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THURSDAY, OCTOBER 15, 2026 |
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Yesterday was my 43rd wedding anniversary. Same guy, 43 years. In a life that has included 33 moves, nuclear submarines, Disney, a poker table, and five businesses, he is the one thing that has never moved.
Which is a funny thing to write in a week when my brain has been anything but still.
This week I went down so many rabbit holes I lost count. Trademark law. New landing pages. Partner meetings. Building a dashboard so our publication pipeline never dries up. I open one thing, then another tab, and three hours later I’m somewhere I never meant to go. ADHD brain? Post-menopause brain? Both? I’ve stopped caring which. What I care about is the rule I keep breaking: touch things only once, then move on.
That’s one of the things I want to talk about at Off the Record, our first members-only conversation on Zoom, Wednesday, Oct. 28, at 5 p.m. ET. How do you stay on task when everything feels urgent, especially when you're making a big life change? I really want to know. Members, your invitation went out yesterday. Not a member yet? It’s $8 a month, and you’re invited.
Also on Oct. 28, Well/Actually, our new free health newsletter, lands in your inbox for the first time. If you haven’t signed up yet, the link is below.
In this issue, I wrote about how I engineered every inconvenience out of my life and what it cost me. We also take a second look at Sofia Coppola’s Marie Antoinette, 20 years after the critics called it a bonbon.
Happy anniversary to us. As for the rest of you: stay focused, or don’t.
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We Engineered Loneliness and Called It Convenience |
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Groceries land on the porch, banking happens on a screen, and lunch shows up on the welcome mat from a driver whose face you never see. We didn’t stop needing each other. We’re opting out of each other. So what happens when everyday life stops putting people in our path?
Read this piece
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REINVENTION
I Wasn’t Ready to Be the Woman Who Only Gets Asked About Her Dog
BY MELINA BELLOWS
She interviewed Oprah, built a $65 million business, and reinvented herself more than once. Then her oldest friend asked, “What are you going to do to stay relevant?”
Read this piece
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DEAR READER
A PERSONAL ESSAY FROM A READER
Why I Boycott Pink—Even as a Breast Cancer Survivor
BY VICTORIA WESTERLIEGH
Pink ribbons on cereal boxes, pink Oreos, even her sons’ baseball socks. For this survivor, “Pinktober” doesn’t feel like support. It feels like exposure, and she’s done pretending otherwise.
Read this piece
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Off the Record with Susan
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What would you ask me if it never ended up in print?
On Wednesday, Oct. 28, at 5 p.m. ET, I'm hosting my first Off the Record conversation with PROVOKEDplus members.
We'll talk about what really goes on behind the scenes at PROVOKED, starting a magazine at 65, and why, at 67, I'm still finding new things to get myself into. Bring your questions. I have a few for you, too.
One hour on Zoom. No recording. No replay. Just us.
Join PROVOKEDplus for $8 a month, and you're invited.
Already a member? Save your seat.
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TAKE NOTE
Timely and worth your attention. |
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📉 THE MENOPAUSE CLIFF
A new Nature Medicine study of more than a million women found that the body doesn’t ease through menopause. It steps off a ledge. In 52 of 90 routine lab tests, the numbers shifted abruptly around the final period, most sharply in bone, liver, and cholesterol markers, and men showed no such jump. Finally, an explanation for all those sudden “your numbers are up” talks with our doctors. Nobody told us there was an edge.
Health news like this moves to Well/Actually, our new free newsletter, every Wednesday starting Oct. 28.
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💸 THE RAISE, AND THE CATCH
Social Security checks will go up 3.6% in January, the agency announced Wednesday, up from this year’s 2.8%. On the average retirement check of about $2,095, that’s roughly $75 a month. About $6.60 of it is already spoken for by the projected rise in the Medicare Part B premium, which comes out of most checks. And the raise is pegged to an index of what working households spend, which is why retirees have argued for years that it runs short. Above average on paper. Not at the grocery checkout.
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🎸 JONI MITCHELL, AMERICAN
Joni Mitchell, 82, was sworn in as a U.S. citizen this week and posted a photo with the caption “A journey that began 62 years ago.” She came down from Canada in 1965, played Newport in 1966, and made nearly all of her 18 studio albums here. In 2024, from the Hollywood Bowl stage, she told the crowd she wished she could vote. Now she can, in time for her first election at 82. Some women spend their 80s winding down. Not Joni.
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Critics Called Sofia Coppola’s Marie Antoinette a Bonbon. They Were Wrong. |
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BY VIVIAN MANNING-SCHAFFEL |
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When Sofia Coppola made Marie Antoinette, critics called it a bonbon, dismissed it as “silly fizz,” and gave it points for pretty pastries. Twenty years later, the film is being celebrated as a masterpiece. What changed? Not the movie. Are we finally ready to take a film about a teenage girl, told from her point of view, seriously?
Read this piece |
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“I really needed to hear this again. I’m 70. This is what I look like, be it good or bad, yet I still let 3 or 4 pounds determine how I feel. I have to remind myself that it’s better to have a little cushion at my age than bones that might break! Years of indoctrination. So sad.” —Deb on The Weight of What We Inherited |
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Want to be featured next? Comment on your favorite piece—we read them all.
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MOST READ LAST WEEK
Thin Is for Sale Now. Guess Who Gets Blamed for Not Buying It?
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Fat shaming has a new question: Why don’t you just take the shot? |
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COMING OCTOBER 28: OUR NEW HEALTH NEWSLETTER
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Health news when it breaks, what the research actually says, and the parts that never fit in a headline.
Free, in your inbox every Wednesday
Separate from your Thursday newsletter.
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