Call Me Crazy

There is a crazy woman in town, and she is sitting next to me on the couch at Starbucks as I write this. There is another empty couch, and by my count there are three empty and relatively comfy chairs and at least seven empty tables, and she has chosen to descend upon my sacred space. I don't want to hurt her feelings and get up, but I feel trapped, and I hate that.

Sometimes, I admit, I feel as if I have lost touch with reality, maybe gone a little bit kooky. But I would never join somebody else on a couch built for two in Starbucks, even if there was not an empty seat in the house. I'd rather stand. I'd even delay my caffeine fix and head out to find another coffee house with more appealing seating arrangements. Proof, I think, that I have not completely lost it, at least not yet. Phew.

I used to see her around here all the time -- at the health club, at restaurants, on the street. Always on the phone, always screaming at someone. Well, except when she was at the restaurant with her husband, son, and parents and she was chain-drinking wine and screaming at all of them. Who needs a phone when you can do it in person?

I was not surprised to hear that she is now divorced and living downtown in her parents' condo, having lost custody of her son. I didn't hear this directly from her, since I buried my head in my laptop the minute she sat down on MY couch and tried to make conversation. I heard it from someone else who had the dubious good fortune of being cornered by her on her recent return to the neighborhood.

What happens to people? I can only guess that when life started for her -- and by life I mean adult, married-with-children life -- she seemed normal, to the extent anybody can seem normal, whatever "normal" is. Yet here she is, my age, on temporary leave from her elderly parents' nest, flitting from couch to couch in Starbucks in the wee hours of the morning in search of someone who will listen to her. Will she end up on the street one day? Is that the natural progression of things?

The weird thing is she seems happy in her delusional world, the one in which she thinks everyone wants to talk to her, sit with her on the couch. Maybe it's liberating to just be crazy. Not crazy the way I am crazy, but totally-all-screws-loose-and-all-pistons-misfiring nuts! I think I might talk to her after all, get some pointers.

California Dreaming

As I sat getting my toenails painted bright pink this morning, I flipped through a glossy women's magazine looking for some deep insights into life.

There were the usual articles about hair and nails, and standard summer fare about which bathing suits are best for your body type (they never list old, tired, and saggy as one of the body types, so I remain woefully unenlightened). And there was a fascinating article about how our perceptions of beauty have changed over the decades.

Granted, I didn't read the entire article -- I just read the really important sentences, which were magnified and highlighted in bright blue -- and I looked at the pictures. Attitudes about beauty may have changed over the years, but my attention span has never been capable of accommodating a magazine article that jumps to multiple pages.

Anyway, good news friends. Middle aged women are viewed as far more attractive than they were thirty years ago. And guess who thinks "cougars" are hot! Yes, you guessed it, the twenty-five to thirty-five year old male set. Shocking that this phenomenon hasn't spread to middle aged men, who still seem to prefer twenty-somethings to your basic cougar or, certainly, if cougar is to be defined as a woman older than you are, to your basic octogenarian.

I think I've already mentioned some of my own anecdotal evidence regarding twenty-five and thirty year olds pursuing older women, as my cyber dating inbox tends to fill up fairly regularly with cheesecake shots of young studs writing clever messages such as "Hey." As you can imagine, I get pretty excited when the rare fifty-something sends an email; whether it's indicative of maturity, integrity, or bad eyesight, I just think it's a nice gesture for an old guy to pay attention to an old broad once in a while.

Today, I received an e-card from a startlingly handsome fifty-four year old. I checked the map, and San Diego seems a little far for a productive relationship, but you never know when my book tour will take me out that way, so I responded with an alluring and very clever "Hey." I anxiously await his response.

At the rate I'm going, I will still be frequenting computer dating sites when I'm seventy-five

(and getting my toenails painted bright pink and flipping through glossy magazines in a never ending search for the meaning of life, and love). By then, I might kind of like the whole cougar concept -- as long as the fifty-somethings don't include cheesecake shots.

Air Kisses

I can't believe it! Blago, guilty? But he said he was innocent, and why would someone say he's innocent if he isn't?

Nobody knows him better than his wife, Patti, I assume, to whom he blew a kiss before the verdict was read. A kiss! Blown across a crowded courtroom! Is there anything more pure than that? What do twelve jurors know? He is just a chatty guy who tends to go on a bit but deep down just goes about being innocent and blowing kisses to his wife. Shame on the rest of us, thinking we know better.

Maybe we're just so accustomed to seeing men behave badly that we rush to judgment. Maybe we need to step back and cut the guys a little bit of slack, with them being born with one chromosome that's only half the size of a real one and all.

Take my gynecologist. Like Blago, he's pretty chatty, although as far as I know he hasn't come close to committing any kind of fraud. He's a really good doctor, and a super nice guy, but he's got that stunted chromosome problem, so sometimes silly things come out of his mouth. Like when he came right from examining my daughter into my room, and gushed about how beautiful and bright and thoughtful and solid she is, how she's one special kid. (The full size chromosome was still working when he said all that.)

Naturally, I did the math, and gave him a look which said, Obvi! She's my daughter, half Ocean. Hello!!!! How could she be anything less than beautiful and bright and thoughtful and solid and downright special? Yes, I said all this without uttering a word, because women can do that, and as Blago has shown us, it's a useful skill to be able to keep the chatter to a minimum.

Anyway, my doctor's Y chromosome kicked in before he had a chance to save himself, and he looked at me, incredulous. "She is so much saner than you are!" Harumph! He should stick to gynecology. Then, to add insult to injury, he told me my back hurts because I need to do core exercises. You just don't say that to a woman who has already told you she is in the throes of P.M.S. Honestly.

But back to Blago. Apparently he's going to have to blow his kisses for the next three hundred years from a jail cell. Just for being a chatty Cathy. I'm glad Patti continues to stand by him, no matter what the rest of think. She knows him better than anyone.

Coffin Fits

Maybe I tend to give people too much credit, but it would never occur to me that a customer in, say, a mammoth Swedish home furnishing store would choose to have a seat and take a dump in a display toilet.

But the mammoth Swedish home furnishing store does pretty well for itself, so the powers that be behind its success must know their shit (so to speak) when they insert a sign into the opening of a toilet that sits in the middle of a floor crowded with shoppers reminding passersby that the inviting little porcelain structure is there for display only. I mean, seriously, I had to pee like nobody's business when I approached the pretend bathroom and it wouldn't have occurred to me in a million years to lift my skirt right there and relieve myself. Again, though, maybe I give people too much credit. Maybe most folks wouldn't see things the way I do.

Come to think of it, most folks don't see things the way I do. And I mean that as a compliment to most folks, since I'm fully aware that my view of the world can be a bit twisted. Just ask my daughter, who was on the verge of killing me yesterday in the mammoth Swedish home furnishing store when I couldn't bring myself to like any of the beds she picked out for her new apartment, because for some reason, to me, they all looked like coffins. Like I said. Twisted.

Twisted or not, though, I pretty much destroyed any hope she had of purchasing a bed there, so off we went to spend more money than we would have in the mammoth Swedish store on a bed that wouldn't spook her every night. I liked the new furniture store anyway; there were no toilets on the floor, so I didn't have to feel nervous that I would suddenly stumble upon some guy "whippin' it out" or, worse still, settling in with a newspaper.

Yep, I give people way too much credit. Twisted.

Table for Three

Last night I ate dinner in the real world. Everything's relative, of course, and I do recognize the real world is a bit less well-heeled than most places on the north side of Chicago.

But to me, for all practical purposes, the real world is anywhere but here, here being deep dark suburbia, specifically my little corner of it. The real world, last night, was a funky restaurant in the fringes of a slightly offbeat, youthful neighborhood in Chicago, where there were folks of all colors and ages and types of attire. On the menu, there was no chopped salad from which one could request all good stuff omitted, nothing that afforded all that much opportunity for brutal modification.

It struck me that there were lots of tables of three. In the "real world," people don't automatically fall into neat couplets; it's okay to be unattached. Sure, there were plenty of well matched pairs, but there were just as many odd-numbered configurations. Saturday night belongs to everyone in the real world. If I was the third wheel for my friend and her husband, I was certainly not alone. Refreshing.

My friend looked over at a table of two young couples. "That used to be us," she remarked. Was it? They looked so happy, so self-assured. I can't remember feeling that way when I was their age. Actually, to me they looked so young, so wet behind the ears, I wondered what they could possibly have to talk about. A lot, I suppose, since not once did their table fall silent the way ours did on a somewhat regular basis. Well, I'm sure what they had to say couldn't have been that important. I wanted to go over and tell them to enjoy it while they could, because this moment, and so many others like it, would pass very quickly and careers and marriage and child rearing would take their toll and before they knew it they would be just like us. But I decided it would be mean spirited to tell them all that, so I stayed where I was.

This morning, when I took Manny for an early morning walk, the neighborhood seemed even more unreal than usual. Whether something was missing or something had been added I can't say; all I know is it sent a chill up my spine as a strolled through the suddenly surreal streets. My legs started to shake, my breathing became shallow. I haven't yet broken out in hives, but I'm guessing it's only a matter of time. Maybe I'm just allergic to this place.

It made me want to go downtown again, soon. Where change happens so regularly nobody even notices. Where the restaurants and the streets and the people form an erratic mosaic, and slight changes in the atmosphere don't shake everything up. Real? Who knows. But it's not here.

So Many Men

I've been a bit of a slut the past few days, snuggling up every night on the couch with two of the tastiest men I know. I have yet to meet a man on a dating site who can come close to satisfying my basest urges the way Ben and Jerry can.

Yesterday, as I slurped contentedly on a delectable mix of flavors, message alerts from from the Jewish dating site were popping up on my Blackberry faster than I could lick up the stray drops. I had inadvertently failed to log off after checking out the last bunch, and activity tends to pick up when they see you are online. It's too hard to access them on my little smart phone, though, and there was no way I was going to risk missing out on one bite of Ben or Jerry to leave the room and check out the eligible bachelors in hot pursuit on a Friday night.

Actually, I kind of forgot about all the cyber suitors, being so wrapped up in the comforting icy embrace of the hunks from Vermont and all, and went to bed still basking in the glow of yet another evening with my two best guys. Naturally, when you spend half the day alternating between slurps of ice cream and drawn out naps on the couch, you tend to be wide awake in the middle of the night, so I decided to see if the "real" man of my dreams had tried to reach me.

Among others, there were flirty little emails from an adorable thirty-seven year old, a hot looking forty-three year old from New York (good to keep in mind for my next visit), a guy my age from Tel Aviv who, I could tell, has never seen a stick of deodorant, another guy my age who emails me every night and hasn't yet figured out my lack of response is not accidental, and two guys who only wanted to know if I write about men in my blog. "Only if they're assholes," I replied. I'm guessing I can scratch the two of them off my list.

I didn't respond to anyone else, although I was tempted to pursue an exchange with the guy who has chosen Jamesbond as his screen name. It was tough, but I resisted the urge. Which leaves me in a bit of a quandary. I am officially out of Ben and Jerry's, having polished off the last of the four pints I purchased earlier in the week. And, since I'm out anyway, I made a vow to myself that I would not spend tonight, Saturday night, sitting on the couch eating ice cream.

I suppose I'll just sort of fail to log off the dating site, and hope for the best when I return home from work this afternoon. Otherwise -- well, promises are made to be broken. It's off to the grocery store.

Once is Enough

It's happened again. I allowed a guy in whom I had about as much interest as I do in Lindsay Lohan's prison schedule to dump me first.

Don't get me wrong. This one was a catch. He is divorced, employed, and breathing, thereby satisfying all the requirements on my "Potential Life Partner Checklist." He even claimed to be heterosexual -- not a requirement for me but certainly a strong factor to be considered -- and he kept telling me how smart and funny I am, which is not as good as telling me I'm sizzling hot but is better than some of the words my husband has used to describe me.

Bottom line: it's summer, the days are long, and I need a diversion. Heck, I've stocked up on new sundresses and calf-enhancing wedges, so why not go out on a few dinners. I am no doubt the unrivaled queen of the first date, which is always fairly easy to come by. But by the time date number two rolls around, my latest potential life partner -- no matter how much of a loser he is -- always seems to come to his senses before I do and blow me off. And it's always a relief, but ouch just the same.

Back to cyber dating sites, I suppose, to search for someone with a bit more staying power. There are, however, several benefits to my uncanny ability to push away or turn off or maybe even scare off every eligible, breathing suitor before either of us gets in too deep (and by that I mean a second date). It's great for my budget. If my dates are always "firsts," I never have to take out my wallet and even pretend to offer up my share. Sex is out of the question for me without the intimacy of at least one repeat engagement, so I rarely have to shave my legs. And the best thing is I can wear the same favorite outfit every time (although it hasn't occurred to me yet that maybe that outfit isn't working; I'm just assuming it's my personality).

This latest guy was nice enough, although I seemed to make him nervous. Or maybe he always had that funny twitch, but I don't remember seeing it at first. He billed himself as devoid of bullshit, which seemed to be true during our meeting, but canceling a Friday night dinner because of sudden work commitments made me kind of skeptical. Call me crazy. He said he'd call me later to reschedule; I told him it wasn't necessary.

I'm tossing my favorite sundress in the wash so I'll be ready at a moment's notice for the next first date.

Lady Lucky

I'm feelin' lucky.

Fearsome storms moved through the neighborhood last night, sending us all to cower in basements and wonder what damage would await us when we dared to ascend to street level. Even from our subterranean shelters, we could hear the howling winds and the pelting sheets of rain; the dark cloud that has been following me around these past few months had broadened its target, sweeping up my neighbors in its wrath. More collateral damage. Yes, I am self absorbed enough to feel that a random cloudburst is really all about me.

As it turns out, the damage wasn't as bad as I had imagined. Sure, my neighbors' tree snapped in half and crushed a portion of my fence; sure, my entire street looked like a war zone, with branches and entire trees and recycling bins flung everywhere; and yes, I found a roof shingle or two on my front lawn, and they look remarkably similar to the ones on my own roof.

But I'm counting my blessings. My daughter's flight had arrived in plenty of time to avoid the virtual halt in air traffic. I had arrived home with Manny from our stroll around the nearby duck pond a good ten minutes before the storm arrived (thanks to Manny's keen sixth sense, which I suppose is now just his fifth sense, but, whatever the case, it is keen and he knew trouble was imminent). I am a card carrying procrastinator, so my garbage and recycling bins had not yet made it out to the curb. The bird shit on my deck chairs that I've been meaning to hose off (if I could find a hose) was completely washed away by the torrents. And we all lived to tell the tale -- not just me and my family members, but the other poor innocent bystanders caught in the path of my dark cloud.

My good luck followed me into today. Driving home from work with my top down, I spotted a single rain drop on my windshield. Shit. As soon as I could, I pulled off into a gas station so I could put up the top. Seconds later, as I sat dry (and rather smug) in my car, it started to pour. Ooh, how I loved that rain.

Life is good.

Ye God and Little Pishes

There is a God, and she has taken time away from her busy schedule to save me from my own recklessness.

Okay, she hasn't wasted much time lately protecting me from minor catastrophes beyond my control, but she somehow got wind of the fact that I am contemplating a new puppy. This, of all things, got her attention.

Last night, after allowing a full day's worth of images of yellow lab puppies capture my imagination, God appeared to me, like a vision. Well, not exactly a vision so much as a morbidly obese blind and morose puggle who is, justifiably, wallowing in a bit of self pity. I get it. He's lost his best friend, his eyesight, and his lusty penchant for incessant cuddling and sloppy kisses. Everyone keeps telling me he needs a new buddy, of the four-legged variety, and who am I to not listen to everybody.

So I've been fantasizing, not only about yellow lab puppies, but about boxer puppies and golden retriever puppies and, yes, even puggle puppies, and when I weigh the pros and cons I conveniently forget some of the cons. Like all of them. Enter God.

Last night, after toppling his food bin and helping himself to a little snack, Manny spent a good few hours as I tried to fall asleep whimpering (so I let him out) and pretty much just bumping into things (which had me searching for a baseball bat as I wondered whether there was actually somebody else wandering around in the house). Finally, he stopped, shimmied his fat ass up onto my bed, and spent a good half hour loudly slurping and sucking away at a rawhide bone he had managed to ferret out with his keen beagle nose.

He eventually tired of the bone, hopped gracelessly off the bed and set about to tormenting me some more. No, what I heard was not water running in the bathroom. What I heard was Manny peeing on my bedroom carpet, which already looks like an abstract painting done in pale yellow on beige. Particularly discouraging since he is no longer on the steroids that failed to cure his blindness but were very effective in making him pee like a racehorse. Note to self: check the medicine cabinet.

Well, Manny finally fell mercifully quiet, and I seem to recall falling asleep to the soothing rhythmic sound of his congested snoring. Okay, maybe I would chalk it up to the extra helping of dinner. Images of yellow lab puppies and boxer puppies and golden retriever puppies and, yes, even puggle puppies began to dance into my dreams.

Enter God, again. In the morning, I came downstairs to a huge puddle of pee in the family room, and a pile (actually several piles) of poop the size of Montana on the floor of my office. If Manny is trying to convince me to get him a friend, he is going about it the wrong way.

Thank you God.

To Her, With Love

The first day of summer camp has arrived again, as usual before I ever found the time to go through the bin full of stuff from last summer that still sits in the garage.

At least my daughter had no trouble finding anything. Her comforter, still in the dry cleaning bag. Her shower supplies, leftover stationery, enormous duffel bags I had hung inside out on hooks so they could air out for a few (365) days. Yep, it was all there, in the garage, ready to go at a moment's notice.

My only role in the camp preparation -- other than repeatedly saying "check the garage" -- was to compose the three letters that must tide her over until post-departure mail begins to arrive. Ever the procrastinator, I put it all off until the last minute, finding it difficult to write letters telling my daughter how much I missed her when she was only in the next room. Or writing that she should have fun at camp when, (a) I could just tell her, and (b) isn't that just painfully obvious? Like I'm going to tell her she should be miserable?

But, as in past years, not wanting to be outdone by all the good mothers who have sent letters that will be awaiting their daughters on their cots, I dug up some suitable correspondence materials this morning and started writing. At least I was able to get rid of some old holiday cards and thank you notes that just sit around taking up space. Maybe I should store them in the garage.

Anyway, I dashed off three short notes, not one of which said anything compelling (other than "Merry Christmas" or "Thank you for your thoughtfulness"). There are no new stories to entertain her with yet, there is no need yet to tell her I miss her. All I could really come up with was how much I love her, love being her housemate, her some time confidante, her mom.

And I guess you can never say those things too many times, especially when they come straight from the heart.

Twelve Steps to Success

A male acquaintance told me the other day that people worship their yoga teachers. Something about an aura.

I cannot believe I have yet to exploit this phenomenon, abandoning computer dating sites in favor of automatically becoming the object of affection for thousands. Just by virtue of wearing spandex and touting the benefits of spiritual awareness and being present. I've already got several fantasies going: Nice downward dog, sir, but let me demonstrate again so you can see it from the rear; excuse me sir, do you think this warrior pose makes my ass look fat; young man, do you mind if I adjust your stance a bit? Oy, I'm already in a sweat.

Yes, I can see how expanding my yoga teaching career beyond my loyal cadre of like-minded middle aged women could expand my chances for finding the man of my dreams. But it seems like an awful lot of work. Another male acquaintance recently told me that the best place to meet women is AA meetings.After all, where would one find so many folks whose self-esteem is so low they'd be willing to date even the worst mess? Now we're talkin'; there's something I might want to exploit.

Nobody needs to know that my addictions have never revolved around alcohol. After all, it should be quite sufficient to be able to demonstrate that I am a lifelong fuck-up, that my past behavior is something that forever haunts me, something that can define the rest of my days if I let it. Screw being present and living in the moment; wallowing in past failures and acknowledging that I will always be one slip-up away from repeating them in the future certainly seems like less work than maintaining a lithe physique and squeezing into spandex and pretending to "be present." Yes, AA meetings are definitely something to explore.

As a yoga instructor, you're expected to live up to some physical and spiritual ideal. As an AA participant, as I see it anyway, the physical and spiritual ideal is much more attainable; I defy anyone to tell me it's difficult to portray yourself as the sorriest, drooling, impaired individual in the room. The worse your story, the more appealing you are. Sign me up!

In the world outside an AA meeting, in the world of pristine yoga studios and cut throat computer dating and pressure to strive for perfection, the odds are against most of us. You start unloading your baggage out there and you can be pretty darn sure the potential suitors are going to send you packing.

Table For Two

About a month before my father died, I brought my three children to New York to visit him one last time. It was Passover, and I was determined to have him with us as we conducted our version of a Seder, which, even under the best of circumstances, was shamefully brief and shamelessly irreverent.

He knew his time was limited -- otherwise he never would have asked me to bring his grandchildren, never would have suggested anything that might inconvenience us -- and he quickly became too ill to sit at the table. I suppose I, too, knew his time was limited, but that wasn't going to keep me from having him participate. I didn't really see the point of having a Seder at all if he couldn't be there.

And so, after he recovered from some uncontrollable shaking and whatever else happens when your body betrays you, I dragged the kids and their chairs into the bedroom so we could carry on with a ritual that had somehow taken on a somewhat baffling importance. I don't think my dad even realized we were in the room with him, he was that sick.

It's a weird feeling of deja vu to be back in New York, thirteen years later, helping my mother accomplish the simplest tasks. It stirs up all kinds of memories, both good and bad. Bad, because I recall vividly how the cancer was beating the life out of my father; good, because he was still alive, and I had not yet known what it feels like to lose a parent, to feel as if your legs had been cut off at the knees. I miss just having him here. And so it is that those feelings of loss are being stirred up, as I anticipate missing my mother one day.

Barring unforeseen circumstances, she will recover, but the snail's pace of that recovery is a potent reminder of her advanced age. Spending time with her as she struggles through her daily rituals, I have become acutely aware not only of the toll the accident took on her but of the permanent damage that has been done by the ravages of time. She is old. My mother was not made to be old.

There are no holidays requiring celebration in June, no ancient rituals to be followed. But my mother and I have our own age old rituals, like sitting together over a cup of coffee in the morning, and I'll be damned if she's not going to hobble over there to join me. She gets it, and no matter what it takes, she shows up at the table.

Flying From One Cuckoo's Nest to Another: The Adventures of Nurse Ratched

My lower back is killing me, but if I had to choose sympathy pains, I'd definitely go with the temporary incapacitation of back pain over permanent blindness -- no offense to Manny. So off I go today, very real (and quite excruciating) sympathy pains notwithstanding, to New York to accompany my mother to an orthopedist appointment (and play buffer between her and her full time home health care aide). The fun just never ends.

Back to Manny. I've been accommodating his every whim, with his being blind and losing his best buddy and all. I've allowed myself to forget his criminal tendencies, making allowances for all the peeing and pooping in the house and the whining because, frankly, I would not want to be in his paws. But could it be that this canine pain in the ass (ooh, but he's so cute) is playing me? Could it be that he can actually see?

I've had my suspicions, in spite of his frequent head on collisions with walls and people. Could a blind man really manage to get up on a table by himself and topple an entire grocery bag of food? Could a blind man locate an airtight container of kibble and remove the lid and help himself to a little snack? Could a blind man turn his gaze directly toward a fetching golden retriever strolling across the street and down the block, bark, and take off in an effort to say hello? And how many pairs of clean underwear can one blind man seek out and destroy? I'm skeptical.

Heck, maybe mom is faking it too, just to get me to visit more. I doubt it though; she hasn't been able to slip into a St. John suit or her Chanel flats for weeks, much less get her hair done. Nope, definitely not faking it!

This caretaking thing is for the birds, especially for someone who is about as inclined toward nurturing others as your average clerk at the Department of Motor Vehicles. Do you think it would be rude to ask my mom to put down the darn walker and rub my back?

Power of the Purse

I think I heard my daughter correctly, even though the Rome to deep dark suburbia cell phone connection was a bit fuzzy. She said she bought us matching purses (I get first dibs on color), and she's calling them our "we're going out and we're not going to let anybody make us feel bad purses." Or something to that effect.

Well I'm not sure a purse -- even if it's constructed of pure Italian leather -- has that kind of power and influence, but I'm all for it. I envision myself holding up the magical accessory at arms length, like cloves of garlic to a vampire, to ward off all manner of evil-spiritedness. I'm going to look a little silly carrying an evening clutch to the curb when I go to retrieve the mail, but you just never know when someone who doesn't have your best interests at heart might swing by.

Unfortunately, I won't have the purse in time for my visit to New York City tomorrow to see my mother. It's not that she doesn't have my best interests at heart (theoretically), but she is angry, frustrated, and in a lot of pain and I know she will be unable to resist taking it out on me in subtle ways. I'm bracing myself for the onslaught, steeling myself to the prospect of her weeping about my living far away. It's been over twenty-five years since I moved out here, but she never misses an opportunity to punish me for the original sin.

I suppose I can make it another week without my miracle purse, although the idea of it is so enticing I'm thinking of testing the hidden powers of one I already own. I'm going to start with the Chanel -- I certainly paid enough for it. I'm going to take it to lunch with me, and if anyone so much as looks at me sideways I'm going to count on it to ward off the bad feelings. Failing that, I can always grab it by its weighty strap and swing it against the offender's head. Which of course I wouldn't really do, but it doesn't hurt to dream.

Come to think of it, I get what my daughter is saying about my gift from Rome. There is nothing like a new purse -- or a brand new pair of shoes, or maybe a new outfit -- to make all the bad stuff go away. At least for a few hours.

Speaking Softly With a Big Stick

The latest picture to have surfaced of esteemed Congressman Anthony Weiner has him shirtless in a gym, wearing just a towel around his waist and grabbing his crotch. I think he's trying to tell us something.

Well, we all know there are more effective ways of holding up a towel, and there are certainly more effective ways of communicating ones needs, but Weiner's weiner seems to have achieved a level of versatility that makes it the best multitasker ever. It speaks, it demonstrates, it virtually screams Look at me! It's a penis on steroids, a member that belongs nowhere but seems to pop up everywhere, getting itself heard.

Manny is struggling to be heard these days. He has forgotten how to bark. Ever since Leo disappeared -- inexplicably, as far as Manny is concerned -- he is silent. He was never much of a barker, but as long as Leo was doing it, he'd chime in. At passersby, when he needed to go out, when I was a little late getting breakfast in the bowls. Now blind, Manny is unaware of passersby, he pees on the kitchen floor to let me know he recently needed to go out, and he musters up an almost inaudible squeak when he's hungry. I never thought I'd miss the barking, but barking is power, and barking is information. I'm as lost without the noise as Manny is without his mentor.

Maybe Manny can take a page from Weiner's book, use his penis to accomplish what simple words cannot express. Maybe he can learn to just grab onto it when he needs to pee, lick it when he's hungry, wave it around when someone strolls by. Like Weiner's weiner, it could speak volumes, if only Manny would just use his imagination.

It's all about finding your voice, and if somebody wants to talk with his penis, who are we to judge? There's certainly no ambiguity in the messages conveyed by Weiner's infamous weiner, and it's become a voice that's easily recognizable. Naturally his constituents are reluctant to call for his resignation; his very capable and articulate penis has pretty much put them on the map.

Manny managed to emit a tentative bark yesterday, and I was able to accommodate his wishes (which involved getting his fat ass up on the bed) promptly. If he knew how well I understand his simple vocalizations, he could avoid the whole weiner-speak concept indefinitely. As enticing as it might be for a woman to receive messages from a penis, this woman has had to put up with enough dicks lately.

I certainly hope Manny continues to massage his vocal chords rather than, well, you know. A little barking here and there would be music to my ears.

Milfs and Cookies

I did not particularly enjoy waking up this morning feeling as if someone had taken a hammer to my head and stuffed a wad of cotton in my mouth. Okay, I'm exaggerating. Two thirty a.m. doesn't really count as morning, and "waking up" implies some sort of workable consciousness, which a grown woman lying sprawled across the couch in her clothes probably does not possess.

At least I didn't have to worry about sleeping through my alarm and failing to pick my daughter up from an all night charity event at the high school at six. Two diet cokes and several caffeine laden Excedrins later, I managed to extract myself from my jeans and make my way up to bed, where I spent the next several hours watching the clock and wondering how people do this on a regular basis. A hangover is not all it's cracked up to be.

Eventually, I checked my email and thought I must be hallucinating. First, there was the weekly (or is it monthly?) teaser from a relatively new local magazine, highlighting a must-read article about an alleged controversy over the word "milf." Right after it, there was a cyberdating email from some buff looking thirty-year-old asking me if I'd like to chat. An odd coincidence, don't you think?

Anyway, I made sure I didn't go anywhere near a mirror so I could revel for at least a short time in what must be my "woman of a certain age beauty," and I indulged myself in a few I still got it self-satisfied smirks. I briefly considered reading my nubile admirer's profile, but I decided I didn't really have the stomach for checking out the stats of someone young enough to be my child.

So I clicked on the article about milfs, or, rather, the arguably offensive nature of the acronym. (If you don't know what it stands for, Google it; I'm way too classy to use that kind of language here.) Apparently, some women are appalled at the idea of being labeled something so vulgar, as the term, if taken literally, connotes some young guy's fantasy of, um, banging somebody else's mom. Frankly, I think it's downright sweet. I'll take "milf" any day, especially if it means prolonging my own fantasies of eternal youth just a bit longer.

But there are some aspects of youth on which I'll happily take a pass, like wasting an entire Sunday recovering from the alcohol abuse of Saturday night. There are lots of young men out there on a milf hunt, and I'm perfectly happy to get caught in the crosshairs (as long as they don't pull any triggers).

Dawn in Suburbia

This morning, I read about a study that found too much coffee adds to the voices in your head. Just what I need.

Maybe that's why I got a haircut yesterday. I hadn't planned on it, but suddenly I found myself sitting in the chair that had just been occupied by my daughter, puzzled as I watched my unruly locks falling in clumps to the floor. The din in my head must have been loud; I think I mistakenly heard the voices screaming cut it off, realizing only after it was too late to salvage my pony tail that they were simply imploring me to cut it out.

Oh well; it's just hair. I can't go back, can't glue it back on. Which brings me to the wonderful movie I saw last night -- Midnight in Paris. Say what you want about Woody Allen, but he certainly knows how to hit the nail on the head of the human condition. Or maybe its just the human condition of people who went to Midwood High School in Brooklyn (I wonder if Woody goes around bragging that Jill Ocean went there too), we dreamers who grew up in cramped apartments wondering what it would feel like to have room to run.

Midnight is, in a nutshell, about idealizing a place and a time, one that has already passed. I could certainly see the appeal of Paris at midnight in the twenties, the place and time to which Owen Wilson repeatedly traveled in the movie (shocking, I know, given the title). Heck, if I had my druthers (whatever the hell those are) I'd travel back to last Tuesday in Podunk and be certain I'd hit the jackpot. But there's no time like the present and no place like home -- for better or for worse -- and I'm guessing I might as well make the best of it. I don't foresee any trips back in time or across the pond any time soon.

So here I'll stay in deep dark suburbia in 2011, with my chopped up hair and my blind, depressed dog and my broken mother and my as yet unresolved divorce and my uncertain future. Wait, doesn't everybody have an uncertain future? And, though I'm not sure of many things, I'm fairly certain my mother's bones will heal and my hair will grow back. Who knows? Manny might even regain his sight and my life may be free of attorneys, as my husband has promised, by Labor Day.

I'm going to start listening more carefully to the voices. This morning, I got an extra large coffee, hoping those voices will rise above the din and some useful instructions will come through loud and clear. By noon, if I play my Starbucks card right and infuse enough caffeine into my bloodstream, I will have so many conversations going in my head I won't have time to daydream about time travel, or travel of any other kind.

I'm just going to have to cut it out.

The Wheels of Justice

My new road bike gives me more than just good exercise.

Up until a week ago, I had been somewhat of a cycling amateur, pedaling away in my flip flops at a leisurely pace on my pretty blue hybrid with its fat sturdy tires and its wide padded seat and its high handlebars, which were comfortably within reach. All it was missing was the white faux wicker basket and a shrill little bell that could herald my approach with the mere flick of a thumb.

I was riding under the radar, feeling invisible as I would occasionally be overtaken by a swarm of Tour de France wannabes in their brightly colored spandex and helmets with lights affixed to the front, as if they might suddenly be called off the peloton and back into the coal mines. I could almost feel the disdain in the draft as they blew by me, hear the snickers in the dull roar of their spinning tires.

Well things have changed a bit, now that I'm out there on my sleek new vehicle with its paper thin tires and aggressively uncomfortable seat and its curved handlebars which for some reason are positioned so far in front of me I have to pedal extra hard just to keep up with them. I have barely been able to sit on my aching butt cheeks for a week, and my arms appear to have grown a few inches. I have nightmares about failing to unclip from the pedals as I try desperately to brake gently without flying over the handlebars. I have yet to figure out how to keep my helmet on straight, so my fears of stopping with my feet still stuck to the pedals are not irrational.

But, as I sit here on an icepack, I realize how content I am with my pain inflicting and terrifying new bike. When the wannabes pass me now, they take notice. I may not be wearing brightly colored spandex or a light on my forehead, but I am one of them. I am uncomfortable and I am defying death with every pedal stroke.

Screw the exercise. What I'm getting is respect!

Paw Paw Pitiful Me

I've never been much of a baker. I think it's too much of an exact science.

I've never been much of a housekeeper either. I think that's just because I'm lazy. It's not that my home is a pig sty, but it certainly boasts its share of clutter and chaos. Kind of like my head. But there are certain items in the house that achieve enough of a level of importance that I become somewhat particular about them. There are photographs that require a clear space in a place of prominence; there are clothing items that never get strewn on the floor of my closet; and there are possessions so precious I display or store them in a place where I know they will be safe from anybody else's touch.

I have yet to find that perfect place for the tasteful velour bag containing Leo's ashes and his clay paw print. I've made progress though. Yesterday, I finally moved it from a shelf in the laundry room (where, as you can imagine, I would seldom cross its path) to a shelf in my office, where I spend a considerable amount of time. But I still cannot bring myself to pull apart the drawstring and sort through the contents of the pouch.

The ashes, I'm guessing, will remain sealed within the wooden "urn" which is, in turn, sealed within some larger packaging, for quite a while. But the clay paw print needs to be baked, and I need to get around to that before the last tangible vestige I have of Leo becomes, in the summer heat and humidity, just another lump of clay.

Which brings me back to my aversion to baking, the terrifyingly exact science. As I've been known to do with cookies -- even the kind that come pre-cut into oven ready discs -- I might overcook the precious imprint, burn the edges of the phantom toe pads. Or I might undercook it, only to have it crumble into my oven mitts.

Okay, enough excuses. The truth is I don't know how I'll react when I remove the clay from the pouch. The baking is the least of my problems.

We've Come Undone. Again.

For a while, I've been entertaining ridiculous thoughts. Ridiculous even for me. My angry husband (yes, after all these months, we are still officially married, for those of you who haven't kept up) had seemingly morphed into a patient, happy-go-lucky person who was genuinely enjoying my company, and I was starting to think we could make a go of things. Or at least try.

My friends were silent but clearly skeptical; my therapist was cautioning me ever so gently to not misread the situation. My children seemed genuinely panicked as they watched what they know to be a toxic relationship start to blossom again. But, rarely one to pay much attention to reason, I began to fantasize about a life that had become unglued being glued back together, the two of us actually building upon all the hurt and betrayal to glide happily into our golden years as a wise and contented couple.

It was like being jolted awake in the middle of a good dream the other day, wanting so much to recapture unconsciousness -- just for a moment -- so I could watch my happiness unfold. No such luck. He appeared at my front door, unannounced, to tell me that he wasn't really serious when he said he could stay with our daughter this weekend so I could visit my broken mother. It would, after all, be impossible to be in Europe with ones girlfriend and in deep dark suburbia with ones child at the same time. And if a plan was to be altered to solve the dilemma, well, we all know it wasn't going to be the romantic getaway in southern Italy.

He explained that he has realized he could never make me happy, which may be true, but I have learned over the course of the last year and a half that no other person can be in charge of my happiness. That is solely up to me. I think what he really meant was that he has realized I could never make him happy. True enough. At the very least, other obligations (like offspring) make me unavailable for regular trips abroad and leisurely adult dinners and spur of the moment weekend jaunts. And the truth is, I was probably never a really a good wife, if being a good wife means always putting your husband's needs first. Even before all the nastiness and the outright betrayals, I never took care of him the way I took care of my children. I suppose I always thought he could take care of himself. My bad.

People don't change. We may both be wiser, and we certainly both have a clearer understanding of why things came undone. Unlike the hurts from our marriage, the hurts from these past weeks will fade quickly, because we no longer owe each other the kind of forthrightness and devotion we should have had before. And our friendship will no doubt resume, because, on a certain level, we both enjoy the other's company.

Gullilble's Travels

Dupe me once, shame on you. Dupe me twice, shame on me. I have no words for the subsequent dupes, the repeated manipulations that seem to catch me off guard every time, as if I was born yesterday.

If you think this sounds bitter, you should see the real post I composed for today -- the one I am locking up in the vault. Suffice it to say that yesterday was rotten but enlightening, and, after unleashing my fury in a blog post that will remain, at least temporarily, for my eyes only, I made a sincere promise to myself to never fall for bullshit again. And I plan to reward myself with a trip -- to somewhere as yet undetermined, at some time in the near future, with somebody or not -- however it works out.

Yes, your faithful but extremely beaten up Jill is going to venture out and see the world, even if it means starting out slowly. My daughter has gotten me all jacked up about a road trip to Nashville, which might just be the perfect first stop on my world tour.

Nashville is the home of country music, which means that in the course of a short weekend there I might very well pick up some song titles and lyrics that strike a chord, and I'll stand a chance of realizing I'm not the only dope out there. Who knows? There might already be a cheerful little ditty titled: He Loves Me but He's Off to Europe with Someone Else, or maybe He Went to Italy and All I Got is this Lousy Sandwich. I'm sure there are plenty of men out there who claim to love one woman while traipsing across the pond with another (I alone know several), but this chump is mad as hell and isn't going to take it anymore.

After a warm-up in Nashville, I just might consider Paris. The city of lights, the city of romance -- albeit someone else's, the city with the best bread on the planet. Nothing quite compares to walking down a quaint Parisian street while sinking your teeth violently into one of those long loaves. Oh, lighten up fellas, sometimes a baguette is just a baguette.

Yes, I'm going to pack myself up and get the hell out of Dodge -- without regret, without guilt. To paraphrase the immortal words of the little engine that could, I think I can do it.

Collars and Sense

Manny is coming to his senses. The four that still work, that is.

Still (and, I'm guessing, permanently) blind as a bat, his awareness on all other fronts has become remarkably acute. He makes his way through the house and yard with his keen snout pressed to the ground, his ears poised so he can hear me yell "Careful!" He never mastered "Down!" or "Come!" but his strong instinct for survival has given him a renewed aptitude for complex vocabulary. He feels his away along uncharted paths, using his front paw as a blind man might use a cane, and, well, as for taste, he'll eat pretty much anything that isn't nailed down, so no worries there.

Now that he appears to be adjusting to his new, somewhat impaired existence, I've decided it's time to revisit the issue of his diet. He has suffered so much significant loss in the past month -- Leo, his eyesight -- that I haven't had the heart to yank the treats. But the steroids he's taking in a futile attempt to restore his sight are making him fatter than ever, and the last thing I need is a blind, incontinent dog with diabetes and other weight-related illnesses. Even Manny, with his heightened senses, will be stymied by heart disease.

So, yesterday, I bought about five pounds of frozen green beans. Like I said, Manny's not too picky in the taste department; heck, a guy who thinks the crotches of gently worn panties are a delicacy can't balk at a vegetable. Especially if he can't even see it's green.

But then came the news from Europe, that they're fairly certain the recent deadly e coli outbreak resulted from contaminated German vegetable sprouts. I realize my frozen Bird's Eye veggies are probably not Deutsche beans, but they are veggies all the same, and veggies are susceptible to all sorts of bacteria -- not to mention lethal chemicals. I started to rethink Manny's diet, weighing the risk of contamination against the risk of a bit (okay, a lot) of extra weight. I don't know much, but I am almost positive that nobody has ever died from contaminated chocolate. (Yes, I know dogs should not eat chocolate; I only raise it as an example.)

Then, of course, there's the issue of Manny, um, eliminating waste in the house. It's been two whole days since his last accident, and I fear that a diet high in green beans might loosen things up a bit. Who needs that shit (so to speak)?

Everything in moderation, I suppose. A few beans might do Manny some good, but an occasional chewy bone will put a smile on his little face, and, for a guy who's hit such a rough patch, that just seems to make good sense.

Good Shit?

Long before I put my considerable and dubious talents to use as a daily blogger, I entertained dreams of becoming a real writer. You know, someone who doesn't just give it away for free.

So, for several summers, I packed up my old laptop and a wardrobe full of overalls and shitkickers and drove out to the annual writers' festival at the University of Iowa. I don't remember much about the classes I took, but I do remember eating in some surprisingly good restaurants in Iowa City and meeting a lot of interesting people. And, I remember quite vividly the overwhelming smell of manure as I crossed the Mississippi in the oppressive summer heat into the farmlands of our country's breadbasket. Makes ya kind of think twice about having that sandwich.

Anyway, as I spent a typical loser Saturday evening yesterday alternating between naps on the couch and brief forays into piles of stifling clutter, I found notebooks filled with scribbles from what I now think of as my "Great Plains Period." Okay, I really think of it as the "Cow Shit Era," but that just sounds so gosh darn negative.

As I said, I don't remember much about the classes I took, but I do remember they all had to do with fiction writing. Why, then, when I flipped haphazardly through the pages of my notebooks did I find nothing but stories about flailing marriages, toxic mothers, and friends dying of breast cancer? No wonder I failed miserably; I was stuck on reality, which for me has always been at least as strange as your average fiction, but, for what it's worth, not strange enough.

In a month, it will be a year since I started blogging, sharing true stories of a flailing marriage, a toxic mother, a friend dying of breast cancer, and an occasional disastrous date. I suppose I have not come very far. Except that I have stuck with it, rarely missing a day, and -- not counting the clutter in my head -- I have not accumulated much in the way of clutter that actually encroaches on my living space. These on line posts will not need to end up in the recycling bin with the "cow shit" from my Iowa notebooks, although I may very well, in a few years, come up with an equally unflattering name with which to describe my blogging period.

All good things must end, but, well, I'll need to define good before I decide to end my blog. It's certainly been good for me, a bit of therapy in the wee hours of the morning before I struggle to face the day. But good in terms of quality? That's debatable. I've gone back to read some of my musings only a few times, but the cringe factor on those occasions was pretty high.

I still entertain those dreams of becoming a real writer -- you know, someone who doesn't just give it away for free. But this space has become my friend, my great love, my "happy place." For a little while longer, I might just keep faking it.

Let a Smile Be Your Umbrella Coverage

I'm beginning to think all the upbeat insurance commercials on television are a bit misleading. Yesterday, I spoke to three different insurance agents, from three different companies, and not one of them expressed all that much interest in kicking in for my mother's injuries. Jeez, nobody even sang me a little ditty.

I was at the airport seeing my daughter and her friends off to Europe when I spoke to Pat from Fly by Night Insurance Company. As I tried to comprehend why the insured's name and policy number were somehow insufficient to enable Pat to access the information I sought (taxis have a lot of accidents, he explained), I gazed longingly at my daughter's suitcase, wondering how I could manage to slip into it. Usually, she travels with a bag that could easily fit a family of four, but this time she must have anticipated my fantasies and went with something compact. Ungrateful child.

Happily, she arrived safely, first in Paris, then in Prague. I didn't hear the middle-of-the-night texts, even though my phone was next to my bed. For Paris, at 2:30, the vibrations were drowned out by the sound of Manny downstairs tinkling a great lake onto the wood floor. For Prague, at 5:30, I was downstairs wrapping Manny's prednizone pills in peanut butter -- the very pills that cause him to turn my house into his urinal.

But really, things are lookin' up for June. Today, my mother will be sent home from the hospital with a full time health care aide. Apparently, she (my mother) is demanding that the poor unsuspecting aide not set foot in her kitchen. It's not that she wants her to starve (although my guess is the aide will, in my mother's opinion, be a fat disgusting pig); she's willing to arrange for take-out. My mother's kitchen, a shrine with its ice cream parlor chairs and miniature jars of food and one pot, one pan, and one semi-sharp knife, is a place not to be messed with. I don't have the heart to tell her I saw a roach in the sink when I visited.

But this was a post about insurance companies, wasn't it? By the time my mother gets through with what I am predicting will be a revolving door of health aides, I will be offering money to Medicare and Fly by Night and all the others just to keep them from suing us.

Maybe I should start setting my sights on July.

A Dog's Whispers

As rotund as Manny is, he cannot fill the empty space left by Leo. I say that not to disparage in any way Manny's personality or metaphysical presence; his stout frame simply does not fill the space on the landing where Leo liked to park himself and keep an eye on just about everything.

Let's face it, Manny cannot see, so his choice of the landing for a resting spot last night had little to do with keeping watch. He's still a bit wary of the stairs, so his choice of the landing clearly had nothing to do with physical comfort. The spot on the landing is, for all of us, hallowed ground, and I believe Manny chose it solely so he could feel close to his best buddy, the guy who led him through life even when his eyes were working.

Manny is adjusting slowly to all his losses. We had hoped, initially, that his blindness was psychosomatic -- if he couldn't see Leo, he just wouldn't see anything -- but as he shows small signs of returning to "himself," he shows no signs of sight. He will blink occasionally when we wave our hands in front of his eyes, but for the most part he doesn't react. He walks tentatively, lifting his front leg higher (sometimes several times) as he approaches what he anticipates to be a step up. He is constantly bumping into things face on, and has taken a few embarrassing dives into the bushes off the front stoop.

But his tail wags more vigorously each day, and his criminal mind has once again begun to function at a high level. My daughters and I returned last night from dinner to find the remains of a bag of veggie chips strewn across the pantry floor. We applauded his naughtiness, though we were puzzled at his choice of such a sensible snack. Maybe he's taking his diet seriously. Upstairs, my daughter proudly held up the remains of two pairs of underpants, which Manny had meticulously de-crotched. Again, we applauded, thrilled that our Manny appeared to be returning to normal.

June has had a somewhat auspicious beginning, at least on the Manny front. Maybe he can sniff Leo's ashes, which I went to retrieve on June 1st, and which now sit, in an urn in a box in a velvet bag, in the laundry room. I still cannot bring myself to open the package; the mere weight of it sent me into a fit of hysterics outside the veterinary hospital.

But Manny seems to be taking some comfort from Leo's return to the house, in whatever form. His teacher, his mentor, his best bud, his partner in crime is back, and for that I am grateful.

Standard Deviations

The other night, a Jewess, a Catholic woman, and another Jewess walked into a bar. Wait, let me rephrase that so it doesn't sound like a cheap ethnic joke. What do a plastic surgeon, an obstetrician in a Catholic neighborhood, and a Shabbos elevator have in common? I think that's better, no?

Anyway, back to the bar. The Catholic woman was regaling the two Jewesses with tales of her childhood, and had them both shaking their heads when she explained her mom had given birth to six children in seven years. Naturally, the law of averages being universal and all, one of the six had died fairly young. The rest, it seems, have grown into adulthood and maintained close, loving relationships with each other. Sometimes, there are exceptions to the law of averages.

Blah, blah, blah. She went on with the stories, but the two Jewesses were still stuck on the concept of giving birth to six children in seven years. Or even giving birth to six children at all. One finally chimed in, asking what miracle intervened to stop the madness before number seven was in the oven.

"The doctor loved my mother," said the Catholic woman, "and he loved all of us." She added the last part, I think, to clarify that this was a pure kind of love. The devout Catholic woman who was cranking out children faster than carburetors on an assembly line was not about to break any other commandments, even if the factory was about to close.

"And?" The two Jewesses were confused.

"And, after number six was born, he told her she had a bunch of cancerous growths and gave her a hysterectomy."

"So she had cancer?"

"No. He just said she did so he could take out her uterus."

The Jewesses were amazed. One finally found a way to understand how a doctor would risk malpractice and maybe a defrocking and perform unnecessary surgery when he could have just prescribed a diaphragm. "It's like the Catholic version of the deviated septum!"

"Exactly!" It's so nice when people of different faiths can find some common ground, even when it involves a bit of self deception. I suppose, every once in a while, we all depend on someone else to push the buttons on our Shabbos elevator. How else do you get anywhere?

A Fork on the Road

Sarah Palin and Donald Trump had dinner together last night in New York. What's with their hair?

Okay, forget about the hair. Sarah thinks she can see Russia from Juneau, and the Donald thought the "birther" issue would gain him support for his bid for the presidency. Okay, forget about that nonsense too. There are a lot of reasons I think Sarah should stick to huntin' bears and the Donald should stick to buildin' buildings, but just when I thought I could not think less of either one of them, I saw an appalling picture of the two of them in a pizza joint in New York City.

Yep, geography confusion and stupid political issues aside, who the hell eats New York pizza with a knife and fork? Really. New York pizza. With a knife and fork. How out of touch can a person be? At least Sarah has an excuse; she probably doesn't get the opportunity to shoot down many pizzas up there in the tundra, so how could she know? But the Donald? I passed at least ten buildings with his name emblazoned on the marquee as I wandered through midtown Manhattan this past weekend, and no true New Yorker, no matter how wealthy, eats at Le Cirque every night. There's hardly a law against pizza in the penthouse.

As anyone who knows anything knows, there is only one way to eat a slice of New York pizza (which is, by the way, the only kind of pizza worthy of being called "pizza"); you fold the big triangle (never a square) in half, you let the abundant grease drip off onto a single ply paper napkin, and you shovel it into your gaping mouth with great speed and efficiency so that none of the excess grease ends up on your lap. Simple. Elegant. Immutable.

Would I make an appearance on "The Apprentice" without looking sharp and businesslike? Would I go to Alaska without a coat? I don't know whether it's arrogance or ignorance, but these two potential leaders of the free world (the Donald can always change his mind if it looks like a good deal) can't even figure out the nuances of their own country. And as far as I know, they were both born here.

And let's face it: there's just no excuse for that hair.