Do you want to live and work in a garbage dump? I don’t. That’s partly because I grew up in the most pristine environment possible – Hawaii, where it is sacrilege to leave your garbage on the ground.
I was brought up on rock-‘n’-roll. It was sort of funny because I couldn’t get interested in anything else – I tried and tried but I couldn’t get into science…or mathematics, I just cut myself off from anything else there was to get interested in.
There’s the media-driven universe, in which the public perceives you in a superficial way. Then there’s the universe that you actually inhabit, where you have to get up even if you didn’t sleep so well, and you feel like crap and your face is swollen.
Unfortunately, every time there’s a budget crunch in New York, the Parks Department is usually the first to be cut. So they need all the help they can get.
When I turned 50, I threw myself a big birthday party, and I looked seriously at what my life has been about. I recommend this to everybody. Ask yourself, “What have I done? How did I do it? Where’d I mess up?
![Bette Midler Quote - [On Helen Reddy:] She ought to be arrested for loitering in front of an orchestra.](https://minimalistquotes.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/on-helen-reddy-she-ought-to-be-arrested-for-loiter-683x1024.jpg)
