move indeed!

I'm of mixed feelings about the tensions with Canada. I was equally disturbed when we told France to stuff it (all that socializing with Hollande made Obama really look like a socialist, especially when he started handing out $500 bills to nursery schoolers just to boost self-esteem). I just wish it was easier to find out about these things before the bloggers put out a reality show.

Ah, whoa is me. Who needed the five Ws and one H anyway. We still have Twitter, even though it bought Facebook in 2017 and gobbled up Instagram once Oscar Pistorius started posting pictures from the 2016 Olympics. Still amazed that his sponsors forgave him even though he was seen cruising Malibu with OJ.


Of course, I have no way of verifying any of this. It's been at least 80 years since the Gray Lady's last run. I sometimes see Nicholas Kristof at Magnolia Bakery rocking his baby in his arms. I still appreciate that story he did on male fertility kickin' it into one's triple digits.

Saturday Girl - why I'll miss six-day-a-week postal delivery

Saturday Girl

Why I will miss the six-day-a-week postal service

Today's news that the U.S. Postal Service is cutting back to five-day delivery hit me kind of hard, even though it was not surprising.

I have to support it. I knew they were in the red, after all.

I just worry that this portends something a little bigger -- like no service.

For all the kids out there who don't care about this, let me explain why this hurts: bigger than the transition from albums to CDs to iTunes, bigger than landlines to mobiles and real-life pals to Facebook friends, the postal service transition could be dark, really dark.

Letters from my past

My grandmother Mimi used to send me letters (see photo). When she passed, I had access to her thoughts, how she wanted me to find a nice Jewish boy, keep reading, keep doing well in school, and when I had a moment read her latest proverb. 

Mimi took proverbs and with her calligraphy, turned them into art for the Jewish Heritage of Los Angeles. These proverbs would later be a gift to me during times of questioning how to live my life.

Not only Mimi, but my other grandmother Mama Sue, wrote me countless missives about grades, South Texas, the Southern Baptist church where I was baptised, the family reunion, black-eyed peas, you name it.

Sadly, I no longer have Mama Sue's letters except in my memory.

I've also recited to memory letters from my first love, C., who once took the Pink Floyd song "Wish you Were Here" and turned it into a profession of love. He'd broken up the lyrics into binder paper puzzle pieces, mailed to me from U.C. Davis, and I had to piece it together by numbers.

After the full lyrics, I found Piece No. 48: "I love you."

I kept all of C's letters tied up in a brown shoelace, criss-cross style, and threw them into a woman's garage along with my old prom dresses and yearbooks when I moved to the east coast.

When I lost all of that stuff, a part of my heart was lost with it.

Letters.

Have.

Value.

Think of Christmas

I know of no more joyous rush than the one I get every season, flush with winter, racing to the post office, to mail my packages out west.

If it's a year I'm heading to California, the same rush is miniaturized by my mailing copious amounts of Christmas cards.

I  whined about the e-card trend this year, telling everyone who cared (and many who didn't) that these were okay for birthdays or promotions but certainly not my hallowed Christmas.

Even so, I got them, thanked the senders and filed them away.

I am sure all of these e-cards will probably fall into the trash bin of my laptop's non-sentimental hard drive before you can say so much as "told ya so."

Meanwhile, the Christmas cards I've managed to collect in the 12 years since I've been on the east coast are now attractively gathering dust in my storage locker.

I visit them from time to time, their comments a touchstone on how far I've come (or haven't) in these many years. Sometimes the sender isn't even someone I'd talk to anymore. Other times it's a family member, congratulating me on a job I've just attained or a new home. Many times a friend's family photo falls out, and I am breathless, looking at how fast these babies grow up.

When you're gone

I cherish most the cards I've gotten from my parents over the years, and lately, fewer and fewer. We're all chatting on e-mail, quickly, not bothering with Spellcheck.

I would hug these cards and marry them if I could. I love a postcard from my dad's business trip back in the day or Mom's European adventure with my brother in the mid-90s.  I love checking to see which address these were sent to, and sometimes can barely remember where it was I lived at the time.

Letters.

Are.

A Touchstone.

We open them and we are reminded not only of how much someone loves/loved or likes/liked us, but more importantly, who we were at that point in time. On this journey called life.

And I know, yes I know, that things do change. I get it. I am writing this blog entry on a laptop. I rarely write by hand anymore unless I'm scribbling in a leather-bound journal that was a gift for my birthday or traveling. I love sending postcards.

So I would urge all of you who read this to send one letter this week to someone you love. Do it for the postal service, Valentine's Day, and the understanding that life is as fleeting....as today's price on that stamp. 

Piers Morgan is a journalist? Piers Morgan is a journalist.

I don't know if he is or he isn't.  A journalist.

I know he's got his own show on CNN, but some nights he's like the ongoing Ridiculist of Anderson Cooper's.

Some days I like Piers, and other times I just bristle at his mere existence on the telly.

I'm not one of those Anglos who get all hot and bothered hearing a British man speak my name. I've been to London many times, and plan to return in a few months. I am fully aware that they aren't so taken by our accent, so I do my best to keep my fascination with theirs under wraps.

My latest issue with Mr. Morgan is his treatment of my girl Chelsea Handler. I call her "my girl" because were it not for her book "Hello Vodka, it's Me Chelsea" I might have stopped drinking vodka altogether. I was beginning to worry that it wasn't natural to enjoy Greyhounds (the drink) alone anymore.

It's one thing to call oneself a slutty alcoholic -- which, to my recollection, Handler has done more sparingly of late -- but quite another for an older, tongue-wagging male Brit to come on one's show and insult the marachino cherry out of you.

I didn't like it, not one bit.

I had fantasized about winning a trip out to LA so I could see the taping this week, too. Now, watching the footage of her deriding him for having "mollester eyes" and hearing her say he could suck her ass when he offered to coach her on interviewing, it's a sight viewed best from afar. I'd hate to have been one of those live audience members laughing effusively at the lovely Handler while over-egoed Morgan took the credit.

I watched their interview from two years ago, just before he started with CNN. Then, he had a whiff of humility about him, Chandler seemed even taken by him, and I didn't watch the show wanting to vomit. The footage I watched from E! last night made me wish Handler could have spat not just insults his way but spit-balls.

Back to Morgan.

I'm happy he's taken a tough stance against the insane NRA and the semi-automatic weapons that are now more ubiquitous it seems than Mickey D's burgers. I've even supported him when he has called guests things like "idiots" because they were, even though I realize this is straddling the journalism line very loosely.

Where he fails, though, is when he constantly reverts attention back to himself. Handler doesn't do this. She is the Queen of Self-Deprecation, much like Jimmy Kimmel and David Letterman, and that's why we love her.

Morgan can't seem to decide what he is: serious journalist or star-struck turbo-testosteroned twerp.

I'd never sign the petition to deport him, but then again, I've never been the victim of his "molester" once-overs.