MK,

If I may: there’s a great three minute video out right now featuring Cynthia Nixon that you might enjoy.

But to this: At 67 I could give less of a flying fucking SHIT about fine lines or wrinkles. Because, as you note, I’ve been on about forty epic, badass international adventures. Those wrinkles were carved at the top of Kilimamjaro, kayaking the Arctic sea, riding incredible horses all over the world, climbing Mt Kenya — -kindly, all after sixty. Because at some point I said fuck it to worrying about what doesn’t matter.

I love fashion. Still do. Fashion does not get me up the side of a difficult mountain.

I love makeup. Sort of. Still do. Makeup does NOT make me a better athlete.

I love looking pretty. Still do. But kindly stand next to me in my bathroom when I put my implant dentures in, the result of forty years of eating disorders, one of the many prices I paid for compulsively worrying about what is meaningless.

AND ALL OF IT IS MEANINGLESS.

I am writing you from my lovely room here in Arusha, Tanzania. I’m into my fourth week in Africa, having ridden terrific horses across the wild Maasai Mara, tracked rhinos with armed guards in central Kenya, and am about to dive Mafia Island.

I don’t know what’s important to you. But all those things are vastly more important, more life-affirming and more valuable that spending my time and treasure trying to emulate a mewling, pouting, idiot creature like Kylie Jenner. Kindly. I don’t give a shit if I offended anyone. The point is for crying out loud, dump this nonsense and go out and have a life, whatever that means.

Otherwise you and I are in jail. I’ve been there. I busted out. It cost me. That’s why I write about it, why I do what I do. I’m not rich. I live on a disability pension. But I don’t spend my pennies on crap that doesn’t work, doesn’t transform my life (crossing a raging, hippo filled river by horse sure as hell will transform your life and I just did it twice) and doesn’t allow me to find ways to give back.

I am supporting your article. With any luck I offered a damned good reason why we should stop this airbrushed idiot worship. Who gives a damn if she has millions? That doesn’t buy her character, a backbone, or any kind of personality. The rest of her family are Exhibit #1. But that’s just me.