This woman's work.

Maybe it’s the snow.

Maybe it’s the relentless snow. And although it’s pretty and sort of fascinating in a way; and although things like a gorgeous and perfect winter snow help confirm my belief in God, this latest bit feels sad to me somehow.

Maybe my annual “it’s the new year and time to brood about my life” feeling has arrived a little later than usual this year. Typically, I spend the better part of January retracing my life and trying to figure out where certain aspects of it seem to have gone so far astray. Not every part – just some. But some – at least when it comes to life - is quite enough.

And as if I needed this, I came across something else gorgeous and perfect tonight, Kate Bush’s lovely and haunting song, “This Woman’s Work.” I heard it for the first time many years ago and connected it to a romantic relationship. Maybe that’s right; maybe it’s where you are in life the first time you hear it; maybe it’s what you make of it every time you hear it.

But tonight, in my snowy melancholy, I connected it to my sons. (They’re the part of my life that went exactly right.) They’re not perfect and neither is their mother, but together, it feels like we make each other better.

So what is it with the song?

I know you have a little life in you yet.
I know you have a lot of strength left.

I should be crying, but I just can't let it show.
I should be hoping, but I can't stop thinking of all the things I should've said, that I never said.
All the things we should've done, that we never did.
All the things I should've given, but I didn't.

Oh, darling, make it go, make it go away.

Give me these moments back.
Give them back to me.
Give me that little kiss.
Give me your hand.

Of all the things we should've said, that were never said.
All the things we should've done, that we never did.
All the things that you needed from me. All the things that you wanted for me.
All the things that I should've given, but I didn't.

Oh, darling, make it go away.
Just make it go away now.

The boys are all out of the house, even if only as college students, not independent adults. As they make their way into lives of their own, away from the home we had together, I do feel like crying but don’t want to let it show. When I try to stop thinking of all the things I should’ve said that I never said and all the things we should’ve done that we never did. And mostly, I think of all the things I should’ve given but I didn’t.

And then I think: give them back. Give me one more chance and I’ll do better. Give me your tiny little boy hand again and a tiny little kiss on my cheek.

Honestly, I don’t begrudge time and its inevitable march into tomorrow. I really don’t. But I do think about the things the boys needed from me. Like the nights they needed me to listen. Or ask. Or be available just in case they wanted a moment of clarity or truth. But maybe I was too tired to listen. Maybe I was too distracted and entirely absorbed in something that I can’t even remember today.

They all count as the things I should’ve given but didn’t. And in a moment of wishful thinking, I want to say, “Make it go away.” Just make those bad choices and missteps go away now.

I was (am?) one of those mothers who sat in awe of other women who were organized, efficient, accommodating, available, and familiar with every single aspect of their children’s lives. They knew every teacher, every coach, every club, team, and youth group. They knew about summer programs, camps, and art lessons. They turned in permission slips on time and never once got a call from the school nurse asking for health records that were five months overdue.

But all of that’s history. I knew who I was and who I wasn’t. I was never going to be the mom who “knew.” It came as surprise, though. My organization and efficiency elsewhere in life barely translated to motherhood. Was this not meant to be? In my worst moments, I think: no wonder the boys turned out okay. I interfered as little as possible.

So why am I stuck in this “give these moments back” mode? Nothing would change. I don’t think I would do anything any better or different. But maybe I’d try to hang onto that little hand just a little tighter. And make sure I leaned down for those kisses a little more often. That would count for something, right?

It’s here, very faintly in the background, but it’s here. That inevitable and relentless whisper that says, “Let go. Go ahead. Let them go.” Kate Bush knows. Here’s another bit of the song:

Pray God you can cope.
I stand outside this woman's work,
This woman's world.

I do sort of stand outside now, watching my sons grow and move and be – away from me. And do pray God they can cope. And that they know that while there may have been some words left unsaid, and some things left undone, we all came through with a little life in us, (and ahead of us); with a lot strength left in us, too.

Keeping it clean. In whatever way you choose. Fine by me.

Quietly, without much fanfare, a new era for men seems to be emerging. Drumroll, please: According to an article in Advertising Age, body wash outsold bar soap in 2009. This is the first time this has ever happened in the history of body wash vs. bar soap statistics. The reason? Marketers have discovered that more men buy body wash than cakes of soap. Market leaders like Proctor & Gamble and Unilever are among the industry leaders in the category, with brands that include Old Spice (P&G) and Axe (Unilever.)

One of the newer entries in the category is Dove, introduced during the Superbowl and endorsed by winning quarterback Drew Brees. Yes, Dove. For men. This is quite a departure for the Dove brand that up until now has been marketed specifically to women only. But have no illusions or fear of metrosexuality (remember metrosexuals?) creeping in: their commercial makes it clear that you can still be a man and use Dove.

In fact, they protest a little too much if you listen to their commercials. Yes, they’re sort of entertaining but still. One of them basically runs through a man’s life in a matter of seconds, from birth until he reaches adulthood, with a family of his own. It’s accompanied by a soundtrack featuring the most famous movement of The William Tell Overture, a.k.a. The Lone Ranger theme. Can you get more manly?

There’s another spot that focuses mainly on the requisite adorable, ripped guy in the shower, who appears to be having a cleansing experience like no other since he’s discovered Dove Body Wash. The voiceover mentions something called micro-moisture that activates on contact. Activating on contact sounds like a guy thing, right?

The narration in both commercials contains some variation on the following theme: “You’ve reached a stage where you’re comfortable with who you are. Shouldn’t your skin be just as comfortable?” “Now that you’re comfortable with who you are, isn’t it time for comfortable skin? At last, there’s Dove for men.” The tagline gets repeated: be comfortable in your own skin.

I get it. For God’s sake, we all get it. Indigenous people in the Australian Outback would get it if they saw it. Buying Dove doesn’t make you less of a man. It celebrates your very comfortable nature and the fact that you’re comfortable with who you are because you feel comfortable. In your own skin. With exactly who you are. And that feels very comfortable. Or something like that.

On the other end of the spectrum – focusing on the idea that not all men feel quite as comfortable in their own skin as the Dove buyers – we find the Old Spice commercial. This one is unapologetically directed toward women and features another adorable ripped guy, this time talking directly to us, as he stands outside his shower with a towel wrapped around his waist. Without naming Dove, it clearly refers to it by calling out guys who use “ladies scented body wash.”

The scene dissolves to him standing on a boat, still shirtless, this time walking across the deck in his terrific white pants with a shirt draped casually over his shoulder. Still talking to the women in the audience, he’s opening an oyster shell that holds tickets to same unnamed event “that you love” and then like magic, the oyster is dripping with diamonds. The shot pulls back to reveal him now sitting atop a white horse as he makes his final point: “Anything is possible when your old man smells like Old Spice and not a lady.”

I get this one, too. Hilarious, by the way. If you’re a man who finds himself in the market for body wash, you can’t really go wrong with a reliable, macho, unmistakable guy scent like Old Spice.

According to emarketer, mothers control 80% of a household’s discretionary spending so what the men think may be very nearly irrelevant. But let’s just say that at least some men shop for their own body wash and make their own purchase decisions. (They tipped the sales ratios, didn't they?) They’re the mavericks who disdain the traditional bar soap route and blaze their own trail to cleanliness. They’re the titans of the personal care aisle, who break all the rules.

So what’s the better choice? Do women want a man who is so comfortable he’ll buy and use Dove or a man who is so cautious and entrenched in 1954 that he will buy and use only the safe and familiar Old Spice?

For God’s sake, it’s soap. Liquid soap. Choosing a type of body wash is not exactly a revered, long-practiced ritual of manhood. Creating a commercial about a man who spends time calculating his self-worth, or worse, his masculinity, based on a type of soap sums up our culture just perfectly, doesn’t it?

But maybe this will help even things out a little, in an effort to reach equilibrium. I mean, finally, it’s not just women who think about this nonsense.

A Twix bar is not a crack pipe.

In the spirit of moderation in all things, here is today's column in The Daily Caller.

As always, comments welcome!!!

Trademark this, why doncha?

Not one bit of the following piece of news could portend anything good.

I can’t remember where I read this, but apparently ‘Snooki’ is in the process of trademarking her name. (She's following a trail blazed by a castmate, someone who calls himself ‘The Situation,’ whom no one could ever - in about a billion years - confuse with the eminently cool someone who calls himself ‘The Edge.’)

If you don’t know who Snooki and The Situation are, good for you and go with God.

Full disclosure: I once tuned in to about seven minutes of Jersey Shore on MTV before I’d had my fill. The scene depicted a bar, people getting hammered, and young women fighting with each other, to the point of punches and slaps. We’ve come a long way, baby. I was never so proud to be a liberated woman! We can now get wasted in public and brawl exactly like only idiotic men used to do.

Here’s why this is horrible news. Once Snooki has her trademark registered, you know what we’re going to be subjected to, don’t you? Snooki lingerie. Snooki jewelry. Snooki fragrances. And God help us - Snooki vodka. It’s inevitable. You won’t be able to swing an empty keg without hitting Snooki merchandise.

What I can’t quite figure out here is this: when did becoming a ‘celebrity’ (and I use that word in the most casual sense when it comes to the Jersey Shore cast) mean you could bankroll that moment into a cottage industry? Seems like this is a fairly recent phenomenon. Think about it.

All things being equal – meaning you have achieved at least a modicum of fame from a television show and have collected legions of fans – someone please explain to me why we weren’t treated to the following trademarked items over the years:

Lisa Douglas lingerie – no one wore chiffon and silk negligees in a cuter, sweeter way than Eva Gabor in Green acres.

Marcia Brady lip gloss – a no brainer. What was Maureen McCormick – or more correctly, her agent – thinking?

Ann Marie mascara – no one – before or since – wore mascara and eyelashes as brilliantly as Marlo Thomas in That Girl.

Vinnie Barbarino jeans – John Travolta and his jeans burst into our living rooms in the late ‘70s like few have since when he became the breakout star in Welcome Back, Kotter.

Cliff Huxtable sweaters – made a part of the 80’s culture by Bill Cosby in The Cosby Show.

One could make a reasonable argument that any one of these actors had more of a trademark opportunity in his or her day than Snooki whatever her name is will have in her lifetime. Which is why her trademark effort is so annoying.

Even more annoying will be the thousands of fans who line up to buy her merchandise. I hate to fall back on a familiar line but it's served me well in the past and it may serve me well now: We're doomed.

The perfect spokesperson at the perfect time for the perfect promotion.

This is one of those times when things just seem to line up for my own amusement.

Not 24 hours after I read the news about Tiger’s upcoming press conference – in the loosest sense of the word since he will confer with no one at no time about not one thing – I found a story lurking in my in box that amused me no end.

The Center for Biological Diversity distributed 100,000 condoms just in time for Valentine’s Day, in an effort for many of us to love carefully and care for our planet at the same time. I didn’t know that human overpopulation has a devastating effect on endangered species but I suppose that should have been kind of obvious. The more of us there are, the fewer American Burying Beetles we have room for, right? Randy Serraglio, a conservation advocate, puts it this way: “Human overpopulation is destroying the wildlife habitat at an unprecedented rate.”

Back to the condoms. They’re called Endangered Species Condoms and while that may sound kind of somber, don’t let anyone tell you the folks at the Center for Biological Diversity aren’t a fun bunch. Buyers can choose from the six varieties offered: polar bear, jaguar, snail darter, coqui guajon rock frog, spotted owl, and the aforementioned American burying beetle. The fun begins with the slogans attached to each:

Polar bear: wrap with care, save the polar bear

Jaguar: wear a jimmy hat (a jimmy hat??), save the big cat

Snail darter: hump smarter, save the snail darter – sounds romantic, right?

Coqui guajon rock frog: use a stopper (a stopper??), save a hopper

Spotted owl: wear a condom now, save a spotted owl

American burying beetle: cover your tweedle, save the burying beetle (Can we agree if you call it a tweedle you're not old enough for a condom?)

Free condoms were distributed in any number of expected venues, including in bars and at parties, as well as other places like supermarkets and concerts, by everyone from grandmothers to rock musicians. Demand was high, and more than 3,000 people volunteered to give out the samples.

Best of all – and this was my favorite part – five lucky people who entered the contest will win a lifetime supply of condoms. I’m wondering how the contest rule-makers come up with the number that works for each winner. If you’re 25 and unmarried, you get X amount. If you’re 45 and married, you get four. That should be enough to last you for the rest of your life. If you’re 80 years old and you win, go with God. But I really do want to know what a “lifetime” supply is and who figures that out.

Let’s get back to Randy and his words of good cheer for a minute. With a population projection of 9 billion by 2050, we should all be concerned about the lack of biological diversity that will result from that many of us on the planet. And – surprise! - Americans carry the most blame for this situation. According to Randy in the press release, the United States has the “highest population growth of any developed nation and extremely high consumption levels….We should be taking the lead in promoting policies that will stabilize global population.”

Super. One more thing American’s are ruining up for the rest of the world. Actually, more than one thing since we’re debilitating several species and upending the eco-balance for the rest of the world in the process.

But here’s the kismet that I just love about these two stories – Tiger and the endangered species condoms. It’s not enough that his nickname is Tiger and there’s a condom with a jaguar pictured on the package. Okay – they’re not the same but they are both predatory cats, right?

Here's the connection. Isn’t Tiger at least kind of worried about the endorsements that are now in his rear view mirror as a result of his back door activities? Problem solved! The endangered species condoms could probably use a spokesperson to take their campaign to the next level and Tiger can use a new endorsement deal. Having him promote condoms and wear a little condom decal on his golf shirts would be just about perfect, right? At the very least, he'd probably earn an A+ from the 'save our endangered species' advocates. It's a start, anyway. Plus, I keep thinking about that line from ‘Meet the Parents’…something like “keep your tiger in its cage” or something like that. And as a bonus, tigers are, in fact, also on the endangered species list. Even more perfect.

You can’t make this stuff up. But you can enjoy it when it happens.

Tiger again. Really? Still?

Help me understand something, please.

Just read an “alert” letting me know that Tiger Woods will hold a press conference on Friday, February 19. At the event, Tiger will break the three months of silence he has maintained with the press since his unfortunate run in with an obstruction in his driveway.

Well, thank you God. Our long national nightmare is over. Tiger will speak.

Question: Does anyone care what he has to say? Hasn’t he said it all by now? Didn’t he already apologize and tell us that he had to give up golf to become a better man and a better husband and a better father? Perhaps he’s going to tell us all about how he has been rehabilitated and can now be trusted to travel the world and have his zipper remain intact, something new for him.

I’m wondering why he doesn’t just show up on a course at a PGA event and begin to play the game that brought him his fortune, his fame and his dates. Say it with your clubs, Tiger. Finish at 8 under par; remind us of why we know who you are and what you do really, really well. Save the speeches about your tawdry affairs. It’s boring and distasteful. We don’t care how sorry you are, how much you’ve learned about yourself, and how important your wife and children are to you.

Maybe that’s just me. Because there is at least one group who does hope we care – a lot. The folks at DeCapo Press hope that at least a million of us to care when they publish the first ever biography of Woods in May. Promising “exclusive interviews and new details,” the book will no doubt hit the bestseller list immediately.

But wouldn’t it be so great if it didn’t? If it just sort of sat there on front tables in bookstores across the country. If the end caps went untouched, if the sales rank on Amazon.com or bn.com never broke into the top 100 titles, even just the top 100 sports titles, or the top 100 golf titles. Wouldn’t it be so wonderful if Oprah decided not to book him; if Larry King and 60 Minutes and The View also passed on a Tiger appearance? If not one morning show gushed over his revelations?

I don’t wish failure on any publisher or writer these days, given the tough economic times. But I do wish that collectively, as readers and the people who supply readers with content, we could elevate ourselves beyond this kind of “train wreck” mentality and teach ourselves to look away more quickly whenever stories like this capture the headlines and the airwaves.

Not everything gets on my nerves.

And here's a column to prove it.

And yes, I know that each of these men is much more than his leading man looks but that's another column.

Happy Valentine's Day weekend to all.

Too close to call.

Today’s quiz: which life is the least horrible?

Let’s say you had to choose to be one of the following people. (No backing out – you HAVE to pick one.)

Jenny Sanford.

Rielle Hunter.

Rachel Uchitel.

I know. It’s a very tough choice.

Life choice 1: Jenny Sanford

By law, still South Carolina’s first lady, Ms. Sanford has just released her book, Staying True. I’m not sure when we passed law that said someone must write a book – or more likely, hire someone to write a book – after suffering some of life’s harshest lessons, but apparently we have. Then again, this yet another reason to admire Silda Spitzer’s reserve and quiet resolve. At least she didn’t write a book and hit the airwaves to talk about Elliott and his Ashley.) Otherwise, there is just no reason why, a scant seven months after the story of Mark Sanford’s affair with his soul mate hit our national consciousness, we get treated to the whole story of their marriage, courtesy of Mrs. Sanford.

As near as I can tell, Jenny is the classic “woman scorned.” What remains to be seen is if indeed, hell hath no fury like her. The book feels kind of benign as these things go, at least according to review on Slate magazine. The governor himself comes off as cheap, ego-centric and depressing. Despite that set of circumstances, Jenny seems to have achieved the life she was seeking there in Columbia. Maybe she had resolved to trade a happier, more rewarding life for one that afforded her a certain lifestyle as the wife of a successful politician.

So choose Jenny. The upside: You didn’t do anything wrong, except possibly stick with the governor for way too long. And you will probably live a financially comfortable life. The downside: Mark Sanford, and his frugal tendencies, his depressing outlook and possibly his Argentinean soul mate, will be part of that life forever.

Life choice 2: Rielle Hunter

And speaking of being connected to the father of your offspring, we come to Ms. Rielle Hunter. This videographer / mistress of former Senator / Presidential candidate John Edwards gave birth to a daughter a few years ago. After much confusion and conflicting stories about the child, and in the spirit of being a southern gentleman, Edwards proposed marriage to Ms. Hunter just a few weeks ago, the exact same day he also acknowledged that he was the father of her child. In the meantime, he and his cancer-stricken, outspoken, “alienation of affection” lawsuit-wielding wife, Elizabeth have separated, which makes the idea of John and Rielle being engaged that much more palatable for the rest of us.

At this point, you have to wonder: is it worse to be the woman who cheated with John Edwards and broke up his marriage, or the woman who ends up with John Edwards after he cheated on his wife? In Rielle’s case, she’s both; so either way, she wins. Or loses.

So choose Rielle. The upside: you and John will move into a $2.5 million beach house to raise your little girl. The downside: well, the guy you’re moving in with cheated on his wife and asked someone else to claim to be the father of your child. But once you settle in, maybe you’ll just move on, watch the waves, and quietly exit the national stage. We can only hope.

Life Choice 3: Rachel Uchitel

Jumping onto the national stage in a more prominent way, we find Tiger mistress # 1, Rachel Uchitel. Apparently, she gave such a fabulous interview to Mario Lopez about her life and the difficulties she has endured that “Extra” snatched her up and hired her to do a weekend report on what’s “hot” in Hollywood. She brings a certain unique expertise to the subject of nightspots and the celebrities who spend time in them. I, for one, am grateful to know I can count on her commentary and insight.

I have a question here. Was she not mortified at having been identified as one of Tiger’s many mistresses? Why did that feeling go away? I think I liked Rachel better when she was hiding behind Gloria Allred in LAX and calling off press conferences.

So choose Rachel. The upside: you probably have a couple of great gifts from Tiger tucked away somewhere. I hope so. Otherwise, you were just one of more than a dozen mistresses he had tucked away all over the country. The downside: your gig on “Extra” notwithstanding, your affair with Tiger Woods is the defining moment of your life and will remain so forever. And if that sounds dramatic, call Monica and see what she has to say.

Why Old Spice just may reinvent relationships.

Just wait - it's not really that much of a leap when you consider the following.

Here's a link to today's Daily Caller column.

Enjoy -

My 'beautiful' Mommy: no, this isn't a sentimental story.

Here'a link to my piece in The Daily Caller this morning.

Once again, you can't make this stuff up. Enjoy.

Sheltering = protecting. But what's too much?

Just reading about this made me want to weep. I want to cry for the lack of good sense and “live and let live” philosophy that seems to have abandoned our society. It also makes me want to send cheerful little “hang in there” cards to some of the parents living in the North Kansas City School District.

But first, let’s review the truth behind the headlines, shall we? Several years ago, Zookeepers at New York’s Central Park Zoo observed Silo and Roy, two male chinstrap penguins, trying to hatch a rock in order to begin their family. When another penguin family rejected one of their eggs, Silo and Roy took it in. The two males adopted the egg, hatched it and raised the chick, called Tango, as their own. According to a senior keeper at the zoo, the male penguins behaved exactly as the male/female set of parents when caring for a chick. (Except they didn’t abandon their egg.)

That’s the “live and let live” part of this story. Honest to God, stuff like this is interesting to me but only marginally so. I’m not prone to what some might call histrionics. In other words, I’m not horrified and appalled at the prospect of two male penguins raising a chick, nor am I simply delighted and entranced with the news. It just “is” if you know what I mean.

That didn’t stop children’s book authors Peter Parnell and Justin Richardson, along with illustrator Henry Cole from creating And Tango Makes Three, which tells the story of Silo, Roy and Tango. Since its publication, it has caused parents scattered around the country undue angst. They don’t welcome a “children’s” book (for ages 4 – 8) that discusses or espouses a point of view about what they see as a controversial subject, including the idea of same sex couples raising a child.

There are all kinds of people in the world and we all don’t agree. But for me, I don’t have the energy required to get all charged up about gay couples (penguin or human) raising a child together if they choose to do so. God bless and good luck to you. I know lots of straight people who seem like they’re good parents (but may not be) and gay people who seem like they’d make good parents (but may not be). Who can say?

Point is, the book was written, and people loved it or hated it. Dozens of protests later, not to mention after seeing it listed on the 'most banned books' lists for several years, can’t we leave it alone?

No; no we can’t. I just read about the School Board in North Kansas City that voted to keep the book on library shelves but not without punishing parents. As if we don’t have enough to do, the district has now added the elementary school card catalog online, which now lists every book in the entire district’s system. So now if you don’t want your elementary school child to read And Tango Makes Three, you can hop online and create your own banned books list on his or her behalf.

My own children are beyond the public school system, but I can tell you this right now: I would not have had nearly enough interest, energy, fear or time to review every book in the district’s system, and then create a “may not check out” list for my children. If that makes me neglectful, so be it. If it makes me permissive and too hands-off, fine. I accept.

When my boys were growing up, we made a deal. Once they were old enough to choose their own reading material, they could. But for every book they chose, they agreed to read a book I recommended. And when they read a book that I knew contained language that felt more “adult” to me, I addressed it like this: The words and expressions in that book are the choice of the writer to tell his or her story, selected for specific reasons. His choice / her choice: not mine. Read them and enjoy the book, but I don’t want to hear them from you. You know how we talk to each other in this house and cursing at each other doesn’t work for me. Deal?

Seems to have worked out so far. I’m no saint but I do appreciate polite language, especially around a home with children in it. Not one of my kids has ever cursed at me or their father. I’ve never had to apologize for language they used that offended someone nearby, and for me, that feels good.

What does this have to do with penguins and online card catalogs and banned books lists? It’s really all about control and restriction. About possibly passing along prejudice from generation to generation. About not being open to unfamiliar ideas or different points of view and making sure your children aren’t either.

To me, that’s unfortunate. And ultimately pointless. After all, your kids will be thumbing through the card catalog of life before you know it.

Whispering, showers, and maybe illicit sex: must be 24

Couple of notes and general points of confusion while watching 24:

It sounds like Jack Bauer, driving near some docks or warehouses or something, somewhere outside NYC and talking on a headset with Chloe and his boss, has a signal that lets his call come through clearer than my land line at home.

Favorite quotes of the show:

"I have a 5% lag on my drone's ABS controls … I think they may be running hot."
"Okay, I’ll free up space on auxiliary servers."
Quintessential 24 geek speak!

Be there in 30 minutes tops. [This is new. Everything in LA was fifteen minutes away.]

From the Dr. treating patient: no quick fix for someone who is sick with weapons grade uranium. No kidding. But Joseph acts like his brother can get a booster shot and he’ll be cured.

"I'm sending instructions to download onto your PDA on how to wire money."

Jack whispered at least nine lines in a row as they set up the plan – the other guy said everything back to him out loud.

"Be at the parking garage in 20 minutes."

In the same setting where the whispering about the plan took place, Jack shouts "WE NEED TO MOVE NOW!!!" at the top of his lungs.

Five or six hours into the day, Dana’s hair is still perfect, draped across her shoulder.

I like how she meets her ex-boyfriend directly outside the door of CTU and doesn’t expect anyone will see her…except for her coworker who is watching her on a closed circuit camera type thing. This is the most pointless sub-plot ever.

Renee takes a shower????? In the middle of an undercover operation?? Isn’t she wearing a headset or earpiece or something???

Wet hair from shower – want to see how it looks in the next scene…What the heck is she talking on if she's showering???

And Jack’s still not there? "I'm going dark." Okay – she puts the tiny little ear bug down the drain.

Arrest a senior delegate; take him to Embassy for questions. Then - a mystery call from the Aide who arrests him to the President's daughter. Called her to tell her he couldn't talk.

Cut to a medical lesson about how to give meds to radioactive brother. Three weeks of pills plus a drip bag. Except - nope. Dr got shot. Ambushed by dad’s guys and Joseph and his brother head back home with them.

Jack finally arrives. Wearing glasses so he looks like a real counter spy. Also speaks fluent German with American accent because he traveled with his dad and went to university here.

Transfers money after speaking to Russian. An hour until he gets info about the purchase.

Opens suitcase laptop on car trunk to transfer $$. Multiple accounts so it can’t be traced. Lots of grids and globes and flashing lights indicate the money is moving.

Renee is shower-fresh and dressed again. Hair is miraculously dry but in a ponytail! Hurrah!!

Money almost done transferring...wait...wait...Swat team take out almost all the Russian guys.

Jack, whispering: "Call your man." Jack, shouting: "DO IT!!"

Dying Russian brother and Joseph home again facing Dad's wrath. Joseph going to get killed by dad. Nope – the brother got it instead. [Prediction: Joseph will end up working with Jack.]

So is the president’s traitor brother is still in another room with the two hookers? Guess so - it's only been about an hour.

On black dresses, alterations and the alteration in me.

A couple of weeks ago, I spent an afternoon shopping with a good friend, who promised to be my very own Clinton and Stacy, a combination fashion coordinator/cheerleader/honest evaluator as I searched for the perfect outfit. The plan was to buy a dress, possibly shoes.

Cindy earned her title that day. Her energy never flagged and she was kind and truthful throughout it all. I think I tried on something like twenty-five dresses (maybe more) in a few different departments in two stores. Granted, some of these garments were on my body, or partly on it depending how you looked at it, for about three seconds before we ruled them out but still: that’s a lot of dresses. Almost all of them were black and it was hard to believe there could be that many variations on black dresses but there appeared to be an endless supply.

But it had to be black, right? You don't want to buy a dress for an event, love it in the dressing room and feel daring and one-of-a-kind, and then be the woman wearing the lime green dress all night.

It won’t surprise you to know that the dress I liked best, the one both of us decided was “the one,” was the most expensive dress of the day. It felt fabulous. It was fitted but not too fitted. I didn’t have to worry about back fat or cleavage. The fabric was elegant but not flashy. Even modeling it while wearing my socks, it felt right. Except for one thing: the armholes.

It was sleeveless. For someone like me who feels cold every single day of the year, with the possible exception of two afternoons on the beach in August, even considering a sleeveless dress, especially for a January evening, is significant. But this shopping trip was partly based on doing the unexpected. Serious shopping for this kind of outfit is something I do maybe once a decade.

Back to the dress. From one angle, Cindy had a moment where she could see my bra. It wasn't a horrible gap but it wasn’t great and it was a lot of money to spend to have my bra showing, even if it was just from one or two angles. No matter, the helpful saleswoman called on the seamstress to evaluate the extent of the “fix” that would have to take place to make this perfect for me.

The woman doing the alterations was a genius from Ukraine. (Her accent reminded me of my lovely sister-in-law, who is also from Ukraine.) With a couple of pins, she made the difference in the dress and it looked better.

Me (looking in the mirror): What do you think?

Cindy and saleswoman and seamstress: Great…looks very nice…(general consensus that this was the best of the day.)

Me (still looking in the mirror): What about my arms? Do they look horrible? Do they look like people will say, “What made her think she could get away with that dress with those arms?”

Cindy and saleswoman: (similar versions of something like) They look fine!

Seamstress (looking dismayed and kind of scornful): What is wrong with women? What would make you think there’s something wrong with your….there’s nothing wrong with…(her voice trails off as she basically shakes her head at the entire female population of this country.)

We pressed her on it and she said women in America have problems with every single thing about themselves and she sees a lot of women. Everyday. In all kinds of sizes wearing all kinds of clothing. I’m guessing at least a couple of them have mentioned their arms, or their tummies, or their legs, or their necks, their shoulders, their waists or their hips to the seamstress. According to her, every single one of them is horrified at her image.

Wind up of the story is I had the dress altered, and bought some astoundingly beautiful black heels and felt good about every bit of it.

The lesson here? God knows. Maybe it’s that you can’t try on too many black dresses before you find the right one. Maybe it’s that no one thinks about your arms a sixteenth as much as you do. Maybe it’s that having a Ukrainian woman look you in the eye and basically tell you to get over yourself and stop being such a neurotic lunatic about something like the shape of your arms is a good thing.

I may need to give her a call her once in a while for a reminder.

"Expletive Repeated" and other healthy ideas.

Couple of interesting but random bits of information that struck me as interesting, obvious, somewhat sad and quite possibly connected in some weird way. Without further ado, here we go:

Let’s suppose a university did a study about depression and how it could be connected to growing older, even tangentially. Suppose the research isolated one particular group within the population and found that they were almost four times as likely as the rest of us to suffer from a depressive episode. Four times!!! That sounds like a pretty high number to me. Don’t you think having a four times greater risk of depression in one group more than another would make a lot of headlines? So did I. Here’s the news:

The Risk of Depression Doubles During And After Menopause.

It took nine years of study, but researchers at the University of Pittsburgh have discovered that women are more than twice as likely to be depressed during and after menopause. Specifically, during perimenopause they were about twice as likely as premenopausal women to have a depressive episode, and after menopause we are almost four times as likely as other women to experience depression.

Moving on…

I’ve read that sometimes depression masks itself as anger. In other words, you look and sound angry but you’re actually depressed. But let’s think about anger. The experts we hear from most often extol the benefits of serenity, peace, calm, Zen, being centered, balancing our chi and aligning our chakras. We practice karma yoga and Burmese meditation to “still our mind and perceive oneself.” We drum, we chant, we hold crystals, we bond with nature and honor the wisdom of our body. We get hot stone massages, mango-sugar scrubs and crushed pearl facials. We buy books, CDs and DVDs to help us find the Secret to our happiness and fulfillment.

Fine. Knock yourself out. Namaste. But here's a different idea. When was the last time you let forth a string of curses to release your demons? If you answered when you were fourteen years old and trying to feel grown up, you’re making a mistake. Here’s the news:

A curse a day may keep the doctor away.

According to a study excerpted in The Utne Reader, researchers at Keele University in England have discovered a positive link between using colorful language and the ability to withstand discomfort or pain. As study participants repeated a curse word during adverse conditions, their heart rates rose and theoretically, that may have helped them withstand the discomfort longer than others who repeated a benign word. They also felt less pain afterwards.

Maybe the next big self-improvement craze will be a chain of “Expletive Repeated” rooms across the country. In these simple but comfortable facilities, people can pay a membership fee, come in twenty-four hours a day and swear their bloody heads off with no harm done and no offense given to anyone near and dear to them. Their heart rates will go up, their anger will diminish and they can go on with their day.

Moving on…

How many times do you wish things were just more positive? It would be nice to live in a world where we listened to nothing but the Good News Network and focused on happy thoughts that helped us achieve our dreams. Life hard enough without more misery heaped on us daily, right? Right? Wrong. Here’s the news:

People are much more attentive to negative words than positive ones.

Where would we be without scientists conducting research? In a British study that flashed a variety of words on a screen for mere fractions of seconds, guess which words people remembered and identified most accurately? Yes! The winners were the “negative” words, much more often than those labeled “cheerful” or “neutral.” One of the professors involved in the study believes that using negative words delivers a more effective message. She suggests we post road signs that read “Kill your speed” rather than “slow down.”

So, where does all this leave us?

God knows. But as a woman of a certain age, I can tell you this. I may be prone to depression. So if I curse a blue streak once in a while or say things like “I’m in agony with this headache” or “This day is just murder, isn’t it?” you’ll understand. Right? Right??? Dammit, what do I have to do to get someone to listen to me for one damn second?

Thanks. I feel so much better.

It's official: we're thinking WAY too much about laundry.

God help me. I am clearly missing something here. Let me explain and then please, please tell me where I went wrong.

On a ‘normal’ day, or in a ‘normal’ week (and I use that word loosely), here are the kinds of things I have on my mind, in no particular order of importance: my kids, husband, and Mom, the rest of the family, my friends and keeping up with what’s going on in their lives, my job, my boss, paying our bills, trying to lose weight but still eating chocolate, getting on the treadmill more than twice a week, keeping up with my writing work (the blog and the column), thinking about what’s for dinner and possibly preparing it, running errands, picking up around the house, reading a book, watching some television I really enjoy, checking my email and other electronic connections, maybe taking in a movie, and trying to get to bed before midnight.

That’s just the personal stuff. International and national news also commands our attention and response, whether it’s to the tragic outcome of the quake in Haiti and the billions needed to counteract it, or to the tragic outcome of our elected officials in Washington and the billions needed to counteract that. In between those stories, you have little time to consider things like the tragic outcome of James Cameron’s or Kate Gosselin’s hairstyles.

I hear you. That sounds like just about every life you know, including your own. Fair enough. We have dozens of time-saving, money-saving, portable devices designed to help us be more efficient and more organized. We hop online to read headlines, newspapers, and magazines because we can click, read, comprehend and bookmark. We download news, use our apps and DVR everything until we have time for it. Fine. I don’t think I could cram one more factoid into my head on any given day.

Which means there is really no explanation for the following. Somehow, someone somewhere ran a focus group and now believes we have the time and energy to consider this. Go ahead and watch it if you want to feel confused. Then come back and let’s discuss it, shall we? I’ll wait.


Question: You’re kiddin’ me, right? It’s not enough that I’m faced with an entire wall of fabric softener in a grocery store? It’s not enough that I have to make a choice about the right scent for the fabric softener I think I need for my rough, scratchy clothing, which, by the way, I don’t even own? Now I’m supposed to match my mood with my fabric softener?

Answer: Yes. According to Downy, we (read: women) can now choose from a line of products called “Simple Pleasures.” Why? Because according to Downy, every woman has many sides. True enough, I suppose. I just didn’t know every one of them needed its own fabric softener. “Lavender Serenity” = Calm. “Spice Blossom” = Daring. Elegant =… oh I don’t know. I stopped listening. There are two more scents available and I have no idea what they represent. I did hear that every one of them contains “scent pearls.” Thank God for that.

You can’t miss the gorgeous beach house where all these moods appear to be taking place; or the adorable husband who enters the scene just as the woman models the sweet little black dress in the mirror. Their equally adorable children peek in through the window and watch mom and dad canoodle, wrapped up in the Downy magic no doubt.

The black dress, by the way, is the same dress she wears to frolic on the beach with the Mr. and their perfect little girl and boy at the end of the spot. She has her silky lavender wrap around her shoulders as well. As we now know, wearing those two pieces indicates she is feeling both calm and elegant.

And by the way, since when did fabric softeners become a ‘woman’s only’ product? Doesn’t a man have “sides?” Doesn’t he want to have the fabric against his body to reflect his state of mind?

Answer: Nope. Because he knows it’s ridiculous and good for him.

On the other hand, since they’ve already launched the campaign, they may as well expand the line. Otherwise, I’m a little concerned. Question: What Downy scent should I buy when I feel pretty darn cranky? Which one for those times I feel fat? Or how about exhausted, or weepy? These are also some of the many sides women have and as of right now, they are not being addressed by my fabric softener.

I swear to God, if someone opened a retro grocery store with about 7,000 fewer SKUs in it, I’d shop there. I need every bit of my brain and energy to put toward thinking about things that matter, not the serene/daring/elegant nature of my fabric softener. Who’s with me?

Proof that we really do think everything is about us.

Here's today's column in The Daily Caller. As I've said before - and sadly, fully expect to say again - you can't make this stuff up.

Hope you enjoy.

A slippery, spice-filled, calorie-laden slope into hell.

Today’s quiz: the following grocery shopping stories represent:

a. Innovative, ‘out of the box” thinking
b. The new low of imagination and creativity we’ve reached as a society in general and specifically, a new low in our culinary endeavors
c. Spectacular time-savers
d. All of the above

Tonight my husband and I wandered through the spice aisle at Wegmans, looking for a large container of dried red pepper. Didn’t find one but I did come across a new kind of product, which has to be almost unheard of in the spice industry right?

I have to imagine the marketing teams at McCormick spent years talking about ways to improve their sprinkle tops, new spice combinations they could sell to novice cooks, and other ways they could somehow infuse new life – spice up if you will – their grocery store SKUs. But I ask you: how many cinnamon combinations, flavors of pepper, or “crusting” blends can you make? I checked them out online and turns out you can make as many as the market will bear but tonight, I found a real innovation.

Whoever conceived this product should be given an enormous bonus, given that fact that we all say we’re so busy, busy, busy all the time. Basically, the new packaging contains an exact selection of assorted spices, in exactly the right amounts, that will help anyone create flavorful main dishes. To talentless cooks like me, this means I will never again have to pull out the measuring spoons, check the spice cabinet for orange zest, chip a nail opening the ‘pour’ section of the plastic top, or over-pour a few extra teaspoons of paprika into the sink.

Nope, that kind of old-fashioned, season-as-you-go cooking is so 2009. We can say goodbye to recipe personality, creative cooking and one-of-a-kind dishes. But isn’t that a small price to pay for tear it open, shake it on and ta-da! Perfect pork chops infused with apple spices (and at least five other spices I can’t remember right now.) We reviewed the entire line of new spices-make-the-meal combinations. Then we put them all back in their slots.

Across the aisle we found the perfect dessert. In a little single-serve cup. Just add water. Then microwave it for about 40 seconds. I wanted the black velvet cake with caramel sauce; my husband wanted the bananas foster, also with caramel sauce. After about fifteen seconds of imaginary sugar-infused joy, I turned the box and read the list of ingredients. God knows. We put the boxes back on the shelf.

So there you have it. Pre-measured spices that turn a pork chop into a meal. A cup of premixed dry ingredients that after half a minute in a microwave emerges as a gooey, hot dessert. Hey, I like convenience as much as the next person but this is almost too much. This sort of thing is the exact opposite of a nutritious, healthy diet program called “mindful eating.” This is “mindless cooking” that results in “mindless eating.” We could take a step back even further and call this kind of grocery store experience “mindless shopping.” By mindless consumers who seemingly stopped thinking a long time ago.

Retreat or refresh? Maybe it's both.

I wonder about the word “nesting.” I never thought much about it, other than to note that I uniformly hate it when the modern lexicon turns a noun into a verb.

And yet, how do you explain the following, other than to chalk it up to “nesting?” The boys all returned to college yesterday, and as we packed up, unplugged and loaded everything into and then out of the car, I knew what I would do when I returned home. Strip their beds, turn and flip mattresses, then wash everything from pads to pillows, only to remake them, complete with hospital corners and fluffed up pillows. I grant you, that’s a far cry from twigs, twine and tree bark – or anything else birds use to create a sturdy nest. But it felt right to me.

At various points in my life, I’ve thought about the comfort I could find in my parents’ home. Even as a grown woman with children of my own, I’ve had moments where the idea of curling up on my old bed, with a warm blanket pulled over me felt like it would solve a lot of problems. There have been days, admittedly most often when I was living with three children under the age of two, where I wanted nothing more than to take a very long nap in my old room. Maybe by sleeping in that space, I would feel closer to my younger self, one who had a lifetime ahead of her and none of the real world challenges of marriage, motherhood, jobs and responsibilities. Intellectually, I know nothing would change on the outside, but emotionally, the cocoon of safety and “everything will be okay” lingered in my imagination.

Maybe that’s what I’m trying to preserve for my own children. With every year, they’re inching closer to adulthood, and the thousands of good and bad adult things that come with it. They’re in the midst of the college experience, sleeping in beds that will provide little more than resting places for about a year before they move on. It may resonate for them in some small, unspoken way that ‘coming home’ means, among other things, that a soft, welcoming, familiar bed is waiting. One I’ve made up for them with love, affection, a bit of loneliness, a stretch to tuck in a corner that makes me feel every bit of my age, and a tiny sigh of relief/regret.

Since I moved out almost thirty years ago, I’ve never actually gone to my parents’ home and taken that tempting ‘escape from life’ nap. Knowing the option was there and available was almost as rejuvenating. I’m positive not one of my sons spends as much as a nanosecond contemplating his bed at home, or the sheets, the pillows, or the comforter on it. But I hope they know that in the decades ahead, it can be their quasi-escape from adulthood. It doesn’t really matter if they ever actually stretch out on it or not, nor does it matter where we call ‘home’ at that time. It’s there whenever they need it.

Boys will be girls...sort of.

For yet another "study" that leaves me confused, check out today's column in The Daily Caller. I'd love to hear what you think about it.

At it's most extreme, could it be possible to "breed" docile behavior into humanity? A kind of 'Stepford Husbands?' Would we really want to?

Hope you enjoy.

Winding down.

I’ve found one simple tool every single person in the Western world over the age of forty can use. It will help us assess, in a matter of seconds, what sort of person we’re speaking with, his or her views of the world and how they interact in society. Honestly, it will take one or two seconds.

You ready? Here is it: next time you meet someone for the first time, look at his or her wrist. What do you find there? If you see a watch, you have someone who is simpatico with you; someone you can connect with, bond with, and someone with whom you can laugh off the quirks of life. You are very likely to have the following in common: they remember going to banks to cash a paycheck, missing phone calls and television shows because they weren’t at home, getting busy signals, and unfolding then reading maps while driving or buying convenient Trip Tiks from AAA. They remember using IBM Selectrics, turning handles to roll down car windows and drinking something vile yet addictive called Tab.

Now, look at that wrist again. If it’s empty, they know none of this. They share very little of your life experiences. In fact, it would be nearly impossible for any of them to imagine not having the following options available to them: getting cash from a bank 24 hours a day, sending text messages and getting a nearly immediate response from the one or the forty people who receive it, watching almost any television show they want to whenever they want to watch it, or following a satellite navigational system in the car to reach an unfamiliar destination. They don’t know how a backspace key corrected an error on a typewriter, or how a window could get lowered on the passenger side of car from the driver’s side, or why anyone would drink anything other than Diet Cherry Dr. Pepper or Cherry Coke Zero.

Decades ago, the generational lines were drawn according to hairstyles. Or clothing, or music, or even by the kinds of books we read. People who "got it" read Jack Kerouac and Allen Ginsberg and listened to Dylan; people who didn't read William F. Buckley and Ayn Rand and listened to the Kingston Trio.

Those examples are so last century. Seems that the new generational divide has emerged on our wrists. People who belong to the uber-wired and connected generation have never worn watches and probably never will. The older-but-forced–to-be-wired among us wear watches…everyday. Possible exception to our rule: weekends, or vacations, when we want to feel “free.” How very hip we are.

No, younger people don’t seem to “get” the idea of a watch. They have cell phones. Why wear a watch that gives you the date and time? And? That’s it? Please. There’s an app that will also give them the time in Uzbekistan if they want it.

Like much of the wired gadgetry that surrounds us, this makes me a little sad. What will young men pass along to their sons fifty years or sixty from now? It won’t be the classic Hamilton or the stylish Movado or the elegant Rolex. Somehow, cherishing Dad’s vintage Blackberry or elegant I-phone doesn’t sound quite so special.

What feels somewhat lost to me here is the simple “nature” of the thing itself. The idea of a watch, that spent the better part of its working life attached to the wrist of a beloved father, or uncle or grandfather that now ticks away quietly against another wrist during another lifetime is somehow reassuring and constant. The wristwatch a mother wore as she wound her way through a typical day that included family and job and all manner of activities at the turn of the millennium that is then clasped around her granddaughter’s wrist circa 2050 sounds delightful, doesn’t it?

Meh, as the kids say. Yes, perhaps this is an overstatement of reality but for how long? Who can say? Maybe sentiment like this is also so twentieth century.

a new year, a new megaphone

A request of my blog visitors:

In The Daily Caller, you'll find an interesting, enthusiastic new voice in cyberspace. Please hop online and browse around...

and when you do, please check out my column(first of many I hope!) in the Opinion section. Comments welcome, in fact encouraged!

Thanks as always for the support of the blog, which will continue to be the place I comment on the world and the many aspects of it that make little sense to me. But I do hope you visit - and enjoy - The Daily Caller.

What you don't know only makes you...clueless.

I’m starting to think that there’s a moment in almost everyone’s life where they feel really, really smart. Where you have confidence, swagger, positive feelings and an unparalleled belief that you are in control of your destiny. I’m also certain that moment hasn’t yet happened for me.

Honest to God, most of the time I feel like I must have experienced some kind of coma or otherwise unconscious period that no one talks about, where I lost possibly many years of everyday, ‘everyone-knows-that’ type of accumulated knowledge. I can’t be certain this coma actually ever happened, probably because everyone around me is either too polite to bring it up or doesn’t want to stir up their own memories of that time. But I’m pretty sure that had to have happened.

Otherwise, there is almost no explanation for something like this:

Tonight as we sat around the table enjoying our Friday night pizza, I mentioned that a colleague had emailed me an aerial photo of England, which showed the country covered in this season’s surprising amount of snowfall. He also told me that last night, it was colder in the Scottish Highlands than it was in Antarctica. (That sounds about right to me. I once shivered through one of the coldest evenings of my life in Edinburgh, Scotland – in July.)

This conversation led to one of my sons talking about the first Ice Age, which came about when an enormous iceberg type thing (I don’t think he actually said ‘type thing’) broke off of Greenland and as it melted, masses of frigid, cold air wafted over Europe and sent the continent into a deep freeze. Everyone at the table seemed to know that was the cause of the first Ice Age except me.) He claims it’s happening again and that’s why so much of the world is experiencing such a harsh winter.

The conversation shifted slightly, and we discussed the very cold weather in Florida and what that might do to the citrus crops growing there. Following that, we had a brief global warming / climate change / skeptic / supporter debate that didn’t get too far. And that’s really for the best. Friday nights and pizza are not built for debate.

Somehow, that launched a discussion about dinosaurs and how interesting it is that no one really, truly knows exactly what killed them off. I offered some pathetic explanation about ‘the cold’ killing them (as if the boys had never heard that before.) The conversation then took a turn again, into a discussion about the meteor that hit the earth and how the resulting gasses and particles that lingered from it blocked the sun, creating the cold that killed the dinosaurs.

Ahem. What? A meteor hit the earth? It did? And blocked the sun? And killed dinosaurs?

My kids looked at me in disbelief. “Well yeah! [Implied but not stated: “You didn’t know that?”] It may have been the same meteor that some people say created the Gulf of Mexico.”

Ahem. A meteor created the Gulf of Mexico?

“Well, it could have but then how could you explain Pangaea? Where did that land go? How could the continents have been connected if it took a meteor to create the Gulf of Mexico?” [I’m pretty sure that last part may have been for my benefit but inexplicably, I did know what Pangaea was. I really did.]

Let’s recap. I had no idea that melting icebergs created the first Ice Age in Europe. I had no idea a meteor had ever hit the earth. I had no idea that the cold that resulted from that meteor blocking the sun may have killed dinosaurs and created the gulf of water off of Mexico.

I’ve left out the carbon-dating discussion, the creationist vs. scientists and the ridiculous nature of the Creationist Museum, and finally, the roster of the members of the Wu Tang Clan, along with the complete CV of The RZA and his upcoming book, The Tao of Wu. If you’re confused, imagine being me at that table. And I live there.

So there it is. Well, most of it. A very partial, very rudimentary list of the bits of accumulated knowledge I missed out on while I existed in a multi-year (secret) coma. God knows what we’ll talk about next Friday.

Committed to reading something else.

Oh my Lord. It’s here and it’s far from fabulous (if you believe the review in The Times.) But who couldn’t have predicted that?

I’m talking about the new book from author Elizabeth Gilbert: Committed: A Skeptic Makes Peace with Marriage. Just in case you’ve been occupied with living, contemplating or otherwise been caught up in your own life for the past several years, you may not have had the chance to worship at the altar of what MSN called a literary juggernaut, Eat Pray Love. I’ve written all I care to about that book in columns and on this blog, so I’m moving on to the news about her new book, Committed.

Here we go: Seriously? Really? It’s difficult to choose my favorite part of Gilbert’s interview on MSN but I’ll offer these for consideration:

1. “Britney out” - "...you're in battle against yourself. This sort of cannibalistic self-competition ... this is largely why people Britney out." Gilbert uses this term (in earnest) to describe the idea that sometimes success destroys people, especially people who never stop trying to top their latest achievement. I’m not sure if she coined it but it’s annoying and somehow superior-sounding. This is the best one of our best-selling authors could do to voice her distaste for self-destructive behavior? Brilliant.

2. On the possibility of being mother: “I've often thought that if I had been married to somebody who wanted to be a mom, I could have done it. I used to say, "Man, I think I'd be a really good dad. I'll be a great provider. I'm funny; I'll go on trips with them — I'll do all sorts of stuff." But the momming? I'm not made for that. I have a really good mom; I know what she put into it. I didn't think I had the support to both have that and continue on this path that was really important to me.”

Translation: Dads are providers who possess a sense of humor, a love of adventure and other kinds of ‘stuff.’ Moms are…humorless home bodies. How is this train of thought even possible in a woman as cosmopolitan and sophisticated as Gilbert? She’s not in her seventies or eighties; she’s forty years old. We’ve come a long way, baby.

3. On her husband and their partnership: “We've been together five and a half years now, and I have never had that man put a plate of food in front of me where I didn't feel like I was in holy rapture. Because I never, ever, ever saw, in my entire life, a man bring a plate of food to a woman. Because it wasn't his job.”

Note to self: thank my husband for the dinners he prepares much more often that I. I hadn’t realized that made him such an item of curiosity in the 21st century. (He’s exactly the same age as Gilbert’s husband by the way.) Once again, how is she a forty-year old professional woman in the Western world who has never been connected to a man who prepared and served her a plate of food? Is it that freakish?

4. On travel and spontaneity: “When I was in Mexico when I was 20 [note: she previously disclosed that she traveled to Africa when she was nineteen], I remember meeting this American couple who were in their 60s, and they said, "Oh, it's so great that you're traveling now, before you have kids, because you won't be able to then." I know this is a thing that people do; they go traveling for a year, and then they hitch their leash to the wall and put their face in their feed bag and that's the end of it. And I thought, "But I might want to keep doing this," you know?”

“…hitch their leash to the wall and put their face in their feedbag…” I'm sorry. Would that be similar the actions involved in choosing to create a home, putting down some roots, developing some constancy and building a life within a community, surrounded by family (including children you adore) and friends you love?

I kind of can’t really go on with this except to say that much of this is very amusing. During her interview, Gilbert acknowledges that she is comfortable with her persona: “….I'm not what's being said about me, either in the highest praise or the highest criticism. I know I'm not a self-indulgent idiot; I also know I'm not the second coming of Deepak Chopra. [And thank God for that. One is quite enough, thank you.] If I had believed either of those, or both, as some people do when they get famous, that's when the mental illness arrives.”

In other words, she is not an extreme. I get that; few people are. And yet, she has very clear and defined images of others. They are either bread-winners or they are busy “momming.” They are either globetrotting adventurers or they’re hitched to a wall with their faces in feedbags. Mental illness must be on their collective doorsteps.

How very enlightened. How very open-minded. How very entitled. And since I’ll never get back the hours I put into Eat, Pray, Love, I think I’ll pass on Committed.

a moment of hope to end the year

You know what’s kind of cool? And kind of gives me hope? The fact that AT & T, Accenture and Gillette have either dropped entirely or “scaled back” their business relationships with Tiger Woods.

I love the statement from Accenture, indicating that Woods was “no longer the right representative” for their company’s values. That’s the closest I’ve heard anyone come to saying he’s a scumbag they no longer admire. Good for them! Still to come, an update from Electronic Arts and Nike regarding their relationship with Woods. Gatorade, as previously reported, had ‘already planned’ to drop their Tiger-labeled beverage before the uproar that resulted from the unzipped fly heard round the world.

As I said, this sort of news gives me hope for humanity. It turns out that with the exception of the behavior exhibited by some of Hollywood’s movers and shakers, we are not quite as willing as we seem to look the other way when someone does the wrong thing. Hollywood luminaries seem to get a pass from us. Some people still accept people like Woody Allen and Roman Polanski. Based on box office receipts and industry awards, we long ago forgave the aberrant deeds of Robert Downey Jr. and the downright slimy behavior by Jude Law; we’ve embraced that champion of free (hate) speech in this country, Sean Penn; Britney Spears' tour ranked # 4 in Top Concert revenue for 2009 and we keep tuning in to watch the personal train wreck called Charlie Sheen every week, right?

We’ve accepted the endless parade of children born to Hollywood “partners” who are not married couples. And although it seems charming and adorable and hip when they do it, it’s not so amusing when that behavior is emulated by fans with about 1/1000of the income and resources their idols enjoy in Beverly Hills.

We’ve read tabloid coverage of the scandals and breakups of Hollywood couples for years. Not one of us stopped buying tickets to see Brad or Angelina after he left Jennifer in the dust. I guess we expect (to some degree) that stars will act like stars – and treat themselves to their every desire - and then enjoy the resulting headlines.

But with the news about Tiger Woods, our mostly dormant and silent morals (remember morals?) have exerted themselves and made themselves known. A USA Today / Gallup poll on Woods’ popularity tells us that his “favorable rating” has dropped even faster than his pants as a result of his out of town activities. He had enjoyed an 85% favorable rating in June 2005 and he’s down to 33%. Just as significant, his unfavorable rating has grown from a mere 8% to 57%. Not one of those points was lost or gained as a result of his action on a golf course. Every single point was earned or lost because he cheated on his wife. That’s it.

Then again, maybe Tiger had remarkably bad timing and appeared last in the long line of cheaters we’ve heard from this year. Maybe we’d collectively just about had enough. If you’re David Letterman or Mark Sanford or even Elliott Spitzer, you’re thinking, “Thank you, God” right about now.

In the meantime, kudos to the Board of Directors or the PR departments or the accountants at AT&T, Accenture and Gillette. Like anyone in business with Woods, I’m certain they were watching his poll numbers plummet and were less than pleased about the millions of dollars budgeted for his endorsement. I’m also sure they were wondering how well their companies or products would fare with those folks who answered those poll questions. But even given all that, some part of their decisions had to emerge from at least a few people sitting in emergency meetings in boardrooms around the country saying something like, “He’s history. He’s kind of disgusting. And we need to end this now.” Announcing a separation from Woods is one small moment of common sense in a society that seems to be sorely lacking it.

What a year for a new year....

There are two Christmas songs I can’t quite get out of my mind this year. One is called “What a Year for a New Year” by Dan Wilson and the other is titled “Maybe This Christmas” by Ron Sexsmith. Neither one focuses strictly on family or seasonal good cheer or the birth of Christ. When it comes right to it, they are wistful, melancholy songs about what has been and what could be. Hopeful, but not sappy.

I’m not sure I could describe my own feelings that way this season. Yes, hopeful is good but I can’t promise I’m not just a little bit sappy. I’ve welcomed my three boys home from college and can’t begin to describe how much joy that brings me. They are no less than the miracles of my life; and sometimes I wonder how I’ve been so blessed with them.

I've spent the last few months passing by three empty rooms that were pristine but vacant. Walking down the hall this past week or so, and seeing their three closed bedroom doors in the morning, is an old, familiar and comfortable feeling. (What’s behind those doors, scattered about and not necessarily neatly tucked away is a small price to pay for their company. It’s also why I prefer the doors remain closed throughout the day.)

At the same time, I know that home seems to be the ‘place between places’ for them these days. They’re here, but it will never quite be the home of their childhoods. They’re leaving more of themselves elsewhere these days, and less of themselves within our walls. And that will continue, until only a few traces of each of them remain here, to be brought to life from season to season, from event to event, from time to time.

The hopeful part of me wants them to move forward into their lives, full of confidence and tenacity, but mostly I want them to move forward with love in their hearts. For themselves, for family and friends, for the years they’ve spent in our home and for the memorable moments we created there together.

I’m hopeful that Dan Wilson’s lyrics don’t necessarily carry much meaning for them, at least not yet. The difficult times we all endure, the times when there was almost no light to be found are poetically expressed in his song:

Soon we’ll be lying in our beds
And new dreams will fill our heads
And the old ones will be ended
Hope we’ll forget about this place
Let it go without a trace
Wipe the teardrops from our faces
Oh! What a year for a new year!

Are there moments all of us want to forget? Times that would be best erased from our memory? Yes. Maybe new dreams will fill our heads and we’ll forget about the old.

If only I could believe that. I’m not sure there are things I can let go without a trace. The raised voices? The tears? The frustration that came out on the wrong people at the wrong time? We've spent nearly twenty years together as a family and not every moment was a Hallmark card. Not every event was a Rockwell painting. But can my sons do that? Can they let it go? Maybe that ability comes with the resiliency of youth and it’s more easily accomplished at twenty than at fifty.

Sometimes that choice to forget feels possible, even to me, but the Christmas season somehow adds another level of complexity to the question, doesn’t it? Which brings me to the lovely, hopeful but not sappy words of Ron Sexsmith:

Maybe this Christmas will mean something more
Maybe this year
Love will appear
Deeper than ever before
And maybe forgiveness will ask us to call
Someone we've loved
Someone we've lost
For reasons we can't quite recall
Maybe this Christmas
Maybe they'll be an open door
Maybe the star that's shone before will shine once more

That’s really the heart of it, isn’t it? That even though we’ve lived through some difficult moments, a star will shine again for us?

All of which gets me exactly no where it would seem. I’m at some kind of unfamiliar and surprising crossroads, where the first act of my life as a mother is coming to a close and the second act will begin soon enough. A second act, I might add, where the role has been quite diminished to that of a supporting player, even to ensemble member. These songs force me to consider a couple of questions I’d rather not contemplate about my nearly grown children: would they prefer to forget this place? To let it go without a trace?

I don’t think so but then again, I don’t really know. We all have our secret moments and quiet thoughts we don’t easily share.

Are they hoping for an open door somewhere out there in the world, with a light that shines so brightly it will replace the ever-diminishing one at home?

Maybe so and maybe that’s all good. Maybe there is supposed to be a brighter light, to serve as a beacon that calls them to their adult lives; one that dims, but doesn’t extinguish, the light shining at home.

But I'll leave it on anyway.

"...a good time, a kind, forgiving, charitable, pleasant time"

If I ever won a lottery – unlikely since I never buy a ticket – my dream would be to do the following every single year:

I’d travel to New England, and find a perfect house to rent every year at Christmastime, one with plenty of bedrooms and a warm, open living space, complete with fireplace and snuggly furniture. A view out toward a winter landscape would complete the setting, and make it all Currier and Ives-ey.

But this isn’t just for me. In the days leading up to Christmas and then beyond into the brand new year, I’d want everyone I loved gathered there, in this perfectly suited place, preferably with snow on the ground around us. As I said, there would be room for everyone, and the house would be beautifully appointed with holiday touches.

If working people didn’t have the vacation time coming to them to enable them to join the group, I’d ask them to take the time unpaid and then give them the money. (I’m a lottery winner, remember?)

Gifts would not only be purchased, they’d be wrapped and ready to place under a picture-perfect tree long before December 24. I’d stock the house with delicious treats and great food. Some of the best moments of our holiday together will be the memorable meals we linger over around the table.

We’d have time to welcome the day with a quiet conversation over a hot mug of coffee in the morning; time to take winter walks through the gorgeous woods, time to play a game, listen to music, read a book, watch a movie together. Time to have all the conversations that get cut off throughout the year with phrases like this: “I have a meeting in one minute – have to jump off and dial a conference line.” Or this: “Call home when you get a chance, honey. Just want to hear from you; see how you’re doing.” Or this: “Can I call you back? This is a really, really bad time…” and then, somehow, you never do.

We’d have time to listen to each other, to ask the questions that need space and thought; that need contemplation and discussion. We’d give each other time to answer.

We’d sometimes do little more than sit around together and do almost nothing except enjoy the downtime together. We’d share great tea or delicious wine together as the dark surrounded us.

Conspicuously absent in my lottery dream are anxiety and sadness. Stress is strictly forbidden as are tension and anger. There is no room for these in my Christmas house and anyone who packs them along with their winter woolens will be discouraged from making the trip.

The thing is, I haven’t won the lottery and I don’t have a rustic but spectacular Christmas house to escape to for the perfect holiday. Instead, I have found myself weighed down by stress, and anxiety and some sadness from time to time. I have felt tension and anger as well, and at this time of year, it just feels harder to bear, doesn’t it?

Maybe it’s a universal truth that has no easy resolution. We get seduced by the pictures we conjure up of a post-lottery life but then we check our ticket and find we’re not a penny richer. And if that’s not enough, we look around on December 22 and find that the cards haven’t been addressed, the cookies haven’t been baked, the last few presents still need to be purchased, and the others need wrapping. But even with all that you know one thing for certain: not one bit of it matters. Not really.

Charles Dickens knew it. (I have a semi-obsession with Dickens’ A Christmas Carol.) Tonight I keep thinking about these words, which Fred expresses to his Uncle Ebenezer: “…I have always thought of Christmas time…as a good time, a kind, forgiving, charitable, pleasant time the only time I know of, in the long calendar of the year, when men and women seem by one consent to open their shut up hearts freely…and therefore, uncle, though it has never put a scrap of gold or silver in my pocket, I believe that it has done me good, and will do me good; and I say, God bless it!”

Maybe I just need to open up a shut up heart; maybe that will do me good.

An indefinite break from common sense

By now, we’ve all read or heard his statement: “After much soul searching, I have decided to take an indefinite break from professional golf. I need to focus my attention on being a better husband, father, and person.”

I’m positive this has been said or written about already but I have to ask: when Tiger Woods says “professional golf,” does he really mean, “cheating on my wife?” Because that’s the only way this statement makes any sense to me. Read it again and you’ll see what I mean:

“After much soul searching, I have decided to take an indefinite break from cheating on my wife. I need to focus my attention on being a better husband, father, and person.”

Sounds better, right?

Look, it wasn’t the 18 holes, the fairways, the greens, the bunkers, the drives, the putts, and the chips around the course that got him into trouble, at least not directly. Clearly, his performance dealing with any one of those things brought him into the international spotlight and earned him his millions. That fame and those millions also earned him entry and VIP status into exclusive and high profile places around the globe. But why take a break from professional golf? What did golf ever do to his marriage?

I’ll tell you. Nothing. But the road from Pebble Beach to the Blue Martini Club is not paved with good intentions. Only through golf, and the travel and independence it allowed, was he able to spend time off the course, pursuing his desires. Unfortunately, his desires didn’t seem to be to return home to be “a better husband, father and person.” What he did with that time off the course led to his current status as the $100 million dollar man none of his sponsors care to discuss.

Let’s get honest. If he really wanted to curtail his transgressions and make up for them, he’d issue this statement:

“After much soul searching, I have decided to take an indefinite break from London, the MGM Grand Mansion and “Bank” at the Bellagio in Las Vegas; from cocktail waitresses, porn stars, Perkins restaurants, the Blue Martini club in Miami, “Butter” nightclub in NYC, and Trashy Girls lingerie models. I need to focus my attention on being a husband, father, and a respectable person overall.”

I have to believe Elin wouldn’t care one bit if he played in PGA tournaments when the Tour starts up again in 2010. After all, none of the news reports discovered that Tiger and his latest partner gave it a go in the Amen Corner at Augusta. No, all of his trysts seem far removed from the greens. In fact, the golf course may be the only place he hasn’t cheated on his wife. In fact, it’s the only place any of us can be sure of exactly what he’s doing, when and with whom he’s doing it.

So I say: have at it. Go right ahead, Tiger. Join the Tour in full force in late January. But Elin? Here’s one tip: confiscate his cell phone before he leaves.

The first rule of cookie exchange is:

At this joyful time of year, I can’t help but ask this question: How did something as simple as a cookie exchange become so labor-intensive?

Full disclosure: I’ve done this only once in my life, at my sister-in-law Amy’s house. It was a lovely gathering, as is every event Amy hosts. And I left with some very yummy cookies in my very own pretty shopping bag. But it was obvious that I was the Roseanne in the room, trying to fit in with a bunch of Marthas, and I mean that in the nicest way about every woman who was there. They all seemed to have a real, almost innate, grasp of this whole thing. I did my best but was basically clueless and unprepared.

For every man reading this, or every woman like me who is obviously missing some kind of girl gene, I’ll explain. Like many things in life, the concept of the cookie exchange is fabulous. But a cookie exchange party is one of those things that sounds way better than it actually is; kind of like Spanx, or mixing rum and Tab in college.

The idea here is that a bunch of girl friends, co-workers, congregation members, bowling teammates, workout buddies, walking companions, den mothers, sorority sisters, family members, or any other connected or unconnected group of women – in other words, pretty much any group of women who could almost randomly gather together – meet in someone’s home, sometime before Christmas Day.

The exchange masquerades as a real timesaver for women, something that will replace hours in the kitchen surrounded by cookie sheets, flour, colored sugar and something called cheesecloth, which I can’t really define. The exchange offers a way women can add real variety to their cookie trays without dragging out the faded, dog-eared recipes and buying dozens of ingredients they’ll use once and then shelve until next Christmas. The exchange presents a challenge for women like me.

It kinds of delivers on its promise. You bake once; one kind of cookie; and end up with dozens or assorted cookies for family and friends to enjoy. Here’s how it works. Each woman chooses – and reports to the group before they gather together – the kind of cookie she’ll bring to the exchange. Nothing ruins a cookie exchange faster than two or three women baking and sharing the same Snickerdoodles with the group. I chose to bake and contribute Scottish Shortbread.

If you know anything about baking Scottish Shortbread cookies, you know that they require a long (in terms of cookie-time) time to bake, you have to cut out the shapes with a cookie cutter or other forms, not simply drop them by the spoonful onto the cookie sheet, and you need to make a lot of dough to make a dozen or two cookies.

Tip number 1: choose a scoop and drop cookie. You’ll thank me when you aren’t using a rolling pin to create your exchange recipe.

In addition to offering cookies at the exchange, women literally exchange recipes. At Amy’s house I received recipes from every woman who attended. They were designed – not just printed or written out. They were decorated with holiday graphics. They were laminated. I’m not kidding.

You won’t be surprised to hear not only did I not have the recipe with me, with adorable, festive copies for everyone, I could barely remember it. “ummm... Sugar, flour, butter...maybe a little salt.”

Tip number 2: If you’re not going to hand out recipe cards, make sure you’ve at least memorized the recipe.

Tip number 3: Based on the Tyler Durdan school of discipline: First rule of cookie exchange? Know the rules of cookie exchange. This is one bit of wisdom that is apparently part of female DNA that I’m missing. When you attend a cookie exchange, you bring one dozen cookies each for every woman who attends, plus a “dozen for the table.” In my case, that meant I was to bake and bring 13 dozen.

Maybe it’s exactly like Fight Club. Maybe the first rule of cookie exchange is you don’t talk about cookie exchange. All I know is that I baked about three or four dozen. Which left me just 108 cookies short. I discovered my error about five hours before the party and – yes, I can’t help it – I baked like a mad woman and arrived at the party with 156 cookies. I was all set. Except for the missing pretty, laminated recipe cards. And the little bags that everyone had packaged her cookies in. Tied up with holiday bows.

Even still, I loved that. I loved the way they looked and the sharing that was taking place. But I truly felt like I had missed a week of ‘girl school’ somewhere along the line, when they taught us about stuff like cookie exchanges and laminating. The problem was me, not everyone else.

Funny thing, though. It’s not just me. The other day I spoke to a young woman I work with – she could be my daughter – and she was about to attend a cookie exchange. Without going into all the details, she was all set to repeat my CE transgression. She could deal with printing out some recipes – had that covered – but there was no way she could bake another 9 dozen cookies in time.

The best part ever: at the end of the day, she was relating all of this to her husband over the phone. He cheerfully offered to run to the store, buy the ingredients, and bake the missing cookies for her.

Husband of the year, right there. I may have to apologize to Gloria Steinem for all the horrible things I’ve thought and written about her over the years. Maybe all the equal partner stuff is real, at least for 25-year-olds.

List your top ten. I came up with eight.

Disclosure: I’m guilty of regularly breaking the cardinal rule of blogging which is pretty simple actually: write about one thing. Write about something you know and something that readers (and hopefully dear god in heaven readers who comment) will feel comfortable coming back to again and again to read your latest thoughts on the topic.

One problem I have with that rule is that I don’t know about anything. I’m not trying to me shy or self-deprecating. I really don’t. Which makes me an expert on nothing and therefore qualified to help enlighten people about nothing.

That said, I can’t help how things align sometimes. The universe seems to place things in my path and for a while, I’ll write about the same topic from a slightly different reference point. Tonight is one of those times. I just wrote about the women’s movement or lack thereof and then boom! It happens again. Please read on for the latest affront to 21st century women and further proof that we are honestly, sincerely, and unrelentingly pathetic.


Half a century or so on the planet should count for something but it turns out, it doesn’t.

Which is exactly why I found myself incredulous at the promotion I watched tonight for a new television show on The Style Network. You ready? Here you go: What I Hate About Me. Check out the website if you want but the basic premise is this: women list the top ten things they hate about themselves. As they put it online, “real women admit their imperfections.” We admit them? As if they’re a secret to everyone? Are we not allowed to be imperfect? The host of the show listens compassionately (no doubt) and then proceeds, over the course of the next hour, to give the self-loathing woman the tools she needs to help her confront her demons and solve all her issues of self-hatred. Again, quoting the website: “experts share practical tips for fixing every foible.”

First of all, I am far from confident about many, many things but even I would probably have a hard time coming up with ten things I hate about myself. Ten? Do I have ten things I HATE? My thighs, for sure. But is that one or two things? My weight. My figure in general, I guess. Maybe I just go with “shape” and that covers a multitude of sins.

My habit of hanging on to thousands of scraps of paper with some bit of story or fact or headline that I tell myself “I’ll write about tonight.” I seem to collect these daily and then never look at them again. And in the rare instance that I do, I think: what was so interesting about this?

My tendency toward procrastination, even toward things I really WANT to do.

My semi-disorganized closet and my semi-disorganized attitude toward it.

I’m up to four. I need six more things I hate about myself. My short temper toward people who aggravate me.

My tendency to get aggravated by too many people.

That’s six. Four more. My impatience with my kids from time to time.

My failing skills when it comes to my memory.

Eight. I give up. Like I said, I’m very far from perfect but I don’t know that I could really list ten things I hate about myself. It feels like a lot of hate to me. And now there's an entire season of shows filled with women who hate ten things about themselves. That has to be something like a hundred things women hate about themselves. Imperfections they need “fixed.”

Back to my premise: proof that women have gained not one inch in terms of respect, position and confidence. Our quest for equality is a proven failure because there is no way on earth that this show would ever exist for men. Quite the opposite. Many men seem to overlook the bad, or at least made tacit peace with it, not brood about it. They don’t list it and categorize it and ruminate about it. They move on, they don’t linger over misery the way women do.

Dissecting things you hate about yourself feels enlightened and empowering, which is why women love doing it. We’re wrong. It’s actually depressing and debilitating.

No, a program with this premise would never appear on Spike TV. Not ever. And good for them.

But that’s showbiz, right? I guess no one would watch a show called Ten Things I Love About Myself. We need the moth into the butterfly; we’ve been trained to wait for the “reveal” on shows like this. We need the magic. Which is exactly what little girls like about fairy tales. We may have outgrown Cinderella but we haven’t truly given up on her story.

Elin's tough week

Here is all the proof anyone needs that the “women’s movement,” or at least the idea that women have more to offer than their looks and should be acknowledged in a non-sexual way in many facets of society, is neither alive nor well in the western world. In fact, it’s all but invisible. Otherwise, there’s no explanation for the following.

First, there is simply no reason that anything as revolting as the Victoria’s Secret Holiday Fashion Show should get network airtime every December. Isn’t this exactly why Al Gore invented the internet? For events like this? Yes, I’ll admit that I’ve never watched this horror show but I can guess what it contains. Stunning women, wearing lingerie and heels, staring into the camera, looking seductive and needy.

When I looked it up online, I was hoping to find a charity connection. Maybe that could touch off some kind of kind feeling of warmth and forgiveness toward this celebration of female sexuality and oppression. Nope. (Please: I know some of these models make a fair amount of money. They’d better make it while they can; perky boobs and smooth skin won’t last forever.) The only good news I found was that something must have happened in 2004 which precluded this event from taking place. Otherwise, according to the episode history, Victoria and her spokeswomen have been sharing the holidays with us since 2001.

But truthfully, it wasn’t the “fashion” show that aggravated me the most in terms of women and our “liberation.” No, that honor goes to the MSN homepage. I hate the fact that one of the top stories there was titled “Tiger’s tough week.” Tiger’s tough week? Tiger’s? Every single thing that happened during this “tough week” to keep him in the news was the result of his own choices and activities. The latest news is that four women have emerged to tell their stories about his sordid recreational life. That’s practically one woman for each year of his marriage.

I can think of someone who may have had just a slightly tougher week than Tiger. What about Elin’s tough week? What about the fact that Mrs. Tiger Woods has had her sham of a marriage exposed for the entire world to see and judge? Yes, the man she married was already in the sports spotlight, a legend in the making on her wedding day, and she would enjoy a lifetime of material comforts courtesy of the PGA and various companies who paid for a piece of the Tiger magic. But even given all that, I’m guessing Elin never counted on infidelity and multiple affairs following after love, marriage and the baby carriage.

Maybe Tiger did, though. I read the People magazine blurb about his marriage in 2004 and the writer observed the following: But it was Tiger’s trademark cool that really took the cake. "He didn’t act like he was going to get married," says a source. "He was very relaxed, like this was any other day for him.” I think the source got that exactly right. Appears this marriage didn’t changed a thing for old Tiger, did it?

If we’ve learned anything from people like Bill Clinton, John Edwards, Donald Trump, Elliott Spitzer, Mark Sanford, and David Letterman, men seem to emerge from these marriage-shaking media events more or less unharmed. Sure, we all laugh at their exploits and the comedians come up with a day or two of material, but then we move on.

And just as the men seem to come shining through, their scorned women seem to fade from our consciousness, the tell-all books some of them write notwithstanding. I have to believe that money goes a long way to keeping a lot of those women from ever sitting down with a literary agent to discuss a book deal. That little annoyance may even be covered in a pre-nuptial agreement or divorce settlement.

I suppose it’s too much to hope that the next time some famous man has his affairs come to light, the media will address it in terms of the people he’s hurt with his selfish, narcissistic behavior. That way, it may not be so easy for the rest of us to overlook the real, live un-famous wives and families who are the most harmed by his behavior. And maybe, just maybe, we’ll be a little more reluctant to place those icons back on their pedestals.