Beth Broderick: Wit and Wisdom for the Ages from the Aged Podcast

Wit and Wisdom by Beth Broderick “Hey. I think I should check in with you more, like a lot more, if you are going to be on that medication.” My sister Laura found out about my new prescription by reading this column. We see each other once or twice a week, but I had not discussed it with her yet. “It seemed like the lesser of two evils,” I told her. “But yeah, that ‘black box suicidey’ thing is a...

Wit and Wisdom by Beth Broderick “You shouldn’t be pretty. I mean, you are, but you shouldn’t be.” I was 27 years old at the time, and my friend proceeded to go down a list, feature by feature, of what was wrong with my looks. “Your hairline is too low. I think your eyes are too close together. Your nose has a hump, and your cheekbones are too square.” He went on and on, and I allowed it, because...

Wit and Wisdom by Beth Broderick I am writing this while seated on a train, heading west to the historic Union Station in downtown L.A. My friend Don and I are returning from Anaheim, where we spent the night at Howard Johnson following a fun jaunt through Disneyland’s “Oogie Boogie Nights.” The party celebrates Halloween several nights a week from now through All Hallows’ Eve proper. It is a very...

Wit and Wisdom by Beth Broderick I was sitting with an old friend in a comfy booth in the back of a very good Mexican restaurant on Ventura Boulevard. We were lingering after a hefty serving of fajitas with all the fixings. “How is Lanny?” (Not her real name) I asked. “Good, I think. She seems happy being retired. She got old … went gray, the whole shebang,” he answered. I looked at him. He had, a...

Wit and Wisdom by Beth Broderick It sits in the space next to mine, someone’s hot little brown car. I am told that it has been in the garage of my apartment building for two years and some change. It is covered in layer upon layer of dust and grime, but one can see that it was a sassy machine in its day—a Mazda sports coupe. Hot stuff. It has been waiting patiently for its owner to recover from wh...

Wit and Wisdom by Beth Broderick It was a rare sighting. I was on the floor at the gym doing some fancy ab moves, which required holding both legs straight up in the air and reaching for them in alternate lunges, with hands holding 2½ lb. weights. This is meant to target the upper region of my relatively flat but, to my mind, under-toned abdomen. (A six pack is hard to come by when one is 66 years...

Wit and Wisdom by Beth Broderick “There’s a new injection that is proving very effective. We are seeing great results. It does have one black-box side effect, though. (A black-box side effect is one that is potentially, but not often, fatal.) Do you have a history of depression?” she asked. I was in my Rheumatology office with Ashley, the Physician Assistant to the Big Cheese doctors in the practi...

Wit and Wisdom by Beth Broderick I was in Fredricksburg Texas, sitting across from the twins. John and Don have been known in some circles as “The Gay Twins from Arkansas” for as long as we have been friends, which is a long, long time. Mostly, though, they are just known as “The Twins”. Both men are tall and lanky, with the kind of impressive physical strength that comes from labor and not the gy...

Wit and Wisdom by Beth Broderick Four A.M. The alarm woke me out of a deep sleep and interrupted an odd dream. I have lost the plot of it now, but it involved my old colleague Nate Richert, who played Harvey on Sabrina. We were college students, and he was in trouble, and I was trying to get him out of it. That’s all I’ve got; the particulars of the story are lost to the night. The dream is good n...

Wit and Wisdom by Beth Broderick I said goodbye to a dear old pal on Sunday. Harvey “The DON” Siegel was one of the first people to truly befriend me when I was young and stupid and on my own in New York City. My first year there I got caught up in a crowd that lived hard and long into the night, courtesy of cocaine and a few other substances that were favored at the time. I loved the drug, a litt...

Wit and Wisdom by Beth Broderick Some time ago, I just had to admit it: I need help. I have always been headstrong, determined to handle everything on my own. This has often sent me careening down the highway to the hell of burnout. I would collapse for a day or two and then dive right back in at warp speed. I take on a lot. I have a wide variety of creative interests, as well as a keen drive to c...

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Wit and Wisdom by Beth Broderick I have a lot of lists. Long lists and short ones, memos and notes. They are on my phone, on rolls of paper in my kitchen, sticky-noted to my laptop, and pasted on the walls. These lists are meant to keep me on track, keep the larder stocked and the business of life flowing. The problem is not that there are no lists. I’ve got them up the wazoo. The problem is that...

Wit and Wisdom by Beth Broderick “You’re doing that? You’re up in the hills alone like that? On steep ridges?” my sister-in-law Sarah asked with a look of concern. When she put it that way, I had to admit it sounded a tad off the beam. I had been explaining that I feel more confident hiking in the hills and on the ridges alone with my dog Fairness, because my pal Dean gave me a cane with a stun fe...

Wit and Wisdom by Beth Broderick Luck. “The definition of luck is when preparation meets opportunity.” My mother said this to us many times when we were growing up. It has a nice “pull yourself up by the bootstraps” Americana feel about it, a nod to the work ethic bestowed upon us by our Puritan ancestors. That is not, however, the definition of luck. This is how it is described according to Webst...

Wit and Wisdom by Beth Broderick They are everywhere. Lemons, oranges, and grapefruits are the most obvious, but tucked into corners or looming in the back are also figs, and, this being the Southland, avocados. My new neighborhood is ripe with produce which tempts me at every turn. I look up wistfully at the lemons I cannot reach without risking serious bodily harm. The low-hanging ones are picke...

Wit and Wisdom by Beth Broderick My hair is really short—way shorter than I wanted it to be. It looks fine, I guess, and blessedly is no longer purple, but dang it, why so short? The fellow who has been taking care of it for me is lovely and kind, and I am a bit fascinated by him, so I was maybe not paying enough attention to the “hair” part of the appointment and too much to the “him” part. He do...

Wit and Wisdom by Beth Broderick I failed to read the directions. Just didn’t bother. The label seemed straightforward enough: “Color Extend Blondage.” It is supposed to tame any of the dreaded brassy notes a gal’s hair may pick up in the sunshine or under a hot dryer. It’s not dye; it is just a simple mask. The way I make a living is not entirely based on looks. One has to have talent, “chops” as...

Wit and Wisdom by Beth Broderick “Tell me the truth,” my nephew Conor said emphatically. He is not a blood relative, but I have been his Auntie Beth for as long as he has been alive. He is 100% my family. “Am I being a baby, or have the last few years just been impossibly hard?” “You are not a baby. The last few years have been impossibly hard.” For young people trying to carve out careers in the...

Wit and Wisdom by Beth Broderick I moved home to my native California two years ago. I was born and raised in Orange County but have lived in Los Angeles for the better part of my life. I have tried other places. Spent time in New York City and Austin, Texas, but L.A. has always called me home. Two weeks ago, on the last day of 2024, I moved into a new place in Beachwood Canyon. It is an old Holly...

Wit and Wisdom by Beth Broderick I woke up in a new apartment on New Year’s Eve morning, the bedroom still full of boxes, the to-do list ever growing. But the anxiety had mostly eased. For a few glorious moments, I just lay there, the dog snuggled up beside me, and felt at home. I played a round of Words with Friends with my dear friend Michael, with whom I am always in a neck-and-neck battle to t...

Wit and Wisdom by Beth Broderick “When you see me in February, I will look brand new.” My dear friend said this to me not long ago. At the time, we were dining on croissants and some kind of sugar bun—one of the many holiday feasts we had recently consumed—but soon, he promised, it would be time for famine. “I think you look good now,” I said. “You are old and blind and deaf, so you can’t really s...

Wit and Wisdom by Beth Broderick Can we talk about trash? It is a subject that consumes many of my thoughts. I am borderline obsessive about it. I save food scraps in compostable bags in my refrigerator until they are full enough to be placed in one of the green bins that frequently line the streets alongside their blue and black bin brethren. I divide recycling carefully and rinse it, if need be,...

Wit and Wisdom by Beth Broderick My last article was published on November 4, 2024, twelve days ago as of this writing. November 5th occasioned an electoral outcome that shocked and dismayed many while thrilling others. It is no secret that the results were not what I had hoped for. I believe that the implications of this vote are as far-reaching as any I can think of in my lifetime, but the peopl...

Wit and Wisdom by Beth Broderick I saw her first: a lovely coyote walking just twenty steps ahead of us on the opposite side of the street. It was about 8:30 PM, darkness just beginning to settle over my Beverly Hills neighborhood. She looked right into my eyes, and I nodded with a neutral expression. Fairness, the pup, caught on at that point and strained toward her, wanting a better look. “No,”...