She Looks Cold to Me. Does She Look Cold to You?

This woman has balls. Not literally, of course. (And in fact, you can verify this by scrolling down her page -- she takes that URL very seriously.)

Her blog is a no-holds-barred, here's-what-happened extravaganza of relationship-pile-up post-mortem. And it's frickin' riveting. Man, you just never know what you're going to find in the NYT.

The only other blog that even comes close is probably the Constipation Chronicles on Dooce. Alas, mental health has descended on Heather Armstrong, depriving us all over her awesome, blow-by-blow accounts of her lower colon's complete and total inability to get in the game.

I have nothing even remotely that juicy to spill, but reading through NakedJen's blog, I realized I have never recounted the Delicious Tale of How My Fiance Dumped Me.

I continue to stick with that title, even though I have since acquired a second, sturdier Fiance who toughed it out and actually went and married me, thus becoming an actual Husband.

But I digress. As our scene opens, the Fiance (or F) and I have been engaged for almost a year and a half. Our wedding is scheduled for nine months hence. It is universally believed among my friends that F is kind of a douche. When I defend him, my friends point to the fact that I bought him a framed, vintage Soviet propaganda poster for Christmas -- because he loves all things communist -- while his gift to me was a computer printer, which was promptly set up in his office. At this point, I generally changed the subject because there is no reasoning with some people.

The curtain rises on an apartment on Ave. B in NYC's East Village. It is Friday, March 15, slightly after 7 p.m. Kate is home from work, and sitting in the living room in anticipation of "The X-Files", which will start in about 55 minutes.

F enters from stage right and takes a seat in the really nice Crate and Barrel side chair F and Kate had purchased a few weeks earlier. Actually, since his raise, F has been on quite the tear with spendy, spur-of-the-moment purchases. But then his job is incredibly demanding and stressful, so if it he wants to spend some of his paycheck on a taupe side chair, so be it.

F then proceeds to explain that their relationship, the relationship between F and Kate, is not going well. He's not happy. Ah. Would he consider couples' therapy? Yes, he would. But for now, he thinks it would be a good idea if they considered themselves broken up. He does? Yes, he does.

There is more to this conversation, but all too soon, an hour has passed. F looks at the clock and observes that it is almost time for "The X-Files," and really, what more is there to say?

At that moment, Kate realizes that F has timed this conversation with Swiss watch precision, so that he'd only have to discuss this unpleasantness with her for approximately 55 minutes. Because after that, of course, she'd want to watch "The X-Files."

And scene.

Needless to say, I no longer argued with my friends about whether F was a douche. I did not, in fact, watch that episode. To this day, I have never seen it, but I'm told I'm not missing much. (It was about the Mexican Goat-Sucker, which has another name I cannot spell.)

F's timing our break-up conversation in this manner has won a number of bets for me over the years and several informal who-has-the-shittiest-break-up-story competitions. Four months later, he took me out to dinner and tried unsuccessfully to re-start our relationship. I haven't seen him since.

A week later, I left for Ireland and spent almost the whole time making out with an adorable guy named Tom. And, as we know, I ended up marrying a hilarious Yalie with a passing resemblance to Ewan MacGregor. So it all worked out in the end.

Did I Mention The Co-Pay Is Very Reasonable?

Thanks to the miracle of Facebook, the whole world knows I had a birthday recently. (Not that I'm complaining -- I haven't gotten that many birthday wishes since the year my mom brought cupcakes in second grade.)

This is also the time of year when I check in with my doctor and fill up on prescriptions for the coming year, including the all-important Bay-Bee-No-Hav, aka, birth control.

Now, I realize that fertility is a growing challenge for women in their 30s, and there's apparently a really terrifying chart that looks like Wile E. Coyote taking a short trip off a tall cliff which represents what will happen to my reproductive system in another five or ten years. (Although I may be an exception, given that my grandmother seems to have produced kids into early menopause.)

But I think it is JUST POSSIBLE that my doctor is laying it on a little thick. She asked, as she always does, about the MG + KP Plan for World Domination. And, as I always do, I said that we were thinking of kicking things off in a few years.

"Oh," she said, blanching to the color of her labcoat.

"What? Is that... not a good answer?"

"It's just you don't want to wait too long."

I don't say so, but no, of course I'm not going to wait too long. C'mon, who wants to start popping babies out on their 40th birthday? But my doctor seems to think I'm waiting for her to say something, so she clears her throat and continues.

"You know what happens to a woman's ovaries as she enters her 30s?"

*Enters* her 30s? I think to myself.

She shakes her head sadly. "They age. Harden into shriveled up raisins."

My mouth goes curiously dry as I listen to this.

"I had a patient, she coughed during a pelvic exam. Her left ovary fell out, hit the floor and cracked in half like an M & M."

I struggle to find words. "That seems... odd."

"Not really, it's all drying up in there." She points at my navel with her pharmaceutical-company-branded pen. "Like one of those Salvador Dali paintings with a melting watch."

"Really? I thought it was more-"

"Last week, an OB-GYN friend of mine went into the delivery room with a patient -- she couldn't have been more than 34."

"The OB-GYN?"

"The patient. She got up on the table, had her epidural, did her breathing... gave birth to a pound and half of sand."

"What?"

"Swear to God. But you know, she and her husband wanted to wait."

Then she scribbled something on my chart, flipped it shut and gave me the same smile she probably uses when her small child stands bereft over his just-dropped ice cream cone.

"See you next year!"

Great Moments in American History

The latest issue of Written By came this week. The official magazine of the WGA, it features a ton of great interviews and useful articles. Maybe my favorite thing, however, are the "for your consideration" ads that run in advance of certain award seasons -- usually with an excerpt from the script, to help the Guild members remember why this project deserves their recognition.

With the Emmy noms just a month or two away, I noticed that HBO wasn't wasting any time building support for "John Adams." Although I suspect there was some confusion at the printer's. Seems to me like a different version of this scene ran in Sunday's broadcast, didn't it? I'll have to check my Tivo.

John continues to read from the London papers. Abigail sips her tea, pensive. Colonel Smith stands behind John, covertly reading another paper with visible disgust.

JOHN
The Morning Post and Daily
Advertiser... ah, they, very
helpfully inform their readers
that I was so pitifully embarrassed
as to be very nearly tongue-tied.

SMITH
You must pay them no mind sir.

John looks his shoulder. Smith quickly hides his paper. John can’t help himself -- he’s drawn back to the printed page.

JOHN
(bursts out laughing)
Here is someone calling for me
to be hanged! Post haste! Charming.
God, what a country.

ABIGAIL
Colonel Smith, remove these papers
at once.

Smith begins to clear the table.

JOHN
It is of no account. Let them say
what they will. Although...

John grabs the top most sheet of newsprint.

JOHN

I defy any man to tell me this page three
engraving is an accurate depiction of...
(reads)
Miss Mary Holden’s god-given anatomy.

ABIGAIL
(looks over)
She does rather
over-fill her corset.

JOHN
(studies the page)
Yes. She does.

Smith looks over John’s shoulder. His eyebrows go up in amazement.

Abigail clears her throat.

Both men jump. John quickly balls the page up and stuffs it into the fire.

Boulud Is Rockin' That Leather Blazer, Though

I don't know why I love "Project Runway" and yet have so many problems with "Top Chef."

If anything, "Top Chef" has several marked advantages -- I do actually know about/like food, as opposed to clothing. (See: My several earlier posts w/r/t how I wear nothing but J. Crew.) Also, I'm from Chicago, and you can get me to watch ANYTHING -- including multiple seasons of "Early Edition" -- if there's some outside chance I'll be able to play "What's that neighborhood?" And if I were a gay man, I'd want to be Ted Allen. So there's that.

Sure, both shows have contestants with deeply questionable hat choices. (Trucker hats vs. novelty fedoras? Hmm. Might be a draw.) Oddball hairstyles. (Was there a workshop on using a whisk as a comb that I missed? Since when is "tufty" a look?) Cocky f***ing bastards. (Christian vs. Spike? I'd pay to see that any day. Winner takes Chef Molecule.)

One big, big problem: Tim Gunn vs. Padma. No. No. No. Not the same. One of these is a sage mentor, whose knowledge and wit is apparent in his entire person. One of these is an underweight bombshell who...

Yeah. Why do I care what this woman thinks? Honestly, I think I'd rather know what Michael Kors thinks of this food. She just does not convey food knowledge and experience at all. (Yeah, I know about the cookbooks. What. Ever.)

Then there's all the little things, like the way the contestants on TC are constantly being prodded into announcing the stage directions (time remaining, coaching people ou the door, whatever.) Notice that we never need that kind of false theater on PR -- we can see from the clock that it's late, that time is running down. Then Tim comes and tells us the designers have two hours to get their models to hair and make-up. Neat, economical, elegant. Why can't Padma do that? Oh yeah, because she's so annoying I zaa-zaa whenever she comes on screen.

Look, I'm in a tough spot. The writers' strike, the extra time on my hands -- God, I would give anything for PR to come back for a new season next week, but it's not going to happen. And "Battlestar Galactica" returning on Friday is actually going to make things worse. So I'll keep watching TC, and I'll zaa-zaa through the stuff I don't like.

But let's make one thing perfectly, perfectly clear:

Richard Roeper is NOT and HAS NEVER BEEN a "famed Chicago film critic."

Nothing against the man personally, but Chicago is not such a cow town that even Richard Roeper qualifies as famous. Well known? Okay, sure. Roger Ebert -- who won the first ever Pulitzer for film criticism in 1974 -- is a famed Chicago film critic. Ebert's late friend/sparring partner Gene Siskel is a famed Chicago film critic. Roeper is a guy who successfully navigated the rounds of auditions after Siskel's death to become the permanent fill-in on Siskel & Ebert's TV show. For that matter, Roeper would not get to set toe number one on TC, except that Ebert's continuing health issues have, for now, left him unable to speak.

(Now, is Posh Spice is an international style icon, as Die Klum informed us? That is for Mr. Blackwell to resolve.)

Almost As Good As the Zombie Invasion

I haven't lived in Chicago for going on three years now, and when we moved, it had been some months since I'd done any improv. So why do I still check Chicago Improv Network every couple of days to see what's going on?

Because without CIN, I'd never have seen the work of Zack, who wonders...

What if they were Klingons?

For example:



Oh Man'dee, you cut my heart out with a bat'leth!

Rubber Ducky, you're the one, to be sent to Gre'Thor! Prepare to die!




The only candidate to trust with ending the Romulan War is the one who voted not to attack the Neutral Zone in the first place.

Well played, Zack. Well played.

Don't Make Me Laugh

This is just a guess, but I think Benedict Carey is a guy.

You probably don't know Mr. (?) Carey, but he writes about health and medicine for the NYT, including today's piece on, oh boy!, pranks.

Here's the part that makes me think Carey is a mister:

“Being duped holds up this mirror to people,” Dr. Vohs said, “and may in fact show them where they are on the scale” — too trusting or too vigilant. Paranoia, too, has its costs, and it can sour relationships.

Running back the tape mentally, in this case meditating on how an embarrassing event might have turned out otherwise, is known to psychologists as counterfactual thinking. “The feeling of ‘I should have known better’ is the sort of counterfactual that serves to highlight your own shortcomings,” said Neal Roese, a psychologist at the University of Illinois. “A good deal of research has shown that these counterfactual insights can kick-start new behaviors, new self-exploration and, ultimately, self-improvement.”

Those observations may not leap to mind if you just showed up in go-go boots and an Elizabeth Taylor wig to a bogus 1970s cross-dressing party. Or if you fell for the e-mail message announcing you had won an award and should forward a draft of your acceptance speech to a supervisor.

But a good prank is, in the end, a simulation of a crisis and not the real thing. And it serves as a valuable reminder that not every precious box contains precisely the treasure you might expect.

What. The. Hell.

Here's a crazy, crazy thought: What if you just didn't pull any pranks? What then? OMG! Catastrophe! Disaster! People not being forced to discover they are too trusting!

Perhaps it's baldly sexist to say so, but I don't think most women pull pranks. Even among the institutions with the worst reputations, pranking is not the done thing. No, in our darker moments, my gender goes in for straight up, knife-in-the-back cruelty.

I've known women to do many, many shitty things to other women, but none of them fell under the casual veil of a prank. Stealing a boyfriend, us vs. them ostracizing, systematically humiliating a coworker -- this is the stuff of months, if not years in the making, not some one-day-a-year whimsy. It's far worse than cellophane over a toilet, and once it's discovered, the object knows well that the next step is to get far, far away from her tormentor.

As an Aries, I have a certain affection for all things April, with the strong exception of April Fool's Day. But upon reflection, I think my problem isn't that April Fool's is unnecessarily cruel. No, what I hate about April Fool's is that it's amateur hour, with short-lived pranks that suggest there's nothing worse lurking in the shadows. That, I think, really is foolish.

Edited to ad: No, wait. New theory. Women don't do pranks because we're really, really bad at it. This is just sad.