My mother’s explanation of “handicapped versus disabled”:

All women are handicapped by virtue of their sex. Those that never learn to cope/compensate are disabled.

Geez. She was smart.

She had a privileged childhood, but no love. Her two younger brothers

tormented her relentlessly. Her father was abusive, and her mother was neglectful.

Geez. Nothing changes from generation to generation!

I think my mother might have been a very expensive call girl in Manhattan for a while when she lived on Riverside Drive in the 1940s; when I cleaned out her house after her death, I found many designer clothes, satin dressing gowns, and furs disintegrating from age.

My mother never bought anything like that during my lifetime! At home, she lived in ugly flannel pajamas, and did all her shopping at the cheapest discount stores.

She probably hated men, too. There was never a whiff of an affair.