One: the high cost of being female.

I read a U.S. estimate that says it can cost between $500,000 and a million dollars today- well, whenever; it’s kind of hypothetical From cars and computers to Oxford shirts and haircuts and dry-cleaning, if it’s a female service or article of clothing, it costs more. I’m past the point so it’s irrelevant for me. I simply do not buy new clothes, and because of Covid-19, I haven’t thad my hair cut for months. One could write a piece about the pleasure and comfort of old clothes. Or one could do a survey asking people how old is their oldest piece of clothing.That might be fun. No scarves or belts.

But while we’re on the subject, what about the high cost of being old? Forget senior discounts, what have older people lost? And what does it cost to compensate for failing energy, that is, paying someone to do a job you have always done for yourself? Combine the two: the high cost of being female and the high cost of being old. It costs a lot to be old, and even more to be poor: housing, food, clothing, health, services, transportation. Smart people are full of advice. I myself wrote a book on retirement that went through several editions. (The Best Is Yet To Come, Key Porter Books , 19-something) One reviewer thought i was blunt and cheerful about some of the harder facts of life in the twilight zone.

*Make your money last? Some people have trouble making a spouse last a lifetime.

*Make the money first, then make it last. (Not simple)

*These days lots of people don’t live within their means because they can’t afford to.

I found a few pages of ideas dating back to my journalism days when I would send an idea or two to a magazine and hope for an assignment. Some of the suggestions were not necessarily for me to do, just thoughts as I tried to think of something that would appeal to readers. For example:

Send someone through the Inland Waterway on a houseboat to report on it. I knew someone who did that, navigating by a highway map.
What about that igloo/ice hotel? Old-hat (toque) by now but it was new when I first read about it.
And the Toronto Underground was not as complex as it is now, but there are maps to follow and lots of things to do and write about. One could spend 24 hours? I read that it is possible to go by underground and on a vehicle (train) from Toronto to Montreal without ever going outside.
Check out the airports. Remember that Tom Hanks movie? (The Terminal?) Is it possible to live in a large one, say O’Hare. I read an estimate that about 400 people live there. How? Would you like to try, and write about it?
Other peoples’ libraries: country? city? the guest room? I could never spend the night in anyone’s house without checking the books in my room. I remember once I was billeted in an apartment in Minneapolis, the home of a board member of the theatre that was producing a play of mine. I never did meet the woman but I knew a lot about her from the books she owned or was reading.
Ditto fridges, the contents thereof: salty or sweet (blue cheese or chocolate)? Secret noshes? When I did a publicity tour for my leftovers cookbook, I offered to go home with the reviewer in each city (often a writer-cook on staff in those days) and make lunch for us with whatever was in her fridge. Some were too nervous to take me up on it; others not so. I still have a friend after all these years who still asks me to make sense, that is, use up the contents of her freezer .
I suppose it would be obscenely nosy to poke in people’s medicine cabinets. (My convent upbringing would never allow me to do that.) I know someone who did who found a loaded gun in the master bathroom.
There’s more but that’s all I can handle tonight.