Movie Star Magic

a lagniappe while I've been away

Welcome readers, old and new! I evidently neglected to hit the proper buttons to send this post to you; blame it on vacation brain. Here (I hope) it is.

Please don’t forget to hit the ❤️ button to remind all parents of surly teens that empathy is contagious.

By the time you read this, I will have returned to the U.S. from a quick trip to spend a couple of weeks with family in Tokyo. I’d been in LA for a wedding and it seemed foolish not to hop over to Japan from there. That’s a joke; I can’t explain the geographic glitch that makes the flight from LA to Tokyo almost as long it is from New York—but for this trip, I pretended it wasn’t.

Anyway, for the first time in three years, I’ve taken a week off from these posts. But I can’t stand the idea of not giving you something. First, here’s a link to an essay I wrote many years ago, of which I was recently reminded by a new reader’s comment. Rereading the story, it seems like the seedling of what has flowered into HNTFUYF.

And then—because I’ve been thinking about the importance of respecting other people’s choices even when you don’t agree with them—I’m sharing an essay I wrote years ago for Slate. My son, now 40, still maintains he made the right decision for himself. Me, I continue to dream of a Hollywood life… 🎥 🎥 🎥

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