I saw Ben Kingsley and Penelope Cruz in Elegy the other day, and was amazed at how natural it remains for movie audiences to accept an older man as love partner for a much younger woman. In the film, it was made clear that Cruz was over 30 years younger than Kingsley, and yet, according to the script, she was madly in love with him, anyway. I mean, madly. Even those actors who traditionally project less charm than Cary Grant ever did or a lesser physical specimen than Harrison Ford still does remain fair game for these oddball matchings.

Call me fussy, but when I was Penelope Cruz’s age, it took a lot more than a moody, commitment-phobic character such as the one played by Kingsley in this film, to conjure up naughty thoughts about him inside my head, let alone any other part of my anatomy. So, what is going on here? Are we still living in a double-standard society? Or is that what the media would lead us to believe?

The truth is that most older women are just not interested in hooking up with men who are young enough to be their son. And those who are, well, they identify themselves as “cougars,” so we know from the start what they are about. If it’s true that men are born with the drive in their DNA to spread their seed till they keel over and die, I guess we have no way to blame them for their lifelong quest for women of childbearing years.

Excuse me while I go lock the door on my daughter’s room. 

Spikes in gas prices and an iffy economy are causing vacationers to rethink their plans to get out of town for a much-needed getaway this year. As a result, a new word has emerged in the lexicon: stay-cation. A stay-cation, defined, is a vacation you take by staying at home. This does not invite you to sit in front of the TV and drink beer or pop popcorn for a week or two, no. What it means is that, instead of traveling far and wide to discover the wonders of other cities or countries, you stay close to home and discover or rediscover the marvels of your local area.

If you’ve been a New Yorker all your life, chances are good that you have never been to the Statue of Liberty or the top of the Empire State Building or taken a day cruise around Manhattan Island. As a native of Los Angeles, you may not yet have boated 26 miles across the channel to the island of Santa Catalina where the buffalo still roam, or gone hiking in the Santa Monica mountains, or visited Old West locations like Vasquez Rock where hundreds of western movies were shot, or crossed the sand dunes of the southern desert.

Maybe you’re from a much smaller town, and you think you’ve seen all there is to be seen. But have you? Maybe there’s a little inn that serves Sunday brunch. It always piqued your interest, but you never checked it out. This coming Sunday, you might want to take a second look. You might also take a look at your local paper, or contact the local Chamber of Commerce or Visitors Bureau, as well as those of surrounding areas. Something is always going on wherever you live, or just a few miles down the road. A fair, a flea market, an art exhibit, a circus—something of interest, and probably a lot more than you realize.

If there is one universal need it is to love and be loved. No one would argue that. So, you would think that after all these eons of practice, man and woman would finally have learned to get it right. And yet, that is far from the case.

As many self-styled experts as there are on the subject of attracting and keeping love, there is no sure-fire guarantee you will succeed where others, allegedly far wiser than you, continue to fail so brilliantly. We have only to point to certain relationship icons like TV’s Dr. Phil and best-selling author John Grey to provide proof that those who chose to dole out advice do not necessarily take it, themselves.

So, what is the secret to everlasting love? There isn’t any, because if there were, we would surely have found it by now. It’s just common sense, really, when you think about it. For example, unless there are complex physical issues that prevent you from losing weight, all you have to do to drop the pounds is to eat less and exercise more. Could it be easier to follow such simple rules? I don’t think so. Same goes for love. You want to attract and keep love? Okay, then, just make it easy for someone to love you. How do you do that? Well, assuming the object of your affection is not a commitment-phobe and also assuming there is mutual chemistry involved, try applying the Golden Rule, and you should remain on relatively safe ground—of course, as long as you keep in mind the differences between the sexes. It’s important to know those differences because that is where the trouble often comes in.

As a woman, you want togetherness with your guy or you feel he doesn’t “love” you enough. On the other hand, as a man, you want your space from a woman or you feel she is “smothering” you.

Sorry if I have confused you with the facts, which, if we only looked at them with fresher eyes, we would have a smoother run at life. It was Einstein, remember, who defined insanity as doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results. Einstein would have been the first to tell you he couldn’t figure it out, either. If he had, he would not have been having so much woman trouble throughout his lifetime. Oh, sure, he could

I had a reason for talking about radio in Part I of this article. How the images you conjured up in your mind as you listened were so much better than any multi-million dollar special effect you see in movies today. Every film with a $200 million budget—most of that budget goes toward creating those SPECIAL EFFECTS with very sophisticated computer programs. Not so with your imagination, which is fully capable of conjuring up the most brilliant of scenarios all on its own, and it’s totally free. The sky really is the limit where your imagination is concerned.

I am going to take it for granted that you have some free time on your hands. Remember the hours you spent on Day Dreams? Are such personal indulgences really the strict property of the young? NO they are not! And remember how much fun they were? Oh, sure. You knew the odds of your pitching for the Yankees, scoring the winning touchdown in the national championship game, walking on the moon, scoring with the cutest girl in school, etc.—were just that. Dreams only, and nowhere related to reality. But, boy, how great they were inside your head—where everything was possible. Does it occur to you that still might still be the case? That everything is possible? You won’t know that, of course, unless you go inside yourself and start exploring.

When was the last time you indulged in such mental meanderings? I think what happens is, as we mature, we decide what a waste of time it is to invite fantasies into our minds. After all, none of them are ever going to come true, so why bother? Well, it’s true that you will not likely be pitching for the Yankees or walking on the moon in this lifetime, and there is no cutest girl in school anymore.

But, dreams are the fodder we use to build our realities, and if you are not willing to step inside that plane, you are sure to discover you are going nowhere at all.