Sex, Scotch and Batman
“You know what your problem is?” asked Dave.  Boy, do I love conversations that begin with this question.  Nothing’s more fun than having a know-it-all friend instruct you on the failings of your existence.   Fortunately, I wasn’t on the other end of Dave’s question.  My friend Kim was.  She was complaining about her romantic life and asking our friend Dave for advice.  The issue was sex appeal and how Kim simply oozes with it.  Men are

People Really Do Make the World Go ‘Round
A member of my family was just in the hospital for an out-of-the-blue medical emergency.  For a couple days things were dicey and the whole lot of us was concerned.  It’s hard to worry about your career, love life or even your soul when a person who used to change your diapers and sneak you Twinkies when your mom wouldn’t let you eat them, is lying unconscious in a hospital. Lately, I keep coming across articles and essays, surveys and polls, how-to books and talk

Am I Unhappy?
Time magazine says I’m unhappy.  And if you’re a woman, according to them, so are you.   Sometimes, I think I ought to chuck the whole writing thing and become a researcher investigating the myriad reasons women’s lives are so shitty.  Magazines and universities seem to be working around the clock to inform us dames how depressed we are.  How infertile we become each day.  How gaining too much weight during pregnancy will make us fat for the r

If I Strip for You, Will You Strip for Me?
I didn’t want to be a stripper.  Really, I have no idea what I wanted from the exotic dance class I’d enrolled in at an adult education center.  I didn’t know whether the course catalog’s promise to help “create a full repertoire of floor-routine and chair moves you can use in enticing performances” was an achievable or even worthwhile goal.  But there I was in a leotard and stilettos, undulating my hips against an inert and perfectly innocent chair.   Th

Love, an Inner Connection
A guy sitting next to me on the bus the other day kept looking over my shoulder to check out the book on my lap.  When I stuffed it in my bag, he asked, “what are you reading?” Slightly embarrassed, I told him, “it’s called, Love, an Inner Connection.” “What’s it about?”  Self-help books and faux spiritual tomes I’ve always considered hokey.  Human beings are fantastically complicated, a lifetime isn’t lo