* I blame the public school system of Florida of the 1970s, where science education wasn’t as important as a class required to graduate high school titled “Americanism Versus Communism.”
* Many artists have been fascinated by Akhenaten, including Philip Glass, whose opera based on the pharaoh’s life received its New York premiere on my birthday, November 4, in 1984. It had to be a sign! We found it so migraine-inducing that we skipped out and went for cheeseburgers.
* The only person that I told about my interest in the eighteenth dynasty was Martin Scorsese. After I auditioned for The Last Temptation of Christ, we struck up a short-lived friendship based on a mutual interest in that time period and he sent me a book on the subject. I left the reincarnation part out of our conversations.
* I “neglected” to tell Jeff about being in communication with UFOs until fifteen years into our marriage.
* It never occurred to me at the time, but in hindsight, it does seem significant that none of the Council members had children.
* That’s the passage you learn to read from the Torah for your Bar or Bat Mitzvah.
* Seventeen percent of seniors in America suffer food insecurity, which makes me really happy that at least bubbies get dessert after services—reason enough to join a temple.
* This subject has been tackled by numerous writers, most memorably Edward Zuckerman in The New York Times, who at last count had seventeen deceased entries, but no one has come up with an acceptable ratio of dead-to-living contacts.
* Dad told Mom he was going to a golf tournament, but a credit card bill told the story of a hotel room and an escort service. She donated his golf clubs to a local thrift shop while he was at a casino. Unfortunately, she can’t remember if this happened last month or last year.
* I wonder if there’s ever a time when friends say, “You know, I’m going to forgo that place that serves sushi and settle for tacos and better company.” I hope so, because I have a few friends I’d like to grow old with.
* Saint Augustine argued that the flaws in our world are God’s challenge to us. Also, that pesky free will thwarts the perfection of life on earth. Still not buying the intelligent design argument.
* If you’re looking to kick organized religion to the curb, consider that Justin Bieber just had a cross tattooed on his face.
* One of the hallmarks of urban tribes, subcultures, and families is shared common language. We secular folks have in-jokes and if someone mentions Sam or Richard, we know they mean our guys Harris and Dawkins.
* Leonard Nimoy, Spock, played a pivotal role in the show.
* First there were plastic water bottles, followed by stainless and glass, and now you can’t buy one, no, you have to have an artisanal water container. Can everyone be buying so much jam that they have jam jars to spare? I’m dubious.
* That’s the unofficial mascot of some atheists who liken worshipping God to pledging allegiance to pasta. Legislation to make it an official religion to worship his divine Noodleship was introduced but ultimately failed in South Dakota.
* Freedom from Religion receives many calls from young people and often counsels teenagers not to identify if doing so might compromise their future—for instance, by costing them funding for their education.
* I also don’t want to demonize them. I think of Dawkins as my beloved but dotty uncle when he says impolitic things. The Dawkins Foundation just merged with the Center for Inquiry, making them atheism central. In 2016, they raised fifty thousand dollars to extract activists and writers from Bangladesh who’ve been targeted for death by militant Islamists. Huzzah!
* The practical effect is that there are fewer stimulating services for the still mobile in the building.
* “Out trips” is the lingo for excursions to concerts and the ballet. It sounds like prison lingo to me, but it’s amazing how quickly phrases normalize into your vocabulary.
* I wound up with a ring given to my grandmother by Jack LaLanne’s European Health Spas, in honor of her lifetime membership. It’s twelve-karat gold. Can you imagine your gym giving you a gold ring?
* I have to give it up to my dad; he is the first resident of the Gardens to venture into the Haitian market.
* Nothing is more frightening for the residents than losing their mobility and being in a “chair”—that’s Gardens lingo for “wheelchair.” In prison lingo “chair” is the electric chair, which for some Gardens folk would be preferable to their “chair,” which portends a slow decline instead of a more desirable quick demise.
* For an industry trying to go legit, I’m not convinced my local dispensary is doing themselves any favors selling “medicine” labeled Blue Space Zombie Resin or Pineapple Trainwreck, although it would be more fun to call in a refill for Yoda’s Brain than duloxetine, my antidepressant.
* Who was more naïve? Me, assuming they were smoking the joints as well, or them, assuming that the only pot I was smoking was their stash?
* If that psychic’s prediction were accurate, a camera would have been rolling, because this performance was Academy Award worthy.
Wherever You Go, There They Are Page 26
