In a word, yes.

If you weren’t raised as a Jew, you have no standing to speak on this. As a Jew, I decide what is, and is not, antisemitic, just as POC will decide what is, and is not racism.

If you weren’t raised as a Jew, how dare you think you can be an arbiter of what is antisemitic? Notice that when a black person deems something/someone racist,  he/she is taken seriously, and his/her view is respected…at least by the progressive left.

But Jews everywhere, since October 7, are being gaslighted constantly with indignant cries of I’m not antisemitic, it’s Israel’s government that I can’t tolerant.

As we all should know, Israel is far from being the worst country for human rights.

Moving on to global humanitarian crises, DR Congo is the largest hunger emergency in the world, with over 25 million people struggling daily to simply get enough to eat.

The country hosts one of the largest displaced populations (including refugees) in the world – approximately 5.5 million. One in seven women nationwide experienced sexual violence before the age of 18, and the problem is even more severe in conflict-affected communities. However, in 2022, the number of people in need in DRC was significantly higher than the amount of people in need in Ukraine, yet the amount of funding secured was 74% lower.

Have you heard any demands to stop the violent conflicts there? The country is experiencing outbreaks of monkey pox, cholera, measles, floods and landslides.

And in Sudan? Seven months of conflict there have resulted in 9,000 deaths and 5.6 million forced to flee their homes. Where are progressives wearing the Jalabia in protest?

I bet none of your friends are going around enraged on behalf of the Congolese or Sudanese. Because the only people who matter are Palestinians, and their plight is the only one worth marching for. If Jews aren’t involved, no one cares.

Look at the map above. Note the size of Israel. Note that it’s surrounded by countries with lamentable human rights, countries where women are second class citizens and gays are at risk of prison and death. Teeny tiny Israel is the focus of the worlds dismay and disapproval….why?? Is it “because our taxes prop up their apartheid government”? The taxes argument is absurd. The US gives foreign aid to countries all over the world, some with governments that progressives surely wouldn’t want to support.

(Ukraine was the top recipient of aid in 2022, having received nearly $12 billion from the U.S. that year following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.)

If you want to know the history of Israel, it’s easy to research. Historians and archaeologists agree that a Kingdom of Israel existed by ca. 900 BCE and that a Kingdom of Judah existed by ca. 700 BCE.  The Jews have been deported from their ancestral homeland by various empires, thousands of years before Palestine was invented by the British division of land formerly governed by the Ottoman Empire.

Let’s get back to now. “The Hamas attack resembled a medieval Mongol raid for slaughter and human trophies—except it was recorded in real time and published to social media. Yet since October 7, Western academics, students, artists, and activists have denied, excused, or even celebrated the murders by a terrorist sect that proclaims an anti-Jewish genocidal program. Some of this is happening out in the open, some behind the masks of humanitarianism and justice, and some in code, most famously “from the river to the sea,” a chilling phrase that implicitly endorses the killing or deportation of the 9 million Israelis. The decolonization narrative has dehumanized Israelis to the extent that otherwise rational people excuse, deny, or support barbarity. It holds that Israel is an “imperialist-colonialist” force, that Israelis are “settler-colonialists,” and that Palestinians have a right to eliminate their oppressors.” *

Progressives have fallen to this fiction like they once fell for Stalin and Hitler. But their beloved Palestinians had every chance to build a thriving state instead of voting to be ruled by Hamas. Jews worked hard and created Israel out of a desert. Palestinians could have done the same if they weren’t so focused on killing Jews. (White savior complex much?)

What about the charge that Zionism is racism?

Prior to 1948, Zionism was an aspiration—the national liberation movement of the Jewish people, founded by Theodore Herzl in the late 19th century, to re-establish a Jewish nation as a solution to the antisemitism Jews faced in Europe. After 1948 until today, Zionism became a reality: a homeland not only to persecuted European Jews, but Jews from all over the globe, including Jews fleeing persecution from the Soviet Union, the Arab world, Turkey, Iran, and Ethiopia, amongst others. Israel is one of the most diverse countries in the world with over half of its population being from Africa, India, and other areas of the Middle East. The vast majority of Jews around the world identify as Zionists, meaning they support the existence of Israel as a Jewish State in the historic Land of Israel.

Antisemitism has existed now for millennia, and the prevailing ideas about Jews running everything, about how “good” they have it, is just as stupid as the Elders of Zion.

As the saying goes, “Germany will never forgive the Jews for the Holocaust.” Jews are despised for being weak, and also when they fight back. Jews are somehow responsible for everything bad. Why? The term “Jew” at various times in history has been connected to both materialism and intellectualism, socialism and capitalism, worldly cosmopolitanism and clannish parochialism, eternal chosenness and unending accursedness.

Even the UN is rife with antisemitism. So is the Red Cross.

In closing, you intellectuals arguing about whether Jewish babies were actually beheaded or just burned alive need to get a fucking grip.

Jews are the indigenous people of Israel, their ancestral homeland. Deal with it. War isn’t genocide or ethnic cleansing. And apartheid does not apply to the state of Israel, as much as you love the word.

L’chaim for now.

© Stephan Andrade

I went to a Christmas party at the home of one of my husband’s friends, even though I was close to backing out at the last minute. Backing out of things has been my m.o. for most of my life, but I’m making an effort to get out and socialize. God knows I’m sick of my own company.

The host was a lovely and talented young man who can play any stringed instrument and cooked up an incredible feast, including a salmon mousse. His apartment is right beneath the Hollywood sign, and was cozy and festive. I greeted him and his family and went straight to the food.

I met his mom for the first time and fell in love with her. She confided that having retired, all she does is read 19th century novels and watch murder TV! THAT’S ALL I DO, TOO!!! She has read all of Trollope, twice. I would marry her if I could.

A guy named B overheard us talking and later came up to me to say, I know you like 19th century novels but do you also read any modern novels? I replied that I have no interest in contemporary fiction because I’m too much of a book snob. You’d think that would be the end of it but no.

He proceeded to mention a few writers I’ve never heard of but even their names were middlebrow. He asked, Don’t you want to know what younger people today are thinking about? I said, “No, I have younger friends so I already know their perspective.” He didn’t like this answer and then told me about Jennifer Something, who has written three novels, and went on to describe the plots of each one.

I stood politely trying not to have a heart attack from anxiety and frustration. Why was he torturing me? When he finally paused, I asked him if he likes short stories, thinking maybe we had that in common. He said he occasionally reads the fiction in the New Yorker. Now here was something I had an opinion on! I said, “Don’t you think that the New Yorker fiction is always” but he turned and walked away.

I sat down next to a nice woman I’ve met before and we talked about the stress of being online. We agreed that the current climate is especially tense and divisive. She noted that it annoyed her how many people denied there was a “genocide going on in Palestine.” As a Jewish Jew, I countered with, “Yeah, and the people who don’t believe Israeli women were raped and tortured!” Luckily, we agreed that miniature donkeys are adorable.

Later, I met a lovely couple who had family in Jerusalem. The husband, who was French, confided, “I hate Netanyahu” to which I interjected something like Duh, it’s a given, “but I hate Hamas more.” We talked about the worldwide explosion of antisemitism. They both has interesting jobs and asked me what I do. I blurted out, “Nothing. I am nothing.” Luckily my husband was in earshot and he leaned in and said, “She’s a writer.”

I noticed a very thin woman dressed in black and wearing a big fedora. Women who wear hats are one of my pet peeves so I instinctively disliked her. I heard her say, “This is my husband, Steve.” Suddenly, I recalled an awful woman on Instagram who used to keep referring to her husband Steve. I remember that Steve bought her a $10,000 engagement ring. I sat down with my phone and went to Instagram. Yes, it was that awful woman! I was so pleased with myself that I looked around to see if there was anyone I could gloat to. Obviously, I restricted gloating to my husband.

Back at the food table, I started talking to a debonair looking guy in a black shirt who had silver hair and a matching beard. I asked him if he was a musician, since most of the guests were musicians as well as the host. He said yes, and we started talking about song lyrics. He was saying something about how you often didn’t know what your lyrics were really about until you performed the song. I went on a short rant about how a bad lyric. or even a stupid word in the lyric, ruined the whole song for me. I ended with, “a stupid cliched lyric is like an electric shock!” He looked kind of bemused.

While driving home, my husband praised me for ignoring a guy named Richard, who I hate with the force of a thousand suns. I was flabbergasted. I said, “WHAT? RICHARD WAS THERE?” I  was stunned. I couldn’t believe I never noticed him!

I asked my husband if he knew a guy named Jackson, who I discussed lyrics with. He said, “Yeah, that was Jackson Browne.”

What a night! Merry Christmas to those who celebrate and even to those who don’t. xo

I have already confessed to being at a loss for words to adequately describe the abomination that is Donald Trump. But recently, one thing I keep thinking after watching the news is how utterly without redeeming features he is. My default analogy is that at least Hitler loved dogs. And music. And had some actual talent as a painter.

I was thinking of this yesterday while walking my dog (shout out to Hitler!) and started to mentally review the dictators I’m most familiar with, to compare them to Trump. Qaddafi came to mind first, and he had the redeeming feature of great style. He’s one up on Trump right there!

So let’s review historic dictators to see if any are as worthless as Donald Trump.

Stalin excelled in seminary school and earned a scholarship to Tiflis Theological Seminary in 1894. Good job, Stalin! Your dad didn’t have to pay to get you accepted!

Castro went to law school and was passionate about social justice.

Saddam Hussein also went to law school on his own merits and “did much to modernize Iraq’s infrastructure, industry and health-care system, and raised social services, education and farming subsidies to levels unparalleled in other Arab countries in the region.” Well done, Saddam!

Kim Jong-un was educated in Switzerland and after his father’s death, implemented some economic and agricultural reforms. Not bad, Kim Jong-un!

Mussolini was a journalist who studied Kant, Hegel and Nietzsche. (Trump = Covfefe)

Mobutu Sese Seko, with his trademark leopard-skin cap and carved wooden staff, was a a true style icon, and I’m still looking for a facsimile of that hat.

Pol Pot played the violin and was fluent in French.

Augusto Pinochet taught classes in military geography and geopolitics and was the editor of a magazine, Cien Águilas (‘One Hundred Eagles’).

François Duvalier aka Papa Doc was a physician, and was active in a United States–sponsored campaign to control the spread of contagious tropical diseases, helping the poor to fight typhus, yaws, and malaria. He was also a master of Haitian Vodou! Who among us doesn’t love Haitian Vodou?

I could go on, but you see my point here. That bastard Donald Trump is the most patently worthless human being in the history of the world.  Why did god make him? I heard a guy on TV noting Trump’s “incandescent stupidity and malevolence.” Incandescent gave me a little thrill. If only I could be as elegant in expressing my contempt!

All I can do is take comfort in his notable hair-loss and commensurate panic as I try not to think of him winning the next presidential election. If that comes to pass, there won’t be enough cyanide capsules in the world to put us out of our misery.

I am reviving my dormant What a Fucking Cunt!  feature for a cunt who richly deserves this honor and really leaves me no choice but to revile him… Elon “I’m a cunt” Musk.

It would be nice to be able to go about my business without my ire being aroused by every little thing, and I’m trying. But how can one ignore the concerted effort by Elon Musk to make everyone hate him? One cannot, even if one rarely uses Twitter and doesn’t give a shit about Tesla.

I am torn between wondering what is wrong with him and wishing he would get some comeuppance for his stupid behavior. There is a three part documentary on BBC that apparently delves into his childhood and family life to try to explain the person he is now. One reviewer called him a big baby who is stuck in the mindset of a vindictive 12 year old. He was bullied relentlessly in school, which might account for his need to bully his employees and everyone who doesn’t genuflect to his Genius.

But just as Trump probably has good reason to be a hateful narcissistic piece of shit, Elon doesn’t get a free pass.

I first heard the name Elon Musk from my kid, many years ago, who said he was a brilliant inventor. I didn’t hear anything else until he started impregnating people, although clearly he was world famous for other things. I sort of admired him when he hosted SNL and announced that he is autistic; what a boon to the community to be associated with a successful CEO instead of Rainman! I thought in my innocence.

But now I worry that people will think Elon is an asshole because of his autism, whereas there is no connection. Kanye himself is now trying to assert his self-diagnosed autism as a reason for his “outspokenness” as though being a Neo-Nazi is a feather in his cap.

Let’s be clear: people with autism can be assholes just like people without autism. Narcissistic assholes and bullies must be judged on the basis of their behavior unless they are in the midst of a psychotic breakdown.

If you’re not up to date on Elon’s shenanigans, he has just kicked a bunch of reporters off of Twitter, accusing them of doxing him and endangering his safety. Then, Linette Lopez, a journalist who tweeted about the time Elon was sued for doxing and harassing one of his critics, was summarily suspended too. So instead of being a worldwide space for public discussion, Twitter is now a toy where a troubled billionaire can air his grievances and punish detractors, while tweeting shit like “Wow, Twitter is on fire today!”emoji emoji. YES, bitch, because you’re beefing with everybody, that’s why.

So in short, Elon has turned out to be a whiny fascist whose ego can never be satisfied, who seems to revel in being hated.

Why do people think it’s an accomplishment to be hated?? Kanye’s stans are thrilled by his current status as provocateur-in-chief of pop culture, but here’s what I think. Unless he’s willing to shit onstage like GG Allin, he’s nothing special. Same with Elon Musk.

You think you’re a badass, Elon? Shit onstage or get off the pot!

All the commotion about Balenciaga’s new ad campaign with children is totally misplaced, besides being just stupid.

Where are the complaints about their awful pantaboots worn to death by Kim Kardashian??

Where is the outrage?

These fucking pantaboots are so egregious, and worn by KK, they are an abomination. They probably cost a million dollars, they make your feet look enormous, and how do you wash them? Everything about them is just aggressively awful.

And yet it’s the ads with little kids that has the entire internet going nuts with inflated umbrage and puritanical pearl-clutching. Balenciaga has been forced to issue several apologies for the ads, evidently confirming that they are inappropriate child porn, and vowing to implement a barrage of “safeguards” so this will never, ever happen again.

Where the outraged masses see bondage paraphernalia, I see classic old-school punk.

Look at this stupid bear, for example. It’s punk, not B&D! Jesus Christ, people of Earth. Get a grip.

Sometimes, pornography, or inappropriate images, is in the mind of the beholder. I think the kids in these ads are cute. They are not sexualized, in my opinion, and there is nothing seductive about them. But the furor is off the charts, rife with allusions to pedophilia and child trafficking.

I would like to have seen a fraction of this outrage in response to the children separated from their parents at the southern border. Children in cages weren’t as incendiary as these kids with teddy bears. Instead of aiming some well-deserved wrath at Kim K for her fucking pantaboots, the internet condemned her for being too slow to denounce the brand currently most associated with her. She finally expressed her concern, even though she dresses her young children in heavy gold chains that she hastens to label as “real.” Her tone was mild but dutifully sanctimonious

Not too long ago, I spent time with my friend’s two year old daughter, who was running around their living room naked. The adorable little girl was making hilarious faces at me, and I took a couple of picture with my phone. I showed a picture to a family member, who accused me of imposing child pornography on her. I was genuinely shocked; all I saw was the funny expression, without noticing the body parts. We had a heated argument, that ended up with both of us threatening to ask our therapists to weigh in on it.

Her therapist sided with her, while mine sided with me. I can guess where they’d stand on the stupid Balenciaga controversy. But me and my therapist would be right.

What do you and your therapist think??

Not long ago, I saw my own thigh in the sunlight though my bathroom window and I screamed. EW! Whose leg is that? I thought. I’m not kidding; that was my actual thought. I guess I expected to see my thigh as it exists in my memory. Not the world’s best thigh, but not a dry crepe-y one with no muscle tone. Today as I walked my dog, wearing cut off jeans because of the awful, muggy heat, I looked down and saw it again. Truly an old thigh, commensurate with my age but no less disappointing and even shocking.

You think this is stupid and shallow but just wait. You too will experience this cognitive dissonance unless you go blind, in which case you’ll have a while different set of problems. Since I rarely look at my own body in bright sunlight, I had no idea this was happening. A person I know who inspects every inch of her body and face every single day and exfoliates with a stiff vegetable brush will never be taken by surprise.

But keeping shit from falling apart is just too time consuming. It already takes me forever to get ready for bed, and my beauty routine is practically non-existent. Have  you guys seem Kim Kardashian’s new skincare line with nine (or 12?) products that she says are essential to use together in a certain order? Forget the cost. The time spent at your sink would move bedtime to around 4:am. No, Kim, don’t make me!

So being an old bag leaves you very few choices of how to visualize and project your image to yourself and the world. On one end of the spectrum is Paulina Porizkova, who at 57 never stops bitching about how the male gaze won’t acknowledge her aging appeal while shoving her remarkably well-preserved body in our face nonstop on Instagram.

Paulina rose to fame at just 18 years old as the first Central European woman to be on the cover of the Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue. Almost 40 years later, Paulina said she still feels sexy and hated society’s obsession with looking youthful. Despite still feeling confident though, the mother-of-two said younger men haven’t been interested in her.

daring to look her age!

Haha Paulina, you hate the obsession with looking youthful? I guess all the bikini shots are just something you do for fun.

She said: “I am now completely invisible.“I walk into a party, I try to flirt with guys and they will just walk away from me mid-sentence to pursue someone 20 years younger.”

God, just shut up Paulina and fuck off. Eat some sandwiches. If you want to hear more of this faux insecurity, check out her Instagram.

At the other end is Bridget Fonda, who has evidently rejected all efforts at looking young and attractive. When I first saw a recent picture of her, I didn’t believe it. It could not be her. Even though regular non-celebrities look old and fat when they’re old and fat, Bridget Fonda’s transformation is just startling. She is unrecognizable.

then and now

I felt sort of betrayed by Bridget. I should have admired her courage to stop pursuing a narrowly defined ideal of female beauty. Maybe she’s trying to live the opposite existence of her aunt Jane, whose face is now a clownish travesty

Somewhere in between these two extremes is a healthy outlook on aging. I just can’t find it.

It’s not the male gaze that bothers me. It’s my own gaze in the cruel morning light of my bathroom. I’m going to get some under eye filler and then go around pretending that I’d never get any filler, just like J. Lo and everyone else.

And I’ll stop wearing cut offs or just remember to not look down. Aging is so horrible! I just googled the insulting term “aging gracefully” and found a list of tips. I’m not going to follow any of them, because of my PDA, but you can if you want to.

Thoughts, ladies and gays?

Don’t be mad at me for being consumed with Amber and Johnny; Tik Tok videos with the hashtag #JusticForJohnny have been viewed 8.3 billion times! Americans have googled Amber Heard four times more than google searches for abortion or the Supreme Court.

It could be serving as a needed escape from the reality of our politics, Covid, inflation, and bla bla bla. But I think it’s just a universal drama that most of us can relate to. Most of us have had at least one destructive relationship under out belts. Most of us have wanted to have sex with Johnny Depp at one time or another. Most of us love courtroom conflicts. And most of us pride ourselves on our ability to spot a liar.

And Amber is lying her head off, right??

Yesterday I read a preachy essay about how the backlash against Amber is misogynistic. There are a few of these essays making the rounds. If you don’t believe Amber Heard, you are dooming abuse victims to silence or worse.

But I disagree. I think it’s because this particular woman seems so awful and nuts. My favorite quote of all time is the former friend who described her as a sociopathic show pony. Try saying it out loud. It’s just a wonderful phrase! I could not love it more. And I feel it is apt, after watching her antics in court. The continual head bobbing and barrage of theatrical expressions are truly bonkers.

Further, I’ve decided that her “lip cut” is a cold sore, and her bruises are the result of botox injections. Don’t ask me about my research or you’ll know how immersed I am in this crap.

If you listen to their taped arguments – and who tapes arguments besides my sister??- you can hear her goading him, using weird baby voices or laughing demonically. Johnny seems to maintain a tired and pissed off tone, even though his acting skills are a million times superior, while she tries everything under the sun to manipulate him.

I don’t believe the bottle incident because whose pum pum can accommodate a fucking whiskey bottle for fucksake? Without having to go to the hospital for surgery afterwards? Her crazy email after this pretend incident says she wants to rip him apart and devour him. Which cannot follow a rape by a whiskey bottle, in my world or anyone else’s.

And also, what about her hairdos? Jesus Christ with those hairdos. The farm-girl braiding, the fluffy loose buns, the fake disheveledness. I’ll admit I’m jealous of her tailored designer suits and the way she buttons her shirt collars. But the fucking water bottle…no.

Her intake of mushrooms and MDMA do not reflect the anti-drug stance she insists on having, and her use of Elon Musk suggests a fetish for powerful men. There is nothing sympathetic about this woman, no matter how you regard Johnny Depp. I kind of want to kick her myself.

Worst of all is her flagrant lie about donating the $7 million divorce settlement, which I knew was a lie back when she first announced it. Because I can spot a liar a mile off. It is one of my superpowers, like finding thrift store treasures and critiquing bad writing.

Okay then. Thoughts?

I never expected the Grammy’s to fuck up my personal life, but thanks to Justin Bieber, it has. I posted a picture of an oversized suit I bought last month from Zara (I know), and several people commented “Justin Bieber.” So today I googled “Justin Bieber suit” and to my horror found that he wore a similar suit on the red carpet. What a bastard. Do I have to take mine back now?? I don’t want to. I don’t want to lead a Bieber-directed life. Let him return his suit.

Other than that, the Grammy’s offered  fewer insults to taste and intelligence than in recent years. It was quite a surprise. The grown-ups won several award that could have gone to some useless clowns. There were fewer rappers performing and more actual singers and musicians (yep, okay boomer, I get it, so don’t even bother.)

Olivia Rodrigo has become my most hated figure in pop, dethroning Taylor Swift, who must despise Olivia for muscling in on the My Boyfriend Was Mean territory. Olivia and Taylor both got implants, both have huge teeth, and both like to bleat instead of sing. But Olivia seems even more fake and awful somehow, turning to Doc Martens to signify her punky side. Just ew, Olivia. Every time she didn’t win something, I felt a surge of relief.

I also hate Doja Cat, for obvious reasons, but I was enchanted by her Grammy co-winner, a full-sized woman on crutches and wearing a naked dress with a long train, carried by a helpful Lady Gaga. If you didn’t see it, it was a Moment.

Sticking with Lady Gaga, she performed a sickening Jazz number, playing the role of a 50’s chanteuse to the hilt. I actually had to cover my face. Why can’t she just choose one persona, or, god forbid, just be an authentic and genuine person?

Billie Eilish turned out to be a real rockstar, even if it’s taken a lifetime of looking in her bedroom mirror to perfect the stance. I loved her head banging song, which contained the line You ruined everything good, a lyric for the ages, I feel.

H.E.R was fantastic as always, bringing aging sexpot Lenny Kravitz onstage for a dueling guitar solo, serving up real style and talent that everyone present seemed to appreciate. I want to know how Lenny can squat so effortlessly when I can barely get down to tie my shoe.

What else? Jon Batiste, whoever he is, gave an all-cylinders performance that ended with him jumping on a table, and later gave a beautiful acceptance speech celebrating art. I love it when someone seems like a great human being, even if they aren’t.

Lil Nas X was super gay and super hot, but he ruined things by adding Jack Harlow to the mix. Who the fuck is Jack Harlow and why do we need him?

Carrie Underwood turned out to have fabulous muscular legs, even though her song was stupid, so fabulous that I googled them and found  her work-out regime. I’m not going to do it, by the way. But go look at those legs.

The Bieber performed an annoying emo song about peaches, and I was mad at him without even knowing about the suit insult to come. I would have been happy to just feel sorry for him, but now it’s war.

If I forgot something, let me know.

I’ve always had a Thing for crazy twins, so the recent deaths of Igor and Grichka Bogdanoff turned out to be a goldmine (for me if not for them.) The twin brothers, who are famous pop culture figures in France, died withing 6 days of each other after falling ill with Covid in December.

They refused Covid vaccinations but denied being afraid of them, much like they denied having plastic surgery, even though they turned their faces into giant surreal puppet masks. What kills me is that they were originally good looking men who must have lost their minds together in a classic case of folie à deux.

The twins became famous in the late 70s as the presenters of the hit science show “Temps X”(described as a cross between Mystery Science Theater 3000 and Mr. Wizard.) They appeared in wacky silver space suits but this was child’s play, in terms of the antics to come.

Over the years, they received dubious doctoral degrees and published academic papers that explained the state of the universe just before the Big Bang. When their work was derided as gibberish, they sued several scientists and magazines for libel.

You will have to google them to get the full story, but if you don’t love them you have a heart of stone. I wish I could know everything about them. One of them had several children, so we’ll see how that works out.

The Bogdanoff Twins reminded me of my favorite twins of all time, Frida and Greta Chaplin. I used to be obsessed with them and I may just be ready to revisit that obsession.

Frida and Greta became famous in the 80s, when they went on trial for stalking a truck driver. They walked and spoke in unison, dressed alike, and most poignantly, says a neighbor, “They even hoovered together.”

Their story is tragic at first glance, but maybe their companionship was a blessing that most of us will never understand. They dressed by looking at each other instead of a mirror! They died thirteen years apart, which must have been an ordeal for the surviving twin, but they were eventually buried one on top of the other in a double cemetery plot.

This is how I want to be buried with my husband! I think I got him to agree to this although we haven’t discussed who goes on top.

Finally, there are Flo and Kay, who I wrote about in 2009 and ended that post by calling Dick Clark a cunt, a statement I stand by today. Flo and Kay are autistic savants, and it may sound condescendingly ableist to call them special but they really are amazing. Enjoy this documentary about them! You’ll be happy to know that they are still with us and doing well. If anything bad ever happens to them, I hope they are together until the last moment…like me and my husband, in our double plot, with me on top, because I weigh less.

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.