It is my nightly ritual to get into bed at around 1:00 am and read until I’m drowsy enough to sleep. The other night, I put my book down and surveyed my bedroom. I was suddenly overcome with a bittersweet sense of nostalgia for it, if it’s possible to feel nostalgia for the present. My husband walked in and I blurted out, “I’m going to miss this bedroom when I’m dead.” Instead of being pissed off about how morbid I am, he surprised me by laughing and saying, “Well, then you have it better than some people!”

I just love my bedroom! I love our big bed, nicknamed Snuggy if you must know. I love the art on the walls and the heavy velvet curtains from Ikea. I love my antique dresser covered with piles of jewelry and religious shit. I love my thriftshop chinoiserie and crappy velvet chair.

It struck me today that there must be lots of things I’ll miss when I’m dead. And that I should start appreciating them now while I can. I think we should all do this.

I’ll start:

I will miss burgers and fries, Pollo Loco chicken, and chips and salsa. I’ll miss frozen Indian dinners. I’m already starting to miss the first cup of morning coffee after the coffee machine does a little song.

I’ll miss Nicole Wallace on MSNBC. She seems so incredibly nice besides being smart and funny.  I’ll probably miss that SNL guy who does an uncanny  and hilarious imitation of Trump. I’ll miss hearing my favorite songs on the car radio. Obviously I can hear them any time I want to, but everyone knows it’s the surprise that makes it feel like a gift.

I’ll miss getting packages from Sephora. Free shipping and easy returns!

I’ll miss changing my nail polish. It’s relaxing and it makes me feel arty.

I’ll miss my favorite thriftshop, where the octogenarian volunteers start calling our “We’re closing” every five minutes, starting 45 minutes before closing time.

I will miss exchanging pleasantries with strangers, which always makes me feel like a human being. I’ll miss our Christmas Eve parties, which remind  me that I’m lucky to have people I love, who love me back.

I’ll miss the triumph of returning something to Zara even after washing it twice, like I did today with some awful baggy jeans.

Of course I’ll miss my husband but not as much as he’ll miss me (because he’ll have to get into Snuggy alone). And I’ll miss my darling dog, Kora.

That’s about it for now. How about you? I really want to know!

I know I should have seen it coming but let’s call me a hopeless romantic, or just a dope. When Pete talked about wanting to be a father, I heard wedding bells (and calls to available surrogates.) But then…you know the rest.

I need to know why! And who dumped who. Let Pete be the dumper, if you’re listening Jesus! How can they turn on a dime like that? Did something happen in Australia? Did Pete’s BDE fail him, or did Kim suddenly realize that he’s white?

When their thing was first reported, I was amazed by the incongruity just like everyone else. What the hell? I thought. But as it continued, I began furiously projecting. Kim must be smarter than we thought, if Pete likes her. In our narrative of Pete, he’s too smart and sensitive to waste his time on an idiot. She would have to have real substance as a human being, right? This meant that Kim Kardashian is not what she appears to be, e.g. an insufferable narcissist and plastic surgery addict!

And given Kim’s imagined ability to have any man, this meant that Pete is not only a great fuck but also a dynamic paragon of manliness. Plus, she introduced him to the kids!

I found myself daydreaming about Kim and Pete. Mostly it was hazy soft porn. I tried to imagine Pete’s frail physique juxtaposed with Kim’s gigantic mounds of silicone. On the one hand, ew. But on the other hand, I really wanted to visualize how it would work. I think this could be called mental fan-fiction.

I studied every picture of them to parse their body language. Their hand-holding was so cute! Their goofy selfies! Their trips to exotic beaches!

I was googling Kim-and-Pete several times a day. I couldn’t get enough. It as like a Novella only with higher stakes. And here’s the worst thing of all: I watched the Kardashian show for the whole season, eager for news about the budding love affair and for hints that Kim was not an idiot. My husband humored me and watched it too. We agreed that Kendall was painfully stupid but he thought Kourtney was even stupider. It’s a tough call, I guess.

At least I won’t have to watch any more of that crap. No more of their giant nothing-colored living rooms and staged heart-to-heart confidences. No more reminding my husband of how much Kylie has done to her face and how much weight Khloe has lost. No more of those nude lipsticked fish-pouts!

But when I woke up and heard about the break-up, I was devastated. I am not making this up; I was stunned and heartbroken. Could it be a mistake? Maybe so, because we didn’t hear it firsthand from Kim or Pete.

Now I’ve accepted that it’s over, and my hurt has turned to resentment. I feel cheated and duped. First I thought it was selfish of them to take away our only moments of respite from anxiety and global catastrophe. Now I’m wondering if the whole entire thing was a publicity stunt. So was it?? A friend believes it was a publicity stunt AND they also slept together. Whatever.

Now that Pete is history, clarity has returned and I see that Kim is indeed a big ho who can’t take her eyes off herself for a single minute and will do anything to hold the world’s interest. How dare she wear Marilyn’s dress! May she put on all the weight she’s lost and then some. May she take a fall down some stairs in those stupid stiletto heeled shoe-pants. God I hate her. I’m going to unfollow her on Instagram as soon as I wind this up.

I hope Pete can start dating someone twenty years younger than Kim whose butt doesn’t need a wheelbarrow to carry it and who doesn’t need hair extensions. I will forgive Pete for this slip-up because he is chronically depressed, genuinely funny, and because of that big dick. JUST KIDDING about the dick, of course, because a big brain is way more exciting, right ladies?

All we need to do now is predict Kim and Pete’s next love interests. Thoughts??

I always click on the saddest, most horrible articles in the New York Times online. Yesterday, I read about a study finding that parents who lose a child have an increased risk of heart attacks. The idea being that heartbreak actually breaks your heart. I read most of the comments, too. The most pertinent one was, “No kidding.”

The saddest one, the one I most identified with was this, from a mother:

I have never been the same. My broken heart was only part of the casualty. A shadow appearing as myself has been going about the Sisyphean task called life.

Yes, that’s a perfect summation. I am here but not here. That’s just the way it is.

I dutifully read the bleak, sappy, distressing and sometimes clueless comments and was finally rewarded by a guy who pointed out that the African dik-dik dies of heartbreak after a partner passes away. I pictured a noble tribe of nomadic herders, swathed in beads and kente cloth and dropping dead in their paths.

But the dik-dik is a tiny species of antelope, reaching only around 12 to 16 inches high!  Unlike other antelope, who live in herds, the dik-dik live in pairs. They are monogamous partners for life, and so protective of their privacy that they chase away their own offspring before they reach 8 months old.

The dik-dik are not only cute, with wiggly noses and long eyelashes, but obviously incurable romantics! Without the defenses of a herd, they are easy prey for larger animals, but they are true to their nature, trusting and depending on each other for everything.

And here is the best part: Instead of marking their territory with urine, like most animals, the dik-dik mark their territories with tears.

dik-dik bury their heads into the grass and release a special tear from a black spot below their eyes. This sticky preorbital glandular fluid cannot be smelled by human nostrils but conveys everything necessary to other dik-dik.

I love them so much. A world with dik-dik in it can’t be dismissed as all bad. It’s mostly bad, but like the dictum, focus on the dopeness, not the wackness, I’m going to focus on the dik-dik, and so should you.

A zoo in Antwerp has asked a woman to stop visiting the chimpanzee she claims to be in love with, in the hope of forcing the chimp to engage with his own species.

Alice Timmermans has been seeing, I mean visiting, the chimp for four years, standing outside his enclosure and exchanging air kisses with him. She says they are in a relationship, and who are we to argue with her? Zoo authorities say the relationship is turning the chimp into an outcast among his peers, who are starting to avoid him.

Alice has taken to social media to protest the zoo’s ban, insisting that the chimp loves her and characterizing their relationship as an affair. The 39 year old chimp has lived at the zoo for thirty years, after his owner surrendered him for “behavior issues.”

Listen, chimpanzees only have a lifespan of around 40 years. WHY CAN’T THEY LET HIM BE HAPPY??

Let him have a private enclosure where he and Alice can continue dating. They may be ready to take the relationship to the next level; it’s been four years, after all. Why this speciesism, Antwerp Zoo? Should we start a Move On petition for Alice and Chita the chimp?? Or a GoFundMe to pay for her to file a lawsuit? The heart wants what it fucking wants, don’t forget, as if we could.

Meanwhile, in Loango National Park, chimpanzees in the wild have started attacking gorillas, behavior that anthropologists have never seen before. Until now, interaction between the two species has been peaceful, even playful on occasion. But these chimps formed coalitions and attacked the gorillas, killing the infants who were separated from their mothers. Fuckers! What is their goddamn problem? Are they mad because they want affairs with attractive humans? Are they sick of being discussed in the media? Can’t we all get along??

Maybe we can.

A lion sanctuary in Harrismith, South Africa, is placing visitors inside Plexiglas cages stationed at the center of the lions’ lair, granting animal enthusiasts a palm-to-paw encounter with their menagerie of 77 rescued big cats.

Tourists are locked inside a “professional photography cage” for 45 minutes, paying around $150 for the chance to snap close-range pictures of the lions as they claw at the enclosure’s acrylic walls. The [cage] is regularly checked by an engineer to ensure it can safely carry the weight (up to 570 pounds) should a lion jump on top of it. And the round breathing holes in the plexiglass cage are “totally safe.”

Hahaha! Totally safe, famous last words.

Isn’t it too binary to have “people” and “animals”? Some people are barely human, and some animals are good people: witness my dog, Boris. Maybe we should reconsider who to fear and who to love.

Or maybe those lions should get together and crush that plastic cage, eat the tourists, and start dating chimps, but not the ones in Loango National Park. Those fuckers are way out of order.

Watching Trump on TV the other day, I considered the depth and breadth of my hatred for him. I hate him with more specificity than I’ve ever hated anyone, except maybe my ex-husband.

After 17 years with him, I hated the way my ex drank his daily orange juice. He placed his feet in a certain way, and always faced the same window.

Usually, you have to spend a lifetime with someone before you can hate them at this granular level, but Trump lays outside of usual parameters. In four years, he has seeded a wild garden of almost metaphysical hatred, such that most of us feel like world class connoisseurs.

Who among us does not hate the way he shapes his mouth in that puckered O? What about the sniffing? What about how he stands, leaning forward and rocking back and forth? What about the back of his head, the way he combs his “hair” into a coiffed duck-tail? The way he pronounces China, always pausing a beat before uttering the word and letting you know that he’s really thinking “vagina.”

The hyperbole, the biggest ever, more than anyone has ever seen, perhaps in the history of the world. And the imaginary People who are always Saying.

The slow lumbering portentous walk, the ill-fitting suits, the flapping overcoat, the hand gestures. The fucking hand gestures! The way he modulates his voice, the way he says “intress-ting” when he means “I’m so mad about this.” The way he mimics intelligent people in a dumb Poindexter voice. The way he likes to call himself Sir when he quotes people.

The way he says “Ivanka” with a disturbing reverence. The expression on his face when he’s pretending to listen to anyone, restlessly waiting to return to the spotlight.

I know I’m leaving out so much! Yesterday, my sister texted me to see if I’d noticed that his hair was less yellow. Of course I had. Am I blind or what?

I feel I’ve been driven to the outer limit of hatred with this cunt. I’m a hateful person anyway, but this is different.

However, luckily, I can still register love.

I’ve been watching the Smithsonian’s Panda Cam, enthralled by the way Mei Xiang, the 22 year old mother, cares for her baby, Bao Bao.

It’s almost unbearable to witness such maternal tenderness. Watch her as she plays with her cub and audibly kisses it, rolling it around and cradling it as it snuggles into her huge body.

Any mother will be moved by this exhibit of sublime love. Cynics can point out that this is just instinct, but so what? Plenty of our behavior is instinctive. It would be nice if we were better in touch with some of our instincts, like compassion. Compassion can be hard to muster while our bodies and souls have been so relentlessly threatened in 2020.

I wish I were the mother panda, or the baby. I wish I could be immersed in love. It’s a daily struggle, isn’t it?

But as I’ve been sitting here typing, my husband has popped his head in three times to ask how I’m doing and if I need anything. Maybe he is my mother panda! In the awful awfulness of my life, he is a blessing. Should we have our own live stream?!

Love on the Spectrum is an Australian TV series about single young people on the autistic spectrum, learning to date and looking for love. I don’t know what I expected but I’ve been overwhelmed by how sweet and compassionate it turned out to be.

The series follows several characters, through interviews and during their dates, but it feels less voyeuristic than other reality shows in its gentle and informative perspective. If you’ve had no experience with people on the spectrum, you will see how varied its impact is on their personalities. As the saying goes, if you’ve met one person on the spectrum, you’ve met one person on the spectrum.

Me, I’ve had experience, and I can spot as Aspie from 100 yards, but I’m still learning. I’m increasingly convinced of my own autistic traits, which present in females much differently than in males and are more likely to go undetected even into adulthood.

There are only 5 episodes and I’m putting off seeing the last one because I don’t want to say goodby to its cast. I’ve tried to put a finger on what makes them so endearing, and I believe it’s their sincerity. In an age of studied authenticity, true sincerity is like a beacon of light. When they talk about their hopes of finding a partner, their unvarnished yearning and their simple requirements are almost unbearably poignant.

My inexpressive husband murmured emotionally during one segment, “So heartbreaking.” A guy named Mark was talking about his “disability” and how much he had to offer in spite of it. We love Mark! He is upbeat and positive throughout, although who knows what he’s like off camera. His parents discuss how far he’s come from being a non-verbal and aggressive child. How far we’ve all come from being awful children, but for most of us it hasn’t been such a persistent struggle.

The girls, Chloe and Olivia and Maddie, seem more self-aware and more inclined to joke about their habits. They seem less locked into gender performativity than the guys, who seem keenly aware of what men should act like.

This amorphous gender presentation reminds me of the years I would only wear men’s clothes…until my father threw them away. Even now I feel like a transvestite when I wear a dress and heels. I know I’m female but I feel deeply uncomfortable when someone calls me a “woman”. I’m okay feeling like a gay man in a female body, even though my husband isn’t crazy about this description.

Is it part of my autism? Or just a random trait? As a kid I felt baffled by other kids, who seemed to all know something I didn’t. I love to mimic people and I’m good at it. Females on the spectrum use this skill to blend in, often into adulthood. They are also prone to obsessions with people, who they stalk with unusual vigor. CHECK! Instead of acting out with tantrums like boys on the spectrum, girls are more likely to be afflicted with depression and eating disorders. CHECK! An alarming percentage of girls on the spectrum have been “sexually exploited.” CHECK! Because they don’t know how to say No, and don’t know how to recognize dangerous situations.

My husband and I also love Michael, a 25 year old who lives with his parents and only wants to be a husband. He is so earnest and guileless, it just kills us. What a lovely soul. I think he would make a great husband. Then there is Kelvin, who reacts with horror when a date tells him she isn’t interested in him. “You mean you don’t want to love me?” he screams, as you clutch your heart in agony.

I don’t want to sentimentalize the cast, or to imply that everyone on the spectrum is a saint. I’ve met several who are complete assholes, just like neurotypical people.

But more often, I’ve observed a sincerity that moves me deeply. Defined as “honesty of mind or intention; freedom from simulation, hypocrisy, disguise, or false pretense,” sincerity is a pretty rare commodity. After intelligence, it’s probably what I look for most in a friend. Along with the ability to accept my mimicking, obsessions, and the gay man in a female body thing.

Go watch this show on Netflix and tell me what you think.

The approach of Mothers Day fills me with a constellation of emotions that are tough to untangle. Maybe they can’t be untangled. Being a mother and having a mother seem like conflicting states rather than complementary ones.

My mom left this photo on my doorstep when I was 37. I know that because on a note she included in the manila envelope full of baby pictures, she wrote: “You piece of shit, thanks for 37 years of misery.”

Look at my innocent little self in that party dress! I wonder what the occasion was. She usually dressed me like a boy. At 21 months, according to her, she already hated me.

My mom was mentally ill but no one ever explained that to me and my sister. We knew she had mood swings and an explosive temper. We knew she was given to theatrical screaming. We knew she had an assortment of pills in her handbag that she sometimes threatened to kill herself with. But I didn’t grasp that she was crazy until the manila envelope appeared.

She was not a good mother. She was divorced early on and unequipped for the job of raising kids. Her own mother was cruel and rejecting; her passive father didn’t protect her. Her sister spent time in a mental hospital and abused her three children. It’s a mess.

But how can I hate my mother? How can I even blame her? What did she know? Now in 2020, what does anyone know about being a mother?

I know mothers who won’t vaccinate their kids or let them watch TV. I know mothers who won’t let their kids eat gluten or dairy. I know mothers who take their kids to shaman healers. I know mothers who abandoned their kids, and mothers who cling to adult children with disturbing tenacity. Everyone is just flailing around, trying to do their best.

I’m learning to strive for compassion when it comes to my mother, and for myself as well. I made so many mistakes raising my children but much more often I did okay. I made sure they knew how much I adored them. I was their advocate. They never had to be anything but themselves. They didn’t have to perform in school or anywhere else to be valued. They knew I admired them. I loved their friends and their girlfriends. I tried to always be honest with them.

I was a good enough mother. It’s a relief to know that.

My life as a mother is still the best part of who I am. My heart is broken but it’s full of love.

Those of you with crazy mothers, try to forgive them. Those of you who are crazy mothers, it’s never too late to apologize or to get some help. Don’t write shit on baby pictures if you can help it. If you can’t, it’s probably not your fault.

May we all find someone to mother and be mothered by, today and always.

A few years ago I asked Max what he’s been up to, I can’t remember if it was in a dream or just in my head. But I remember that he answered, “Just chillin.” He sounded relaxed and content.

Today is his birthday and he’s chillin in paradise. The force is with him and so am I, always and forever.

Yesterday, my sister and I visited our favorite jewelry shop, Nobel Jewelry in Santa Monica. From the outside it looks like a hole-in-the-wall kind of place, but inside it is a glittering wonderland of beautifully displayed antique jewels. You can get a chain repaired for a few bucks, or you can purchase an Art Deco diamond engagement ring for $20,000. You can also chat with the owners, Ken and Kia, a pair of charming guys who emigrated from Persia with their family when they were boys.

So my sister had some things that needed repairs, and I wanted to argue about rings, and as we prepared to leave, Ken asked if we wanted to see a diamond he’d just acquired. It was a ring he had to get from the window, a spectacular European cut diamond solitaire. He offered up his jeweler’s loupe so we could appreciate its unique properties.

I asked Ken if I could use the loupe to look at the splinter in my thumb, which has been driving me nuts. I got it from an attack by a potted cactus on my front porch, nearly a month ago. My husband  couldn’t extract it and neither could I. I had gone to my doctor to get it out, and she ended up saying, “I think I got it but maybe not all of it.”

She didn’t get “all of it”, as it was getting swollen and now I could barely use my thumb.

So Ken said, “You have a splinter? Let me see!” He seemed concerned. He looked at it and said, “That must hurt.” He looked through his loupe and exclaimed, “That’s been in there a long time!” Then he announced, “I’ll get it out for you.”

He disappeared into a back room and my sister looked at me with fear and wonder. She asked me if I was really going to proceed with this. Ken came back with some alcohol, a needle nose tweezers and a visor thing with goggles. He bent over my thumb and started to work.

It took a while. It hurt but I trusted him implicitly, such was his confident and gentle manner. While he was at it, a guy came to the shop’s locked iron gate and Ken called out, “I’ll be right with you.” I told him he could stop to let the customer in, but he was lost in his efforts. I told my sister, “Go engage that guy to keep him there! Ask him how his day is going!” But the guy was gone.

Finally, Ken got the splinter. He said triumphantly, “No wonder this hurt.” He lay the splinter on my thumb and told my sister to take a picture with her phone. We both said FUCK! appreciatively; it was a long sharp cactus thingy.

Ken got some antibiotic cream and covered the hole in my thumb. I got a band-aid from my purse and he wrapped it around my thumb. Now Ken and I were bonded forever. We were both elated. He revealed that he was all too familiar with splinters, it was part of his work as a jeweler.

We stood in the glow of our shared trust and gratitude, and I tried to remember a fable about a mouse who gets a splinter out of a lion’s paw. I couldn’t remember how it ended. I hoped the lion didn’t eat the mouse for his trouble.

I shook Ken’s hand with my good one, and wandered out of the store, my faith in humanity kindled like never before and knowing that even if I died from a flesh-eating bacteria, it would make a great story.

Fuck you people who are all “Who cares about Brad and Jen!” like you’re above all that stupid gossip. YOU ARE THE STUPID ONES. Brad and Jen can bring this country together, if you’d just let them!

Brad and Jen, or is it Jen and Brad? You’d think I would know, given how many stories I made up when I worked for the tabloids. All the years of those fake magazine covers…I just saw one tonight that said, “Brad finally introduces Jen to his children, now they’re a real family!” As if!

We made fun of them, sure, but now is the time to turn our lonely eyes to Brad and Jen. They are mom and dad, the people next door, they are you and me! They can go through a million traumas and still patch things up! Let them! In fact, MAKE THEM DO IT, for their country.

If Brad and Jen are you and me, let Angelina be Trump, the larger-than-life monster who deceives everyone into thinking she/he can make our dreams come true. Soon, Angelina/Trump could no longer maintain the ruse. She/he was actually a maniac who would do anything to hurt and humiliate us!

Poor Brad was fooled by those big lips and those adopted children. He lost himself. Everyone knows that Brad morphs into someone new each time he changes girlfriends. With Gwyneth he was one thing, with Jen he was another. With Jen, he was his Best Self, and we know how important it is to be your Best Self. With Jen, Brad could sit around all day smoking weed and minding his own business. With Angelina, he had to be Mister International, flying around pretending to care about shit.

And Jen! She had to marry that awful guy with the big dick, what was his name? Anyway, what a gigolo he turned out to be, no surprise there, right? We knew it wouldn’t last even if Jen didn’t.

Now Jen has her dream house and all her friends and she is good without having children because a woman can be fulfilled without being a mother, god damn you haters. STOP MAKING HER EXPLAIN HERSELF.

Jen is in great shape for 50 and has never been happier, alright? And Brad has been taking time to think about what really matters. I saw this in GQ, so I know. He’s been rethinking his priorities. And god knows he’s learned his lesson about hooking up with a big-lipped woman who won’t eat and keeps acquiring kids who she then turns against him.

Let Brad and Jen be happy. Let them rediscover how great it is to just sit at home and smoke weed. Let them patch up their production company and start looking for a project they can star in. Let them go to their plastic surgeons together and maybe loosen up their faces. Their faces are starting to look like puppets. But at least they eat!

Let’s come together, people. It’s time. We need to heal and we need to start now, as the impeachment threatens to erase what’s left of our common humanity.

Thank you Brad and Jen! All is forgiven! Begin your new journey together, preferably with a star-studded wedding, and just allow us to love your Best Selves. God bless you and God Bless America.