Sunday evening roundup and ramble

News is bad for you.

Jezebel validates women's struggles with looking older as we age.

These meditation tips are actually helpful.

Critics continue to love plays that make me shrug. Both plays were based on interesting ideas, but IMHO neither delivered.

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"Spamalot" was thoroughly entertaining and enjoyable, even from the cheap seats and in spite of unfortunate judgment and manners of some audience members. Yes, people brought very small children to the show. One of them kicked my seat until I turned around and asked her not to. If you do go, go for the slightly less-cheap seats. You can see quite well from the fourth floor of the National Theater, but you're also more distracted by the lighting, especially when they spotlight. And there are more likely to be kids up there, I suppose. I was, naughtily, particularly tickled by the show in light of having seen the very serious "Wallenstein" the day before. There's more than one way to dramatize conquest.

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I grabbed a used copy of (Tim) "Gunn's Golden Rules," and I've found it lacking in particular insight, tacky at times, and rambling. I mean, I have air travel stories, too, that involve taking the high road, including one from just a week ago, when I attempted to shove my carry-on into a very small overhead compartment. I travel light, and I know I can get my stuff into any overhead, because the last thing I want to do is have to check luggage. Checking luggage opens me to the possibility of lost luggage, and lost luggage on a business trip means late-night suit shopping. Anyway, this "helpful" lady in the row behind mine said, "maybe you could give your bag to the flight crew to check." And I did not say, "why didn't I think of that?" or "maybe you could mind your own business;" I simply moved to a less full bin and successfully squished my bag in. Having taken the high road a minute before, I was free to take the low road in reveling in how dumb she might have felt. Hey, I'm human.