Ms. Ephron has a lot of accomplishments, a family, many friends, varied and storied experiences. So why is she so damn focused on her neck and other details of her physical appearance? We're designed to age. Our skin wrinkles, our hair gets gray, we get age spots. Big deal. It's not news that it happens, it's not news that most of us would rather not get old and then die. BTW, it's not entertainment either. It just...is.

Surely there are other things to think about, write aobut? I'm pretty sure that her world has not suddenly narrowed, at the age of 65, to a shallow superfiical place where only her looks matter and must be mourned. I'm pretty sure she's still writing, directing, being a wife, a mother, etc. You'd never know it from this interview or her book. Her fear of aging is a drumbeat that drowns out everything else.

I am 42 now, and would not trade my life as it is now to be 20, 25, or 30 again. I've had too many experiences, good and bad, that have shaped who I am and helped me undersand the world and how to relate to it. There are books I consider invaluable; there are people that are the bright shining center of my life, there are places I will never forget and places I've never been but had fun imagining for my whole life, and will continue to do so. There are things I know now I dind't know then that I would not trade to look ten years younger - how to pick my battles, how to negotiate rather than fight to win, the role of my mind in competition, the fact that my body doesn't feel much different than it did 20 years ago when I run a 10k, the satisfaction of building a career, and then a second one. How to trust, be vulnerable, love generously. I've learned all of these things with age and experience, and I wouldn't trade them for a the fountain of neck youth.

I suppose she's just trying to be funny but what's the point? We're all aging, all the time. I guess I just don't see the *need* to find so much humor in it. Aging, after all, is not a calamity. It's just what happens next, every minute. It doesn't deserve so much ink.

read "Passing for Thin" by Frances Kuffel, who lost 200 lbs. by dieting alone (by 'dieting' I mean, eating right)

He actually believes what a woman tells him in bed - you think he'd know given his own history, how easy it is to deceive someone about sex.

..and wholly specious, scientifically speaking. The conclusion could easily be: dirty-minded teens (i.e. those interested in having sex) seek out dirty-worded music, and NOT that dirty music causes the dirty deed to occur at an earlier age. This alone is reason enough to stay the hand of censors. Saying music 'causes' teens to get sexually active at an earlier age might *seem* to make sense (mostly to adults who don't like the music and consider it 'noise') but how different is that, really, from saying, oh, let's see, I know: girls dressed provactively cause boys and girls to become sexual at an earlier age. And once they aren't dressed provactively, we can say, it's their long flowing hair and heavily-made up, come hither eyes. Next thing you know we've got them muffled head to toe in black chadors and burkahs and guess what? Boys and girls who really really want to have sex are *still* going to find or create the opportunities.

it can be tempting to say "well, let's remove the influences that make it easier for kids to have sex" but it's a Sisyphian task - no matter how crowd-animalish they *seem*, teens are not a single organism with identical mores, values and beliefs. They are individuals shaped by both their inborn personality and other genetic characterisicts as well as by family and culture. You can't apply a single panacea to stop teens from experimenting from sex any more than you can censor the content of Allure, GQ, Maxim and Cosmo et al to forestall infidelity. People are going to do what they are going to do - sometimes those acts are not in their best intereest, and sometimes they'll dodge the bullet of consequence, and sometimes they won't. It's called life. It imitates art which imitates life, ad infinitum.