I emptied out my office closet. 
 
And, lo and behold, there was a treasure trove of stuff that matters—stuff that I swore had been tossed out, by design or by accident, years before. 
 
I already knew where to find my labels for file folders, business envelopes and blank cards because I use all of them. But I didn’t expect to find childhood drawings more than 50 years old; love letters from years during and right after college, and my first circus contract.   
 
The drawings were in an oversized manila envelope that my mother had saved. 
 
Most of the contents went into the recycle pile, but I couldn’t resist keeping several yellowed, blue-lined sheets that show off my perfect cursive writing. 
 
And, there’s the picture above.  I was six years old when I made this, and no doubt the teacher wrote the poem on
a blackboard for everyone to copy.  But the writing is entirely mine, as are the red crayoned hearts with those
kite tail tendrils.  
 
Another large packet held love letters from three different beaus, all older than me, two of them irascible newspapermen who didn’t much like anyone.  But because they liked me, and really liked me, I couldn’t help but feel special in their arms.
 
Yet, these were also men proficient at mind games—vowing to call and then not doing so, or confirming a time to meet and then not showing.  Reading their missives, I know now that I wasn’t imagining their love.  But today, I can also see that they were incapable of making commitments, although the letters indicate otherwise. 
 
There were also notes from someone else, a boy who was sweeter, and closer to my age.
 
He was ready for the relationship I thought I wanted, and absolutely the most mature.  But I knew how to play games, too, and wounded him so deeply that I will regret the way I treated him for the rest of my life.  This remorse is still so raw that when I came upon his notes, I recycled every one of them.  Perhaps because the friendship happened around the time I attended Clown College, I found my first circus contract in the same packet. The gig paid $175 per week, and now I remember that I thought I was going to be rich.      
 
Then I found two plastic containers with lime green lids, both involving my daughter.
 
The first was from her time in Daisy, the Girl Scouts group for kindergarteners.  There was the uniform, a blue apron neatly folded and replete with eight iron-on flower petals in the center.  Snuggled beside it was a green vest with badges for marching in a parade; visiting a children’s museum, and being a responsible pet owner.  On top of it all was a certificate welcoming her to the next age level of scouting.  But we never made that tier because we moved away.     
 
This box is hers.  She can do whatever she wants with it, but I hope she’ll save the contents for the children she may have, maybe for them to play dress-up games.   
 
The other lime topped case held the happiest discovery of all.
 
There were my girl’s first stuffed animals—a pastel pink and blue plaid bear, and a yellow and red kitten, both sewn
by hand from the softest of fabrics.  Neither have buttons nor plastic, since I had been warned that babies could pick those off, put them in their tiny mouths, and choke.  A tightly tied up plastic bag was underneath, and that’s where
​the clothes were. 
 
It’s not just any outfit.
 
Here was the ensemble my daughter had on when she was first handed to me in a cramped hotel lobby in China.  Included were the tiniest of red fabric shoes with white rubber soles; crotchless yellow leggings, and two tops, one fuzzy and pink, the other a mock turtle neck with frolicking baby pandas.
 
This box belongs to my daughter, too.
 
But along with the childhood sketches, love letters and circus agreement, I’ll be keeping it. 
 

​Charles Phoenix teaches American history. 
 
But not in the usual sense.  
 
With his horn-rimmed glasses, sparkly Jell-O colored suits and Kodachrome slides, the fashion school graduate and former car salesman has created a unique brand—performance artist, humorist and documentarian.  Phoenix’s lesson plans are also purposefully narrow: he focuses on pop culture of the 1950s and ‘60s, spotlighting kitschy decorating, dining and entertainment.  Phoenix makes these “lectures” accessible on all of the usual social media platforms, where he’s also known as The Ambassador of Americana. 
 
Phoenix’s curriculum also gently lampoons the odd food of those decades, when veggie gelatin molds and potato-chip casseroles ruled the day.    
 
To this end, he creates bizarre-but-tasty-dishes.
 
I’ve made the fried cereal mix (there’s an entire stick of butter), and thought of trying the Frosty the Cheeseball Man dip (using Velveeta and cream cheese, it’s shaped like a snowman).  But Phoenix is perhaps best known for the Cherpumpel—an eye-popping three-layer cake with a different pie (cherry, pumpkin and apple) stuck between each layer.  He has penned eight coffee table books as well, with titles including Addicted to Americana, Fabulous Las Vegas in the ‘50s and God Bless Americana.    
 
However, Phoenix’s fans like him best in person.  
 
I was lucky enough to be given a ticket to one of Phoenix’s shows earlier this month.  So, alongside hundreds of other devotees (many wrapped in blinking Christmas lights), I arrived at the perfect venue, a vintage art deco movie theatre that opened in 1942. 
 
Here, I saw what Phoenix calls “the bread and butter” of his career—a two-hour, Kodachrome slide show, this one titled Retro Holiday Jubilee.  (Other shows, all with slides in the starring role, have included mid-century homages to Hawaii, Route 66 and Disneyland.)
 
Projecting hundreds of bright images on a huge screen, all snapped from a time when millions of Americans had big cameras and carousel slide projectors, Phoenix riffed about each slide with humor and joy.  The audience saw siblings lined up in homemade Halloween costumes; living rooms adorned with cabbage wallpaper and aluminum Christmas trees, and long-gone roadside amusement parks.   
 
Originally, Phoenix intended that the slides—his collection now numbers in the thousands and comes from every state—be presented in a straightforward and serious way.  But the pictures’ inherent kitsch caused so much laughter from early audiences that he restructured the show to make it comedic, often using the catch phrase “I know!”  
 
Phoenix never imagined that he’d make a living out of his obsession for Americana, which started when he was a teenager buying vintage clothes in the Los Angeles suburb of Ontario.  
 
But in 1992, when Phoenix was 30 years old and selling classic cars, he walked into a Pasadena thrift store. 
 
There, he came across a blue shoebox labeled “Trip Across the United States, 1957.”  Packed with Kodachrome slides of an unidentified family’s vacation photos, Phoenix remembers opening the container, putting the first slide up to the light, and seeing what appeared to be a halo. 
 
“I just knew, right away, that this was a whole new world for me to discover,” says Phoenix.  “I put the slide back in the box, went to the cash register, and haven’t looked back since.”   Soon after, he began scouring other thrift stores, flea markets and estate sales to find more of the same.  “They’re everywhere,” he says. “People couldn’t delete photos back then.” 
 
Phoenix is 55 years old now, but isn’t slowing down. 
 
He no longer has to buy slides; he finds boxes of them at his door.  Phoenix’s new book Holiday Jubilee is set for release next year, and he’s on tour through at least January.  So far, the shows are only in California, but a couple of years ago, Phoenix performed in the United Kingdom and New York City.  
 
One show I’d like to see is next month: it’s called Long Beachland, and will feature slides of Long Beach, the city where I grew up, and a stone’s throw from Ontario.  
 
Because the event (in Long Beach, of course) will be at a smaller location than the movie house I went to, there’s an added plus:  Phoenix will serve one of his signature cakes.  It might be the candy cane swirl with Tiffany blue frosting; then again, it could be his whipped cream Christmas volcano cake, or even the famous Cherpumpel. 
 
Charles Phoenix and wild homemade cake, together. 
 
What a terrific way to start the New Year. 
 
Who are your favorite onstage performers?   

As the days grow shorter and the nights colder, I'm reminded of what makes me happy, no matter what the season.     
 
Here are three of my favorites right now.

 * Whenever I’m feeling cynical, I head for The New York Times Vows column. 
 
While reporting weddings has been around since the paper’s original issue, in 1851, the publication took a radical turn
in the early 1990s. 
 
That’s when traditional wedding stories—those select few that only profiled couples from blue blood lineage and
old world money—were substituted with very different copy.
 
In its place, the column shifted to weddings about firefighters, office workers, teachers and even a homeless couple. When same sex marriage became legal, the Times also became the first major newspaper in the country to publish notices of gay marriage. 
 
But no matter who’s featured, the emphasis is on the back story.  So besides ceremony details, Vows reports on how
a couple met; their courtship, and the predictable stumbling blocks before reaching the altar.  
 
One of my favorites is the story of Colleen Ryan and David Cleary.  Unaware that they had worked in the same building for five years, and against the laws of probability, the two kept seeing each other for months on buses, in restaurants and in bagel shops.  Finally, suddenly alone in an elevator, they introduced themselves.  I also adored reading about Maureen Sherry and Steven Klinsky, who met one rainy night when Klinsky looked out of the window of a Manhattan cab and ordered the driver to stop after seeing Sherry walking down the sidewalk in tears.  And then there’s 98-year-old Gertrude Mokotoff and 94-year-old Alvin Mann, who met at the gym.
 
Love is love, and Vows keeps my faith in its magic.
 
www.nytimes.com/column/vows
​

 * When I start to think that people don't read books anymore, I remember the Little Free Library movement.
 
It began quietly, a little more than a decade ago, in Wisconsin. 
 
That’s when Todd Bol built a model of a red one-room schoolhouse with a white roof and bell tower, filled it with books and put it on a post in his front yard. A bit larger than a birdhouse, Bol came up with the idea as a tribute to his mother, a schoolteacher who loved to read.  Bol’s neighbors and friends quickly embraced the idea, so he made several more and gave them all away. 
 
It wasn’t very long after that friend Rick Brooks began talking to Bol about ways to expand the idea.
 
Brooks pointed out the positive impact of community gift-sharing networks, especially focusing on the free “take a book, leave a book” collections available at so many coffee houses.  As their conversations continued, Bol and Brooks kept creating and giving away Little Library houses, engraving each with official charter numbers; small grants and informal partnerships helped keep up with the demand.  
 
Then, in 2011, the Little Free Library attracted national media attention.  The growth was astonishing after that: one year later, there were 4,000 Little Free Libraries in neighborhoods across the country.  In 2015, The Little Free Library Book, with chapters detailing the non-profit’s mission, history and instructions for establishing one’s own Little Free Library, was published by Coffee House Press.     
 
Here in my little beach town, there are five Little Free Libraries within a mile of each other; I’m sure there are many more I haven’t found. 
 
Some are simple wooden boxes; others are splashed with rainbows and decorative writing.  Some have mostly children’s books; others are stuffed with adult novels. I’ve borrowed a book or two, especially liking the fact that I can keep one as long as I want (even forever, but I hope no one does).  I’ve also contributed paperbacks that I no longer need; I like the idea of someone in my community having the chance to enjoy them.  
 
Todd Bol passed away last month. 
 
But in his final days, Bol remained dedicated to the mission of the Little Free Library.  
 
“I really believe in a Little Free Library on every block and a book in every hand,” he said.  “I believe people can
fix their neighborhoods, fix their communities, develop a system of sharing, learn from each other, and see that
they have a better place on this planet to live.”
 
https://littlefreelibrary.org/


​* If you were around in the 1970s and loved great television comedy, you stayed home every Saturday night. You had to—because that’s when The Mary Tyler Moore Show came on. 
 
Moore—only a few years from playing Dick Van Dyke’s stay-at-home wife Laura Petrie—starred as Mary Richards,
a 30something, independent woman who moved to Minneapolis and found work as a news producer at fictional WJM-TV.  A central female character who wasn’t married; dependent on a man, and not a virgin was a rarity then, and viewers lapped it up. 
 
But the other characters, realistic and complex as well, made the show shine, too.   
 
For those actors who played them, the roles meant instant fame and for many, their first steady paychecks. 
Edward Asner was Richards’ boss Lou Grant; Valerie Harper played neighbor Rhoda Morgenstern, and Ted Knight
was dim bulb news anchor Ted Baxter. Stars of the future, including Henry Winkler, Bruce Boxleitner and
Peter Strauss, showed up in small, one-time only parts.  And while the show was a comedy, topics included
infertility, divorce and addiction. 
 
I was a sophomore in high school when The Mary Tyler Moore Show premiered, and I never missed an episode. 
Mary Richards’ life, one of dinner parties, interesting men and a satisfying job, was something I wanted to have, too.  But I also loved Richards’ vulnerability—best seen in my favorite episode, Put on A Happy Face, where everything that can go wrong does go wrong in the course of one week.  
 
Watching today, there’s also a certain quaintness about the show.  Richards used a manual typewriter, and the newsroom’s archives are all stored, in alphabetical order, in cream colored file folders.  Of course, there was no Internet, microwaves or voice mail.  Nonetheless, the show still resonates, and more often than not, has me laughing
out loud. 
 
All of the seasons are available on Hulu, but most of the episodes can also be viewed free on YouTube.    
 
www.hulu.com/series/the-mary-tyler-moore-show-00122c74-2b9f-451c-8cfd-8d130fcb10d6
 
 
What makes you happy these days?   

​

I took a fall.    
 
As the photo above shows, it was a gnarly plunge. 
 
Covered by the impressive bandage on my forehead are six stitches, sewn with thread that’s royal blue. The black eyes match nicely, and are hematomas, a collection of blood that pools outside broken blood vessels, and which often appear after this kind of injury.  
 
I’d like to say the accident happened while diving off the spectacular cliffs of Acapulco.  Or, I’d like to say it
took place while perfecting my curtsy for an upcoming visit with Queen Elizabeth II.  I’d be happy to recite either
of these scenarios.
 
But the fact is, where and how the fall happened was ho-hum.
 
I was walking on an uneven, black gravel road near the house where my daughter lives.  Then I lost my balance. 
That’s all. 
 
But like every accident I’ve had, time slowed down during the descent. 
 
My right foot caught first.  Unable to catch myself, the other foot followed.  Next my knees buckled, and finally, my forehead hit the ground with a loud thwack, taking the brunt of the fall.  Thanks to that impact, I started to bleed, a lot.  (Since there are a number of superficial blood vessels on our heads, even a minor cut can bleed profusely here.)  
 
The wind was knocked out of me.  But after a few minutes, or maybe more, I stood up and ever so slowly, returned to the house where I’d started the walk.  
 
Then I looked into a mirror, which was a mistake.  
 
This is because I saw that a chunk of my forehead had literally detached from my face.  Thankfully, a washcloth placed over the mess calmed me down a bit because then I didn’t have to look at it.
 
Luckily, my daughter was less than five minutes away, and talking incessantly, she drove over and rushed me to the nearest urgent care clinic.  On the way there, I called the Hubster and told him where to meet us.
 
As soon as the front office receptionist saw me, she immediately ushered us into an examination room. 
 
Here, I was told I was going to need stitches.  This did not sit well, because all I could picture was what I had seen in old movies: screaming children being held down by their parents while scowling doctors sewed them up.  But I didn’t tell anyone because I was trying to hold it together for my child’s sake (and my own).  
 
Forty-five minutes later, the physician came in. The Hubster had arrived by then, too, and held my hand while the doctor did what needed to be done.
 
This man was funny and kind, a retired surgical oncologist who was 73 years old and had spent most of his career putting soldiers back together at VA hospitals around the country.  But, he said, he liked to stay in practice, so he drove about five hours a couple of times a week from his home in Northern California to work at this clinic. 
 
What I appreciated most of all from him is that after I asked, he told me exactly what he was doing, step by step, no matter how mundane.   
 
So, I remained quiet while he explained how he was cleaning the wound, and what was in the cluster of numbing shots he was administering below my scalp line.  When the time came, the act of stitching me up felt only like prongs from a tiny fork, barely touching my head.  
 
After a tetanus shot and some basic instructions—change the band aid at least once a day; use Neosporin, and keep the wound clean—I got home.  I was also more than a little shook up when I realized how an ordinary walk could instantly become something way scarier.   
 
And yet, I’m blessed.
 
I didn’t black out.  I didn’t have a concussion.  I didn’t break any bones.  (After the accident, a friend told me about a friend of hers, who broke an arm and hand in 43 places after he fell.) 
 
Also, we knew that we’d need to pay whatever the cost was. 
 
But when the doctor saw I had no health insurance, he charged me the lowest tier the clinic offered—an
astounding $149. 
 
Then, upon hearing that the Hubster had once had to give his oldest daughter emergency stitches, this man gifted my spouse with a little kit—complete with metal clamp and scissors—to remove the stitches.  (“If you put them in, you can take them out,” he said cheerily.  Eight days later, while I sat perfectly still on a tall stool in our green and white kitchen, my husband did so.) 
 
I also decided that I wasn’t going to let a jumbo bandage and black eyes stop me from going on a vacation that had been in the works for months. 
​
So three days later, I hoped two planes to Chicago to meet a colleague.  We had a great time—even though I got more than a few stares.    
 
Since then, I’ve been applying Emu oil on my forehead to lessen the scarring.  It looks pretty good.  Arnica took care of the black eyes; those bruises are now nearly gone.   
 
As John Lennon once said, “Life is what happens while you are busy making other plans.”  
 
In this case, I accidentally took a small detour.   

I don’t wear jeans anymore.    
 
This realization hit the other day while sorting laundry.    
 
There were sweatshirts and tees that I wear for tops, as well as half a dozen pairs of solid color leggings.  Plus, there was a pile of my new favorite pants—patterned drawstring pajamas just right for yoga. Khakis, one black and the other olive green, already hung in the closet.    
 
But there wasn’t any denim. 
 
Those who didn’t come of age in the 1960s probably can’t know how odd it is to not own a single pair of jeans.
 
I was a teenager in the middle and latter part of that decade, and almost until its end, girls could wear only dresses and skirts at school.  But in ninth grade, the dress code loosened: we were allowed pants on Fridays.  Still, jeans weren’t in the mix—they were considered low brow and not appropriate student apparel.     
 
That changed in just a couple of years.
 
A photo in my high school yearbook for my junior year has a class president striding toward the camera in bell bottom jeans and a denim work shirt.  I got my first grown-up jeans around the same time, basic Levi's that were the darkest of indigo, retrieved from a neat stack at a discount department store.  Wearing them in class, they made me seem way cooler than I was, and somehow, officially part of a new generation determined to bend tradition.     
 
I’m sure I had more than a few pairs of jeans while clowning on the road and in college, first at UCLA and then San Jose State, but mostly I remember the long jeans skirt bought at a flea market in Alameda, across the bay from San Francisco.  It boasted a triangle cutaway in front with a Technicolor cartoon drawing of Dopey, one of the seven dwarfs from the classic Disney movie.  I loved that skirt.       
 
My other friends mostly wore plain jeans; they were cheap and lasted for years.  I’m sure that none of us knew this college uniform was invented neither for fashion nor protest.  Instead, jeans were designed for purely utilitarian purposes:  California gold rush miners in 1850 needed the sturdiest of pants that could withstand hard work, ground-in dirt and very little chance of tearing.  Thus, denim trousers were born.      
 
But by the time I graduated from college, in 1979, jeans were high fashion.   
 
I’d moved to New York City that year to be a magazine writer, and women there wore the wildly popular Jordache brand, made of thinner fabric than my first jeans, and costing an outrageous $50 per pair. 
 
Started by the four Naccache brothers in Manhattan a year earlier, these siblings had taken notice of the European denim market, where jeans were worn not for work, but for fashion. The brothers’ timing was on target: at the height of Jordache’s success, during the 1980s, the company was raking in an annual $300 million in wholesale income.    
 
But what I recall most about my jeans then was the absolute necessity of having perfect straight creases down the middle—two in front and two in back. 
 
My best friend Jeanette taught me how, using large sheets of damp newspaper and a hot iron.  I did this so often that my ironing board was on permanent display in my Brooklyn apartment.
 
The decades passed, which included returning to California and finding a career in Hollywood—writer for a public relations outfit whose biggest client was the Cannes Film Festival; reporting for the West Coast bureau of a British movie trade publication, and becoming a producer for a variety of reality television shows about ghosts, unsolved murders and UFOs.  I worked long hours at all of these jobs, and found myself wearing jeans less and less.
 
Perhaps this was because I was growing more contented in my skin, and to that end, found that comfort was now the main dictate for my clothing choices.  I was especially weary of those jeans that saw me sucking in my stomach and holding my breath to get them on.  Wearing airy drawstring pants and loose skirts was just easier. 
 
Last year, the end finally arrived.
 
I donated the one pair of jeans in my closet—which I hadn’t put on in more than five years—to a thrift store. 
 
These days, the closest I come to wearing denim are jeggings, which hug my body in all the right places, but are also comfy and stretchy.    
 
One should never say never.  But I’m happy to report that the denim train has departed from this Girl Clown station—and most likely, isn’t going to return.   
 
Do you remember your first pair of jeans?  

The secret to living longer is something I’ve done my whole life.

Friends already know that it can’t be a regular exercise routine.  The key also has little to do with refraining from smoking or drinking (although I’ve never done the former and rarely do the latter). It’s also not about eating more vegetables; staying out of debt, or finding a dream job.
 
It’s much simpler.
 
The answer is having a social life. 
 
This road to super longevity was summarized last year in a TED talk by Canadian psychologist Susan Pinker, a lecture that currently boasts more than two million hits. 
 
In her speech, Pinker describes the tiny Italian island of Sardinia.  Here, in a mountainous region that researchers have dubbed “the blue zone,” Pinker learned there are 10 times as many centenarians as those in North America.  It’s also the only place scientists know about where men live as long as women.
 
Why is this? 
 
Her curiosity piqued, Pinker and her daughter traveled to Sardinia for answers. 
 
They spent a lot of time interviewing families in cozy kitchens in Villagrande, a city in the middle of the zone. Dotted with multi-storied apartments built nearly on top of one another, the town’s hilly living quarters are also interconnected by narrow roads and alleyways.  It’s definitely a crowded layout, but because of that blueprint, everyone here knows everyone else.  
 
Pinker also observed that none of elderly residents followed a low fat diet (one centenarian prepared dozens of pasta packets, plump with rich cheese and mint, every weekend).  She also found that a happy-go-lucky personality wasn’t necessary for an extended life either (the grumpiest man in Villagrande was 101 years old). 
 
But what Pinker came away with was this: no one in Villagrande was left to lead a solitary life.
 
That lone fact, she concluded, was the strongest indicator for super longevity.    
 
Pinker goes on to say that one doesn’t have to relocate to Sardinia to get the same result.  Other studies, she adds, show that humans need only two close relationships to thrive.  These are the folks who will loan you money in a pinch; sit with you when you’re in the middle of a crisis, and bring you food when you’re sick. 
 
But there’s another predicator—more significant and perhaps more surprising—than having a few close chums.
 
And that’s daily, face-to-face contact with people who aren’t friends. 
 
This might mean handing letters to your mailman; thanking the teenager who’s bagging groceries, or waving to the woman with the beautiful garden down the street.  Talking is great, but eye contact is good, too. 
 
The reason these casual interactions is so important is this: they release all kinds of terrific brain chemicals which encourage longevity. On this list is oxytocin, the naturally produced morphine known to decrease stress levels, and dopamine, which gives off a buzz of happiness.  (Also, this can only happen when contact is in person, and never online.)     
Since I’m an inquisitive extrovert, connecting on this level is easy.   
 
But I also know that this way of navigating the world can be extraordinarily difficult for those who suffer from paralyzing shyness, or others burned one too many times by folks they thought were friends.  Being female is also a plus, since women tend to communicate with each other more, and also reach out for emotional support more than men do.  (Pinker thinks this is also the primary reason females live six to eight years longer than males.)
 
As for me, I’m happy to learn that just being who I am may help me live longer. 
 
It’s also gratifying to know this: every connection, no matter how small, counts. 

​I had a conversation with a stranger the other day, and I’m glad I did.
 
Doing so was safe.  It was a sunny afternoon and I was pumping gas into my compact silver SUV.  A vehicle pulled up behind mine, and the driver got out of his car to fill up, too. 
 
He was wearing camouflage green Army fatigues.  I waited until I caught his eye.  “Thank you for your service,” I said.
 
There was a beat.  “Oh,” he replied.  “Thank you.  I really appreciate you saying that.”
 
As I drove away, I wondered how often soldiers are approached by unknown civilians like me, saying those five words.  I hope it’s a lot—especially when I also recalled how rare it was for Vietnam vets to hear this greeting.  Instead, many came home to angry protestors spitting on them and calling them baby killers. 
 
I hope we never again engage in a war so divisive and unpopular.   Although I’m not a fan of armed conflict (I like the bumper sticker that reads I’m Already Against the Next War), our soldiers deserve to hear that we support them. 
 
That’s because while I may not agree with the cause, these fearless folks are still serving our country in situations that, at best, are intensely boring and monotonous.  At worst, they’re stationed in the sketchiest parts of the world, where they could be killed in an instant.      
 
But mostly, soldiers deserve my respect because they’re brave in other ways that most of us never have to be. 
 
Perhaps, early on, they saw no viable future in the hardscrabble communities—places including the South Side of Chicago; Native American reservations in the Dakotas, and hollers in West Virginia—where they were born and raised. The military offers these populations a way to get out.    
 
And there are other reasons, probably more common than we think.  
 
Rob Scheer is the founder of Comfort Cases, a Maryland-based non-profit that gifts new backpacks, blankets and books to foster kids.  But when he was 18 years old, a high school senior and newly kicked out of the foster system himself, Scheer found himself homeless.
 
He signed up for the Navy.  “I didn’t join the military because I loved my country,” he says.  “I was going in it because I was hungry, I was cold, I was scared, and I had nowhere to go.” 
 
Women might have other motives. 
 
Maybe they’re escaping an abusive boyfriend, father or husband.  Or perhaps not college bound, they see dead end futures as fast food workers and receptionists.  In fact, a 2017 Pew Research Center report states that 15 percent of our active personnel are women, up four points from 1990.   
 
Then, there’s this.
 
Years before same sex marriage was legal, I knew two Air Force veterans, both lesbians (although not a couple).  By the time I’d had met them, they’d already figured out that being supported by a man wasn’t ever going to be in their picture.  So they joined the service and were taught skills that turned into well-paying jobs after leaving the military.  
 
Another demographic, and it’s a growing one, is middle class young men and women who want to attend a university, but don’t want crippling student loan debt. 
 
That’s where the GI Bill comes in: created in 1944, it provides up to three years of education while a soldier is on active duty.  Veterans can also take advantage of the bill, because funding is good for 15 years following military release.  This means that with careful planning, a serviceman can obtain an undergraduate degree with zero debt.  Those who take advantage of the program are obligated to serve for four years in exchange for tuition, but it’s still a good deal. 
 
The back stories of how and why our military personnel came to wear their uniforms are as unique as each soldier. 
 
None of us can ever know every story.   As for me, I’ll just thank a soldier whenever I can. 
 
It’s the least I can do.   

I’m living in a state of organized chaos.
 
The disarray is due to the home improvement projects that have been going on around here for a while.  Still, after looking at a timeline of the upgrades, I was stunned to see that we’ve been living this way for more than year. 
 
I’d be happier with the mess if that’s all there was to it.  
 
But every cause has an effect, and when it comes to remodeling our house, I’ve noticed that The Hubster and I are grouchier, and more annoyed with each other, than we were before this odyssey started.
 
This makes sense: who doesn’t get crabby when one’s stuff has to be packed away in boxes for an indeterminate amount of time?  Who isn’t annoyed when strangers stride into one’s home with rolls of masking tape, loud drills and stained
drop cloths?      
 
As it turns out, we’re like a lot of couples whose living quarters are in transition.
 
According to Iowa marriage counselor Don Gilbert, remodeling a home can be “the most stressful activity a married couple can engage in.”  Gilbert added that the undertaking brings out “all of the components that couples stress over—money, multiple decisions, and different preferences.”   Indeed, a survey by the home improvement website Houzz noted that more than half of the respondents reported that renovating was one of the most frustrating and taxing periods in their marriages.  
 
Needless to say, I didn’t read this before all of the work began.
 
Instead, I made the first project a big one.
 
I’d decided that my vintage linoleum and yellow cement floors needed to go. The cement was the most troublesome: it
​had been painted by someone who promised that she knew how to apply the right polish to give the gray surface an iridescent shine.  The work was done while I was away; when I returned home, the floor was flat yellow and the paint already peeling. 
 
This meant I was ready for a big change—even though furniture was shoved into the kitchen and yard; there was loud pounding for hours, and big trucks in our driveway.  But the end result was worth it: chocolate colored acrylic planks that I don’t have to clean on my hands and knees.

​Next was the outside of the house.  The once bright blue coat of paint had faded to half the original color (brushes hadn’t touched this exterior in more than 15 years), and the garage door wasn’t looking so hot either.  The latter was egged months ago, and no matter how often The Hubster cleaned it, the stains never completely came off.  Now there’s another door, and my house is a cheery yellow and white.   
 
There’s also a new driveway of snow white pebbles; screens on previously naked windows, and a stove that doesn’t need a match to light it.  The tilted wood fence is upright now, with a matching gate next to it. Faucets and a shower door
have been replaced, and new lighting, vents and grout are in the bathrooms.  At the moment, the entire interior is
​being painted.   
 
Life will be better by spring, when the last major upgrades should be done. The grimy kitchen cupboards will be sanded and repainted, and the wood floors in the office, hallway and living room will be polished back to their original shine.  
 
I’m finally seeing a light at the end of the tunnel.
 
Meanwhile, The Hubster and I hope that we’ll make it out alive.
   

​I don’t have gray hair.
 
Put another way, I color my hair.  I feel younger and more confident doing so, and really, does anyone need to know that my once dark locks are now nearly all white?  
 
This color game isn’t new.  It first took root—pun intended—in my 30s, when I saw that my hair was turning the same yellowish, dirty white as my mother’s.  Just like me, she dyed her hair.  But unlike me, mom bought her color at the grocery store, and made her hair brunette at the kitchen table.  
 
I can still see one of her friends doing the deed—unwrapping flimsy plastic gloves that came with the dye package; assembling the concoction in a big yellow Pyrex bowl, and slathering the dark paste on my mom’s scalp.  Half an hour later, the stuff was rinsed out to reveal neither shine nor highlights, but a dull and even brown.  That was good enough.
 
I’m in a different circus tent.  
 
When I was on the road clowning, before there were any gray strands, my hair was curly and frosted, leaving tiny swirls of platinum blonde.  It gave me the funny appearance I wanted; it also meant that I didn’t need a wig.  Then, after
the discovery of my mom’s color peeking through my own head, I attempted a DIY henna look. That didn’t go well:
a boyfriend said it looked as if I poured red paint on my scalp.
 
Since then, I’ve gone to professionals.  My current colorist—who has trimmed and straightened my hair, too—is also a friend, which means I trust her. 
 
At an appointment a couple of years ago, I noticed that she’d given herself blue bang tips.  My first thought was that
this might be A Very Good Look for a clown, so, I decided to go for it.  Since then, I’ve had bright green bangs
(now cringe worthy because they’re front and center on my current passport photograph) and turquoise (which
​faded after a few weeks).  
 
Right now, I have three colors—the dark brown tint, which covers most of my hair, and on the bangs and a bit on each side of my face, magenta and violet. It’s another fun look, so I’m decided to keep it for a while. 
 
This, in spite of the fact that for the last couple of years, going gray has become the in thing to do. 
 
These women include my hairdresser, who ditched the blue, finding that she preferred a more unaffected look because it required less maintenance.  But she’s also more than 10 years younger than me, so it’s really a salt and pepper color.  The mayor of an adjacent town has also gone au natural, commenting on Facebook that “Every strand of silver is somehow one tiny step closer to becoming more me.”  Too, there are celebrities who have purposely made their hair gray, including Kelly Osbourne, Lady Gaga and Hilary Duff.
 
I’m not there yet.
 
Instead, I’m thankful that I can turn my hair any color, or combinations of color, that I want.  Heck, I may even go rainbow.  It might also mean that someday, I’ll opt for that festive yellow-white hue. 
 
But I doubt it.  

Social media keeps me sane, focused and determined.
 
Given that I’m a writer, and on a laptop every day, some folks may be surprised to learn that I used to have zero interest in social media.
 
The fact of the matter is that I was blissfully happy without any of it. 
 
Well into the 1990s, I read newspapers to see what was going on around the world.  For work, I carried around a narrow reporter’s notebook, and did my research at libraries, where I scrounged through reference books, microfiche
and magazines.
 
I didn’t learn how to email until 1998, when I accepted a job where the task was forced on me. I immediately took to it.
 
I loved email.  I no longer needed to send a letter to make contact, or even pick up a phone to communicate. I no longer worried about time differences.  Best of all, I could do interviews this way, which gave my subject time to formulate thoughtful responses to my questions
 
Still, old ways die hard.
 
Maybe that’s why I didn’t join Facebook until more than a decade later.
 
Even then, the site seemed to be a massive time thief; who cared about the cutest kitten, or how to make easy pizza crust?  But during one week in 2009, five folks I knew sent me invites to “friend” them. 
 
I took that as a sign, and took the plunge.  
 
Quickly, I figured out that Facebook was another way to not only do research, but to find new stories and clients.  I was also able to reconnect with folks from my past—a sixth grade classmate who always sat in the back of the room, where he incessantly sketched hot rods; a dear friend who helped me navigate New York City, and relatives I hadn’t seen in decades.
 
Almost as an afterthought, it also became a platform for trading opinions and links with like-minded people. 
 
Yet, I only got on Twitter three years ago. 

There was just one reason to do so: it was a way to promote this writing blog.  It still is, but also, I could “follow” folks whose opinions and expertise are those that I trust and admire. 
 
These persons—John Dean, Maggie Haberman and Michael Avenatti among them—have the background, resources and experience which, every day, are helping me navigate our troubling times. 
 
Their tweets often make me angry and sad, but sometimes, hopeful. That’s all okay, because I also see that millions of others feel the same, and like me, are working hard to effect change.  Just knowing this keeps me sane.
 
Right now, I don’t feel the need to join Instagram or Snapchat, sites that my 20-year-old daughter prefers. 
 
Maybe it’s because there’s enough information on Facebook and Twitter to keep me determined to fight as hard as I can for our country. 
 
Don’t misunderstand me: I’d love to get back to writing posts about puppies and recipes and vacations (and occasionally, I still do).  For now, though, I will keep up with news that, in these astonishing times, is often difficult to comprehend.  I’ll also continue to share and retweet important information, because the bottom line is that it’s my duty as
​an American.    
 
Thanks to social media, my activism has soared. 
 
For this, I am grateful.