Welcome readers, old and new!
Please hit the ❤️ above to discover some astonishing news about baby-making.
If you spend the summer in sandals (I do) and you’re a marathon-type walker (I am), the likelihood that your dogs are raggedy is probably high. My semi-annual visit to the podiatrist—had you asked me a couple of years ago whether I see a podiatrist, I would’ve (politely) scoffed—began with the good doctor wincing when she looked at my painful, cracked heels.
She advised I order myself a tube of 40% urea cream, which I did. Massaging no more than the suggested pea size amount into my heels (extreme stickiness ensues with a more liberal application), I then slipped on a pair of toeless socks before climbing into bed. Only a couple of nights later, I’m sporting the kind of pink, silky heels you typically find on a six-month-old. Fine—not quite, but the difference is extraordinary. I’ve now started with a pea size amount on my hands before bed and I’m seeing similar results. Two (very smooth) thumbs up!
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From the Department of Life’s a Bitch and Then You Die: The New Scientist newsletter reports on a recent study contradicting a previous finding that we experience happiness in a U-shape curve, with peaks in both the beginning and end of life. Researchers at the University of Munich now claim that happiness generally declines slowly throughout adulthood until your late 50s, when it begins to tick upwards until 64 before dropping dramatically—for good. If you’re old enough for Medicare, you don’t want to see the chart. It’s a steep tumble into despair after 70.
One of the researchers, Fabian Kratz, attributed incorrect conclusions in the first study to the idea that researchers oversimplified the trajectory of happiness, partly by ignoring deaths brought about by suicide or ill health. “You get the impression that after a certain age, happiness would increase only because the unhappy people are already dead,” he says. (I get the impression Kratz is a glass half empty kind of guy.)
The study looked at self-reported happiness statistics for 70,922 adults in Germany between 1984 and 2017. Might these people simply have had a bad couple of decades? You know, unification problems after the fall of the Berlin Wall, rise of far-right factions, lousy economic conditions, etc.? I’d like to see a similar study conducted among 70,922 adults in Finland, where though the old might be cold, they’re probably better cared for. Bottom-line on self-reported happiness studies: Whatever.
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Some months ago I mentioned that a friend visiting from LA had come to my place for dinner, where we found ourselves tugging down our pants to reveal the state of our thighs (you had to be there).
Last week, this friend, Pam Redmond—an entrepreneur and a novelist (she wrote, among other things, the book on which the TV series Younger is based)—performed a play she wrote called Old Woman Naked. Pam, of course, was the old woman naked. (When she first told me about the play, I said, “Have you completely thought this through? I’m scared for you.”) Wearing a track suit in what appeared to be a locker room, she talked movingly about living in a female body for 72 years, while removing one piece of clothing after another, till she stood proudly in her birthday suit. “We all talk about our bodies,” she said, “but we don’t look at them. I want us to be able to see ourselves without judgment, and with love for our vulnerabilities.” The theater was packed; the cheers, lusty.
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If you’re interested in all things hair-related—why we obsess over it, how to handle thinning, what makes a style attractive (or not)—tune in to what will surely be a lively discussion between me and Oldster Magazine’s Sari Botton TODAY at 3 pm ET. We might even be able to take a few questions. Here’s the link to join us.
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