HALLO! Froehlicher Samstag, internet denizens.

"Woody Allen talks of Spain, threesomes at Cannes" reads one of Yahoo's fantastic headlines today, ever-bizarre they. I know I'm not the only person who thought of Don Giovanni readin that. Madamina, il catalogo è questo!!!

(My fav Yahoo headline last month? "Despite Conan O'Brien's successor and [Gary] Coleman's divorce, Tom Cruise will return to "Oprah." Despite? Huh?)

nekkidsentiment: Skip and I've been having important, fun, crucial phone conversations for 20 years of our life. A few months shy of 20 years, officially, in fact. This one clocked in at a usual 1-1/2 hrs and ended on my side, as if often does (can't speak for her), with one little big idea I wouldn't have gotten to without the conversation prior. This time it was the fact that although the tyranny and confusion of Western romantic ideals suck (what else can you talk about when the Sexo en la ciudad movie is about to come out, Pretty Woman is on cable), we don't have anything to replace it yet. And we don't. I do love my Skip, tho. Her blog will be up n running again soon; keep an eye out on the blogroll.

Domestic news: I am happy to note that the muse has alighted again. I am sorry, however, to announce that it's in the form of bad erotic poetry. I feel the urge to name the muse, though. I think I will call her...Ericajongia Harlequenia Freelancia Dorkia Malorkia von Literary Cliche und Hyperbole. And buy her some clothes.

I am 41. There is a big surge of us women who are between the ages of (say) shopping without too much irony at Forever 21 and not being surprised or shocked at getting AARP mailings. But suddenly the nomenclature is....really off. Are we all MILFs? Why must it be...MILF? So wrong, so inaccurate, so many ways. Cougars? Am I a cougar? Why is an enormous section of the female population suddenly so ill-defined that these inaccurate labels stick? I find myself lazily reaching for the terms and that's so bad! Part of the meaning they carry defines what's unusual about our generation, though...that's part of the problem, why they continue. Most of my friends (in some variation) aren't mothers, are hot by conventional standards, do date younger men. What we are, though..I dunno. A lot. Catchphrases. Sound bites. Oh my. Weird to experience the wrong ones flirting with permanence.

I continue to find the breathless Ellen marriage talk -- on one cynical hollywoodbabylon level -- completely ridiculous. Let's see...a high-powered Hollywood celebrity has involved themself with (yet another) blonde (and increasingly) younger actress. OH MY GOD STOP THE PRESSES. I find it funny that due to the phase we're still in with accepting LBGT relationships that Ellens' get all sanctified. Or Melissa Etheridge's. Hello...oldest story in Hollywood. Reminds me of the stuff the old butler says in the Rock Hudson sequences in Further Tales of the City.

Upcoming essay: buying clothes as a large woman when you can NEVER TRY ANYTHING ON FIRST. Imagine if you could never try anything on before you buy it. Imagine how you'd feel after a solid five years of it.

Love from the land of constant up-building--