The score is Martha:1 ; Bernie: 0

I’ve spent a decent amount of time thinking about this topic. I’ve spent a lot of time thinking, “I can’t write it;” or “I shouldn’t write it.” Or something like that.
I know – a fair number of you would have bet I’d invested no more than six minutes thinking about anything I’ve ever written. You’d be wrong but that’s your prerogative. The truth is, sometimes I agonize over words or phrases, trying to create exactly the right feelings through a single sentence that I hope conveys the message I want to deliver. Warning: This isn’t one of those pieces. In fact, I’d recommend that if you’re looking for facts and journalistic integrity, you stop reading now.

Of course I’m talking about what else - the economy. I have absolutely no credentials nor do I have any specific expertise that qualifies me to talk about the financial crisis that surrounds us but that hasn’t stopped anyone in Washington from talking about it, or creating programs about it. And speaking of programs, who named “TARP?” Is the best word to describe these assets really “troubled?” Troubled? I’m troubled when I can’t remember where I parked my car at the mall. Or when I forget to record a check and then can’t remember why I wrote it. “T” should stand for Tragic. Or it should have been called HARP for Horrific Asset Relief. How about CARP, for Criminal Asset Relief? The activity that led to these assets being “troubled” is criminal.

Leaving aside the mortgage debacle, I think my own personal financial point of no return came a few weeks ago when The Wall Street Journal published a PDF of the document independent investigator Harry Markopolos submitted to the Securities and Exchange Commission on November 7, 2005, in which he expressed his concerns about Madoff Investment Securities, LLC. Yes, THAT Madoff Securities. Yes, 2005. That would be just over five years after he submitted his very first suspicions about Bernie Madoff but four years before Madoff became infamous for a Ponzi scheme that resulted in $50 billion dollars of fraud.

I read the Markopolos memo – or, more accurately, I started to read it. While I don’t know finance, I’m fairly fluent in English and yet I was lost. I could define almost every word; I just couldn’t figure out what any of them meant, strung together in that document. On the very first page, Markopolos describes his credentials: “I have experience managing split-strike conversion products both using index options and using individual stock options, both with and without index puts.” Well…good. That’s sounds…complicated.

In one of the more straightforward passages, he states his intentions: “As a result of this case, several careers on Wall Street and in Europe will be ruined. Therefore, I have not signed nor put my name on this report. I request that my name not be released to anyone other than the Branch Chief or Team Leader in the New York Region….” Four years later, as the walls come tumbling down, he’s in front of Congress testifying about the contents of his memo that was summarily ignored by his supervisors at the SEC.

I feel confused and angry. I don’t understand why Bernie Madoff isn’t wearing in an orange jumpsuit behind bars. I don’t understand a court system that justifies sending a Martha Stewart to jail for insider trading that led to her own financial gains but didn’t ruin countless others, and allows a Bernie Madoff, who stole $50 BILLION dollars from scores of people, to remain in his penthouse. Wearing an ankle bracelet.

I feel gullible and abused. Turns out, if you did the “responsible” things, you lose. If you have savings accounts for college expenses, you watch them shrink every day. If you have a reasonable mortgage and make all your payments on time, you won’t qualify for the very favorable mortgage being offered to those who are overextended. If you own a business and run it well, you won’t get any help, either.

I used to think: Well, you’re still better off than many! Really? The way the bailouts keep piling up, that’s hard to believe. And the way the markets are moving these days, we all lose – no matter how many times we chose to do the “responsible” thing.

Maybe it's a Kevin Bacon thing....

Watching the last twenty minutes - I'm not kidding, it couldn't have been more than twenty minutes - of Apollo 13, I'm in tears. Again.

There is something so completely compelling and moving about this story that appeared to have united people all over the world in the face of tragedy. Even more incredible than that, who could imagine that the Congress of the United States would call for a day of national prayers from the American public?

So what's the deal here do you think? Maybe I don't let out real emotions enough of the time and they have to escape somehow. I've touched on this before but I seem to favor some sort of "control" over freedom when it comes to expressing emotions. Which, believe me I know, can't be all that healthy for you.

So where does that leave me? I weep over movies.

Then again, I'm not completely deluded. I've found myself overcome with tears at other times that have exactly everything to do with real life, not Hollywood. The movie tears feel less painful, of course.

I need to find a middle ground of some kind. A place that lets me express emotions over some of the bumps in real life but where I'm not necessarily in tears automatically. This middle ground is also the same place I could find a way to watch twenty minutes of a movie I've seen half a dozen times without crying.

At times like this I wonder if I'm the only person on the planet who reacts to life this way. I suppose it's possible but I'm not nearly that complex or unique so I doubt it. But I'd love to know.

Another tear.

A new addition to the list of things that have me completely overcome in a matter of seconds.

If you haven’t watched Taking Chance on HBO, the true story of two marines and how their lives intersected, I’d recommend you don’t unless you have a tissue – or even a convenient sleeve - nearby. If you’re like me, you may be taken by surprise when you feel the first tear slip away. You won’t quite know why, but at one point or another you will feel your eyes fill up. Your throat will get just a little tighter and the screen will blur just slightly for a little while.

The story, on its surface, is deceptively simple. Kevin Bacon plays Marine Colonel Mike Strobel who escorts a soldier, PFC Chance Phelps, from Dover Air Force base to his home in Wyoming. Phelps was killed in Iraq and Strobel is his escort home. During that trip, Mike finds himself questioning his own role as a “paper pusher” in the Marine Corps, although he was deployed during the first Iraq war.

If I had to choose two words to describe this movie they would be respectful; quiet. I have loved Kevin Bacon’s acting forever but I have never seen him perform a role with such quiet control. His movements are controlled and tight. Even at the local VFW post, where friends and other soldiers gather to celebrate Chance’s life, Bacon maintains his respectful distance as he sits and listens respectfully to the stories told about the fallen soldier. His smiles are small; his glances are attentive; his tone is measured.

Toward the end of the evening, Chance's very good friend tells Cpl. Strobel about the day of the attack. The silence that endures – for a very long time – as he relates the circumstances of Chance’s death is exquisite and painful. The simple expresson of comfort Strobel offers him is powerful.

There is only one moment during the film where you feel anger in Bacon’s character and its directed at himself. He questions aloud – during a talk with a Marine who saw his action in Korea about sixty years ago - and berates himself for his choice to work in an office, and not go overseas.

When Mike meets the family to deliver Chance’s belongings, I could barely breathe. His speech to them, about the family not mourning alone, was almost too much to bear. The cut away shots during the hand off of the dog-tags and Chance’s watch are devastating. You’ll understand when you watch the scene.

My dad was a Marine and you know what they say about Marines: Old Marines never die – they just go to hell and regroup. Maybe that’s why this movie had the effect it did on me. My Dad loved the Marine Corps until the day he died. The men who portray Marines in the film clearly feel the same way about their service to the country.

What is entirely absent from this movie is anger, regret or judgment about the military or dying for your country. The love of country is palpable and real, although never overplayed or overwrought.

To me, the movie is a testament to everyone who ever wore a uniform for this country. To me, it’s irrelevant where you stand on Iraq, Afghanistan or any other place in the world that is viewed – at least by some – as an enemy of this country. It’s not about “the troops” or “the war on terror” or which side of the argument you embrace philosophically. The film is much smaller but much bigger than that. It’s about two men. Both of their stories will touch you and move you to tears. And ultimately leave you inspired by their honor.

People are nice enough....

Almost five years ago at Christmas time, I chose to honor my Dad (who had passed away six months earlier) by donating books to the library in Allentown’s Central Elementary School. Instead of buying gifts for co-workers that year, I donated the books in their names, in memory of my dad.

I can’t tell you why I chose Central School. I have no personal affiliation there, nor did my father. I didn’t know anyone – students or faculty - at the school. But I do know my children live in a home where they always had an extensive library of books at their disposal. (One of my earliest decisions about raising kids was to never say no to a request for a book.) I also know that Central faces challenges with many students – or their families - that simply don’t exist in a suburban school setting. It broke my heart to imagine some children not having books on a shelf at home. Maybe by adding a few to the school’s library, even just one child would begin a lifelong passion for reading.

All I can tell you is that on that day – the day I dropped of my co-workers books - I watched a young boy walk into school alone. Several years later, I can still picture him clearly. What struck me that morning was his look of absolute, unquestionable enthusiasm for the day. He looked eager and alert, and, yes, thrilled to be walking up those steps. I wondered: Is this the best part of his day? Is this where he feels secure? Stimulated? Safe? Challenged - in a good way?

He’s stayed in my mind’s eye. I wonder about him – five years later. I wonder about his eager look. I wonder if middle school generates the same positive emotions I saw on his face that day.

In a recent column, I made a request of readers, something I had not done in the eight years I’d been writing for the newspaper. To mark a milestone birthday this year, I planned to donate ten books to the Central library and asked readers to join me. My goal was to add total of 50 books to the school’s library.

Just about six weeks later, I’m honored and delighted to report that according to the Central Elementary Librarian, donations have come in that have more than doubled my goal. The school receives books daily donated in my name, which brings tears to my eyes.

In addition to the lovely thank you note I received from the Librarian, I was touched by sincere notes from some of the students. As they thanked me, each one wished me a happy birthday and expressed his or her feelings about reading. Every note was charming, unique and expressive, but one of them told me everything I needed to know: “That was nice of you to do. You are friends with Central.” Another wrote: "I'm so glad that people are nice enough to give books to the school."

To everyone who wrote me an email expressing your own plans to donate, to everyone who gave me books (or cash) to donate, to everyone who sent me a card or a note through the mail and told me about your plans to make a donation, I want to say thank you very much for your support and your help. Your generosity is touching and overwhelming.

In the perfectly chosen words of the students:

“That was nice of you to do. You are friends with Central.”

"I'm so glad that people are nice enough to donate books to the school."

I'm so very glad, too.

Those elusive little details...

On Valentine's Day, one of my least favorite holidays ever, the USA Network played a day-long marathon of romantic comedies, otherwise known as chick flicks. I have no quarrel with these kind of films, in fact, some of them are very near to my heart.

I do have an objection to them being labeled "for women only," however. If men were honest, they would admit that the real point of these movies is that there is no better feeling on earth than love at it's newest, at its freshest. That moment when new love takes its first breath, first blinks in the bright sunlight and taps the shoulders of two individuals who have been looking for it their entire lives: "I'm here! Enjoy!"

This "best feeling in the world" also partially explains why people the world over have choose to have affairs or "emotional" affairs. The desire to recapture that "new love" feeling never quite goes away no matter how long ago we turned 17.

But that's the moment we wait for in these movies. The first hour and fifty minutes is nothing more than the preamble to the final moment of recognition when the couple reaches that mutual stage of admiration and desire and passion and love. Voila! The kiss, the embrace, the moment we want to see. (And if we're lucky, have experienced in our lives.)

It's just that despite the excitement and fireworks, it isn't real. It isn't real in the movies and it isn't real in life. And by real, I mean - lasting. It's fun and manic while you're in the throes of new love, but it can't possibly by definition stay "new love" forever. On a good day, that's where the magic really happens: When it's not new but it's still good.

Along those lines, there are those who say the best bit of love isn't the start, but rather the mellowing that comes along only after years of commitment and compassion for each other. Which brings me to one of my favorites authors, and how he handles this subject. The New Yorker has labeled Nick Hornby "a maestro of the male confessional." I love him - he writes male characters I want to know (and feel like I have known as a matter of fact.)

In his wonderful novel, High Fidelity, Hornby reveals the angst and turmoil of his storyteller, Rob. And Rob, in his own wonderfully insecure voice, tells women (and men) the truth about how we're different people (but not in an annoying and simplistic Mars / Venus way) and how we approach the same thing (love) from two different angles.

Rob and his girlfriend Laura are about to reconnect after a breakup and Laura tells him she isn't good at "the slushy stuff." I feel that way. I think many women do, partly because many of us believe we'll never measure up to the fantasy women who seem to capture the collective male psyche through the media these days. And Rob can't help but show his disappointment in her revelation:

"That, to me, is a problem, as it would be to any male who heard Dusty Springfield singing "The Look of Love" at an impressionable age. That was what I thought it was all going to be like when I was married....I thought there was going to be this sexy woman with a sexy voice and lots of sexy eye make up whose devotion to me shone from every pore. And there is such a thing as the look of love...it's just that the look of love isn't what I expected it to be. It's not the huge eyes almost bursting with longing situation somewhere in the middle of a double bed with the covers turned down invitingly; it's just as likely to be the look of benevolent indulgence that a mother gives a toddler, or a look of amused exasperation, even a look of pained concern. But the Dusty Springfield look of love? Forget it. As mythical as the exotic underwear.

...it's much harder to get used to the idea that my little-boy notion of romance, of negligees and candlelit dinners at home and long, smoldering glances had no basis reality at all."

And this bit of honesty: "I know what's wrong with Laura. What's wrong with Laura is that I'll never see her for the first or second or third time again. I'll never spend two or three days in a sweat trying to remember what she looks like, never again will I get to a pub half and hour early to meet her..."

That's true for everyone in a committed relationship, isn't it? Doesn't everyone get caught in the daily life that includes such unromantic moments as stopping for milk, unclogging the washing machine hose, working your way through paperwork and bills that are due or helping someone overcome stomach flu as they hang out in the bathroom for several hours? This isn't just about men although again, I'll admit to being an enormous fan of Hornby's male characters and the peek into the male mind he gives readers.

Sometimes the look of love is the glance you give someone during a difficult moment that says: Please stop talking. Trust me on this one. Stop right now. It's the look that tells them: The kids are making me crazy and I'm about to lose it, for the nine-thousandth time. It's the look that says: I'm sorry. Or please help me. Or thank you.

No one ever wrote a song describing the look of love in someones eyes as they balance the checkbook or sort the laundry or clip the hedges. It's those kind of elusive little details that never get the spotlight that make up a marriage, and a lifetime. The rest is just Hollywood; it's Dusty Springfield. And when the screen goes black or the song is over, you're left in the dark, in the silence with each other. Ready to start again tomorrow.

Courage Decisiveness Tenacity: The Time Is Now

Those are the words that appear on the cover of this year's brochure advertising the World Business Forum which will take place in October at Radio City Music Hall. I've never attended the event but for some reason I get the promotions for it every year. My name must be on a list that gets rented for this mailing. My husband is one of the media people who works there every year and he ususally comes home with some interesting stories.

Here is the brochure's description of the people appearing at the Forum, "the world's most important gathering of senior executives." The event offers "an incredible lineup of brilliant minds, business icons and legendary CEOs." It promises to provide attendees "the energy and ideas to face today's challenges with confidence, no matter how demanding the business climate."

So who are these guys? (And this year, it's almost all guys.) You can certainly hop online for the detailed resumes but here are a few select words and phrases about several of them:

Gary Hamel: The Wall Street Journal called him the world's most influential business thinker and The Economist called him "the world's reigning strategy guru."

Jeffrey Sachs: Time Magazine named him among the "100 most influential leader sin the world." Special Advisor to the U.N. Secretary-General, Professor of Health Policy Management at Columbia University after spending 20 years on the faculty at Harvard.

George Lucas: American Film Institute's Lifetime Achievement Award and recipient of the National Medal of Technology. Founder of one of the world's leading entertainment companies, winner of eight Academy Awards.

Jack Welch: 20-year Chairman of General Electric, where his leadership grew GE's market value from $3 billion to $400 billion; named the 2000 Manager of the Year by Fortune; named Most Admired CEO of the past 20 years by Chief Executive magazine and the World's Greatest Leader in a survey by Fast Company.

T. Boone Pickens. Paul Krugman. And several others, all of whom are very bright, very experienced senior executives who have stories and messages of leadership to share. The presentations carry titles like these: Emerging Multinationals, Leading Transformational Change, A Conversation on Energy Dependence and Economics for a Crowded Planet.

Oh, one more celebrity speaker - another advocate of courage, decisiveness and tenacity no doubt - I wanted to mention: Michael Phelps. His presentation? High Performance.

I'm not kidding. I can only imagine the conversation that took place in the office of HSM Global, who creates this event each year, when they realized their brochure was at the printer or already in the mail announcing the High Performance presentation by Michael Phelps.

You can't make this stuff up.

It happened again.

I read this headline and was ready to scream:

"Is community service the new green?"

God help me.

We are losing our ability to speak plainly. And when did speaking plainly become so undesirable? The translation of this headline is this: "Is volunteering popular again?" Or perhaps slightly more nuanced, you could read it as: "Is volunteering becoming the new trend?"

In fact, I'm not quite sure what it means. I do know it's lazy and boring. On the plus side, it takes yet one more swing at that horrible "this is the new this" phrase, which please dear God should be put out of its misery in terms of journalism and trend-spotting in this country.

Kellogg's cares. So does the USA Swimming.

The online poll was a bit surprising but I'm willing to admit that I'm probably much more conservative than a lot of people. The MSN poll indicated that 466,994 people voted on question: How do you feel about Michael Phelps smoking a bong? 21% agreed with this response: "I'm dismayed, I can't believe he would do that." Remember the contents of that phrase. Dismayed. Disbelief.

ON the flip side, 79% agreed with this: "He's 23 years old - can we all relax?"

First of all, let me clarify something here. I'm relaxed. And the fact that Phelps is 23 years old doesn't indicate anything to me other than the fact that he may be older but he's no brighter than any completely ordinary teenager who makes the same wrong decision about smoking pot.

Secondly, these two statements in the poll are not parallel. If you agree with the first, you sound humorless, judgemental and "square." Agreeing with the second makes you sound like a now grown up Spicoli in Fast Times.

Turns out that Kellogg's would have probably weighed in with the 21% had they cast a vote. A report in Ad Age states that Phelps will no longer be affiliated with Kellogg's. According to a Kellogg's spokeswoman, "We originally built the relationship with Michael, as well as the other Olympic athletes, to support our association with the U.S. Olympic team. Michael's most recent behavior is not consistent with the image of Kellogg. His contract expires at the end of February and we have made a decision not to extend his contract."

On a related note, USA Swimming, the sport's governing body, has suspending Phelps from training for three months. He'll miss a competition in March and compete again starting in May.

Here's the deal. Phelps became a media darling because he represented an American kid who made good - dedicated himself to his sport, overcame some personal challenges and became the most successful Olympic swimmer in history. His onscreen and offscreen personality was sold to the viewers just as successfully as the products featured in the commericals on the NBC Olympic Games and for the most part, we all bought it. A major publisher "crashed" (rushed) his book full of "you can do it, too" motivational nonsense so he could scoop up sales during the first holiday season following the Games. Corporations scooped up Phelps and paid him handsomely to have him and his success associated with their brand names.

Now the truth is, he doesn't really owe his fans much more than a great performance in the pool so they can continue to cheer and he can continue to set world records. But in terms of engendering their good will - especially the good will of parents who still may be archaic and uptight enough to care about whether or not their children decide to smoke pot - I propose he also owes them some reasonable, admirable, non-controversial behavior. I suppose reasonable people can argue what is meant by the phrase "reasonable, admirable, non-controversial behavior." But I have a thought: could it mean law-abiding? Could it mean responsible? Could it mean reliable? Could that be it? Why is no one online or elsewhere talking about the fact that Phelps broke the law and there is a photograph which he does not dispute that proves it?

Why, exactly, are none of us supposed to care about this and, in fact, enjoin those who might to just "relax?"

Maybe there's an "inappropriate" line somewhere that he needs to cross. Cocaine? If he were snorting a line of cocaine in a photo, would the vote lean more like 40 % to 60%? Or shooting heroine. Maybe we'd be a little tougher on him then and the vote would fall into the 50 / 50 range. Freebasing. That might get him in trouble with more people.

I need someone to post the rules. Because although I have not spent one minute thinking about Michael Phelps since the summer games ended, he "disappointed" me. And I think if more people voted honestly, not according to the "cool way" to vote on this topic, that 21% would look more like 79%.

The puff - and tax returns - heard round the world

Let me try to understand this.

In November, Olympic swimming sensation and all-time gold medal winner Michael Phelps attended a party at the University of South Carolina. At the house party, someone snapped a picture of him smoking pot - or at least in a position that very much indicated that taking a hit would be his next move - and the photo was published in a British tabloid last week.

If you read the stories about this revelation, you read a lot of apologies, a lot about disappointment, and platitudes like learning from your mistakes. You also read what this means to the Olympic committee and to swimming's governing body (I'll save you the time: nothing) and what the companies who have sponsored Phelps and hired him as a spokesperson have to say about the disturbing image (I'll save you that time, too: not much.)

Turns out that no matter what kind of splash (you should pardon the expression) you make during the Olympic games, the IOC can say absolutely nothing about the state of an athlete's body while not competing nor can they apply their code of conduct once the games conclude.

So, here's what we have: an athlete who was apparently not using any sort of illicit or illegal substances while he was completing and making a worldwide reputation for himself as some kind of phenomenon. Fast forward about four months and he's partying with friends, smoking pot, and then he offers us this, once he is exposed by a tabloid: "I engaged in behavior which was regrettable and demonstrated bad judgment," Phelps said in the statement released by one of his agents. "I'm 23 years old and despite the successes I've had in the pool, I acted in a youthful and inappropriate way, not in a manner people have come to expect from me. For this, I am sorry. I promise my fans and the public it will not happen again."

And this: "It's something I am going to have to live with and something I'll have to grow from," Phelps said. "I know with all of the mistakes I made, I learned from them and that is what I expect to do from this. By no means it is [sic] fun for me, by no means is it easy."

Let's take a look at his statements, shall we?

His act was regrettable and exhibited bad judgement.
Regrettable? Bad judgement? How about: stupid? And given his high profile, moronic?

He's a 23 year old star swimmer and he acted like a kid, and inappropriately.
...all this despite his success in the pool?
Being a good swimmer - being a world class champion swimmer in fact - has nothing to do with what you may choose to do at a party in South Carolina. And 23 years old doesn't exactly make him a hot-headed teenager.

...not the behavior people expect from him.
What do people expect from him?
Quite honestly, we expect him to win swimming competitions. Expecting anything else, based on his past behavior, is ill-advised at best.

He's sorry..won't happen again.
Uh-huh. Keep reading.

He'll have to live with it; he'll grow from it.
Yes, he will. That's very nice for him. Somehow, I don't think he's quite bereft.

He's learned from his mistakes in the past. He expects he'll learn from this one.
I'm wondering what exactly he's learned from his mistakes in the past. One of those mistakes was probably his underage drinking and drunk driving arrest after the Athens Olympic games in 2004. He apologized then, too.

It's weird that according to the quote I read, he misspoke and said "..it is fun for me..."

My favorite quote from the stories this week comes from the USOC: "We are confident that, going forward, Michael will consistently set the type of example we all expect from a great Olympic champion," the group said.

Boy, everyone's really apologetic and confident aren't they? Based on what?

I'm so weary of reading about people who get caught in situations that are less than admirable and "regretting" them and exhibiting "bad judgement." If anyone felt like being honest for just one second, they would skip all the polished statements that PR professionals get paid very handsomely to craft and simply issue a statement like this instead: "I thought I'd get away with it. I didn't. This is entirely my fault and my the blame rests with me. I don't deserve any more leniency or understanding than anyone else would get for the same actions."

No one will make that statement, though. Michael Phelps won't. Tom Daschle won't. Neither will Nancy Killefer nor Timothy Geithner. But that simple statement is the truth. They all thought they'd get away with it. Some did - for some time. And now it's all "regrettable." And they're all "disappointed."

Please. We're disappointed. They're pathetic.

This has to go.

If I never hear this conversational construction, "Blank is the new blank" again it will be amazing. Whoever started this I don't know but this phrase has long since worn out it's usefulness and now people seem to be using it for all manner of circumstances they simply can't find any other way to describe:

Fifty is the new Forty.
Translation: People are looking and behaving in a more youthful manner than they have in the past!

Green is the new Black.
Translation: Environmental concerns seems to be more important to many people than being chic and trendsetting.

Cash is the new money.
Translation: Credit is crap. Cash is what matters.

But I just heard a new one, this one promoting network primetime television shows. Here it is: Monday is the new Thursday. Ahem: umm, no, it's not. Monday will never be the new Thursday and I don't care what programs are on the air.

First of all, Thursday is almost Friday. Monday is nothing more that a version of a bleaker Tuesday, that showed up one day early. It indicates nothing but the start of the week for many of us, and rarely carries with it that lighter, happier feeling you tend to find around a day like Thursday.

Second of all, substituting your own words within a phrase that was passably amusing when used very specifically and occasionally about ten years ago is pathetic. It doesn't make you clever, just derivative.

I know this post sounds kind of depressing but it's the end of a long, difficult day and believe me, not matter what's on television tonight, it will never feel like a Thursday night to me.

Unfortunately, someone reading this may feel the need to convince me otherwise. Phrases like "depressing is the new encouraging" or "bleak is the new bright." Good lord. They are not, okay? Can we all agree that we can stop comparing two disperate things and claiming they are the new whatever?

If not, I have one of my own: saying one thing is like another thing in an effort to be amusing and surprising is the new literary nadir. I like it.

What bad economy?

Here's the latest news from the world of publishing, my absolute favorite industry, one that continues to survive despite having no perceptible business model or the skills to run even one legitimate P / L on anything it produces.

Publisher's Weekly reports that a literary agent at major firm is "shopping around" (which means 'trying to sell' if you live in world that is not connected to publishing), a memoir by one Diane Keaton. Ms. Keaton's mother died about a year ago, after what PW called a "lengthy" battle with Alzheimer's disease. The story will be told "through the lens of [Keaton's] relationship with her mother."

As an aside, let me simply say that referring to the proposed book as a "memoir" more or less indicated to me that of course it would be told from Ms. Keaton's point of view. Maybe someone else is writing her memoir. But wouldn't that make it a biography? Does no one care about language anymore? Wouldn't you think a magazine devoted to publishing would? So would I.

Anyway, getting back to the title of this post, 'what bad economy?' here's the kicker. As of now, the entire book proposal consists of ten pages, and I'm going to guess that seven of those ten outline the reach and popularity of Ms. Keaton and the fan base who will line up to purchase anything with her name on it. I don't know who wrote this ten page "sample" but I'm going out on a limb here and guess that Ms. Keaton didn't sit in front of her laptop and labor over them. Of course there is a chance she did but somehow, I doubt it.

The rumored "offer" for this book? Two million dollars. TWO MILLION DOLLARS. For Diane Keaton's memoir about her late mother's Alzheimer's.

Has no one in publishing heard about the state of our economy? People are losing their jobs all over the place and some editor at some major publisher has the money to pay TWO MILLION bucks for this book?

Can someone explain to me why Diane's mother's Alzheimer's is of any more interest than anyone else's experience with a relative's Alzheimer's? Why is it worth a publisher paying her TWO MILLION DOLLARS to tell the story? The sad truth is that because we worship celebrities, more people will take notice of this disease because of Keaton's book. Maybe that makes it worth the money they're spending but somehow I doubt the publisher's motivation is that altruistic. If they'll pay two million they expect they'll make much more. And unless Ms. Keaton's planning to donate her advance and her royalties to Alzheimer's research, the whole thing is nothing but aggravating.

Look, I know the pain of watching a relative suffering from Alzheimer's. It is heart-breaking and difficult and frustrating and one of the saddest things there could possibly be. The energetic, entertaining, intelligent, fun person you knew and loved for years is gone but somehow not gone. She's mostly locked away, behind a wall of silence but looks out at you, offering nothing more than blank stares of non-recognition. At least you think she's probably gone. It's the unanswerable question. Is she still there? Does she know what we're saying and doing and telling her? Does she know exactly what she wants to say and is horrified to learn every single day that she can't tell you even one thing that's on her mind?

Ms. Keaton and her family have my sympathy. Alzheimer's is a horrible disease and watching it claim a loved one bit by bit, year after year, is terribly difficult. I hope her motivation for "writing" the book is to help others through the pain, to help them see that the disease can claim anyone, anywhere.

It's that two million bucks on the table that has me not quite convinced.

Another in the unending series of things I don't get....

Touch of Gray...I think that's what it's called. And no, I'm not referring to the Grateful Dead song. It's the latest innovation in grooming products developed to help women feel old and inferior to men in a whole new way.

Used to be that there was one thing a certain group of women (and men) of a particular age shared was their aversion to going gray. Because many (most?) women are just needy and insecure enough to obsess about matching our specific hair color down to the last spec on a single strand, hair color companies are delighted to produce scores of boxes in scores of shades to feed our obsession.

Men who were concerned about losing their natural hair color to the ravages of time needed exactly one product to tint their hair and it was called something that had exactly nothing to do with air color: Grecian Formula. God knows. The Greeks usually have a decent head of hair? And it's dark, not gray? Whatever.

That has changed, according to the latest commercial I've seen for a new men's hair color product. Apparently, while a LOT of gray is bad, some gray is good. We've heard this for years - the distinguished sideburns, the salt and pepper bon vivant....now that look is in a bottle.

The models (model? Maybe it's the same guy with two different looks) in the commercial make me laugh. The one with the fully gray / white head portrays this geezer kind of guy with one foot in the grave. The young guy with the lovely dark locks is chipper and 'ready to roar,' in the words of Prince, someone, I suspect,who has never and will never touch a drop of hair color.

But hey - why look like an old coot or an inexperienced young jerk? Have the best of both worlds by using Touch of Gray. The tagline at the end - where we find the perfectly coiffed guy with the perfect number of gray hairs on his head - is something like: "My look says experience" (the gray guy). "Mine says energy" (the brown guy). Now you have the best of both worlds.

I can't quite remember the end of this story because I'm annoyed and envious. For women, a touch of gray may as well be a helmet of gray. There is no middle. And now there is a product that allows men to practically count the number of gray hairs they want on their heads to create the right look of distinction for themselves.

I suppose women could buy touch of gray. I wonder if the company tried testing it with women? If they did, I predict they were laughed out of the focus groups.

He's Baa-ack

One month after he arrived home for Christmas vacation, my oldest son left again earlier this week to return to college.

Having him home again was, most of the time, delightful. It made me extremely happy to walk by his bedroom and see the door closed. Isn't that weird?

Before you think he's some kind of freak, he's not. He's just 19. And the door wasn't always closed. The reason I'm positive the door wasn't always closed was because I can clearly visualize the damp towels on the floor and unmade bed.

The experiences we had at home started off with almost cliche-like situations, where we heard phrases like "I'm not a baby" or "No one else needs to be home when I do" whenever we discussed what might make a reasonable time for him to return home after an evening out. I've read about this and heard about it but it was uncomfortable to actually live through it. It didn't take long to settle into a 'time to come home' agreement that made all parties concerned more (that would be us) or less (that would be him) content. The push-back was almost inevitable, and absolutely manageable.

For me, the very best part of my son being home with us was the fact that within reason, I could give him a hug or talk with him anytime I felt like it. Sure, he spent time with friends and his girlfriend but there were many occasions where I could go hang with him and chat or hop online or whatever. It was nice.

But just a few months after we made an emotional parting as he began his college career, we had another parting when I dropped him off on Monday. It felt entirely different to me. The 'missing him' feelings and the constant thread of "please be careful" thoughts that weave their way through some part of my consciousness at all times: those were still there. The sliver of unoccupied space he would leave in his absence was still there. I missed him already.

But this time, I dropped him off and ..what was this? Unbelievably, uncomfortably, improbably and inexplicably for me, it felt almost like I was dropping him off where he belonged. It's hard for me to believe that's true but it's starting to feel true.

I'm not sure who changed but I suspect it's me. And I wasn't expecting it. I wasn't prepared. Part of me wonders if that makes me a bad mother. Or maybe not bad - but at least - a detached mother. That's not quite the correct term either but it's something like that. Is it possible that I could start to accept the new reality in my life - one of my children moving on, moving away, moving toward complete independence - in a matter of a few months?

I've never thought of myself as "detached" or whatever the correct word is. Maybe it's the very pragmatic part of me asserting itself. I wish I were more "romantic" or whimsical about life but the truth is, I'm not. I tend to be your classic Capricorn (although astrology is ridiculous.) In case you're interested, here's what astrology says about Capricorns: "On the downside: Cold, Miserly, Indifferent, Rigid. Your good qualities include: Practical, Self-disciplined, Responsible, Reliable. Controlling your abilities, ambitions, destiny, and priorities will be your life's work." A barrel of laughs, right? Somehow, this particular string of words make admirable qualities like self-discipline, reliability and responsibility sound miserable. I'm not touching the feel-good words in the description, words like miserly, cold, indifferent and rigid.

All this to say, I'm still not exactly sure why or how I developed this unspoken and mostly unwelcome perception of myself as the mother of a son who is ultimately and irrevocably heading out the door and possibly, just possibly, being okay with that. I know I haven't quite reconciled that persona within myself.

It's sort of interesting to ponder..although yes, there is still a bit of me that wishes we could stop time and find a place that feels comfortable and livable and stay there. But the question is: comfortable for who? For me? For my sons? I suspect we'd choose different moments to freeze if we could.

That wouldn't work, even if we could do it. I'd miss the future, if you know what I mean. In my better moments, I think it's possible that we'll all get to a new place together.

But the boys may get there just slightly ahead of me.

"...people are really good at heart."

I think those words - or something like them - appear in the the final entry of Anne Frank's diary. And like Anne, the world has shown me that despite everything to the contrary, there are those who are truly good at heart.

In this week's Morning Call column, I wrote about the milestone I would reach in 2009: turning age 50. The point of the piece was really about the idea of looking outward for a change, instead of conducting our typical intense, relentless and harsh assessment of our own lives. It's not as if I don't want to somehow mark the occasion; it's just that this could also give me a chance to think about everything I don't need and a few things other people do.

If you're so inclined, check out the link and read the column. But if not, you should know that enough people have read it, responded to me in the kindest way possible, and restored my flagging faith in our ability to care for each other. Each one of them is everything Bernie Madoff and the people who emulate his behavior are not: compassionate, sincere, unselfish and kind.

And the truth is, that's really all any of us seem to crave these days, isn't it? The idea that we can still believe that people are good at heart? Over the past few months, the news has been filled with nothing but stories of how one group or even one person chose to act in a way that brought harm to many. I'm tired of hearing bad news and believing the worst about yesterday, today and tomorrow. I'm tired of thinking there is no way out of the climate of distress that surrounds us.

And the good-hearted people who responded to the column made that weary, defeated feeling go away. Not all of it - but a lot of it. And that feels pretty good.

More on publishing aggravations..then I'll let it go for a while.

At age thirteen, I read The Catcher in the Rye for the first time. I’m not going to describe the moments that stayed with me over the years, or add up the number of times I’ve opened the book since then. I will tell you this: I remember thinking long and hard about the flap copy that accompanied the book. Along with some author background, it included this startling little story from Salinger himself: “I’ve been writing since I was fifteen or so. My short stories have appeared in a number of magazines over the last ten years, mostly – and most happily – in The New Yorker. I worked on The Catcher in the Rye, on and off, for ten years.”

At that time, I hadn’t worked on anything, off and on or otherwise, for ten years. And since the book covers little more than seventy-two hours in Holden Caulfield’s life, I found myself wondering: how did Salinger create so seamless a narrative if he worked on it for so long? What was he thinking when he went back to the manuscript over those years and found his place – “Where was I with this? Oh, that’s right, Holden had just gotten out of Horwitz’s cab.” How could he keep up his belief in his creative process? How did he keep the characters so focused when Salinger’s own life experiences had to have been growing exponentially over that decade?

I come back to his revelation often, particularly when a new writer seems to grab hold of our collective literate consciousness and rattle the publishing world. I thought of it again as I recalled the story about the Kaavya Viswanathan / Megan McCafferty conundrum. (Many people saw too many close similarities between the novels of the previously published McCafferty and the acclaimed new novel from the young, fresh Viswanathan, a situation that took place in the past year or two.)

Don’t misunderstand me: I’m all for overnight success, as long as it happens to someone who has worked long and hard to get it. But then I learned that only a few years ago, Ms. Viswanathan’s parents hired a college placement counselor to help secure a spot for their daughter in an Ivy League college. Fine. Lovely. Why not?

Then the counselor fortuitously “discovered” this student’s writing ability and connected her to an agent – why not? – at a little shop called The William Morris Agency. Who then connected her to a packager who connected her to Little Brown. So by age nineteen, Ms. Viswanathan finds her debut novel, with what many believe was a generous leg up from author Megan McCafferty, climbing various lists.

Question: What? How do you have no publishing history - I believe I’ve heard it called a “platform” – and get a deal represented by The William Morris Agency to have your first novel published by Little Brown? This is the same publisher who gave us The Catcher in the Rye more than fifty years ago, presumably to reach Salinger’s fans who had been reading him for about ten years in, what was that magazine again – oh yes, The New Yorker. I guess that’s the difference half a century makes. Fifty years ago you may have needed the equivalent of ten years worth of New Yorker stories to get a publisher to look at your novel. Today, you may need little more than a guidance counselor with connections.

The larger question for publishers isn’t about plagiarism. More than a few articles over the past few years have given us laundry lists of books gone bad once plagiarism and/or outright lies were discovered well after the books had hit the shelves. And while I haven’t read “How Opal Mehta Got Kissed, Got Wild, and Got a Life” nor have I read either of Megan McCafferty’s novels that provided so much “inspiration,” I have no doubt they were written with passion, and frustration, and joy.

But at times like this, I’m wondering if in the case of ‘Opal,’ it’s too much too soon. I can’t help but recall the advice a brilliant editor gave me years ago: “Don’t publish your first book until you absolutely can’t stand NOT to. It will always be – no matter what else happens - your first book. It should be the foundation that builds your career.”

When I tell the story – some day – about my first book being published, I’d like to remember it as pleasant, satisfying and exciting, and begin with Holden’s words to us as he sits outside the carousel in Central Park: ‘I wish you could have been there.’ I’m guessing Ms. Visawanthan, and everyone connected to her story, wishes they could say the same.

If it's wrong, it may be right. Depending on your ethics, of course.

After years of trying, I may have finally figured out how I've gone so wrong in terms of looking for a book publisher. I thought I was doing it right: I wrote a great proposal, and completed several chapters. I connected with an amazing literary agent with a fabulous track record of sales and successful authors. Perfect, right? Wrong.

Based on what I read these days, my problem seems to be that the stories I tell in my book about my life are true. And in case you're confused about what that means, let me elaborate: the stories I tell are true because they happened to me, in my personal life, in my experience, in my own reality. Are we clear?

Two recent news stories about authors and publishing seem to prove my theory. According to Publisher's Weekly, and additional coverage of the same story in The New York Times, author Herman Rosenblat didn't tell the complete truth in his "memoir" titled Angel at the Fence. His moving story related how he met his future wife (the "angel" in the title,) when she would toss apples to him over the fence of the concentration camp in which he was imprisoned. Amazing and incredible and in fact, untrue. Since the facts emerged about the story, Berkley Books has dropped the title but a smaller publisher may be picking it up and publishing it as fiction.

In a similar story, author Neale Donald Walsch, just admitted that his lovely little Christmas story, which recently appeared on Beliefnet, wasn't exactly his story. Sure, it came from a personal place. He recalled his son's kindergarten pageant rehearsal, and wrote a moving essay about how reversing one letter in a sign held up by children delivered the true message of Christmas. (The children were supposed to hold up letters that spelled out "Christmas Love" but the letter "m" appeared upside down so the message appeared "Christ Was Love."

Well, the truth is the story happened to someone else (Candy Chand) who wrote about it ten years ago. Walsch says he loved the story, had told it many times over the years and somehow "internalized it as my own experience."

If I wanted to be as generous as my sons were when I related this "mis-remembering" story to them, I could marvel at the flexibility of the human brain and what we are capable of convincing ourselves is true. I don't really have any ill will toward Walsch; it's just weird. How do you actually remember a kindergarten pageant your son participated in that never happened?

Let's get back to the title of this post. I suppose if I wanted to put my ethics on hold for the year, I could write a memoir that tells some of the most interesting, most moving, most courageous stories I've ever heard and make them my own. Unfortunately, I live the same life as countless millions, and happen to write essays about it. As it now stands, my book is a collection of such emotional hot buttons as how much I hate Victoria's Secret, the tumult and turmoil I endured when I learned how creating something called an "edible landscape" for a 4th grade science class can ruin a perfectly good Tuesday evening of Law & Order and the heartbreaking reality that I endured when I realized that visiting a Pottery Barn (or even paging through their catalog) could plunge me into a deep depression.

I'd love to write a book that captures the hearts and minds of millions. Or even hundreds. One that people can enjoy so much that when they put it down, they feel like they've just made a new friend. A book that will create a little community of people who relate to each other's experiences and wisdom. But I don't want it badly enough to lie.

and a few more teary moments

Over the holidays, and to help celebrate my time away from the office, I spent some time watching movies, or more correctly, watching parts of movies. The only new movie (meaning: a movie I hadn't seen before) I watched over the holidays was "Miss Potter," the story of children's book author Beatrix Potter. I didn't know much about her other than the fact that her stories delighted my children for a few years. Turns out she was a little more complicated than I thought and much more independent than one might have imagined given the climate of her time.

But nothing in that movie made me cry. No, the ends of two other movies did that for me: the very end of the original "Rocky" (if you can believe that) and the end of "The Color Purple."

It's true: I tear up when Rocky stands in the midst of the mayhem in the boxing ring at the end of the match and calls out for the woman he loves. Both Rocky and Adrian are depicted as "losers," with Rocky eking out a living as the muscle for a loan shark in Philly and Adrian working in a dingy pet shop, hiding in the shadow of her formidable and domineering brother. Each of them have very little in terms of material things - in fact, they personify the working poor - and even less to celebrate in a personal way, until they meet each other. The vulnerability they show as they begin their relationship and the fact that these two lonely and sympathetic characters learn to love each other makes the end of the film very touching, at least to me. So I tear up every single time.

And then there's the end of "The Color Purple." Everything about those final scenes is perfect. The flowers, the fields, the colors, the characters scattered about on a gorgeous sunny afternoon, and the brilliant colors of the African garb that waves in the breeze when Celie's family steps out of their car. All of it is gorgeous and moving, and the my emotions begin to well up within me when Celie's sister, Nettie, introduces her to the grown children she never knew. But nothing gets to me as much as the shot of Albert, Celie's estranged husband, walking in the field next door. After years of fostering the separation of the women, he somehow learns what is right, what is just, and his actions are behind the reunion that means so much to everyone involved. And I'm wiping my eyes every time.

And I had one more tearful moment this holiday season, but this one came courtesy of real life, not film. It was on Sunday, December 28, when I learned of the accident involving the Parkland students and recent graduates. Two of the boys are our neighbors, including Josh, who died as a result of the accident. Garrett is home and recuperating but it will be many weeks before he is fully recovered. One of the other boys sits with two of my sons at lunch and they were horrified to hear he was in the group and badly injured as well.

I cried at this news. News of any accidental death as a result of a car crash is tragic - but this was happening only two doors away from us. To a group of kids who planned to do nothing more than spend an evening together at the movies. On the same foggy night my oldest son left the house to pick up his girlfriend and go out to dinner. The difference is that they both arrived home safely at the end of the evening - courtesy of providence and nothing more.

I've tried very hard over the years to remind myself that all of today's hassles and annoyances that come with raising children will not last. The missing term paper, the practice that isn't happening for the weekly voice lessons, the scraps of information you have to beg for in order to know what's going on anywhere with anyone - as aggravating as all of it is, it doesn't last. What will last is the relationship - good or bad - that we build with our children.

I hope they know that even when I'm angry, I love them. I hope they know that loving people sometimes anger each other. That I'm far from perfect and I don't expect perfection from them. And that when I insist on a hug goodbye as they leave, and I murmur yet another in my series of "be carefuls" in their ears, or when I ask for a phone call if they're going to be late, it isn't just to be annoying, or because I think they're babies or because I don't trust them. I'm thinking positive but also listening to the tiny little scary voice that whispers about "what might be" should the universe turn against us one night.

You can't control the world. You can't really control the actions of your children when they reach a certain age. You can't even control the scary voice in your head. You can only hold it at bay, one night at a time. And when the scary voice turns out to be telling the horrible, unspeakable truth one night - like it did for some parents on Sunday, December 28 - you can only cry.

things that make me tear up

It may be the season, but I feel a little weepy these days. And since it seems to be the pervasive, I'm going to try to list these as they occur to me.

So here goes:
A Christmas Carol - at Civic Theater - but in a good way.

1. The music that plays in the background of Civic Theater's Christmas Carol. I don't know why but I actually tear up every single time that show begins. There's something quietly gorgeous about that single piano and harpsichord (?) - I guessing. I think it's a harpsichord. The songs are familiar but the arrangements bring a different, sophisticated and understated beauty to them

2. The waltz in Act 2 - the palpable sadness of what might have been touches something inside me as Ebenezer Scrooge and his long lost fiance Belle take one step then another together, in his heart and mind if no where else. Who doesn't live with a "what might have been" in their own life? The music is haunting and the dance steps are perfect but it's not what the actors are doing that brings on the tears. I have a feeling it's my own regrets about what I've chosen not to do or not to act on - without quite knowing if I've made the right choices. Trouble is, I don't get a chance - like Ebenezer - to have anyone point out the folly of at least some of my decisions.

3. And because I tend to bookend things in my life, I tear up at the end of the show, too. I simply can't watch the narrator - AKA Tiny Tim - walk up that aisle without getting overcome with emotion. It's a lovely little surprise, courtesy of the talented professionals at Civic who stage this production each year.

There's also -
Josh Groban hitting the high note at the end of Oh Holy Night. I'm not joking. I've heard it dozens of times and I still really do tear up when he hits it. One note. And my eyes fill.

The voiceover by Boris Karloff in How the Grinch Stole Christmas. When he explains, as the Grinch stood puzzling and puzzling, that "It came just the same. It came without ribbons. It came without tags. It came without packages, boxes or bags!" I'm on my way and then he closes the deal with "the Grinch's small heart grew three sizes that day."

There's more. I take after my Dad that way. My sister and I would constantly marvel at how he could cry at almost anything at almost anytime and never understood it. Turns our sentiment is a gene you pass along to your children, or at least to one of your children.

I'll add to these from time to time but tonight it's all about Christmas. And what I need to do and how "far behind" I am on the tasks that "need" to be done for the holiday. Maybe I need to listen a little more closely to the stories that bring out so much emotion in me.

Why almost nothing makes sense to me.

I can't understand how something I read seems to explain the ways of the world in a way that is so sensible, so inherently true, so logical and reasonable...and then, just when I'm settling into my comfort zone of my new-found wisdom, I witness the exact opposite thing happening.

Case in point: Outliers, by Malcolm Gladwell, my favorite journalist on the planet. I can't begin to explain the entire book here but will summarize by saying he takes a surprising look at "success" and what makes people successful, and in his typical way, gives his readers plenty to think over and ponder along the way.

One of his more provocative passages discusses the sheer energy and amount of time truly successful people invest in learning their skills or their art to become experts at what they do. He discusses the idea of "10,000 hours" as the amount of time that continually comes up in discussions of how people became experts: they've invested that much time into bettering their skills and consistently improving, working, dedicating themselves to getting it right.

Outliers has much more than this to it and I'd recommend it highly - pick it up if you want to read something more inspiring than the headlines about the next major collapse of a giant in business or the media.

But here's where nothing makes sense. Just as I finished Outliers, I read a profile of National Book Award winner, Annette Gordon-Reed. Ms. Gordon-Reed won her award in November for her book, The Hemingses of Monticello. In it, she discusses the Hemings family tree, and the relationship between Sally Hemings and Thomas Jefferson.

In the short profile I read, I found exactly the sort of person of 'success' that Gladwell profiles in his book, plus a lot more. When discussing her work, Gordon-Reed reveals that in addition to the years she spent writing about Jefferson, she spent 10 or 11 hours a day, 7 days a week, for about 8 years researching and writing her award-winning book.

Think about that investment in time and effort. Even on the low end, she spent 70 hours a week 52 weeks a year, for about 8 years. In other words: more than 29,000 hours went into this book. That is commitment and dedication and single-minded purpose. This is a woman with a message she feels absolutely compelled to share, in the most perfect way she can.

Then, just when I think Gladwell and Gordon-Reed are the success model come-to-life, I read a story about author Alec Greven. He has written a new advice book, titled How to Talk to Girls. In it, he gives the male species terrific, succinct bits of wisdom, that he claims he picked up by watching his friends interact with girls. One of the more straightforward suggestions include 'comb your hair and don't wear sweats.' What could be wrong with that? He gets a little more interpretive when he cautions that 'pretty girls are like cars that need a lot of oil.'

I'm not sure how much time Alec put into pursuing his publishing dream. But given that he's only been on the planet for about 79,000 hours total, and I'm guessing that for about 35,000 of those he was illiterate, he's going to have to convince he me spent 10,000 hours becoming a writer, one who is excellent enough to have landed a publishing deal. (Alec is nine years old.)

See how this doesn't make sense? I know - people may say, "But he's not a national book award winner!! He's charming, quirky, here-today-gone-tomorrow gimmicky author. You can't compare him to someone like Annette Gordon-Reed."

To which I say: you're right. I can't. But it feels like I can (on my bad days) and it doesn't feel good.

We are doomed. Well, our kids are anyway.

Think we've learned fiscal discipline? Think we've had our collectively irresponsible bottoms slapped and that we're through with the "buy now, pay never" mentality? That we've pledged to do much better in the years ahead?

You're wrong. And I didn't come to this conclusion after reading the latest pronouncements form economists, futurists, lawmakers and financial gurus. I figured it out by watching a commercial on television. A commercial for the latest edition of Monopoly. The "no cash needed" version of the game.

Remember Monopoly? I have vivid memories of playing the game during my childhood, where we would start a game of Monopoly on a small table in our dining room on a Monday morning and by the next Wednesday, we still weren't quite finished with it. We just kept winnowing each other out, and watch whoever bought Park Place and Boardwalk, plus the green and orange properties, wipe up the rest of us who bought the purple, violet and two railroads instead.

It's also interesting to recall the money we would count out and watch over so carefully as we could until we passed Go and collected another paycheck.

Well, all of that angst and strategizing may be something of a 20th century anachronism. The newest version of the game is a 'No Cash' needed edition. Here is some of the language from the copy on the website: "Wheel and deal your way to a fortune even faster using debit cards instead of cash! All it takes is a card swipe for money to change hands. Now you can collect rent, buy properties and pay fines - with the touch of a button." I can barely stand to think about it.

Maybe they have some new tokens that represent banks who go around the board reclaiming properties that have fallen into foreclosure. Maybe there are loan documents that replace the money the banks used to hand out. Maybe instead of Chance cards there are decks of overdue notices and credit cards.

Here's the thing. I realize plenty of people who played the old-fashioned Monopoly are the very same people who are losing homes, cars and any hope of reasonable credit because of poor financial choices they've made. Or because the people who pushed various financial instruments on them (who also played the old game)made some unscrupulous decisions that benefited themselves and their companies.

But do we have any hope of anyone who is prime Monopoly-playing age recognizing the dangers of buying without money in the bank, or spending beyond your means if its modeled for them in a venerable board game?

Sure, it's not Finance 101 but Monopoly was the closest any of us ever came to a course in money management. Whether or not it mattered in terms of our behavior in the long run is debatable. And it should take about twenty years or so to see if the latest version means anything in the real world or not.

And another thing...

This week's column in The Morning Call discussed an annoying little development in the world of women's lingerie - the fact that someone, somewhere has now figured out how to insert a GPS device into a bra or panties. The result of this breakthrough is that a women's location could be tracked and documented by a man who is inordinately interested in knowing it.

I won't belabor my incredulity about this technology that seems to have found a soft, satin home, but something else is troubling me. Without mincing words, I'll simply ask the following: Is this all we can say for ourselves? Is this really what some will recognize as achievement in the early 21st century? Aren't we better than this?

I read about the Christmas shopping tragedy in Valley Stream, NY and somehow these two things (GPS bras and killer crowds) co-exist in my mind. How could we expect more moderate, semi-civilized behavior from a unruly bargain-hunting mob when we live in a world that celebrates the wonders of GPS technology by placing it in women's underwear?

I know. It's a stretch. And for many people, there is no connection. I respect that.

It's just that events like this remind me of the sentiments expressed by the late Michael Crighton in his novel, Jurassic Park. He was talking about recreating an extinct species but the formula feels true to me in this circumstance as well. It feels like we tend to do things because we can - (we insert a GPS chip inside a bra; we stampede a department store at dawn and literally kill a man in the process ) - not because we should.

This is starting to feel like it will deteriorate into a "In my day..." rant and maybe it will. But if so, I'd have to pose the following: what's so wrong with people being trustworthy when it comes to their life partners and not feeling the need to track someone's every move to insure her faithfulness? What's wrong with holding the door for the shopper behind you and sharing some Christmas spirit, not elbowing them out of the your way as you race toward the electronics aisle?

Okay, we don't live in Bedford Falls and not one of us can go to the Building and Loan for some cash. The Santa working at Penney's is not likely to send a shopper to Macy's to buy just the right gift. Who could believe in that kind of world? No, instead we have to believe in this one. Some of us have literally killed someone who had the unfortunate timing of working at a store one morning and opening the door. Some men want to make sure their wife or girlfriend keeps her panties on all day.

Gives me a warm fuzzy feeling all over.

All the right moves don't always feel alright.

For more than ten years, our boys were “the babies” of the family. But that ended a while ago: our extended family includes nine children, ages three months to seven years, and they’re truly a gift to all of us.

Last week, one of my nieces emailed everyone a video clip of her nine-month-old baby and somewhere between listening to Ryan’s laughter and noticing the look on Heather’s face; something became crystal clear to me. The video showed him pushing a ‘learn-to-walk’ toy in front of him as he practiced his very first independent steps. It also showed his mother watching him closely, in case he stumbled. As he struck out on his own, the look on his face and his cheerful cooing noises told me he had figured out that this walking thing was kind of fun. And that it promised to bring him a lifetime of adventure.

I watched the video in a kind of bittersweet fog. It’s been many years since I positioned one of my boys behind the little “learn to walk” truck each of them used for balance as he learned to stand on his own and then take a step. Many years since I watched and worried about unsteady toddlers trying out their new found freedom. And although I remember watching each of them get ready and then take off, so proud, so excited, now so long ago, I don’t remember noticing the direction every one of them took.

It wasn’t realizing how many years had passed since my boys were toddlers that made my niece’s video so poignant. No, watching Ryan cross the room reminded me of something I’d heard or read somewhere not too long ago: the first steps our children take are away from us. That simple and profound truth startled me.

Think about the strolls you took with your own children as they learned to walk. You leaned over to hold their hands, probably above their heads, and walked behind them and they stepped out in front of you. Think about babies like my niece’s son, who grab hold of a toy to steady themselves as they push it along. In the very first stages of walking, children travel toward independence, into a place they want to claim as their own, not back toward mommy or daddy.

The video was an affecting reminder that children choose to walk away; even as very young children they make that choice. It also reminded me of another profound truth, and maybe the only bit of comfort I could take away from this: they can’t come back unless they walk away.

It’s only after children have practiced those first steps, after they’ve learned to toddle with some confidence, that parents position themselves in the “come to Mommy” or “come to Daddy” pose, asking their little boy or girl to return. We wait with open arms, and although we may celebrate this milestone on some level, we don’t quite relax until they’re safe and secure with us.

Which brings me to Thanksgiving. This year, my two youngest boys are high school seniors, and my oldest will be “coming home” from college for the holiday. This year, those two seniors are now only months away from taking thousands of steps away from me. My oldest will be on a break from his new life and walk back toward my (figuratively and literally) open arms.

I conjure up my own video, that begins with a toddler ambling across a room and then fades into a boy racing down the street or across a field, and before you know it, he’s on a bike or a skateboard or a scooter or rollerblades and he continues along, right out the door. Then, just when you think he can’t go much further, he walks out the door one night, swinging the car keys, to spend the evening with friends.

I’ve quietly watched all of this unfold – maybe hundreds of times by now. I remind myself: moving away seems like every child’s destiny; coming back feels like a choice. And unless I watch them leave, I won’t be able to welcome them home.

If you wire it, will they buy??

I guess that's the question being posed by a coffee house in Amsterdam, called The Coffee Company.

In order to attract the students that surround their university neighborhood location, they've added Wi-Fi to their store. Predictably, the Internet access did attract students but unfortunately, it didn't attract much in the way of actual cash-register ringing purchases(assuming anyone remembers what a ringing cash register sounds like). The good news is that the students come to The Coffee Company to go online. The bad news is they just don't seem to buy a cup of coffee or a snack while they do.

The Coffee Company decided to use the Wi-Fi to their fiscal and marketing advantage. They added their food and drink menu to the Wi-Fi menu that opens on a user's screen. So in addition to the regular links students found once they were online, students can find the menu of the restaurant they were sitting in right that moment.

In another stroke of genius, The Coffee Company decided to change the wireless network name from time to time, and were rather playful about it. Students would regularly have to check with the staff to discover the wireless network name. Give the Coffee Company credit for creativity. Some of the names they used were: "ByCoffeeForCuteGirlOverThere," "BuyAnotherCupYouCheapskate," "HaveYouTriedTheCarrotCake," "OrderAnotherCoffeeAlready" and "BuyALargeLatteGetBrownieForFree."

I'm not sure if it's working - the article I read didn't talk much about the results of their marketing efforts toward the students. Personally, it would work for me. If I had to type BuyALargeLatteGetBrownieForFree to logon, especially every day for a week whenever I visited the coffee shop, I'd buy a large latte.

Maybe some of the more magnanimous Wi-Fi spots around the country could try this technique too, with a more subliminal but uplifting result in mind. They could change the name of their networks regularly in an effort to engender kindness or generosity. Suggestions: "SayHelloToAStrangerToday," "WaitToHoldTheDoorToday," "LetSomeoneMergeOnto22Today," "ListenMoreThanYouTalkToday." The resulting behavior could astonish us all.

There is something seriously wrong with me...

I have some kind of extra sentimental gene or something.

Which, in some ways, is completely antithetical to how I behave on a daily basis. I am not a gushy, excitable, over-the-top emotional kind of person. I sometimes see people - women especially - who seem to wear their emotions on their sleeves and they seem pretty emotionally healthy to me. At the very least, they're being emotionally genuine.

I'm too reserved to behave the same way. I just don't know when was the last time I displayed exuberance over anything. Is there something wrong with that? Shouldn't we all feel amazing and astonished and excited beyond belief at least every once in a while? The question is: Is "even" the best way to live your life?

Before this gets too maudlin, my life is filled with people I love, including an amazing husband and children I adore. And we don't live a life of austerity and glass-half-empty attitudes. It's just that I always feel a little 'controlled' about the people and events around me.

I have a Roz Chast cartoon in our refrigerator that mostly sums up my world view: "Rational Exuberance." It's hilarious. The people depicted are excited about mostly mundane things because that's about all the excitement they'll allow themselves. Feels very true to me.

So here I am, living my rationally exuberant, semi-guarded and safe existence, watching my reactions and appearance and speech. Remaining steady, reliable, dependable. Except for this: along comes the animated Christmas show, "How the Grinch Stole Christmas" on television. (Yes, I know its early for Christmas specials to be scheduled on TV by almost anyone's standards, except mine. Christmas is too wonderful a feeling to be relegated to three weeks a year as far as I'm concerned.)

And what happens? I watch what had to be the final 8 minutes of the show and tear up when the Grinch "stood puzzling and puzzling" about the meaning of Christmas. Then - forget it - when the dawn breaks, the Whos down in Whoville gather and start singing the Christmas song, I'm over. I'm a wreck. Is this normal?

I'm teary. I am overcome with the feeling that humanity isn't doomed. Enormously grateful for people like Ted Giesel and Chuck Jones who created this television classic and shared their own exuberance for this message with the rest of us. Thankful for the notion that even the most unlovable among us have some good inside.

a near obsession - explained

I am not sure why this happens to me but every once in a while, I'll come across a movie that I simply cannot stop watching. The latest in this list of always watchable films: The Holiday. My husband and my boys make fun of me for this but then again, they will almost always stop on Gladiator and watch that movie whenever its on cable so I think we're even.

In case you don't know the movie, you probably don't need to know much more than this: Cameron Diaz, Jack Black, Kate Winslet, Jude Law. Two broken hearts, Cameron and Kate, find each other online, trade houses for Christmas, and travel across the world to spend time alone, get out of their typical surroundings, and heal themselves. Cameron finds herself in Surrey, England while Kate gets dropped off in front of Cameron's amazing home in what has to Beverly Hills.

Surprise! They each find a new (true) love waiting in that whole new world. (Okay. Yes, a chick flick for lack of a better term, although I think that sells movies like this short. I'm sure men like at least a few of them, too, but are reluctant to admit it for fear of a sensitivity or 'soft side' alarm going off.)

So why the obsession? As I said, I haven't quite figured this out but here's my theory: there is something extremely attractive and sort of seductive about the concept of abandoning your own semi-troubled life, taking up somewhere new, and trying on a whole new person in the process. Not forever and not in a scary kind of place. Someplace where you can settle in fairly easily but be open to new experiences. Not one of us can really do this - not really, not matter how often women's magazines tell us to reinvent our lives - but it feels almost like you can trade your life for another when you watch this movie. I can't spend Christmas in Surrey but I can watch Cameron's character do it and pretend her experiences are my own.

For me, this movie holds another magic moment beyond the actual 'escape from your life' scenario: Kate's cottage in the lovely, winter-kissed countryside, complete with gate that opens onto the walkway, that leads into a living room complete with a cracking fireplace, overstuffed furniture and a comfy looking bed.

I must have spent time in England in another life because I'm a sucker for almost anything having to do with English charm. And Kate's cottage oozes quaint, cozy charm. It's adorable and it certainly doesn't hurt that Jude Law shows up at the door in the middle of the night.

But honestly, there is almost nothing all that surprising in this movie so how can it continue to draw me in time after time? (And by the way, not just me. I know at least two other women who feel the same way about this movie.)

It has to be the vicarious mood this picture creates, that feeling it creates within viewers like me that even if I'm only just watching someone on an adventure like this, it's almost like having it yourself. This idea basically builds on a previous post of mine, where I discussed the oft-mentioned "luxury" wish most women have about spending time on their own, away from their everyday lives. In this case, they get away, they reinvent themselves a tiny little bit, and happen to also find the men of their dreams along the way.

For me, meeting another man isn't part of the "getting away from it all" fantasy. But being somewhere unfamiliar but comfortable, spending time alone, finding some days or weeks just be and do and think and dream and wonder - that would be a dream come true.

worst moment of motherhood

I read an article this week that educated me about something: the worst moment of anyone's parenthood experience is relative. Relative to your own experience, how yo lived and what you learned while growing up with your own parents, your daily life experience as an adult and a young parent, your understanding of what makes an acceptable choice and what makes an unacceptable choice, and your own unique view of the world at large and your place in it.

The story I read described what I hope is, in fact, the worst moment in the mother's life, and her daughter's for that matter. (But somehow, I don't think either one of them is thinking about it quite like that.) The daughter and one of her school mates (another teenage girl) were arguing at Allen High School and decided to shelve the disagreement until after school hours and settle it with a fight in West Park.

Somehow, the mother of one of the girls heard of the plans to fight, and met her daughter after school. Thank God. Except she didn't take her home, which would have been the acceptable choice. Instead, she accompanied her, and a large group of students, to West Park to meet the other girl for the fight.

Got that? The mom heard about the fight, met up with her daughter, and instead of intervening and stopping it before it started, she walked her to the fight. Just like some moms walk their children to the school bus, or the library, or the park - (the one without the fight going on.)

Once they were at the park, the adult - the mother - told her to "hurry up and hit her." And then, once the fight was underway, the mother herself joined in and punched the other girl in the face and kicked her at least twice.

People watching the fight pulled the mother away; both girls sustained injuries, and the mother was sent to Lehigh County prison under $10,000 bail.

I don't know quite what to make of all this. I keep coming back to the idea that all the choices we make are relative. I don't understand any of the choices that went into how this story unfolded. Not one of them. Relative to my own life experience, it's completely foreign.

But regardless, can we agree that any mother who encourages a fight, then jumps in to "help" while the fists are flying isn't raising her daughter to be a compassionate mother? My instinct is yes but maybe I'm wrong - at least from her point of view. Maybe she thinks she was being compassionate. And helping her daughter solve a problem. Maybe I have no idea what it's like to raise a daughter who fights other girls.

And that's really what's on my mind I guess. If this is seen as "normal" and "expected" and "understood" by any part of our community, and written off as just the way things are done, I fear for that mother, her child and her grandchildren to come. And honestly, for the rest of us who will never understand it.

I'll take my comfort wherever I can get it....

...which basically means, I'm not picky about where I find some sort of validation for my life.

As the mother of an eighteen-year-old and two seventeen-year-old boys, I take almost daily comfort in a comic strip titled Zits. A few of them have decorated our refrigerator from time to time. (I've also accused my boys of secretly drawing the comic - the stories are that familiar.)

The situations in the strip are nearly always exactly on target, but last week, the Sunday comic helped me more than normal, in my daily search for confirmation that I'm not quite losing my mind or about to fall over the edge. I've often suspected that I must be the only mother of nearly grown boys that asks questions as mundane - possibly even embarrassingly so - as this: brush your teeth? Use deodorant? Homework? Backpack? Lunch? ipod? Cell phone? I mean, how clueless can teenagers be? Isn't all of this automatic by now?

[Here's a real life example: The boys once spent months going to classes and then a day or two in rehearsals for their Confirmation ceremony, and were well aware that we were planning a lovely dinner for family and friends to celebrate this milestone. One the appointed day, the boys arrived home from school, and found my mother waiting for them, plus my husband and I getting ready, dressed in fairly formal clothing...and I asked them to head upstairs to change into their new suits because we would be leaving shortly....and they asked - honestly, they asked me - "Leaving for what??" I'm not making that up. ]

Turns out, almost nothing is automatic with teenagers, except perhaps text messaging and changing a profile description on Facebook. The mom in the strip asked every single one of these inane questions of her son, Jeremy. In an increasingly exasperated way only teenagers can master, he answers yes to every question. Then he steps out of the car at school and realizes he isn't wearing shoes. To his mom's credit, she zooms away in the car, leaving him in his socks.

The best part is that Jeremy complains to his friend, Pierce, about his mother's forgetfulness. Pierce, who happens to not be wearing any pants that day, agrees.

Thank you Jerry Scott and Jim Borgman. You and your cartoon family furnish much of the validation I need to keep trying, day after day, to enjoy the ride, take a breath, and enjoy every single moment with my children. Exasperation aside, they are amazing. Yes, they appear to be unconscious about many, many things. But at this point, once I get past the frustrations of living with boys who seem to have the short term memories of fireflies, I remind myself that it's all too fleeting.

And that like fireflies, they're brightening my life, if only for a relatively short time, before the seasons change and they move on.

So why don't I feel bad???

He wasn't my candidate but he is my president.

I watched the election returns until after 11 pm Tuesday night. I didn't listen to concession speeches or victory speeches. I went to sleep, well aware of the fact that the morning would bring headline after headline about President-elect Barack Obama.

And I wasn't quite sure how I felt about that.

Obama's politics, as closely as I can tell, appear far too liberal for me. I don't know if that's absolutely true but throughout the campaign, based on everything I read and heard, it felt true to me. I didn't vote for him for that reason.

But my guy lost. John McCain was the inevitable victim of our current president's abysmal reputation and non-popularity. He was the fall guy for a tanking economy, despite the fact that this financial crisis is a bi-partisan travesty. No matter - those two strikes counted for three and he was out.

But here's the thing. Tuesday night, before I went to sleep, I discussed with my teenage sons that the election was heading very strongly toward the democratic ticket and our nation was about to greet President Obama in the morning. Somewhere very deep inside, I felt a sense of - I'm not sure what - anticipation, comfort, resolution - for them and people in their generation. Maybe in their lifetimes, this historic election would become a footnote, and many years from tonight, they would tell their grandchildren how unusual this was; how much of big deal this was when the first black guy was elected president.

I had a moment late that night, and even more strongly in the morning, where I felt if not comfortable, then at least anticipatory about what was to come with an Obama presidency. Political inclinations aside, here's what I think I know about Obama: he's intelligent, appears to be someone who wants to be around other smart people, particularly if they challenge him, and he knows how to communicate, especially when he's addressing a crowd to deliver a message.

For me, the election ended in a heartbeat and all of the partisan politics felt like yesterday's news. It's time for our nation to support this man, about to take on an always challenging job in an extremely challenging time. Is he going to do an amazing job? A horrifying one? It's unanswerable. To Obama and the people who serve the country alongside him I say good luck and God bless.

He wasn't my candidate, but he is my president.

NOT politics - sort of.

I just spent a weekend mostly on my own - husband away and two teenagers occupied each night with friends. Between loads of laundry on Saturday - including two exploding pillows that basically disintegrated in the washer and/or dryer and resulted in thousands of little cotton puffs that were either stuck in our drain or in the lint trap in our dryer - I watched WAY TOO MUCH HGTV. I know - the excitement nearly killed me as well.

I've written about HGTV before and the rather incredible way they present home improvements. My perspective - then and now - was mostly one of harmless wonder, knowing that little if any of the designer magic I witnessed on the network could truly be replicated in my home, no matter how many hours I logged watching "Design on a Dime."

But on the edge of an election, and in light of the home despair news around the country, I started thinking about HGTV in a different way. (That's almost all the politics I'll inject into this, I promise.) This isn't as out there as it sounds. Think about it: lots of disparate elements contribute to ill-advised buying decisions like a spending too much on a skirt that turns out to be just a little too tight around your hips but was the perfect color and the perfect length with the perfect pleats you wanted, or paying more than a few bucks for a shade of lipstick that will fade off your lips after just one cup of coffee, not hours later, no matter what the commercials tell you. But it's unlikely either of those decisions, or similar ones, will lead to your fiscal doom.

Because the truth is, lots of things contribute to when and how people buy a house, and many of them may convince you that you can afford a home WAY out of your price range. (These include unethical agents, lenders or other real estate predators but the list is much longer and more personal that those obvious factors.) In a way, I blame HGTV.

We all tend to believe what we see on TV. We see homes that go from drab to divine in just 30 minutes and believe it can happen. We watch color on walls transform ordinary to glamorous and never doubt that we can achieve the same effect. Thousands of dollars later, we see landscaping turn a home from an eyesore to a showplace, and treat this as some kind of miracle. Rarely do we see the price tags attached to these transformations and even when we do,they never seem to include labor costs or the timing and the expertise of the staff involved.

Why are we mystified about how many people made poor choices about buying a home? We've all been fed this "you can do it" mantra for years now from shows on HGTV and other similar programs. We've gone way beyond thinking about painting walls to buying them with money we don't have. Unfortunately, we're buying too many walls that are too big for our wallets.

In many ways, fantasy has become the new reality. Fantasy life, looks, homes, vacations, food, parenting skills, marriages. That's how you can explain any number of programs on television these days.

But reality is still reality, no matter how it's presented by producers and experts.

Poignant? Twice in one article? Poignant?

I looked at a thesaurus to find synonyms for the word "poignant." I found these:

moving
emotional
touching
affecting
tender
sad
heartrending
distressing
heartbreaking
upsetting
agonizing

Please keep those in mind as you read the following, excerpted from Publisher's Weekly magazine:


Skyhorse Publishing announced today that it plans to publish Letters to President Obama: Americans Share Our Hopes and Dreams with the First African-American President in April 2009. The initial printing will be 50,000 copies in hardcover.

Skyhorse is encouraging Americans to submit letters for consideration by visiting www.letterstopresidentobama.com. Asked if they were afraid of a "wingnut reaction," associate publisher Bill Wolfsthal replied that "The highly qualified editors of the book—all professors at University of Michigan and Cornell—will edit the collection to create a thought-provoking and poignant collection."Asked what would happen if Obama did not prevail on Election Day, Wolfsthal said, "We’ll deal with that if it happens. The book might still be a poignant piece of history if Obama should lose."

"I know this book will make a unique statement about who we are as American in 2009," added Wolfsthal, "and will provide an opportunity for citizens to share their feelings with one another—both by writing letters and reading the finished book."

"......." I'm mostly speechless.

I have to believe that in the first use of poignant, "..a thought-provoking and poignant collection," the publisher was thinking of the first group of synonyms: moving, emotional, touching, affecting and tender.

With the second use, "..might still be a poignant piece of history if Obama should lose," the others descriptors fit the context better:
sad, heartrending, distressing, heartbreaking, upsetting and agonizing.

Believe it or not, John McCain still has a few (million) supporters. Not one of them will be heartbroken or distressed should Senator Obama come up short in the election.

Can someone please explain to me what on earth Americans will have to say in letters to President Obama, after he's been in office for approximately sixty-five days? Our hopes and dreams? That's what we'll write him? Really?

Whatever. What if the unthinkable happens, and Obama is not our next President? The publishers have considered that horrifying thought. Remember, the book will "make a statement about who we are and might still make a poignant piece of history."

But the editors are prepared for an onslaught from people less than honorable about the intentions who misunderstand the spirit of the book. Is that what he means by "wingnut" reaction? Are "wingnuts" the people who choose to vote for someone other than Barack Obama? Why does that make them less than reasonable? Are these Americans not allowed to contribute letters to President Obama, and share their hopes and dreams with the first African-American President? Agenda anyone???

May I pose a hypothetical here? It's possible that some voters will be thrilled and delighted if Senator Obama were to be defeated. I know - there aren't really any of those people in existence if you take the world view espoused by publishers from coast to coast - but let's suppose there are. Where is there room for them in this statement about who they are as Americans in April 2009? Are they a poignant piece of history, too?

Doubt it.

More things I don't understand....

The list is varied and long. But here's the latest:

I don't understand the commercial for Match.com. I've seen several versions of it and I'm still confused.

Whatever the variation, this online dating service shows an attractive person posing for some video tape, laughing, smiling, and generally looking amiable and approachable, which I suppose represents the kind of members one might find on Match.com as you look through the dating prospects. Great, right? The people on Match.com are exactly the kind of people you're looking for to meet, date, and then possibly partner with for the rest of your life.

Except for this: their offer. I'm paraphrasing but the commercial contains a guarantee of sorts: if you don't find someone within the first six months of membership, they'll give you another six months for free.

So in other words, we may not be able to meet your needs in six months but hey, stick around for another six for free. Maybe things will work out.

This makes no sense to me! I get the FREE offer and all - I suppose that's the least they could do after six months of no significant relationship budding - but isn't that kind of like saying "Thanks for supporting our service. We know it didn't work out very well which is why we're not going to try to re-sell it to you. But we also don't want you to try another one instead. So stay here - and keep looking. Maybe someone will turn up."

Seems to me that the largest efforts in online businesses like this must be the sign-up factor. Once you're in, and have paid your dues, they don't want you to leave, even if they let you stay for free. After all, the number of hits, number of members, and page views sell ads and web banners. So losing members is not a good business plan.

I'd feel better about the offer if it gave a money-back guarantee. Sign up and look for your partner or six months! If at the end of your membership, you find yourself alone, we'll give you your money back. The extra six months are positioned as a free thing - and they are, I guess - but what is the value? The value should be finding friendship and romantic partnership.

Caveat: I've never used one of these services and I have friends that have - and continue to do so. Maybe the extra six months for free are extremely valuable to members who want to keep up their profiles and meet new members regularly. To me, as an observer, it just feels like a hollow offer to me. "We didn't work for you, just give us a little longer; we might not work then either but at least we didn't work for free." Quite compelling, I must say.