Sometimes I talk about Obama and Jewish dietary law
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Sometimes I go on the radio and talk about false fish
Sometimes I end up on The Daily Show talking about eating horses
Sometimes I get shirty about bourbon
Sometimes I talk about eating horsemeat
Sometimes I talk about eating dirt
Sometimes I talk about false food
Sometimes I write about marriage equality
Sometimes I turn 40
I was always certain that I’d have my life worked out by the time I was 40. I’d somehow magically awake on my 40th birthday filled with the wisdom of the ages: a solid financial plan, inner peace and a tastefully appointed yet attractive wardrobe that wouldn’t just make me feel like I was playing dress-up at work.
As it happened, I did wake up that August morning possessed of new insight — mostly about how mortifyingly delicious birthday-cake-flavored vodka turned out to be, and how hangovers come on harder and stronger as the years pass. I shut the blinds and went back to sleep. An old lady needs her rest.
No one under 38 really considers what 40 and beyond is going to look like for them. They plot the ambitious beginning (“I’m going to become a successful ___”) and the triumphant denouement (“Then I’ll retire with my beloved partner and we’ll spend our well-funded free time by ___”). But they gloss over the mushy middle, where all the day-to-day doing happens.
Read “Lordy lordy, look who’s 40” on CNN Living
Sometimes I try to break your heart
Fiona Apple’s recent decision to postpone her South American tour to stay home with her elderly and ailing dog may have caused some upset among her fans, but she’s won a whole pack of new ones who thoroughly support and understand that decision all too well. I am one of them.
Mordred told us when it was time for him to go. I’d always heard that a suffering animal would do that, but he was my first dog, and I was thoroughly unprepared for how clear and desperate that message would be.
“Mordred” was a massive name for a mammoth dog, the Irish Wolfhound my now-husband owned when I met him. He became mine also, and I his — so fiercely that he escorted me down the aisle when Douglas and I wed a year and half later. We were not always so gracefully aligned.
The night I met Mordred, he tried to kill me. I tried not to take it personally, as he was being a good dog protecting his Dad from the strange lady who’d apparently come over to eat his face. It was our second date, and I was deeply enamored of the notion that in New York City, I’d found an attractive, single, straight 30-something man with the wherewithal to be responsible for the welfare of two animals who had to be escorted outside to poop.
Read Lean on me: Loving and losing a dog on CNN Living