Birthday wishes to Marcus, Betty, and Addison

Friedan is dead. Funny, I was just thinking about her this afternoon, hours before my mother called with the news. I was thinking about how different my summer would've gone had I been appointed as her caretaker. It would've been an effing disaster, I suspect. I pass her house at least twice a week -- she lives just down the road from the surf shop -- and shudder over barely missing an intense, difficult road. After all, nothing makes an awkward breakup worse than the constant presence of an aging feminist legend. Imagine trying to split up with Elizabeth Cady Stanton always around, needing eggs and extra toilet paper. Fuck that.

Thank God we never even met. Honestly, we were both lucky. I've been known to mistake poison for ice water.