It's called birth control, people

So now there's a rumor that Gisele Bundchen, Tom Brady's new girlfriend (they started dating in January, as I understand it, although now there's some back-dating going on, perhaps to give the relationship some weight in light of recent revelations), may be pregnant, too. "Too?" you ask, if you've been under a rock. Yes, "too," because Bridget Moynihan (SO pretty!) is "more than 3 months" pregnant with Mr. Brady's first child -- conceived, apparently, during the death throes of his three-and-a-half-year long relationship with Ms. Moynihan. She's 36 or so, and wealthy, and stable, apart from not seeming to know where babies come from (which goes double for Tom, it may turn out), so while I applaud her decision to have what will surely be a healthy and fabulous baby, it makes me wonder whether all these famous people skipped school those days in Health class when we learned where babies come from.

All these accidental pregnancies, particularly in people who can't even stick out a relationship together, just seem kind of irresponsible to me. I'm not saying you have to be married to have kids, but some sort of commitment to the central pair who make the baby suggests that life will be more stable for the actual child, to me. That being said, I do think the trend of aging women adopting on their own, without waiting for Prince Charming's arrival, is a good one: more good homes for kids needing them is a nice shift.

I can't do it....

I am such a wienie. I wanted to title this post "I slept with Terrence Howard," but just couldn't do it. I was going to go for "funny," because when I flew to Newark on the red-eye Friday, I was just two rows behind Terrence, in the same seat. And there was sleeping on the plane. But then I thought it would be a little icky to title it that, since I'm not a skanky ho and he's .... Oh, wait, he is kind of a playah, so maybe that's where the oog factor came in: I don't want anyone to think it might be true, failing to read further!

Anyway, 26 hours in New Jersey -- whew. Celebrated Terry's birthday last night with the whole family except Dad, which was nice. Wait: clarification! Not that it was nice that Dad wasn't there; it was nice that the whole family was there -- it was kind of a bummer that Dad wasn't, but since the surprise party is March 10 (not to worry: no one in my family knows about this blog), he wasn't going to come up twice -- no, I'm the only lunatic who showed up for the actual birthday to put her off the scent that we're having a big hoo-ha to fête her 60th!

Because I am a princess, I made Susan drive me to Hot Bagels in Fairlawn both on the way from Newark yesterday (at 6:50) and to Newark this morning (at 6:50, again; they coulda set their clocks by me!). YUM. Wow, those are damned good bagels. Sigh.

New York state of mind

Stop me if you've heard this before, but OH MY GAWD I LOVE NEW YORK CITY!!!! Even in 6 degree weather, even in the smallest noisiest room the W ever rented, even accompanied by my mother, I freakin' love New York.

• I love it that you can talk to strangers and they don't think you're a freak, and even continue the conversation


• I love it that there's always something to see, no matter how out of the way or small; something always catches your eye








• I love it that there are always a bajillion cabs -- even if you can't really get one if it happens to be raining
• I love a New York accent, New York bagels, street vendors, pushcarts, and "Hot Nuts!!!!"


• I love doormen, and salesclerks, and the Middle Eastern salad guy at Oxford Street who said "Your mother?" when my mother was being especially pain-in-the-assy, and when I nodded said, "I'm sorry."

We saw a truly gorgeous show at Studio 54 with the enormously talented (sparkly!) (dynamic!) (little!!) Kristin Chenoweth and some hot dudes. We had tea at the Four Seasons and shopped at Fauchon for cookies. We breakfasted at Norma's one morning, and had a bagel picnic in our tiny noisy room the other -- both meals were divine!

This is a $6 Four Seasons scone (seriously: 2 for $12, & they were the size of golf balls) but it's HEART shaped!

I LOVE NEW YORK!!!!!

Untimely

Anna Nicole Smith is dead at 39. OD? Who knows? So sad. I don't know if I'm taking this hard because she's one of my fellow '67 babies, or because it's so sad that her baby girl will grow up without a mommy, or because I feel so bad for Howard, who so clearly adored her, but I was really stunned and depressed to hear about Anna's death. G-d knows what will happen now, with the paternity suit and the TrimSpa suit (which should be dismissed as to her, I think) and the house in the Bahamas thing....

I hope it means something that she put Howard on the birth certificate, however naive it is of me to hope so. It should mean something that she didn't name Birkhead (or "Dickhead", which is how I think of him), and that she named the baby Stern, and intended to raise her with Howard. It's gonna get ugly, that's for sure.

R.I.P. Art and Molly

When I was a teenager, as you may have already read, I got along terrifically with my mother. One of the key things we shared were similar senses of humor (this is why I knew how important sharing laughs was when it came time to picking the person I'd spend my life with, about which you may also have read in an earlier post -- does referring to my own writing constitute a meme, or am I safe?).

Among the writing we loved, in particular, in addition to the inimitable and sublime P.G. Wodehouse, were the columns of Art Buchwald and Molly Ivins, and the essays of Calvin Trillin and Roy Blount Jr. I have had the great good fortune to meet both Bud and Roy (and gush like a giddy schoolgirl, but a) you suspected as much and b) these are stories for another day), but merely admired Art and Molly from afar. Both were lost to us in the past two weeks, and this makes me terribly sad. Art's death was a long time coming, and chronicled by him in a mordantly hilarious way that exemplified his writing and his life at its best (go see his video obituary at www.nytimes.com). Molly's death came as more of a shock to me, which is partly because I wasn't paying attention -- I tended to read her in chunks and then fall off -- and had missed the references to her battle with cancer. Fate is cruel.

I didn't always agree with Molly's brand of rabble-rousing editorial, but I always thought she had something interesting to say, and greatly admired her tenacity and principle. Ditto Buchwald, whose real heyday was some twenty years before I began reading him in the '80s, but whose writing stood the test of time and still has kernels of real wisdom and pith. His recent stuff, like Molly's, lost none of its acerbic pungency, and the literary light of the world really dimmed with the passing of these two giant personalities.

Do me a favor. Go find their work on the Internets or at your local library, and devote a little time to their greatest hits; I promise you won't be disappointed.

Of Peyton, Prince and pain perdu

Here's my consolation: at least my Pats lost to the SuperBowl champions and not some also-ran. Believe me, it's small consolation, but I have to cling to something, since it's now more than half a year 'til I get my beloved football back!!!

Oh, and also? This consoles me:
He might have won the SuperBowl.... But this guy is still our quarterbabe!!!


















Ok, on to Prince: THAT LITTLE DUDE ROCKED THE HOUSE!!!!!!! Talk about screamin' guitar! Talk about the chops! Talk about workin' the cheerleader-esque backup dancers!! And... wait, never mind: let's not talk about the Aunt Jemima do-rag, and choose to remember his Purpleness in his more glamorous days, right here:


And finally, my adventures in cooking continued today with a rather non-traditional Super Bowl snack, the ham sammich made with pain perdu ("pan pare-due"), also known as French toast. (Or Freedom toast, if you're a total fool.) (No offense.)
Served warm and crispy with a light honey mustard and mayo schmear, and sizzled Black Forest ham with cheddar cheese melted on it. Holy yum-oly!!!
Peace out, y'all -- oh, and happy birthday Julia!!!!

Michael, Michael, Michael

Oh, to be Durham D.A. Mike Nifong. It's not enough that the NC bar has filed ethics charges against you, but they have now amended said charges, beefing up the complaint to a startling 33-page opus that seems almost guaranteed to end Mr. N's political career, if not his legal career in its entirety. I believe someone forgot to look up hubris when he embarked on this travesty of a prosecution.

Earlier, the bar had accused Nifong of violating a code of professional
conduct that prohibits attorneys from making improper pretrial public
statements, citing dozens of interviews in the news media shortly after the
case became public last spring. (Note the characterization of "became public" as if the whole thing weren't turned into the media circus that it was by design of the prosecutor himself).

And as if that weren't bad enough, the amended complaint filed January 23 accuses Nifong of withholding evidence from defense attorneys and making false statements to the judge, the lawyers and the bar's grievance committee.

Furthermore (this bit's from the Washington Post):

The counts of failing to turn over evidence stem from the prosecutor's agreement with the director of a private laboratory to include only test
results of DNA found on the accuser that directly matched any of the lacrosse players. Matches from multiple males were found in the accuser's vagina and underwear -- none from the defendants -- but that information was not included in a report given to the defense.

The NC state bar complaint notes that on May 17 defense attorneys asked that expert witnesses prepare and hand over "a report of the results of any (not only the ones about which the expert expects to testify) examinations or tests conducted by the expert." The next day, Nifong gave them a copy of the DNA lab report, but it omitted information about DNA from other males and did not include any documentation.
At a Dec. 15 hearing on the lacrosse case, Nifong told a judge that he was unaware of the potentially exculpatory DNA test results -- which the bar complaint said was a "false statement of material fact to a tribunal."

Please note that when the head of the lab (which is itself currently under investigation by the state board that gives such labs accreditation) was interviewed on 60 Minutes a couple of weeks ago, he specifically said he went to a meeting in Nifong's office, at Nifong's request, with the results showing NO DNA from any of the accused men, and AGREED TO KEEP THAT INFORMATION OUT OF THE REPORT, at the district attorney's instruction. I don't mind telling you I was shocked speechless by that.

Seriously? I think Nifong should be prosecuted, not by the State Bar, but by the state Attorney General, and I think he should serve jail time for fraud, evidence tampering, witness coercion, and whatever else they can get to stick. This guy is a Southern-fried piece of shit.

Incomparable sweetness

No, I am not talking about one of these:
Or even one of these:









I have a friend back east, who shall remain nameless but who knows who he is, who called me yesterday to sing "Happy Birthday" and when I expressed thanks but surprise at still getting the singing 26 days later, said, "I got you cabaret seats for The Apple Tree matinée you wanted to take your mom to!!" OH MY GOD, WHAT?!?! Who is better than you?!! That's SO nice!! SOOOOOO GENEROUS! And so sweet and thoughtful, I can't even believe it! Sold out show, and we have floor seats, man! How cool is that!?! I'll be able to reach out and put that little Kristin Chenoweth right in my pocket!! Fantastique!

I have the greatest friends in the world, and I don't just mean the splashy generous ones (although, really, in fact, even when it's not as spendy as this, all my friends are splashy and generous, in many many ways, and you don't know big hearts 'til you've met this crowd, I mean it). At the risk of sounding like a total prat, I feel so blessed.

p.s. Bonus points and maybe even a prize if you identify the items up top....