What has been keeping me busy is the novel I’m writing. It’s a comedic fiction story featuring women over 50. No dragons, sorry. I just finished the first draft and am working on the first revision now. Today I think it’s really good. Tomorrow, I’ll probably think the opposite. But I’ve been working with my friend and book coach extraordinaire who has been incredibly helpful. She’s the wonderful person that edited my middle-grade book Ginger Mancino, Kid Comedian, and I highly recommend checking her out if you need help on your book project. (Her Substack is also a wealth of info.)

Since I live in Texas, I’ve also been doing some protesting this summer. It’s the only way I get any exercise lately so luckily it’s also 150 degrees every day. Here I am with my great friend Meredith, who has a wonderful must-read book out right now called Be Yourself and Other Bad Advice that’s perfect for the young women in your life.

I’m also writing a few articles that I’m excited about for the fall. Including a story that will involve me wearing a corset, dear lord. My Texas Monthly piece about my adventures in adult summer camp is finally out and you can read it here.

Now let’s talk about flirting. The other day my friend Tara, who is single, told me that her friend Jane has been encouraging her to flirt more. She said, “We were at a high school football game, and Jane went up to the snack stand and said to the guys working there, ‘What’s a girl gotta do to get a hamburger around here?’ and then they all smiled and chatted with her.”

“So did you try it?” I asked.

“I don’t have any part of my body that could ever even get close to doing that. I’m more likely to say something like, ‘Is that Trump’s mystery meat from Argentina I see there on the grill, boys?’”

I get it. I also don’t have the flirting gene, so it’s a good thing I’ve been married for 34 years. Our version of flirting is making fun of each other for tripping on cat toys. But I encouraged Tara to test out a few lines so she’s prepared the next time she’s in a super sensual place like a high school snack stand.

Unfortunately, between the two of us, the best we could come up with was, “Have you had any recent E. coli outbreaks in town?” Could be a good way to meet an infectious disease specialist, I guess.

Thanks for reading and more soon!

—Wendi

“I know,” he muttered, “But unlike the rest of this boat, I’m not up for FaceTiming someone on speakerphone and yelling about the sunset right now. I just want to enjoy my weird snack and terrible wine and look at old stuff.”

We’d started the hour and a half long cruise hoping for a respite from the Portugal heat and crowds, but that turned out to be as out of reach as me not eating another piece of Iberian ham. The boat was packed with passengers far more interested in talking about themselves than about the landmarks and wonders unfolding in front of us.

“May I ask you another question?” the 36-year-old nurse from Arizona whose father died before she could reach peace with him about why she left the Mormon church when she was just 18 asked the 65-year-old former insurance company employee from Alberta who’d just hiked the Portuguese Camino de Santiago and was currently on the outs with one of her sons who was a heavy weed smoker but that’s okay because he has a decent job for now and anyway she’s a way more lenient mother than her own mother who always made her wear dresses. “What do you see when you look into my eyes?”

“Hmmm, probably wisdom!” screamed the Canadian. “Let’s take a selfie with your husband!”

This chatty threesome, who we never once talked with ourselves, mind you, was immediately behind us on the boat, and by all accounts didn’t seem to remember that they’d paid for a sightseeing tour. Maybe they’d signed up for a “Loudly Ask a Stranger Intimate Questions in English” tour. Who knows. But because there wasn’t any other place else to sit besides on the boat captain’s lap, we were held hostage to their non-stop exposition and fun facts.

“I have a really great jawline,” Arizona Nurse announced while we chugged under the breathtaking Ponte 25 de Abril suspension bridge that spans the Tagus River. A bridge that her husband and the Canadian didn’t see because they were preoccupied by looking at a jaw covered in streaky bronzer. “They wanted me to model.”

“Model what?” Chris hissed in my ear, before taking a slug of Portugal’s unfinest white wine.

“Shoes?” I shrugged. “Hands? Remember she had that medical issue back in 2002 so probably not lingerie.”

Our 11 days in Madrid, Seville, and Lisbon last month were wonderful, of course, but we also felt like we were on a big field trip with our American classmates. Americans were everywhere. I know, you can’t complain about the problem if you’re part of what’s causing the problem. But we pride ourselves on keeping our big mouths shut when we’re out and about in a foreign city. We’re polite. We know how to use AirPods. We communicate with each other at a conversational level. We do all of that because we want to hear the local language and sounds and immerse ourselves in the culture we may not ever experience again. Unlike the middle-aged woman dressed in Chico’s finest who chugged past me in the charming city of Sintra while bellowing to her husband.

The juxtaposition of being surrounded by gorgeous Jacaranda trees and centuries old palaces while hearing,“If she cuts me off one more fucking time, I’m going to FUCKING LOSE IT” yelled in a New Jersey accent is something even Rick Steves wouldn’t wish on his worst enemy. (Also, if you’re a cruise ship passenger named Janice, watch your back, girl, and stop cutting people off.)

Too much English wasn’t the issue when we found ourselves in a cafe off the beaten path in Seville. The loud table in the place was a group of drunk Spanish women who I’d maybe have found hilarious if I’d stuck with my Duolingo and understood the jokes. They were shouting, and laughing, and having a grand old time, much to the delight of our Sevillian server.

We were not much to her delight.

She reluctantly turned away from enjoying the fiesta table, and trudged over to take our order like it truly pained her. We tried our best to order in Spanish and said, “gracias” and smiled, but she wanted nothing to do with us. Yes, I know we’re used to Texan servers named Jordan who excitedly ask, “What can I get y’all started with today? Some of our famous deep fried cheese sticks with dippin’ sauce?” but it was still jarring.

“Does she hate us because we’re American?” I quietly asked Chris as she slunk away to lean against a counter for 20 minutes.

“Maybe,” he answered. “I mean, there could have been an entire tour group from Alabama here before us. That’d do it.”

I tried to shake it off and just focus on enjoying the bowl of olives she dropped on the table like a cement block before she headed over to laugh with the fiesta table again. Tips aren’t really a thing in Seville, so of course she’s not going to knock herself out, I decided. As long as we get our food, that’s good enough. It’s cultural. She’s probably just tired. She doesn’t hate us.

She slouched over to our table a bit later holding the bottle of cava we’d ordered an hour earlier. Our before dinner drink was apparently now an after dinner drink, but that’s okay. I smiled encouragingly when she presented the label to me, and kept smiling while she started untwisting the metal cage over the cork. My grin then faltered when I noticed that she had said cork pointed directly at my face from about two feet away. She calmly stared at me while she continued to twist the top, preparing the cork to shoot out like a rocket and blind me in at least one eye. Chris said later, “That really seemed to cheer her up.”

Facing imminent danger, I cleared my throat and, still polite, was about to say something to prevent myself from being maimed on vacation when I didn’t even spring for Traveler’s Insurance, but she turned away approximately two seconds before the cork popped. “Gracias,” I whispered as she poured out two glasses then shoved the bottle into an ice bucket before taking off for more verde pastures.

“Salud. That means ‘cheers’,” I said to Chris with a raised glass.

“I don’t think you’re pronouncing that right.”

“ …”

“But yes, salud.”

Thanks for reading!
—Wendi

And that culminated in many one-star reviews and nasty emails from women named Dorothy who felt I should be in church instead. Huzzah.

Alas, lately it’s been harder to make your voice heard when there’s so much chatter going on. There’s much to chatter about, of course. Take a look around. But it can often feel like nobody is listening to anyone anymore. That's why I was so pleased that when I recently spoke out about something I thought was wrong, I got real results.

The big events center in Austin that I follow on Instagram posted a graphic about a “state of Austin music” panel they would be holding with the city’s economic committee. I didn’t really pay attention to the details, but right away noticed that they had included photos of the eight speakers on the panel, and seven of them were white guys. One was Matthew McConaughey and he’s his own category. I think it’s state law that he just gets to show up whenever he chooses.

Sidenote: A few years ago, I was a contestant on the NPR show “Ask Me Another” when they taped in Austin. The other three people in the show and I waited in the green room backstage at the theater, then we were told to go stand in the hallway next to the stage. “But do NOT make eye contact with Matthew McConaughey when he comes off the stage! DO NOT!” someone in charge told us, like he was a holy deity and not some actor that smells like patchouli. Anyway, I looked at him.

Back to the Austin music panel. I was immediately incensed that in 2026, they didn’t have a single woman speaking. It’s not like we don’t have thousands of music industry professional women in town, so it was either misogynistic or lazy that it was an all-male line-up. I quickly typed an erudite comment about sexism, and fairness, and equality and posted it under the graphic. Right away my comment started getting likes, and I was proud that I’d used my voice to call attention to something so unfair and tone deaf.

About a week or so later, I saw a new post on Instagram from the events center about the music panel, and lo and behold, there were now 2-3 women added to the line-up! What?! I knew this had to be because I used my voice and my wisdom to write a comment that told them the error of their ways. I spoke truth to power, I did. I eagerly clicked on their account to find the previous post so I could reread my glorious missive, but the whole thing had been deleted. “Ah ha! They destroyed all evidence!” I said to myself. “But I will never forget what I wrote!”

I forgot what I wrote. I should mention here that on the night I left my legendary comment, I had been drinking margaritas.

I texted a friend who I remembered had liked my comment and asked her to tell me what it was. “If you have time,” I said, “to the best of your ability. You maybe don’t recall all of my treatise against sexism. Just give me the first few sentences.”

“No, I do have time to tell you the whole thing,” she answered. “Because you only wrote two words.”

Wow, those must have been really powerful words, I thought. Did I write something in Latin despite not knowing any Latin except “Veni Vidi Vici”? Which translates to “We came, we saw, we kicked its ass”? Was my ability with the English language just so next level that I could make an events center tremble with only two words?

“What were the words?” I asked, eagerly waiting to hear my brilliance. “What did I say?”

“The two words were: SAUSAGE PARTY.”

Sometimes two words is all you need.

Thanks for reading!

—Wendi

I’ve been distracting myself lately with travel planning because my husband Chris and I are going to Europe next month. I’m really excited to explore the sites, eat different food, and not see anyone in a pro Second Amendment t-shirt for eleven whole days. What a treat that’ll be.

We’re going to one country we’ve briefly visited before, and two countries that are new to us. I like to put together a loose itinerary in advance so we don’t miss the good stuff, and I’ve asked friends and family what they recommend. I’ve also scoured the gazillion travel recommendations found on the internet. Did you know that in 2026, everyone is a travel expert? When I visited France for the first time in the mid 90’s, I had to check a travel guidebook out of the library and take notes like une femme stupid, but now you can just follow @TravelJunkeeHaleyyy29 and she and her 2” long fingernails will show you “the secret Eiffel Tower that not enough people are talking about.” Influencers are always discovering something. They’re like modern day Magellans only instead of a ship they have TikTok accounts and a leggings collection. But I do hope Haleyyy29 visits Rome soon and posts “tucked away in a corner of the city is the hidden Colosseum, use code GLADIATE to get 10% off ticket price.”

My parents just went on a guided tour of Europe for three weeks where they traveled from country to country with the same group of people on a bus. They’ve been on a lot of trips like this since they retired almost 30 years ago so not much is new to them anymore. “It was okay,” my dad said about this most recent trip. “I don’t ever need to see another cathedral as long as I live. But the truffle hunting in France was fun because there was a dog.”

Having a guide like they did doesn’t always mean you’re going to see the best a country has to offer, however. I realized that a few years ago when we were driving from Austin to visit my parents in Northern Nevada. We weren’t on the Loneliest Road in America, which is also in Nevada, but on the second loneliest road, Las Vegas to Reno. One of the only attractions on this drive is the Alien Cathouse brothel. It’s attached to a convenience store so whenever we stopped for snacks we’d have to make sure the kids went inside the right entrance. We’d also have to explain to them that the types of cats inside this cathouse were not ones we wanted them to meet. EVER. But I will say that the Alien Brothel is a nice blend of Nevada’s three biggest highlights: legal prostitution, Area 51, and rolling the dice with your health.

The halfway point of that endless seven-hour drive we’ve taken many times is Tonopah, a historic silver mining town that’s seen better days. It was quite the party in 1900 but now not so much. Nary a saloon to be found. There’s truly no reason for anyone to spend time there, much less be a tourist because they only have a few hotels in town and one of them is something you’d see on one of the more terrifying episodes of Fantasy Island.

We’ve driven by this fascinating and creepy motel many, many times. One year I finally got up the courage to actually go inside this house of nightmares, conveniently adjacent to a graveyard, while my husband and kids waited in the car. “Come with me,” I pleaded. “Just for a minute.”

“No way in hell,” Chris said, keeping the Volvo idling in case I didn’t come back out and he needed to flee to safety. “But say hi to that psychopath Bozo for me.”

The woman working in the lobby that day was really nice when I asked her to take a photo of me as proof that I was at “the terrifying clown hotel that not enough people are talking about” but then she crisply instructed me to “hold Bobo’s hand, hold it!” so now we know why I sometimes wake up in a cold sweat and hear a circus calliope slowly playing “Baby Elephant Walk” while children weep in the background. Yep. I stepped right into that Edgar Allan Poe short story.

Once we got to my parents house and told them about my big adventure, my dad immediately pulled the owner’s business card out of his wallet and handed it to me. “Call him up and get a free room on your way back home,” he suggested. I did not. That’s one hotel comp I don’t need.

So, all of that said, you’ll know why we were shocked one freezing December when we rolled into Tonopah during a snowstorm, found the Golden Arches of their one McDonalds through the haze, and pulled into the parking lot, only to see two shiny tour buses by the front door. We walked inside and found that the place was filled with a large group of middle-aged tourists from Japan. (Confirmed by asking one of them where they were from when waiting in line in the ladies room.) Why were they there? I puzzled. Were they scared of taking a one-hour flight instead of driving over a treacherous mountain pass in a blizzard? Exactly how bad was their tour guide? Was their itinerary just visiting abandoned mine shafts and well, more abandoned mine shafts because that’s all there is to do around there? Or was this a bamboozle? The Donner Party expedition was also a bamboozle, but unfortunately they didn’t find a McDonalds when they got lost so they had to well, you know. Wait, was the tour group under a CIRCUS CURSE?

I’ve wondered about this way too many times over the years. It just makes no sense to me how they ended up there. We never saw another tour group at the Tonopah McDonalds, but mostly because that particular franchise location was shut down after the owners were arrested for dealing meth alongside the Big Macs. I hope their slogan was I’m Lovin’ Tweakin’ It.

But while the answer is probably a simple one that I could maybe research a little to find, I don’t think I will. It’s far more fun to come up with my own theories. And hope that maybe we’ll find a few oddities of our own on our future travels. Except clowns.

Thanks for reading!
—Wendi

OTHER THINGS!

If you’re in New York City, or are able to livestream, I have a show this Sunday, April 26th! I’ll read some of my satire, and so will six other hilarious writers, and I’ll also do a Q&A about my book. Tickets for in-person and livestream can be bought here.

My friends Johanna Gohmann and Emily Flake have a funny new book out. It’s the perfect gift for young parents. Buy a bunch!

But I like the Roosevelt quote a lot because it’s a reminder to step out of your comfort zone. That’s especially important in midlife when it can be tempting to just do the same ol same ol every day and not challenge yourself. You may be saying, “But I do switch it up a lot! For example, last night I streamed Dateline NBC at 7pm instead of my usual 8pm!” Sorry, but that’s not exactly what Mrs. Roosevelt meant. Eleanor wants you quaking.

I confess that I don’t do one scary thing a day, besides reading the news, which is the obvious joke, but this month I’ll be doing two frightening things. Things that I’m forcing myself to participate in because they are way out of my comfort zone, and I’m an idiot that believes in “personal growth.” Now I’m kind of thinking that “personal diminishment” may not be so bad.

The first of my scary activities is to hopefully get on stage and perform stand-up comedy at the Erma Bombeck Conference’s open mic. I’ve surprisingly never done stand-up before, but I’ve always wanted to try. And an audience of humor writers in a Catholic university’s ballroom with circulating nuns is a lot less intimidating than being heckled by J6 patriots at Joe Rogan’s club in Austin.

I’ve actually written stand-up comedy before, notably for a household name level actor who performed it in a televised show, and less notably for my husband Chris. He brings that up a lot. You see, when he went to Roswell, New Mexico to talk to a group of professionals about marketing, I proudly gave him the opening line to his presentation:

“Good morning! I just flew into Roswell on a government-issused weather balloon, and boy was that a rough landing!”

It was then so quiet in the room that he could hear his own heartbeat.

“You just delivered it wrong,” I said, when he called to rant about how much it bombed, “I can’t be held responsible.”

Because he’s a wonderful husband, he not only forgave me, he tried that line again when he went to another presentation in Roswell. Same result. He also heard someone in the back groan, “Jeezus, make it stop.” Obviously it’s not my fault that the Roswellians are all secret aliens with no sense of humor.

I’m not going to include that killer joke in my stand-up debut but only because I’ll be in Dayton, Ohio and Roswell humor won’t land there even with me delivering it. However, Dayton is the home to the Wright Brothers Museum, so maybe I could try this: “I wonder if Orville and Wilbur knew when they invented the airplane in 1903 that one day I’d be 30,000 feet in the air watching a man clip his toenails into a barf bag!”

I’ll work on it.

The second thing that I’m scared to do but signed up for anyway is I’m attending Adult Summer Camp for a weekend. It seemed like a good idea at the time because I’d just watched Meatballs for the 100th time and was feeling nostalgic, but now I’m a bit worried. Especially since the packing list said to “bring an adult animal onesie for breakfast!” On the plus side, the bar is open 24 hours so I may win the camp award for drunkest camel.

The good news is that I’m writing about the adult summer camp for a magazine, so there’s no worry at all that I won’t get enough good material. I could probably get a book out of this shit. I mean, we’re going to have theme nights that they’ll tell us about soon so we can “costume shop!” Dear lord, what was I thinking. My camp letters home to my parents will probably be written in red wine and Xanax. Hello Muddah, Hello Faddah, Here I am at Camp SEND ME A MOTHERFOKKING UBER NOW.

Actually, that’s not so far off from what my son Sam sent home from camp when he was 10. Or what I sent home from Camp Cormorant in 1978 after the counselors made us do a synchronized swimming performance of Grease in the lake. I still feel bad for the girl that had to play Danny Zuko and swim in a leather jacket. That is not a joke, which anyone that went to camp in the 70’s knows full well because teenage counselors were high that entire decade.

So wish me luck, and stay tuned to hear if I survive. This one’s for you, Eleanor.

Thanks for reading!

—Wendi

When I was growing up, you had to be careful to say you really liked something in my family or you’d soon be deluged with everything in the world that pertained to that something. Like when I was in high school and expressed a love for the movie Rebel Without a Cause, and then every birthday and Christmas that followed for the next 20 years included something with James Dean’s face on it. Of course there are worse problems to have. I could have said I loved The A-Team and then brought Mr. T sheets with me to college instead of this awesome poster.

But I understand the urge to embrace a theme from a gift buying position. When you can’t figure out what to get someone, it’s easy to think, “She once said she likes unicorns! Let’s get her a unicorn hat! It doesn’t matter that she’s 43 and a nuclear scientist!” I definitely fell into this trap when my boys were small. Sam especially was a phase kid, starting with fighter jets, then dinosaurs, then animals. Now he’s 24 and a music executive in Nashville so I can’t rely on themes anymore. He probably doesn’t want a velociraptor sweatshirt or a Pokemon board game. Or maybe he does. I don’t really understand Gen Z.

Lately I’ve found myself almost falling into the theme gift trap because my husband Chris has recently chosen his Middle Age Man Hobby™. These hobbies include but are not limited to: motorcycles, woodworking, golf, pickleball, strippers, cycling, and car restoration. He’s already dabbled in one of those - cycling - and has the “I Love Bikes” swag to prove it. I wouldn’t know what to get him if he’d chosen strippers. Antibiotics?

But over Thanksgiving, I signed us up for a 6-hour fishing boat tour in South Padre, Texas. We were the only people on the boat not dressed in Patriot Clothing or chain smoking, so it didn’t start off well. Captain Harley yelled at us to “Dispose of all bananas!” for superstitious reasons. Luckily, we didn’t have any with us. Who carries bananas? But soon after we set off, Chris caught a fish, and another fish, and suddenly a Middle Age Man Hobby™ was born.

He took to fishing like a fish takes to water — that it’s then yanked out of because it stupidly bit on a hook loaded with shrimp. Chris’s embrace of a new hobby was helped by the fact that he was the only one on the boat that actually caught a fish that day. So when asked what his secret was by jealous fishers, my husband who then had six hours of fishing under his belt in his entire life said, without hesitation, “Women want me, fish fear me.”

“Did you read that on a t-shirt at Walmart once?” I asked, wondering if it was too late to sign him up for an Intro to Pickleball class.

“Maybe. I did read it on a t-shirt. But it’s true.”

His fishing hobby then continued in Cabo San Lucas, where we spent Christmas and went on a charter fishing trip. This time he landed a Wahoo that is currently, in his retellings, “about 20 feet long.” By summer, it’ll be 40 feet long. By next Christmas, he will be telling everyone that he once caught Moby Dick.

All of this is good news, of course. I like that he found something he enjoys, and it’s fun for me to hang out on a boat and try to not touch anything slimy for a few hours. Plus Dramamine is like low-stakes Xanax. And all of this fishing did give us a theme to work with for his recent birthday. There are many, many fish-related items online. Some of them are even x-rated! Dear god!

Luckily, I found a website called Guidesly.com that has gift cards for fishing trips around the country, so that’s what the boys and I gave him. We’ll see how lucky he gets on his next expedition. Maybe this time I’ll even catch a fish, and then everyone will know what to get me for my next birthday besides a James Dean Snuggie.

Thanks for reading!

—Wendi

OTHER THINGS:

Fan of James Dean, too? Marfa, TX has a lot of cool stuff from when “Giant” was filmed there.

I love the giant murals of James Dean and Elizabeth Taylor outside of Marfa.

I wrote this piece after a few friends told me they had to get their elderly parents down from ladders.

If you’re okay to read about a sex cult, this non-fiction look at OneTaste is really good.

The possibilities and potential of my past, the ones we all have when we’re younger, like one day becoming a TV star, or traveling to all seven continents, or marrying George Clooney and moving into his Italian villa, are now less “some day” and more “uh probably not gonna happen unless George hits his head really hard.” It’s not easy to downgrade your dreams, even when it’s the practical thing to do. Do I need smaller, more attainable dreams, I wonder? Should my fantasy be that I’m going to be gifted with a dozen eggs, then I’ll act surprised when my husband brings them home from the grocery store? Maybe.

But between the pandemic, the non-stop bad news and tragedies in the world, the stress of getting my kids into college and my now empty nest, plus middle-age ennui, and everyone everywhere always fighting about literally anything, my mojo has been somewhat replaced by nameless dread.

Every morning I wake up with a plan to make a fresh start and seize the day. “I’ll exercise and write and make a delicious dinner and feel good!” I say. But it never works out. By 5 p.m., I’m once again mindlessly eating crackers, watching true crime documentaries and having thoughts like, “You know, joining a cult wouldn’t be so bad. You get the leader’s initials branded on your pelvis for free.” Despite my best intentions, some days I can’t shake the little rain cloud over my head. And even when I manage to, one look at the news and it’s back on the low grade anxiety merry-go-round again. I hate it, which is why I keep this cross-stitch on my desk.

Easier stitched than done, of course. It’s not that easy to cheer up and take on a world that seems to get harder with each passing year. But what’s the alternative? Do we bury our heads in the sand and pretend everything is fine, like most of the women in my cul-de-sac do? The ones that hear there’s been a shooting at the mall and post, “I hope it’s still open tomorrow because I have a facial scheduled” on Facebook? No. That’s gross.

I know I’m not alone in this. Last week I texted a friend to ask how she’s doing and her reply was, “Okay, I guess. BETTER THAN OUR CLIMATE’S FUTURE, ANYWAY.” Another friend has a list of things she wants to do “before democracy finally collapses.” And more than one person I know is facing their future retirement years with the dread of working at Wal-Mart instead of traveling the world like our Boomer parents did in their golden years.

This should be Gen X’s time to celebrate and enjoy life, but how can we be excited for the future when a box of Wheat Thins now costs $7.00 and our precious babies are now living lives without us? When high crimes happen right before our eyes with no punishment? When some of the rights we’ve had for our entire lives are now gone? When we can’t afford to move out of our empty nests and instead watch our houses decay into Grey Gardens? Even something fun like going to see a favorite band before they die is problematic because a ticket to The Rolling Stones now costs as much as our entire 1990 college tuition.

Yes, I know I’m whining and that these are champagne problems in the grand scheme, but it’d also be nice to go an hour without muttering, “What the f-ck.”

But when I find myself wallowing, I try to pull myself out with this thought: most middle-aged women like me are in a unique time in history where we can kind of do whatever we want without repercussions. Spend two minutes online and you’ll see that society has gone a little Wacko Wild West. That’s not always good (hello, January 6), but I think we can make it work for us. Nobody’s paying attention to us, anyway, so let’s embrace the weird. Get off your ass and write that erotic thriller and don’t use a pen name unless it’s about sexy dinosaurs. Visit your grade school pen pal. Hike up a mountain but only if you know that you can also get down. Or start a podcast about cottage cheese or your obsession with Duran Duran or just anything at all. Most podcasters now are men, so let’s hear your voices, ladies. The podcast I do with my friends Mariana and Ann has maybe two regular listeners, but it’s a big bright spot in my life.

I do try to focus on the happy things, even if they’re small. I also try to avoid crying in the closet while blasting “Everybody Hurts” by R.E.M. on Spotify’s Classics from the 1900’s station but I’m not always successful. Smaller dreams may not be as grand or exciting as those in our younger days, but they’re dreams nonetheless. Like maybe I don’t move into Clooney’s villa, but I can ride past it on a Amalfi Coast tour bus that I booked on Costco.com and wave at his gate. That still counts, I think.

I hope I can embrace this meh time in my life and use it as an opportunity to let myself go. Not “let go” appearance-wise, but maybe a little. No more f-cking bikini waxes, that’s for damn sure. But I want to let myself go metaphorically, too. Let go of the old hangups. Of relationships that no longer work. Of outdated ideas. And let myself go physically to new adventures – to the concert, to the class, or to the weed dispensary to get some “glaucoma medicine” even though I don’t actually have glaucoma. Well, not yet. I assume I will at some point because I know how to spell it.

I’m trying to remember that I’m standing on the precipice of my Eccentric Years, and it’s time to put on a party hat and lean in. Why not get louder? Why not get looser? Sixty is in my crosshairs, so why stop living now? I’ll try my best. I will not go gentle into that pair of elastic waist pants.

Thanks for reading!

—Wendi

MORE THINGS!

I wrote about staying in a dome in far West Texas for Texas Highways magazine.

If you know who Olivia Nuzzi is, I’m sorry, but you may enjoy this piece.

I’m excited to be teaching at the sold-out Erma Bombeck Writer’s Conference next March! The good news is if you can’t make it to Dayton, they’re now offering at-home classes. I’m teaching one!

1. I muttered, “What the hell was that.”

2. I decided that I will no longer recommend shows after only seeing the first episode because the sixth episode of THE GIRLFRIEND was seemingly written by drunk people wildly misusing AI.

3. I had to apologize to the four friends I recommended THE GIRLFRIEND to — friends that later texted me things like, “WTF?!” “I don’t know if I can ever forgive you” and “Know any other pieces of streaming shit I should watch?”

4. I sat and quietly thought about how I wasted six hours of my one wild and precious life watching Robin Wright kiss her fictional adult son on the mouth.

   

5. I realized that I could have watched THE GODFATHER and THE GODFATHER II in that same amount of time. (And yes I know Michael Corleone kisses Fredo on the mouth, too, but it’s more so the kiss of death and not the kiss of a possible incestual pool party.)

6. I realized that I also could have watched eight 90 minute movies in those six hours. EIGHT. Bergman’s The Seventh Seal is only 96 minutes, FFS, and it doesn’t have dialogue like, “Aw my two favorite ladies! Where’s the prosecco?”

7. My math is maybe not correct on #6.

But the fact is that all limited streaming series are not created equal, so for every amazing SLOW HORSES, you get something where Nicole Kidman’s wearing a crap wig and hypnotizing people in a yurt. And of course I know it’s subjective, and there are probably people out there that loved THE GIRLFRIEND, but I’m disappointed with myself every time I give into sloth and ease and just stick with an entire subpar series instead of turning it off.

What hath Netflix wrought.

I talked about most of the above with my 24-year-old son Sam who told me to watch movies instead. He’s a big cinephile, and particularly loves older movies. His already vast knowledge about them even led to one of the coolest things that’s ever happened to him: about two years ago, I took him to an Austin friend’s house for a party and he fell into conversation with a woman visiting from Los Angeles. They started talking about film, and she asked him who his favorite actors and directors are. He said, “I really love Gena Rowlands and John Cassavetes,” and the woman paused, then said, “So do I because Gena is my mom and Nick is my dad.” Wow wow wow. (This was the lovely Zoe Cassavetes.)

That story leads me to mention something that just happened two days ago when I was at our grocery store. I saw a woman in her 20’s walk by, and she was wearing a black and red shaker-style sweater that I immediately recognized as identical to a The Limited sweater that I owned in the late 90’s and later donated. I didn’t try to sniff it for Rolling Rock and Dippity Do to see if it was mine, but I did nicely ask her if she bought the sweater at a vintage shop because apparently that is where the clothes of my youth are now found. Her answer was even better than I expected:

“No,” she said, “I got this last weekend at Shelley Duvall’s estate sale.”

Then she showed me the tag and it was from The Limited just as I thought! Did Shelley buy my sweater?! She lived not too far from me, so maybe?

It does seems likely that she would have bought it from a thrift store, but we’ll never know. The thought of Shelley Duvall whipping out her credit card at the local mall’s The Limited store also makes me happy to think about. “Heeeeeeere’s AMEX!”

But my disappointment in recent streaming shows + Shelley + Sam reminding me that we pay for a subscription to The Criterion Channel already has given me my fall viewing plan. I’m going to avoid the latest limited series and instead enjoy Shelley’s body of work that includes classics like Nashville, 3 Women, and Brewster McCloud.

After that, maybe I’ll switch over to see what Nicole Kidman’s latest wig looks like. I bet it’s a good one.

Thanks for reading!

—Wendi

OTHER THINGS:

• I’m excited to be in the latest issue of The New Yorker with this piece inspired by no more childhood vaccine requirements in Florida. See you at Mickey’s Chickenpox Party!

• What are you doing on October 8th? Join me for a humorous essay writing class with St. Nell’s Humor Writing Residency for Ladies! Open to all. (Unless you like writing funny essays that aren’t funny. We’ve all been there.) Sign up here.

• I am fascinated by nostalgia, and had the opportunity to write about my friends at Pop Culture Preservation Society for the Stanford Center on Longevity’s magazine. Read to see what “being Manilowed” is and why we should all do it. (And listen to their podcast!)

I’ve used various datebooks to keep track of my schedule for the past 20+ years. The finished ones are all nestled together on my bookshelf because it feels weird to throw them away. Plus I’m super prepared in case I need to look up when Sam had a pediatrician appointment in March of 2002 or the last time I cared enough about life to schedule a bikini wax. But for whatever reason, my brain just works better when I can see my monthly calendar in physical form.

Unfortunately, I’ve run into some trouble over the past few years with my system because most datebooks and planners now follow the academic year. Meaning, they start in July of one year and end in June of the next. What kind of year-long-glance is that? That’s not Gregorian! It’s not even Petergorian or Bobbygorian!

Yes, I feel as bad about writing that Brady Bunch joke as you did reading it, so let’s just nod at each other without making eye contact and keep going.

It just seems wrong to buy a new calendar in July, doesn’t it? It goes against the time space continuum, a term I learned when I was getting my Masters in Astrophysics AKA watching Back to the Future in a Reno, Nevada movie theater in 1986. But the new year begins in January when we’re all shivering and stupidly optimistic about a fresh start, not in July when we’re all sweating and stupidly optimistic that our neighbors will one day tire of fireworks.

So for that reason, and also because I’ve learned that if you wait a bit, calendars go on sale, I let my planners lapse in June and then I white knuckle it a few months until I finally get a new one that’s marked down 75% because 1/3 of it is now in the past. If you’re thinking that I totally missed my calling as a coupon blogger with this tip, you are correct.

In the nerve-wracking months I’m planner-less and protesting, I keep my schedule via two other ways:

1. My memory

2. Printing out a monthly calendar page from a website that probably now has my checking account routing number and TSA Pre info

This works as well as you would expect and has led to such supportive comments as “FOR THE LOVE OF GOD, GET A CALENDAR, YOU IDIOT” from my Memwah podcast co-hosts and “THERE’S NO SUCH DATE AS JULY 32ND!” from my hair stylist. I then nicely remind them that I would get a calendar but I’m busy holding a grudge against the Calendar Industrial Complex until the prices drop from $6.99 to $4.99. Sometimes the hill you choose to die on includes days of the week and a note section in the back for your various manifestos.

One of the worst screw-ups I’ve had when I’m calendar free balling was a couple of years ago. I was home working and got a text from my friends Amanda, Liz and Stacy. They were all out together at lunch and sent a cute photo. I texted back, “Awww y’all look great!” and then they “gently” reminded me that they were at my favorite restaurant waiting because I had arranged for us all to meet — to celebrate my birthday. Boy did I look good when I showed up ten minutes later in the shoes I only wear to walk to the mailbox!

The good news is that it’s now September 2, 2025 and I just bought my new planner (90% off at Michael’s) and I’m ready to fill it, so invite me to something! Parties, lunches, restaurant openings, my own birthday party that I might forget about: I’ll write it all down in pen.

Just make sure it happens before my pages run out.

Thanks for reading!

—Wendi

OTHER THINGS:

Thank you to the Erma Bombeck Writers Conference for naming me September’s Humor Writer of the Month!

I wrote about the scourge that is red imported fire ants for Texas Monthly.

I’ll be joining to talk about her funny new book HOW THE HELL DID I NOT KNOW THAT at our friend ’s bookstore on 9/17! MARK YOUR CALENDARS and join us if you’re nearby!

Short answer: no. Long answer: hell no.

I’m not a travel expert. Or even a less personable Rick Steves. I’ve never even been to Cincinnati, much less stayed in a 500-year old luxury hotel on the Italian coast that some influencer just discovered. (Influencers are super skilled at finding things that aren’t hidden.) But even though I’m not a professional traveler or one of those road warriors making loud business calls about the ETA of the ROI at the EOB, I do fly fairly regularly and I’d love to know how to make the experience less painful.

Unfortunately, most of the tips I’ve seen lately are more basic than basic economy.

For example, a recent article promised amazing ways to save money when flying. First on the list was, “Pack your own snacks because airport food is pricey!” Yeah, I already figured that one out when I forgot to bring an energy bar and had to choke down an $18 soggy sandwich at LAX last month. But maybe that tip is why the woman next to me on my last flight pulled a Tupperware container filled with 3.4 ounces of homemade chili out of her purse.

Another suggested way to save money on flights I’ve read is to “not book at peak times like Christmas, school vacations, and major holidays.” Should tell my parents that we’ll be celebrating Easter Sunday on a Tuesday in October because I got a great deal on Southwest Air? Just put that witch hat on a bunny and we’ll make it work, mom!

Besides saving cash, experts also offer insider tips on how to save time at the airport. I was hopeful that they’d reveal where to find a magic portal that could shoot me straight from my bedroom to the backseat of a Lyft in my destination city. Or at least tell me how to avoid getting stuck behind the person unpacking his entire suitcase because he didn’t know he couldn’t fly with lithium batteries and professional grade fireworks. Nope. The big time-saving tip I read is to “whiz through airport security by signing up for TSA Precheck or Clear.” Is there anyone that doesn’t know this in 2025? If there’s a line of smug people moving faster than you, figure out how to get in it.

I guess the reason I’m so disappointed is that I already know things like “get to the airport two hours early” and “pack a sleep mask for overnight flights” because I’m in my mid-50’s and I’ve left my house before. The expert travel tips of my dreams would be life-changing info like “How to recline your seat and not be called an idiot” and “How to deal with the idiot reclining his seat.” I’d also love to learn the proper etiquette upon hearing your smelly seatmate make a “mile high club” joke when you get up to use the restroom. Even an article about “ways to become the air marshall’s favorite” would be welcome.

Is all of this unhelpful travel insight I’ve recently read for people that just came out of an underground bunker? I wonder. Or for those that haven’t flown since the days you could light up a pack of Pall Malls and say things like, “My, aren’t you a pretty stewardess, care to sit on my lap during landing, sweetheart?” If that’s the case, I’m glad those passengers are getting the information they need to fly the friendly skies. Well, more so the “watch your behavior or you’ll go viral and lose your job” skies because it’s pretty aggressive up there lately.

Actually, maybe how to behave better when you’re 35,000 feet in the air is the advice travel experts should be giving instead. And they can start with “don’t bring your own chili on board.”

Thanks for reading!

—Wendi

OTHER THINGS:

I have a fun piece up at about giving your kids a Gilded Age summer.

I wrote about how to find the perfect cowboy hat for Texas Highways.

Are you listening to our celebrity memoir podcast? You should be!

If you’re interested in my humor class I’m gearing up to start this fall, shoot me an email at wendi@wendiaarons.com!

This app is in no way related to the first thing Gen X thinks of upon hearing the word “Shazam”: an intense middle-aged man with five-o-clock shadow who yelled SHAZAM! and ran around in man tights every Saturday morning. Click here to watch him “flying” AKA planking on a sawhorse in the back of a flatbed truck while being filmed by teamsters. That’s how SFX worked back then, baby.

By the way, the plot description of this 70’s super-hero show is “Teenager Billy Batson and his adult companion, Mentor, travel in an RV, helping people in need.” I think that type of storyline is what we now call “a chilling three-part Netflix true crime documentary series based on the popular Wondery podcast.”

But with just a click, the Shazam app identifies any music that’s currently playing in your environment. I use it in stores, while watching movies and shows, and in bars and restaurants that aren’t blasting Kid Rock or Ted Nugent, because I can sadly identify those freaks on my own. I also use Shazam surprisingly often in our Texas grocery store HEB because the songs they play are so good. Kudos to whomever programs all of the disco deep cuts that entertain me when I’m buying toilet paper and healthy weight dog food on Friday night!

Quick disco aside: Chris and I were returning something to an Austin Costco a couple of days ago, and the nice man helping us had a name tag that said TAVARES. I said, “Are you named ‘Tavares’ after the music group?” He said, “Uh, yeah! They’re my mom’s favorite. Nobody’s ever asked me that before!” A truly proud moment for this suburban wanker. I now hope to meet someone named Chic before I die.

Back in the old days, we didn’t have Shazam, we had the radio. And we listened to the radio a lot. In our rooms, at our jobs, driving the car, everywhere. It’s where we discovered the songs we loved or learned to love. Mostly because the DJs/record companies wanted us to, but who cares. If we heard a song and wanted to hear it again, all we had to do was wait about 15 minutes. Or tune to another station. Or turn on MTV where you’d probably see the video of it in high rotation, alongside ads for General Foods International Coffee and Dexatrim diet pills. (“Mom, why is my heart beating so fast? Is it the speed I bought at Rexall Drug?”)

All of that song repetition worked really, really well, to say the least. Do I know my kids’ social security numbers? Hell, no. But I can still accurately sing every word of Sussudio — and not because I found the lyrics online. They’re burned onto my Phil Collins-loving soul.

Of course, there are many Gen X’ers who weren’t Top 40 stooges like me, and I’m envious of them. I was far too busy listening to Casey Kasem’s weekly show with my finger on the ‘record’ button of my tape recorder to actually take time to search out cooler music. On the plus side, Casey taught me a lot of great trivia about people like Sheena Easton (who was born Sheena Orr, and became Sheena Easton when she married Sandy Easton at age 19) that’s forever lodged in my brain.

Music is more siloed now than it even was back then. We’re served music via the algorithm that’s similar to what we already like, so it’s harder to find anything new. So unless you download a few completely different songs that you heard in spin class, or liked in a commercial or ad, you’re sort of stuck.

(Also: YES I just said I’ve found songs on commercials which is so, so horrifying to admit because Gen X used to freak out whenever one of our songs was “bought by the man.” Like when Nike used the Beatles’ Revolution and people were ready to f-ing riot.)

I recently noticed that all of the songs I’ve Shazam’ed are actually on a Spotify playlist, which is really fun and a little creepy since I didn’t do that myself. I guess the apps are collaborating? But I’ve had a good time listening to these songs on shuffle and trying to remember when and where I searched them up in the first place. “When You’re Good to Mama”, “Anything Goes” and “Last Midnight”? I was at a Broadway showtunes drag brunch. “Far From Over”? On the couch with Chris watching the SNL synchronized swimming clip and proving to him that yes, it was sung by Frank Stallone and not Whitesnake. “Last Christmas”? Holiday shopping and completely incensed that someone made a horrific cover of Wham!’s masterpiece that also caused me to lose Whamageddon on December 1st. DO NOT TOUCH LAST CHRISTMAS.

All of this is a great forensic exercise for my memory, and it’s also led to me finding new artists I like. Of course, a majority of these “new” artists and songs are from the 70’s, but that’s okay because I love that era of music so much. I miss the old days, but it’s also amazing to find and listen to whatever you like instead of being beholden to a radio station or record company or MTV. Or more recently, to what you hear on TikTok when some dipshit isn’t using headphones in the airport.

I miss the commonality of everyone knowing the same music, but I also kind of like that we all have our own personal Top 40 songs now. And number one with a bullet for me this week? Tavares, of course.

Thanks for reading!

—Wendi

It’s a really trying time in our world right now, to say the least, and going about the day as usual isn’t easy. We’re paying bills and scheduling dentist appointments and walking the dog. Meanwhile Tr*mp is minutes away from starting WWIII for no clear reason, posting about how proud he is of the new White House flagpoles, and calling Americans “scum” while bringing back asbestos. What a time to be alive.

My way of coping with this surreal daily existence is heavy duty compartmentalizing. I open my NYT app and squint my way past the horrific headlines until I click on my little word games where it’s safe. Help me, Connections, you’re my only hope.

I’ve also cut way back on my social media usage, namely Threads. Not only is it rife with alarmists and bad information, there’s a decided lack of humor on that app. At least Twitter in the non-Nazi days was funny. There’s also rampant plagiarism on Threads and nobody seems to mind. When I called out a large account for ripping off one of my posts, word for word, a burlesque performer/lawyer from Vegas replied to me that everything on the internet is up for grabs and I should get over myself thinking that I own what I write. Huh? What? How would you like it if I copied your little striptease, Gypsy Rose Lee? is what I would have said if I felt secure enough to put on pasties and a garter belt.

I know it’s not entirely healthy to keep your head down and ignore the world, but it’s also not healthy to ingest non-stop news. It’s like we’re all in a diner and the only choices on the menu are a Heart Attack Burger or a Slow and Painful Death Burrito. (Feel free to copy and paste that on Threads.) I don’t know what the right balance is for me and I don’t know that I ever will.

But the thing about trying to “remain calm all is well” is that the stress is still there, lying in wait. The anger and the frustration and the urge to hit something gelatinous and orange are just under the surface. And sometimes it doesn’t take a lot to bring it out. For example, the other day I met two friends at a restaurant in downtown Austin. I got there early and watched middle-aged men with wedding rings stare at every 20-something woman in shorts. I also saw to my horror that banana clips are back. When does this madness end?!?

Once my friends arrived, we went up to the counter to order our $18 sandwiches. The 25-year-old woman behind the register rang me up, swung the monitor around so I could leave a $5 tip for what I don’t know, and then handed me my drink cup and said, “This is for your ice tea, hon.”

That’s right. She f-cking “hon’ed” me.

Now I know there’s been a lot of discussion over the years about being called “sweetie” or “hon” by cashiers and servers, and that most of the time the people doing it mean no harm, but for the love of god. NO. NO NO NO NO. Say “This is for your ice tea, bitch” and I’d take it better. “Enjoy your drink, shitbag.” Fine. But to me, “hon” is completely condescending when it comes from a woman half your age. (Condescending means “talking down to.”)

To add insult to injury, she didn’t even have a Texan or Southern accent, which would have perhaps justified it some. “Hon” in a midwestern voice is just wrong. But the good news is that I reacted well. I grabbed the proffered drink cup, and said in a voice that would freeze lava, “Thank you, HON.” My “hon” wasn’t short for “honey.” It was short for “I’m a grownass woman, so leave me alone, asshole.”

Note: My sandwich that arrived 30 minutes after my friends’ lunches arrived was good.

Of course my reaction to her innocuous word was insane. And if I didn’t have so much angst and fear and worry bubbling around in my Compartment of Bad Things, I never would have replied in that way. Nor would I have searched for the restaurant’s email once I got home with plans to Karen the shit out of her. (I didn’t. I stared at the Kate Gosselin Halloween wig on my bookshelf and came to my senses.)

All of this is a just long way of saying that perhaps we all need to give each other a little grace right now because emotions, while not always visible, are running high. If I’m just one “hon” away from losing it on a sandwich clerk, I’m sure many others are, too. I truly believe that we’ll get through all of this shit and make it to the other side, but it won’t be easy and it won’t happen soon.

Take care of yourself and others. And know that if you didn’t care, if you weren’t a good person, all actually would be well right now.

Thanks for reading!

—Wendi

OTHER THINGS:

My friends Ali Solomon and Linda Wolff and I wrote this funny FORTUNE 500 COOKIES piece that’s on McSweeneys.

Are you listening to IT’S PRONOUNCED MEMWAH yet? We’ve had some really great episodes lately, so check us out on Apple Podcasts or Spotify.

‼️HUMOR WRITING CLASS! I plan on teaching a four-week class on writing humor essays and short form satire this fall. Please send me an email at wendi@wendiaarons.com and let me know if you’re interested. I’ll be getting it all organized to promote soon, but I’d love to get your info now. ‼️

Sidenote: It took me until 2005 until I realized how funny the Andy Kauffman video is.

One way I’ve been doing this is by buying plants from the clearance section. These are the half-dead hibiscus and aloe and rose bushes and fruit trees that look like they’ve barely survived a nuclear winter. They’re usually shoved in a back corner, far away from the thriving show off plants. “Oooh,” I think standing in front of a pot of something that used to be green and now needs either CPR or a mercy smothering with a feather pillow. “It’s only $1.99! I can save you, little buddy! Come home with me! The Volvo awaits!”

Once my new baby is safe and secure in my Backyard Garden/Mosquito Plato’s Retreat, I carefully transfer it to a nicer pot, pull off the dead leaves, and even sprinkle a little plant food on the dirt in case it gets snacky. (I don’t know how plants eat.) Then over the next week, I monitor it closely and do whatever is in my power as a person that thinks they have a green thumb because they read a lot of Little House on the Prairie knows how to do to keep it alive.

So far, with my dedication, devotion, care and feeding, and of course a healthy dose of unconditional love, Wendi’s Botanical Rehabilitation and Recovery Center has saved — exactly zero plants. They might even be dying faster than they would on the For Sale Cheap shelf. It’s almost like these assholes are making a choice.

I’ve had slightly better luck saving humans this summer. Well, one human. My friend Amanda threw a party for 35 women lawyers at her house a couple of weeks ago, and asked me to give a talk about I’m Wearing Tunics Now. I know, really nice of her. But when I got to her house, she was lying on her bed in intense pain due to a medical issue of hers that pops up from time to time. Some of her co-hosts kept checking on her, asking if they could help, but she directed them to go back to the kitchen to get all of the party refreshments ready.

Since I had zero interest in arranging melon prosciutto, and because I was worried for my friend, I stayed by her side and took care of her. I made sure her feet were elevated, and that she had a cold compress on her forehead, sips of water, and then when a wave of pain would hit, I’d give her my hand to squeeze and gave her this top-notch medical advice:

“Breathe in through the mouth and out through the nose. INNNNNNNN OUUUUTTTTT. Wait. It might be the other way around. Breathe out through the mouth and in through the nose. INNNNNNNN OUUUUTTTTT. Huh, that doesn’t seem right, either. Let’s go back to the mouth again.”

To which she replied, through the fog of her pain: “WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING TO ME.”

Anyone that’s read my middle-grade book GINGER MANCINO, KID COMEDIAN will remember that this breathing confusion is a running joke in the story because Ginger can never remember how to breathe, but guess what? Not fiction, friends. (Also, I have copies of this delightful book that’s perfect for 8-12 year old kids, and I’m happy to sell you one and mail it for $12. Just let me know if you’d like one or 10!)

Before too long, Amanda started feeling better and she got up and greeted her guests and was the perfect host, like always. Later, her sister said, “Thank goodness that blonde doctor showed up and took charge!” To which Amanda said, “Wendi? She’s no doctor. She’s a bossy humor writer.” I mean, she could have at least given me a day or two of being a sham MD. That’s not too much to ask. Maybe I could head up a national agency or something.

As for what or who else I’ll gloriously save this summer? I’m not sure. There’s a 90% dead begonia at the grocery store that I’ve had my eye on for a few days. Maybe I’ll bring it home and teach it how to breathe the wrong way.

Thanks for reading!

—Wendi

OTHER THINGS:

Well, one other thing. My friend ALI SOLOMON and I created this fun piece for McSweeneys and we would love if you click over to read and share it!

HOW GEN X CAN MAKE MONEY IN THIS ECONOMY

Chris and I have been alone again naturally since 2022. While it’s definitely bittersweet to have your kids living elsewhere, there are also considerable perks. In our case, roadtrips. Now that it’s just the two of us, we can travel a lot more lightly. No more packing multiple suitcases, or coming up with fun car activities, or planning places to stop to “burn off some energy” before we “kill each other in this Love’s Truck Stop shower stall*.” All we need now is a full tank of gas.

Well, gas plus hotel reservations made in advance using Bonvoy points, with special requests for non-feather pillows and a room on a high floor that’s not next to an elevator or a drunk family reunion. I may be traveling light, but I'm not traveling idiot.

So far this year, we’ve driven from Austin to Albuquerque and Santa Fe and to the Texas coast. Those maybe don’t sound like long trips, but anyone that knows Texas knows it takes eight hours in any direction just to cross the state line, and that’s starting from the middle. I’m pretty sure you can drive through the entire other 49 states in the country in that same amount of time. (#NotGreatAtGeography)

Last weekend, we had a bit of a hybrid road trip. We flew to Omaha, Nebraska to pick up a new car Chris bought, then we drove it back home, stopping in Kansas City, MO, Bentonville, AR and Tulsa, OK on the way. I called it the “Places That Are Not on My Bucket List” trip.

It might sound fancy to fly to another state to buy a car, but what we bought is a used Alfa Romeo and for some reason, Omaha has one of the biggest Alfa Romeo car lots. I guess their two main exports are Italian sports cars and corn? Tutto bene. It’s a really nice car, although it took me a while to get used to having it. We were driving through a parking lot looking for a space, and Chris started yelling, “Move it! Get out of the way! Alfa coming through! Here comes the Alfa!”

Because this is America in 2025, I heard it as “Alpha coming through!” and then immediately lectured him for acting like an entitled white guy, even snarkily suggested he start a podcast, until I realized there was no “ph” in his Alfa, and we had to have another lengthy talk about Why Wendi Needs a Break from Social Media.

But let me get to the biggest perk of being empty nesters on a road trip: table dashing.

I’m not talking about the classic dine ‘n dash that everyone tries at least once in high school, where you run out of Applebee’s without paying the check. That’s the second worst thing you can do to a server. The first worst thing is telling your date, “Here’s her tip”, then putting coins in a glass of water, a menu on the top, and flipping it over so she gets a fun $.75 surprise. Ah, Jerry Mertz. The one that got away.

Chris and I don’t ever set out to table dash, but it happens on roadtrips because we don’t always pick the best restaurants despite me Googling “guacamole near me,” then trying to decipher the map while we bomb down the freeway at 85mph. So at least once or twice per trip, we find ourselves wandering into a bar or restaurant, sitting down, and then, finding either the menu or the ambiance wanting, we give each other a “let’s blow this pop stand” look and leave before we can be told about the special of the day.

I guess it’s a little rude, but it’s not like any of the employees are running after us, screaming, “Wait! Come back! We want to hear all about your special dietary needs! We love having AARP members in our leather bar!”

This, of course, doesn’t happen if we can look at the menu in advance. Specifically, a menu that lists the prices, so we don’t sit down in a bar in Santa Fe and discover that guacamole and chips costs $25. “I could buy an avocado tree for $25,” I hissed to Chris, right before we stood up and left that place. “They grow on trees, right?”

During our recent stay in Kansas City, we wanted a cozy hotel bar to have a cocktail and maybe some snacks after a long day of driving. Most of the bars near us were sports bars, but then we found one that looked promising. Yes, it was in the back of an ice cream parlor, and yes it had a big drain in the middle of the floor like the Waffle House, and yes, the only two other customers at the time were wearing hot pants and mesh shirts at 5pm, but so what. That could work. But then after a few minutes scanning the drinks menu, we realized three things: 1) The bar was blasting all Katy Perry songs because 2) there was a Katy Perry concert that night at the arena down the street and 3) it was about to be filled with more mesh shirts and hot pants and … people that paid for a Katy Astronaut Perry ticket.

“We’re too old for this shit,” Chris whispered as we stood up. “Want to drink beer in our room?”

“Yep,” I answered my Alpha Male. “I’m buying.”

Nobody even saw us leave.

*I have never showered at Love’s Truck Stop

Thanks for reading!

—Wendi

OTHER THINGS:

My friend Johanna Gohmann and I wrote this funny salute to mothers over on McSweeneys.

I wrote B.D.S.M for the Middle Aged with some friends and it’s over at The New Yorker Shouts and Murmurs.

I absolutely loved visiting Crystal Bridges museum in Bentonville, Arkansas and seeing my favorite Georgia O’Keeffe painting.

The party was for one of Chris’s colleagues, so he didn’t know most of the guests, either. But that didn’t matter because he wasn’t an invisible blonde woman in a tunic with Nothing to Offer Men Now That Her Eggs Are All Gone.

Hmmm, there’s something gross about her —

The men at the party politely introduced themselves to Chris, asked what he did, half-paid attention when he said who I was, and then each of them immediately started to talk about themselves like the sound of their voice was a rare gift they were bestowing upon us.

This was mostly because these men were all 1) slightly older than us and 2) massively more wealthy than us. I know that because one of them mentioned that he was CEO of a large high tech company at least four times in 10 minutes, and the others all told us the boards they head up. It was my worst nightmare come to life: a live action, immersive LinkedIn experience. “Congratulate Ken for 20 Years of Being a Narcissist!”

“Are we writing these weirdos’ profiles for Fortune magazine?” I whispered to Chris during a lull. “Because I just want to eat my damn crab cakes in peace.”

During these “conversations,” I wasn’t once asked anything about myself, and when I did respond to something they said, they just continued to ramble like I wasn’t even there. It wouldn’t have mattered what I said.

“Then in 2001, I moved to Big Tech Company where I was CEO for 5 years.”

“That’s really interesting, Greg. Coincidentally, 2001 is the same year I gave birth to Axl Rose’s triplets, then directed one of the SAW movies.”

“It was also during this time that I was president of the board for Big Cultural Non-Profit.”

“Oh, I love that org. They were so nice after I committed a multiple homicide in their parking lot. They even used some of their tote bags to wipe up the bloodbath.”

“(pause) I have twenty cars.”

Most women have experienced this invisibility at some point. A talking boor used to be more common on airplanes until AirPods and naked hostility became popular. But it truly bothers me. Not because I want to connect with a walking TED Talk and hear more about being born on third base, because I really, really don’t. It bothers me because I don’t understand the complete lack of interest in learning about the person right in front of you.

I tend to go hard the other way because I’m endlessly curious about people. Give me five minutes in a restroom line and I’ll come away with four social security numbers and a deep dark secret about someone’s brother-in-law. Maybe this is because I’m a writer, or because I love stories, or because I’m, at heart, a super snoopy person prone to peeking through the blinds, but it’s mostly because I know that connecting with others is our responsibility as human beings on this planet. And if you don’t want to do that, if you’re just a rich guy focused on yourself, then why don’t you spend some of your millions on a rocket ship and blast the f-ck off into space?

Oh.

Okay, I think I just answered my own question.

At least the crab cakes were delicious.

Thanks for reading!

—Wendi

OTHER THINGS:

We’ve had some great episodes over on my It’s Pronounced Memwah podcast, notably our discussions about Billy Dee Williams’s memoir and Griffin Dunne’s memoir.

I co-wrote a funny/tragic piece about your tax dollars for McSweeneys.

My favorite new thing is watching people dance at this flea market record shop in Paris.

But soon after I started the job, HR pulled all of the new hires into a conference room to tell us about something called a 401(k).

“Just take a little money from each paycheck and put it into this fund, and by the time you retire, it’ll be in the millions!”

Considering that I was making $17,400 a year at this job, I laughed at the thought of having one nickel to spare, and kindly declined the 401(k) plan. Now, many, many years later, I realize that if I’d started putting a few dollars a month into a 401(k) back then, today it’d be worth

— the same as when I started. Are we great yet?

It’s fun to have the same knowledge of the stock market that the President does considering that my knowledge is 100% from the movie Trading Places.

Merry New Year!

But before we all climb onto a ledge, I thought I’d share some humor today. I wrote this with my brilliant and hilarious friend, comic and writer . Some of you may remember her from MTV’s Austin Stories, some from her stand-up, and some from the many TV shows she’s written. Give her Substack Too Much and Never Enough a follow, will you?

Presenting:

It’s Raining Men(opause): Revised Song TitIes for Gen X Women

1. HotFlash (What a Feeling) 

2. I Would Dye My Hair 4U

3. Don’t You (Forget Why You Came in Here) 

4. I Wear My +3.75 Readers at Night 

5. Hit Me With Your Best Shingles Shot

6. Bette Davis Thighs

7. Here I Go to Costco Again 

8. The Reflux

9. That’s What Meds are For

10. I Want to Know What Sleep Is

11. Dry Eye of the Tiger 

12. Hiploose

13. All Night Long (9:15pm)

14. Livin’ on a Prayer Because I Don’t Have Health Insurance

15. Every Breath You Take (May Hurt)

16. Hairy Like the Wolf

17. Pour Some Splenda on Me

18. Don’t Stop A’peein’

19. Girls Just Wanna Have Tums

20. We Got the Heat

21. Burning Down the Sheets

22. Every Little Thing She Does is Manic 

23. Don’t Give a Damn About My Bad Palpitation 

24. Holding out for a (Coke) Zero 

25. Here Comes the Pain Again 

26. Backache in Black

27. Everybody Wants to Rule Women’s Bodies 

28. Hello, Is it Keys You’re Looking For

29. Tears for Midlife Fears 

30. It’s the End of the World as We Know It (And I’m on Lexapro)

Hang in there, everyone. If worse comes to worst, we can always sell off our Columbia Records collections on eBay. The one you bought for a penny.

Thanks for reading!

—Wendi

It all started at my annual mammogram in December. I had a 3-D scan, which for some reason my mind likes to call an R2-D2 scan. I don’t know why this is. Would R2-D2 take a break from hanging out with C-3PO on the spaceship to squeeze boobs? Maybe. I don’t know the Star Wars universe that well. He might be a perv.

That said, my breast imaging place now has short pink capes with little snaps on them, so when I walked around in mine I kind of felt like Lando Calrissian if he ever decided to observe Breast Cancer Awareness month in Cloud City. Shit. Maybe I do know the Star Wars universe that well.

But because they saw something “suspicious” on my mammogram, I was scheduled to come in a month later to get retested. An entire month. Good thing I don’t have an active imagination and a newfound interest in medical googling!

Sidenote: I have recently diagnosed three friends with frozen shoulder. And by “diagnosed”, I mean that when they told me their shoulder hurt, I said, “It’s probably frozen shoulder because you’re an oldie” and then I asked for a $30 co-pay.

My second R2-D2 mammogram showed areas of concern, so my pink cape and I were sent to another room to get an ultrasound. After I sprawled on the chair and got into a 1950’s pin-up pose with my arm behind my head, resisting the urge to say, “Paint me like one of your French girls,” they squirted some cold jelly on me and a male doctor pressed the ultrasound wand to my breast while he looked at his monitor and said things like:

“Huh.”

“Can’t tell what that is.”

“Is that a swirl?”

“Hoooo boy.”

To which I replied, “Oh my god, just tell me if I’m dying.”

He then stopped what he was doing and said that I needed to get a bopsy.

“What’s a bopsy?” I asked, and he went into his spiel about what a bopsy was and how they’d use needles to get tissue samples. I said “Okay, thanks”, wandered off to put my clothes back on, and texted my husband that I had to get a bopsy. “What’s a bopsy?” he replied, and I said, “No idea.”

Twenty minutes later when I pulled into my garage, I said the word “biopsy” out loud in a thick Lubbock accent like the doctor’s. Ohhhh.

A week later I went back in and had a core needle biopsy, which hurt a little. But this time I had a woman doctor who was much more reassuring and who thrilled my little medical investigator heart by showing me the images of my breast on her office computer. “Can I get that in an 8x10?” I asked and then was embarrassed because I felt myself sliding headfirst into Medical Humor. And from there it’s just a quick trip to buying big red glasses, a floral top, and being the funniest person at the cruise ship dining room table.

Unfortunately, the first bopsy didn’t reach what they needed to reach so I was invited to come back a few days later for a more intense one. By “more intense”, I mean I was squeezed for 25 minutes in a mammogram machine while they inserted a long needle into my breast. It was like when Princess Leia and Luke were in that trash compactor on the Death Star and — okay, no more. No mas Star Wars.

Perhaps worse than the pain of the tests, however, is the agony of waiting on the biopsy results. And it’s not like I could click over to the news to distract me when there’s a new horror every minute. “Waiting on biopsy results” seems to be the prevailing mood of America right now. But I finally got the results of both biopsies and they were benign. B9! Whew. My shoulders finally left my ears and I stopped medical Googling. (However, I’m pretty sure I now have one year of med school under my belt.)

But wait! There’s more! I then went to the dermatologist for my annual mole patrol and guess what? Bopsy! The doctor found a suspicious mole on my thigh, which is not a place that receives a lot of sunlight so it was odd. But after another long week of waiting for the results, googling in another medical specialty, I got the good call: benign.

I’m now taking a break from bopsies for as long as possible.

Thanks to so many friends for giving me rides, advice, making me laugh, and checking in. Most women will deal with this type of scary test at least once or twice in their lives, sometimes more. And not to get too serious, but I highly and strongly encourage all women to get their tests done now that Captain Brain Worm is leading our nation’s health and women’s health research has been gutted. Pap smear, mammogram, skin check, bone density, bloodwork, eye exam, hearing exam — the works. We need to keep up our strength and our energy.

And if all of those tests result in a bopsy or two, give me a shout. I’ll cheer you up with some Medical Humor.

Thanks for reading!

—Wendi

I keep reminding myself that we can’t let these assholes ruin our lives. So, while we wait for our tax dollars to pay to have Trump’s face carved into Mt. Rushmore, assuming they can find enough slimy orange rock, we need to find joy however we can. Well, maybe not via airplane for a while.

I might need a brain worm of my own so I can relax a little.

But in times like this, it’s tempting to embrace nostalgia, and that’s exactly what I did last Sunday. My husband and I headed to downtown Austin for a concert by 80’s stars Howard Jones and ABC. The last time I saw Howard Jones in concert was in 1986, the night before my SATs. The SATs that I bombed and had to retake a month or so later. I still managed to go to college, so no hard feelings, Howard!

My sister Amy said I should wear what I wore in 1986 to the show, but I don’t know if The Limited is even still in business so I just put on a pair of jeans. I definitely wanted to look nice because my friend Molly gifted us her seats in one of the theater’s opera boxes. Meaning, we were two cranks on high display in the first row.

A lot of my midlife friends go to concerts by bands that are popular now, and they often get asked if they’re there to pick up their kids. Or they’re looked at like they might be narcs. Actually, do narcs still go undercover at concerts? Or was that DEA program cut by DOGE? Can we openly sell coke now? LMK, I need a new job.

But while these friends sometimes feel a little odd being the oldest people at the young concerts, this isn’t an issue at an 80’s concert. At all. No, ma’am. We fit right in.

While we waited in line outside the theater:

• The women in front of us discussed their hormone replacement therapy

• The woman behind us talked about her new crochet project

• The 60-year-old rebel punk in a kilt and Doc Martens who has been fighting authority since 1982 bragged about his great parking spot

MY PEOPLE.

Once inside the theater:

• A group of women danced and screamed along to the pre-show New Wave songs the venue played

• I Shazamed the pre-show New Wave songs the venue played because I couldn’t remember who sang them

• During a song by Spandeau Ballet, the woman behind me told her date, “One of the guys from this band is married to someone from Wham!” and I whipped around and said, “Shirley! From Shirley and Pepsi!” and then I said, “We must be the same age!” and she slightly grimaced

• The group of women that danced and screamed along to the pre-show New Wave music were too tired to get up during the actual show and one of them was napping (I should mention the show started at 7 p.m.)

MY PEOPLE.

Howard Jones and Martin Frey are in their late 60’s, and they both sound really great. They sang all of their hits, like The Look of Love, Poison Arrow, and Zillionaire (ABC) and What Is Love?, Like to Get To Know You Well, and No One Is to Blame (Howard). As a bonus, Howard’s lead guitarist is the guy from Kajagoogoo who wrote “Too Shy To Shy”, so they did that one, too.

It felt comforting, I guess, to be at the show listening to music from 40 years ago while chaos reined in my iPhone’s news feed. It’s a refuge when enveloped by music from a simpler time. I won’t say a better time because I’m well aware it wasn’t better for everyone, even if my main problem back then was fear that my Donna Summer stack perm would never grow out. And of course my SAT score.

“We’re close enough to jump onto the stage!” I yelled at Chris at one point.

“I don’t want to die at an 80’s concert!” he yelled back. Which is understandable, but then again, we’d probably make the AARP main news page if we did.

We loved the show, but the song that’s stuck with me is Howard’s Things Can Only Get Better. When I hear that title, the pessimist part of me immediately thinks, “Or things will get much worse”, but the lyrics are especially poignant right now so I’m trying to stay hopeful.

Treating today as though it was the last, the final show
Get to 60 and feel no regret
It may take a little time, a lonely path, an uphill climb
Success or failure will not alter it

And do you feel scared? I do
But I won't stop and falter
And if we threw it all away
Things can only get better

I hope he’s right.

Thanks for reading!

—Wendi

(Yes, I know a potato truck is an Irish cliche but it’s true. We were seconds away from being taken out by a few rogue spuds.)

We booked our Dublin, Killarney and Cork “Taste of Ireland” trip via Costco Travel. We’ve had great success with them in the past on our trips to Italy and London. Their vacation packages usually include private transfer from and to the airport, which is something our driver at Heathrow last May took very seriously

“You can take the sign off now. Not everyone needs to know where I shop.”

“No, I must keep it on while we walk past 20,000 people, madame!”

What I like best about Costco Travel is the hotel selection. You have a choice of around 10 hotels per city when you book, and they’re not your typical Hiltons and Hyatts. They’re usually four or five star properties and a great deal more fancy than what we usually book for ourselves, while still being a reasonable price.

For example, our Costco Travel trip in 2022 to Rome, Florence and Venice was seven nights at really nice hotels, and included free breakfast every morning and in-room amenities like Prosecco and fruit trays. We also had airport pick up and first class train tickets between the cities. The total cost? $1,800. (Airfare not included.) Plus we also got the thrill of Italian hotel desk clerks hearing our last name when we checked in, then exclaiming, “Ohhh! You are with Cost-a-co!”

In Europe, nobody knows that in America, Costco doesn’t mean high rollers. It means $1.99 hot dog + drink.

Also, that’s how the accent sounded. Don’t @ me.

After enjoying Dublin and Killarney, we journeyed by car to an area outside of Cork to stay at the spectacular Castlemartyr Resort. Driving through the brilliant green grounds surrounding the property, we knew we were a bit out of our league. I mean, we’re not complete rubes, but we’ve also stayed in motels that give you a free mini-Speedstick when you check in because most of their regular clientele are truckers. The last hotel we stayed in had a photo of Papa John’s pizza on the room keycard.

But as we walked past the gorgeous art, the horses, the luxury cars, and the actual FREAKING CASTLE on the property that the Knights Templar built in 1210, we told each other to just be cool and act like we’ve been there before.

“We need to seem sophisticated,” I whispered to Chris.

“Then take off your Oregon Duck mittens,” he whispered back.

Nearing the lobby, we noticed a framed note on a table announcing that the wedding of Freya and Declan was happening, so guests should please be aware. Fine. I like weddings. Then, as we got closer to the front desk, we saw a beautifully illustrated 20 x 30” sign on an easel. The sign had a dog on one side with the name FREYA, a plus sign in the middle, and a dog on the other side with the name DECLAN. Under that were about 20 other dogs with names. So, after we walked up to the front desk, sipped the glasses of complimentary champagne we were handed, and smiled at the lovely woman behind the counter, I asked one obvious question:

“Is the dog wedding open to the public?”

She stared at me in confusion and said, “What dog wedding?” and then I realized in horror that Freya and Declan weren’t actually dogs getting married, but Irish humans getting married. Humans that like their dogs so much they put them on a sign with the other dogs of the wedding party. “Oh, uh, nevermind,” I mumbled while Chris shuffled over to the window to intensely stare at a tassel, “I’m, uh, from a place where it’s not weird to have a dog wedding hahaha! Not my dog, he’s single, but he’s available hahaha! What, uh, time is breakfast?”

My dog wedding question then immediately made the rounds of the front desk personnel to loads of giggles. Maybe I’ve now redeemed myself in the Irish humor world, who knows. The whole thing was embarrassing, yes, but I then found a nice armchair and a bartender just a few steps away and that’s where we spent the evening. Luck of the Irish, indeed.

If you’re interested in hearing more about Ireland, let me know in the comments and I’ll give you more details!

Thanks for reading and enjoy the holidays!

Wendi

One time we couldn’t take off from Burbank because one of the passengers and one of the “freelance entertainers” decided to conduct a little business in the airplane bathroom first. I guess they were becoming members of the ground high club rather than the mile high club. But it wasn’t long before they were both disgracefully escorted off the plane while the rest of us passengers applauded. One of the other passengers was Kelsey Grammer who was traveling on Southwest Airlines with us that night because it was pre-Frasier and he didn’t have a PJ yet.

Yes, I’ve reached the age where I’m able to throw random factoids into almost any conversation, darling. *exhales plume of cigarette smoke*

The reason I went to Vegas for one night was to meet my friend Sandra and see the Eagles at The Sphere. In case you don’t know about The Sphere, it’s a giant concert venue on Sands Avenue that debuted in 2023. I unfortunately hadn’t heard of it when I was flying through Vegas right after it opened, and looked out the plane window to see this:

I immediately and calmly asked my seat mate, “DO YOU SEE A GIANT YELLOW HEAD DOWN THERE? PLEASE SAY YES. OR DID THEY SPIKE MY AIRPLANE WINE?” It was like that Twilight Zone episode “Nightmare at 20,000 Feet” where a man sees a gremlin on the wing, only much more whimsical and cute.

I’ve been to Vegas many, many times over the years, and I like it less each time. This probably coincides with me getting older, and therefore, grosser in the opinion of every man there. I even wrote about this phenomenon in my book I’M WEARING TUNICS NOW and how the freedom that came with being ignored filled me with bravado. But this time what I realized is that not only am I gross, and not only am I invisible, but as a post-menopausal woman, I truly don’t exist in Vegas.

Now, of course, I don’t care about getting male attention in Vegas. It’s not like I’m one of the women there for a bachelorette party, wearing a blinking penis necklace and trying to get some guy in a Raiders tank top to buy me a $15 rum and coke. Which the tank top did, after she played with her hair extension and gave him a weed gummy. Such an incredibly romantic moment to watch at 10am in a casino lounge.

(Side note: What the hell is with the prices in Vegas now? A cheeseburger costs as much as two nights at the MGM used to cost.)

(*exhales plume of cigarette smoke*)

Anyway, I discovered that I am now not visible to the human eye while I was on the elevator at our hotel. First, a man pushed past me to get out the doors first, and almost knocked me down. Maybe he was running off to puke up his 2’ long glass of margarita. Next, one guy with a Monster Energy calf tattoo carried on a loud conversation with a guy with a Bart Simpson peeing calf tattoo with no regard for me standing in between them with no calf tattoo. Maybe I’m used to better manners, but it was almost like they weren’t even being rude to me because they didn’t actually see me there. Who knows. I’m not sure what goes on in the minds of calf tattooees.

But after a day and night of this, I was done. I was on the lobby elevator headed up to get my suitcase when the doors opened on the second floor, and a middle-manager type of white dork got on without looking up from his phone. He then went to the back of the elevator car, stood behind me, and still not looking up, said, “FLOOR 10.” No “please”, no “thanks”, no “oh you’re an actual human being I’m sharing this 6 x 6 space with so I should at least acknowledge your existence to prove I’m not a complete piece of shit.”

But honestly, I guess I understood. After all, he was younger and therefore more important than me. He had places to go and things to do. Why should he waste his time talking to a woman born in the late 60’s? I had nothing to offer him. I wasn’t even wearing a visible thong. So I decided to take the high road. I nicely smiled and cheerfully said, “You got it!”

And then I pushed the 8, 9, and 11 buttons right before I got off on floor 3.

Jackpot.

Other things:

I do highly recommend seeing the Eagles at The Sphere. It’s kind of amazing.

We interviewed about her wonderful rock & roll memoir ALL I EVER WANTED on It’s Pronounced Memwah. Listen here.

Thanks for reading!

—Wendi