I feel bad about my neck and my cheeks, and my hands and and and

This was in response to an editorial about the wonderful writer, producer and director, Nora Ephron, who was interviewed by Salon.com. Salon says "Nora Ephron gets serious about sagging necks and wrinkles and talks about aging in her new book "I Feel Bad about my Neck." She talks about aging and does not wax sappy.

What IS so great about aging? Damned if I know. Cher said one of the most honest things I ever heard from a star. Most stars when asked that question about aging on aging supercilious talk shows say something like oh really I don't mind getting old because well it gives you so much more perspective, it enlightens you, it makes you wise, it beats the alternative etc. etc. etc. Or worse some say I'm glad I have cancer it taught me how to live! REALLY? REALLY? I do NOT want to get cancer to teach me a THING. Cher once said in plain English "aging stinks" and I quite agree. Sure death beats the alternative but we will get the alternative for much longer than we are alive.

The most profound comment I have heard about death recently is that someone equated it with being on the Titanic. YES I said I feel EXACTLY the same way. The iceberg is ahead no matter how many Dr. Oz shows you watch, no matter how well you eat, no matter how many vitamins you take or no matter how much you exercise ... death will still get you in the end.

I HATE the idea of aging. I HATE my body betraying me. I feel I am the same person in thought but my organs, brain, heart and lungs, bones etc. say NO you are not! I wish there were a face lift for the heart or the brain or the liver. The thought of illness terrifies me almost more than death itself.

The only difference between any of us and a man on death row is that he will be dead sooner. BUT we will ALL be there whether we like it or not. The iceberg is ahead and there is not a damn thing you can do about it.

Personally, I do not believe in a hereafter nor in any kind of a supernatural being so the best advice I can give people like I is smell the flowers while you can. I wish when I was younger I realized the brevity of it all. If I had I would have started learning everything there is to learn sooner instead of playing kick ball in my elementary school playground.

I cannot believe there will be a time when I won't know what happens or who is president or that there will be a time when I do not know people, most especially those who share my life and the things that were so much a part of my life. Seeing those I love die is almost worse than contemplating my OWN death ... it IS worse than contemplating my own death.

Since I do not have children the only thing I will leave to the world is my writing and my reputation. I am hoping that some day in 2180 (IF civilization makes it that far) someone who is studying this era will see my writings. I hope, too, that I have transmitted to others the thirst I have for learning and academic achievement. That's it. Beyond that I TRY to be as decent a person as I am able. I know I fall short but I try. If someone some day soon after my death realizes that or cries for me, well, I am hoping for that but truly I will never know.

I cannot believe Carl Sagan is dead or Stephen Jay Gould is dead or Paul Newman and Bea Arthur are dead or hundreds of other famous people I knew of are gone. THAT bothers me. Those who have contributed in incredible ways to the advancement of man should NEVER die and yet they do and so will I.

The Survivalist Cockroach: There are two news stories one state and one federal (links below). One article has to do with Texas, the deepest red of the southern states and to me one of the most fearful because of its size and population, which wants to refuse to distribute Medicaid funds. The other article in the NYT is about Republicans in the newly empowered very red House wanting to dismantle "Obamacare" piece by piece. It is not so much the now I am worried about but it is the later. This is, in my opinion, the absolute worst time on the American political scene I have EVER experienced. Even during WWII, a dangerous era to be sure, there was, for the most part, a relatively united humane USA -- at least in doctrine -- accompanied by strong solid leadership.

The rancid RepublicRATS now feel empowered because of their House and even state legislatures big win. I have read that some wingnuts who were elected to the House cannot even read or barely so. It would not surprise me if this were true. Our country has elected the UNREASONED or a good chunk of it. I NEVER on planet earth would have thought I would say that if you told me this when I was 21 I would have moved PERMANENTLY to Canada. Now it is too late. If I had done that I would be, of course, worried about my neighbor to the south which now is slowly going insane.

Lindsey Graham, a rather powerful senator from South Carolina, yesterday called for a military strike on Iran. Does he REALLY think this country which has not prosecuted a war successfully, with the exception of WWII, could now take on three wars (or four if you consider Pakistan) with a volunteer overstretched army in the tinderbox Middle East and against Iran yet a huge nation that really DOES have a patriotic nationalist fervor unlike Iraq and Pakistan? If Iran acquired nukes maybe it would protect the world now from the cerebral synaptic disconnect of the US. Who EVER thought I would say that? I'm being facetious BUT when there is a truly fascistic extremist right in power in, at least for now, one branch of the federal government of the most powerful nation on earth compounded with a shaky global economy the entire world is at risk. Fate forbid red state whack-jobs here gain even MORE power.

These religious fanatics want Armageddon, see it in their binoculars and will sit around in New Testament Revelation form waiting for Jesus to come out of a cloud and save the believers. Keep voting in tea bagger wingnuts and other Republicans you just may get that WITHOUT the Jesus part of course! I hope we have ALL bought cemetery plots. Hey, with what they want to do we do not even need that! The cockroaches, nature's premier evolutionary survivalists, will inherit the earth. I think they will clean up the mess and do a MUCH better job than us.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/40053289/ns/politics-the_new_york_times/