The older I get, the stranger some things from long ago seem

This is me, October 31, 1981.  It was my 20th birthday.  (My mom always got me a Halloween-themed birthday cake.)   I have a good memory of this day.  No longer a teenager, I got a pretty short haircut and Mom told me I looked like a man.  It really meant a lot to hear that.

I was dating someone my age named Charlotte who I really, REALLY cared about.  She took me to dinner at Pizza Hut, and then we went to see a movie.  Two pictures were playing:  Arthur with Dudley Moore, and Only When I Laugh with Marsha Mason & Kristy McNichol.

Charlotte wanted to see Arthur, I didn't.  I saw the trailer and didn't think there was anything funny about someone who was drunk all the time.  (45 years later, I've still never seen it.)   I remember telling Charlie "C'mon, Marsha Mason is great!  I loved her in The Goodbye Girl!"  

Since it was my birthday, she said okay.  Afterwards she said something along the lines that it was a lame movie and I remember thinking she was right.  

The reason I'm sharing this is because a few days ago I came across the movie on The Roku Channel, and realized I hadn't seen it since the night of my birthday, almost 45 years ago.  I couldn't even remember what it was about, so I put it on.

In a nutshell, Marsha Mason is a stage actor who is coming home from a 3 month rehab stay for alcoholism, and her estranged daughter (Kristy McNichol) wants to move in with her for her senior year of high school.

Without giving away the ending, it's a pretty tough film and doesn't have a "happily ever after" ending--but it does have a bittersweet, very honest one.

So the whole time I sat here watching it in the present... our culture was so different then.  I wasn't feeling any sense of nostalgia.  More like a sense of wonder.

In the opening scene, Marsha is leaving an upscale rehab clinic in the country.  She fumbles out a cigarette and lights it, and will begin every scene in the movie lighting a cigarette or smoking a cigarette.  Every single one.  No exceptions.  She kisses the row of white doctors and thanks them, hugs the row of white nurses and thanks them, waves goodbye to the row of black housekeepers and shouts "Thanks for smuggling in that rumcake for me, girls!"   

She's so madcap! 😏 Her upper East Side, wealthy best friend Joan Hackett is waiting to take her back to the city.  (Sadly, Joan died of ovarian cancer just 2 years after making this picture.)   

While driving her Cadillac in Marsha's neighborhood, Joan sees kids playing in the street and says "Why must you live someplace with all these children?"  Madcap Marsha puffs on her cigarette and says "Because I've got a 2 bedroom sublet for $300 a month from Mary Todd Lincoln that I'm keeping till the day I die!"  

Marsha is so funny.. and wow, 300 bucks for a 2 bedroom apartment in the city.

Meanwhile, Marsha's best gay friend James Coco is arranging flowers in her apartment and fluffing pillows, when a smirking Latino grocery boy delivers 2 paper sacks of groceries.  In one bag you see a one liter bottle of TAB Cola and red carton of Marlboro cigarettes.  The delivery boy tells James Coco it's $14.28.  James is shocked--for two bags of groceries??

James Coco put out bagels and cream cheese for Marsha's triumphant return

I forgot to mention that while in rehab, Marsha lost 35 pounds.  When James opens the door and hugs her, he yells "Where is your ass--WHERE IS YOUR ASS!!"  Madcap Marsha flings her luggage down and says "I packed it away in one of my suitcases just for you, I knew you'd miss it!" 

Anyway, in the days that follow Marsha meets up with estranged daughter Kristy McNichol and is talked into letting Kristy move in with her.  Kristy is not madcap, in fact she's quite the opposite.  

"Someday when I grow up" Marsha tells her daughter "I want to be just like you."  Not exactly what a kid wants to hear from their mother.

That first night, Kristy comes into Marsha's bedroom and asks if they can have a mother daughter chat.  Marsha takes off her reading glasses, puts down the script she was reading and invites her into her bed.  

You can't see it in the photo above, but when Kristy begins talking, Marsha reaches over on her nightstand for her pack of Marlboros and lights one up.  Smoking in bed?  Yep, we all did.  With your kid right beside you breathing that secondhand smoke?  Yep, we all did.

I don't want to give away the rest of the picture, but in one scene where Marsha falls asleep on her living room sofa during the late show, she wakes up and fumbles around, looking for something.  "Where's my cigarettes?"   She slips on her shoes and exits the building and looks for an open business but can only find a bar.  Ducking down, she enters and puts 55 cents into the cigarette machine and pulls the knob--nothing comes out.  She yells "GIMME MY CIGARETTES!" and pounds the top of the vending machine.

The bartender says "Lady, stop beating on my machine!  How much money did you put in there?"  She yells back "TWELVE DOLLARS!"  The bar patrons erupt in laughter.  

A pack of Marlboros in New York will now run you $18.00.

A letter from Shelley and taking things day by day

I occasionally get emails from people who read or have seen my blog and want to offer some advice, or share their own experiences.  Yesterday I got this email from someone named Shelley:

I’m sorry to read about your long covid Doug I’ve had long covid for six years. As a nurse I got it in my lungs in 2020 while working a Covid wing. In that time it took everything from me. Short of breath today as I speak my lungs burn but it comes and goes. But when it hits hard I want my life to end. I get so depressed. Before covid I loved to dance and exercised all the time. Now I work part time with severe neuropathy caused from Covid. I’ll smile through any symptom except for the shortness of breath it gives me and when I feel inflammation in my brain, the dark thoughts it gives me. What did help was antihistamine and Prilosec. That was a game changer but sadly it wasn’t a cure. Take care and good Luck Doug. Shelley.

I know this wasn't a pleasant read, I'm sorry about that.  I don't know this woman, but my heart still broke for her while reading it.  I totally get it, the anxiety, depression, the dark thoughts.  I earnestly pray for a miracle for Shelley.  (Shelley if you're reading this and want to talk, contact me.)

For all the blogging I've done about this, and sharing with friends, it's still something you pretty much suffer with alone.  I am coming up on the one year anniversary of the return of my long covid, and it didn't make sense the first time I had it, and even less sense now.

I suffered with this for 18 months--from January 2024 to late May 2025--before it began fading for good.  Aside from a 20 minute episode almost daily last summer, and a scary 4 day relapse in July, by late August 2025 I considered it pretty much over.

 (Late August was also the time I got plantar fascitis in both feet, and I had a real temper tantrum over that.  I should've been thanking my maker that the long covid symptoms were gone.)

When I made that dental appointment to get one cavity filled (not the 5 or 6 that shyster claimed needed drilled into and filled) I was 100% certain I was LC free.  He saw me on September 4 for x-rays and a very, very intense cleaning with scrapers and a rotating sand wheel that lasted over an hour and I was STILL absolutely fine the next day.  

It's when I went back on September 11 and he began that drilling, injecting 3 shots of lidocaine into my face and then that one injection of articaine, that did it.  I'm convinced that articaine was the "trigger" for the return of the long covid.  It sent me nearly all the way back to square one.

Anyway, it's been nearly a year now and I get glimpses of hope--but they never seem to last too long.  I was very, very fortunate last Wednesday when I was able to go on that lunch outing at the senior center.  While waiting for the Access shuttle to arrive, my dear friend Mary came in and we got to chat for awhile.  It felt so much like old times.  

But later that night, when I called my friend Diana to tell her about the day, the right side of my face was hurting so badly I had to cut our conversation short.

I look back on this past summer, spending those 8 days in the hospital, the 2 surgeries, the at-home physical therapy and rehab for walking and breathing, I'm almost surprised how successfully that all turned out.  So why can't this?   

I have to believe this isn't going to last forever, it just needs time.  But I'm turning 65 in 2 months and time isn't something I have in abundance.  Okay I'm done, just needed to get this off my chest.  Thanks as always for letting me share.

PS.  I'm finishing up a more lighthearted post I'll be sharing here real soon, I hope you dig it! 

The Laddie in Red and a trip to Carmody's Grille

Today was my second senior outing since last September, a restaurant trip to Carmody's Grille on Neville Island.  

I've been dealing with some oral inflammation these last couple weeks, but had to get out and be with people.  So I filled my pocket with Ricola Mouth Lozenges and off I went.

When I got to the center, they were taking votes on future restaurant outings.  I was excited to vote on a couple places like PF Changs & Mister Lee's, only to see them get shot down in favor of Chili's and Cracker Barrel.  I don't know if I'll be going, these older people are in the majority and keep opting for the same tired places.  

My votes never count, and darn it I'm craving some Chinese!

Anyway, today's lunch was nothing spectacular but the company is always great, it's a nice group of people.  I even had a fun, friendly conversation with "Barb Wire", a short-tempered woman I wrote about on here a year ago.  

Not much to share here, just a few photos.

On my way to the Senior Center, I saw they got a pretty groovy electronic sign out front.  Nice!

Here's Carmody's Grille, on Neville Island.  It's a pretty bleak area but nice inside

My boy Dennis told the waitress  "I want an order of cheese balls, an order of lemon pepper chicken wings, an order of garlic parmesan chicken wings, I want onion rings, a double Bloody Mary, an Alabama Slammer, a Reuben sandwich with french fries, a Hot Sausage sandwich with fries and slaw, a bowl of your famous Turtle Soup for here, and a bowl to take home!"  

Here he is getting started with his soup and appetizers, before they bring his entrees

Here was my Reuben & Coke.  The fries weren't great, but the sandwich was very, very hot (just the way I like it) and very fresh

My bill came to $16.00 and Dennis was $173.00!  (His drinks alone were $40.00.)  I also have to say we had the kindest waitress I've ever met.  She asked each of our names at the start, and remembered them throughout.  

On our way out I told her how much I appreciated her great service and she said "Thank you I'm finally getting the hang of this place--I just started my 40th year here a week ago!"