Annabelle Gurwitch's Blog: On: Making an Effort , page 2
April 17, 2012
Are You My Motherhood?
We Village Parents don't have a book out; we're too harried to write one. We don't have a catch phrase unless you count our endless mutterings of "I'm exhausted."
November 30, 2011
Open Letter to Herman Cain
Dear Funster,
I am writing to encourage you to stick out the campaign and not just because it's fun to watch you vamp when all kinds of things are spinning around in your head.
I can't help but think that the latest revelation of your relationship with Ginger White speaks highly of your character. First of all, as a woman over forty, I am just so happy to hear you've been romancing a middle-aged lady. Score one for us! Unlike your fellow Republican candidate, Newt, whose (latest) wife was his intern when he began his illicit affair with her, your lady was well into her 30's and you stuck with her. Kudos to you for adultering with an adult.
The fact that Ginger refers to you as "fun and exciting" speaks volumes. To be linked with someone for thirteen years and still have them refer to you in glowing terms, is truly an achievement. I've been married for 15 years and the last time I said something as nice about my husband was well before the 10-year mark. Look at how short lived the nation's love affair with Obama has been? You've clearly got staying power.
Furthermore, Ginger says you spent lavishly on her. This is really good to hear. I live in CA, where our governor entertained his housekeeper in his wife's bed, where, presumably the lady had to change the sheets afterwards. First class travel, expensive hotels, gifts -- you've set a great example for stimulating the economy.
Lastly, Herman, you really are the most "intriguing" candidate. The only thing Mitt Romney keeps under wraps are his Mormon undergarments, but with you, you're the gift that just keeps giving, every day you add to "sort of humdrum" campaign. So, please, don't break up with us.
I am writing to encourage you to stick out the campaign and not just because it's fun to watch you vamp when all kinds of things are spinning around in your head.
I can't help but think that the latest revelation of your relationship with Ginger White speaks highly of your character. First of all, as a woman over forty, I am just so happy to hear you've been romancing a middle-aged lady. Score one for us! Unlike your fellow Republican candidate, Newt, whose (latest) wife was his intern when he began his illicit affair with her, your lady was well into her 30's and you stuck with her. Kudos to you for adultering with an adult.
The fact that Ginger refers to you as "fun and exciting" speaks volumes. To be linked with someone for thirteen years and still have them refer to you in glowing terms, is truly an achievement. I've been married for 15 years and the last time I said something as nice about my husband was well before the 10-year mark. Look at how short lived the nation's love affair with Obama has been? You've clearly got staying power.
Furthermore, Ginger says you spent lavishly on her. This is really good to hear. I live in CA, where our governor entertained his housekeeper in his wife's bed, where, presumably the lady had to change the sheets afterwards. First class travel, expensive hotels, gifts -- you've set a great example for stimulating the economy.
Lastly, Herman, you really are the most "intriguing" candidate. The only thing Mitt Romney keeps under wraps are his Mormon undergarments, but with you, you're the gift that just keeps giving, every day you add to "sort of humdrum" campaign. So, please, don't break up with us.
June 9, 2011
The OOGLE App, an Idea Whose Time Has Come
My heart sank with news of Weinergate. I actually believed Rep. Anthony Weiner when he said his Twitter account was hacked, I mean, his name is Weiner, it's too predictable. But it was just confirmation that humans are incapable of resisting the temptation to capture our image naked or in flagrante.
Perhaps this behavior is rooted intrinsically in nature, something akin to a child's delight at first discovering their toes, they simply can't stop showing you them or the pleasure that males experience the first time they make a fart joke, and 40 years later, they're still just as amused by flatulence. In fact, we're not the only species that exhibits fascination with looking at genitals. Recently we learned that even the elegant, intelligent bottlenose dolphin, when given a mirror, checks out its teeth and then maneuvers to get a better look at, you guessed it, their privates. Given dorsal fin operable flip cameras, will dolphin porn be in our future?
We clearly face a Promethean dilemma, having to equip ourselves with technology beyond our wisdom to self regulate, presenting some inventive techie with an entrepreneurial opportunity. Let's call it the OOGLE App.
The OOGLE App takes Gmail's Goggles one important step further. While Goggles is intended to prevent you from sending emails you might later regret by presenting the late night emailer with a series of math problems and limited amount of time in which to solve them, the OOGLE App will prohibit you from sending digital messages where the skin-to-clothing ratio is more than considered acceptable for your current station in life. OOGLE will be downloaded onto all devices registered to elected officials, and for the rest of us mere mortals, purchasable and calibrated on a sliding ethical vulnerability scale from, say, "sitting president," "family values platform political candidate," "elected official," all the way down to "porn star," and "former child actor on probation, looking for comeback." Those at the bottom of the scale will be encouraged to send salacious photos to increase their media exposure, so to speak.
Facial recognition technology will be adapted by OOGLE to include genital recognition. All private parts of legislatures will be registered so any random device that photographs said officially recognized hoo-hahs will immediately replace the offending appendage by similar shaped and sized objects: pick axe, bath scrubber or toothpick. OOGLE will pose simple questions that any sitting government official should be able to answer easily.
Sample questions:
How many days between Rep. Chris Lee emailing shirtless photos and his resignation? (Trick question, it was the same day.)
How many days between the publication of Gov. Mark Sanford's illicit emails and his resignation. (Another trick question, he's still in office, he only sent terrible love poems, not explicit photos over the internet.)
Johnny Reid Edwards (no question needed, just the name should be deterrent enough).
Personally, I don't have a moral problem with Rep. Weiner; what disturbs me is his profound lack of judgment as a lothario. Can he really be counted on to craft winning strategies with those holding opposing points of view while failing miserably to score points with the opposite sex? The women he sent pictures too weren't very pleased, and that's not surprising. Anecdotal evidence suggests that out of context, the male genital is jarring; unless you're going full DAVID, the intelligent seducer heeds the words of Sarah McLachlan and devotes his energies to "building a mystery." If Hollywood is any guide, female nudity titillates, while male nudity provides comic relief. Even Ashton Kucher's perfectly toned posterior was photographed purely for laughs in this year's laugh-less No Strings Attached. Evidence the perennially shirtless Matthew McConaughey's Gucci perfume ads -- he's in a tux.
The economics make sense. Whatever the price point of the OOGLE App, it's gotta be far less than hundreds of thousands if not millions (if Eliot Spitzer is any example) Weiner will be spending on legal fees. On top of that, the international market is booming -- only last week, six Turkish officials were forced to resign after sex tapes hit the media. Larry Page, please get your peeps working on this, cause it would be really cool if it were called Google's OOGLE.
Perhaps this behavior is rooted intrinsically in nature, something akin to a child's delight at first discovering their toes, they simply can't stop showing you them or the pleasure that males experience the first time they make a fart joke, and 40 years later, they're still just as amused by flatulence. In fact, we're not the only species that exhibits fascination with looking at genitals. Recently we learned that even the elegant, intelligent bottlenose dolphin, when given a mirror, checks out its teeth and then maneuvers to get a better look at, you guessed it, their privates. Given dorsal fin operable flip cameras, will dolphin porn be in our future?
We clearly face a Promethean dilemma, having to equip ourselves with technology beyond our wisdom to self regulate, presenting some inventive techie with an entrepreneurial opportunity. Let's call it the OOGLE App.
The OOGLE App takes Gmail's Goggles one important step further. While Goggles is intended to prevent you from sending emails you might later regret by presenting the late night emailer with a series of math problems and limited amount of time in which to solve them, the OOGLE App will prohibit you from sending digital messages where the skin-to-clothing ratio is more than considered acceptable for your current station in life. OOGLE will be downloaded onto all devices registered to elected officials, and for the rest of us mere mortals, purchasable and calibrated on a sliding ethical vulnerability scale from, say, "sitting president," "family values platform political candidate," "elected official," all the way down to "porn star," and "former child actor on probation, looking for comeback." Those at the bottom of the scale will be encouraged to send salacious photos to increase their media exposure, so to speak.
Facial recognition technology will be adapted by OOGLE to include genital recognition. All private parts of legislatures will be registered so any random device that photographs said officially recognized hoo-hahs will immediately replace the offending appendage by similar shaped and sized objects: pick axe, bath scrubber or toothpick. OOGLE will pose simple questions that any sitting government official should be able to answer easily.
Sample questions:
How many days between Rep. Chris Lee emailing shirtless photos and his resignation? (Trick question, it was the same day.)
How many days between the publication of Gov. Mark Sanford's illicit emails and his resignation. (Another trick question, he's still in office, he only sent terrible love poems, not explicit photos over the internet.)
Johnny Reid Edwards (no question needed, just the name should be deterrent enough).
Personally, I don't have a moral problem with Rep. Weiner; what disturbs me is his profound lack of judgment as a lothario. Can he really be counted on to craft winning strategies with those holding opposing points of view while failing miserably to score points with the opposite sex? The women he sent pictures too weren't very pleased, and that's not surprising. Anecdotal evidence suggests that out of context, the male genital is jarring; unless you're going full DAVID, the intelligent seducer heeds the words of Sarah McLachlan and devotes his energies to "building a mystery." If Hollywood is any guide, female nudity titillates, while male nudity provides comic relief. Even Ashton Kucher's perfectly toned posterior was photographed purely for laughs in this year's laugh-less No Strings Attached. Evidence the perennially shirtless Matthew McConaughey's Gucci perfume ads -- he's in a tux.
The economics make sense. Whatever the price point of the OOGLE App, it's gotta be far less than hundreds of thousands if not millions (if Eliot Spitzer is any example) Weiner will be spending on legal fees. On top of that, the international market is booming -- only last week, six Turkish officials were forced to resign after sex tapes hit the media. Larry Page, please get your peeps working on this, cause it would be really cool if it were called Google's OOGLE.
The OOGLE App, an Idea Whose Time Has Come
The OOGLE App will prohibit you from sending digital messages where the skin-to-clothing ratio is more than considered acceptable for your current station in life.
April 7, 2011
The Other Kind of Pork
As we know, pork like defunding Planned Parenthood, repealing aspects of health care and EPA control of air pollution is continuing to stand between passing a budget. But pork might just be the answer to convincing extremists to change their minds.
Though a distrust of science has been the pervasive trend in certain circles, perhaps Washington can take a lesson from a news story that hasn't gotten enough attention this week from scientist Johan Lanstrom who has been studying arguably one of the most intransigent social groups on the planet: vegans. Lanstrom has discovered the one thing that seems to be able to affect a change of mind for even the most staunch of these ideologues. Discussions don't work, money can't sway them, but continued exposure to the scent of bacon is so powerful it breaks down even the most dogmatic animal hugger. Bacon is the gateway meat to a return to beef. Who knew? But what can we do with this information? Listen, I eat as much tofu as any environmentally friendly human, but I've never met a group more impractical and locked into a set of principles than vegans, except Tea Partiers, so if it works on Peta it might just work on Partiers.
I suggest immediately infusing the air in DC with the smell of cooking pig, passing out BLT's during the continued negotiations and if need be, downing out shots of my new favorite drink, Bakon Vodka. More pork, not less, might just keep our government running.
If this sounds at all far fetched, think again. Retailers have long known that smell is a powerful and persuasive factor in sales. That every mall in America smells like Cinnabon isn't a coincidence as cinnamon is a scent connected to feeling welcome. Clothing stores regularly pump vanilla scent, as it has been shown to raise sales in women's garments. Realtors don't make cookies at open houses because they enjoy baking. Bacon cookies might just
Speaking of pork. We know obesity costs America an estimated 147 billion dollars a year in health care costs. I'm not the first person to suggest a fat tax to pad the federal coffers, but another story leads me to think its time has come.
A recent tragic boating accident in San Diego has highlighted a previously un-anticipated problem related to obesity. A contributing factor to the capsizing of a sailboat on a charity outing, resulting in two deaths, was that the per person capacity was based on weights that were calibrated in the 1960's. This is a huge problem. At the time, the average weight was calculated at 150 pounds, while we're now living large, weighing in at 185. In fact, we've reached the tipping point, if you will, on March 22nd, the Federal Transit Authority announced that all major forms of transportation cars, planes, and buses, need to be re-assessed immediately in order to operate safely. Yes, it's little things like national safety standards that Tea Partiers don't seem to value much when they disparage government.
How much is that effort going to cost us? Perhaps there's some irony here that we're focused on carrying around so much debt, when carrying around so much weight is costing us so much. A fat tax brings in money, will save us money, and might just be the public shaming that gets us to finally tighten our belts. After being ejected from a South West Airlines flight for being too hefty, director Kevin Smith lost 65 pounds.
Certainly some wrangling over thyroid exemptions, debate over actual weight versus body fat index, perhaps an income tax credit for some, as lower income people often have less access to lower caloric fare, but even the environment will win from a financial incentive to lose as fatties use an estimated 18% more natural resources including added fuel for transportation.
Sound too farfetched? I guess it's more reasonable to cut essential services, public education and health care programs that disproportionally affect lower income and older Americans. All politics comes back to pork. Just in different forms.
Though a distrust of science has been the pervasive trend in certain circles, perhaps Washington can take a lesson from a news story that hasn't gotten enough attention this week from scientist Johan Lanstrom who has been studying arguably one of the most intransigent social groups on the planet: vegans. Lanstrom has discovered the one thing that seems to be able to affect a change of mind for even the most staunch of these ideologues. Discussions don't work, money can't sway them, but continued exposure to the scent of bacon is so powerful it breaks down even the most dogmatic animal hugger. Bacon is the gateway meat to a return to beef. Who knew? But what can we do with this information? Listen, I eat as much tofu as any environmentally friendly human, but I've never met a group more impractical and locked into a set of principles than vegans, except Tea Partiers, so if it works on Peta it might just work on Partiers.
I suggest immediately infusing the air in DC with the smell of cooking pig, passing out BLT's during the continued negotiations and if need be, downing out shots of my new favorite drink, Bakon Vodka. More pork, not less, might just keep our government running.
If this sounds at all far fetched, think again. Retailers have long known that smell is a powerful and persuasive factor in sales. That every mall in America smells like Cinnabon isn't a coincidence as cinnamon is a scent connected to feeling welcome. Clothing stores regularly pump vanilla scent, as it has been shown to raise sales in women's garments. Realtors don't make cookies at open houses because they enjoy baking. Bacon cookies might just
Speaking of pork. We know obesity costs America an estimated 147 billion dollars a year in health care costs. I'm not the first person to suggest a fat tax to pad the federal coffers, but another story leads me to think its time has come.
A recent tragic boating accident in San Diego has highlighted a previously un-anticipated problem related to obesity. A contributing factor to the capsizing of a sailboat on a charity outing, resulting in two deaths, was that the per person capacity was based on weights that were calibrated in the 1960's. This is a huge problem. At the time, the average weight was calculated at 150 pounds, while we're now living large, weighing in at 185. In fact, we've reached the tipping point, if you will, on March 22nd, the Federal Transit Authority announced that all major forms of transportation cars, planes, and buses, need to be re-assessed immediately in order to operate safely. Yes, it's little things like national safety standards that Tea Partiers don't seem to value much when they disparage government.
How much is that effort going to cost us? Perhaps there's some irony here that we're focused on carrying around so much debt, when carrying around so much weight is costing us so much. A fat tax brings in money, will save us money, and might just be the public shaming that gets us to finally tighten our belts. After being ejected from a South West Airlines flight for being too hefty, director Kevin Smith lost 65 pounds.
Certainly some wrangling over thyroid exemptions, debate over actual weight versus body fat index, perhaps an income tax credit for some, as lower income people often have less access to lower caloric fare, but even the environment will win from a financial incentive to lose as fatties use an estimated 18% more natural resources including added fuel for transportation.
Sound too farfetched? I guess it's more reasonable to cut essential services, public education and health care programs that disproportionally affect lower income and older Americans. All politics comes back to pork. Just in different forms.
March 17, 2011
The Down-Low on DOMA
The Obama Administration announced that marriage should no longer be defined as between a man and a woman, but it will still be defined as miserable my most married people.
This morning as I slogged through the scores of liberal outrage emails I now receive on an hourly basis, I noticed an email from Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand. Oh no, I just heard from Babs Boxer on the budget, what's up with Kirsty, I wondered, and will she start writing to me daily? Yes, it was fun when I received the very first personal notes from my BFF Justin at MoveOn, my pal Robert at Campaign for America's Future, Charles at DFA, buddy Ben at PFAW, bestie Becky at CREDO, Deena at HRC, but I don't know if I have room for one more generically positive sounding but progressively leaning acronym in my life. But I'm a sucker for causes and I support K.G. so I hit open. Note: I am not a violent person, but I would pay top dollar to sit ringside at a political spanx-down between Gillibrand and Bachmann.
K-Brand was writing to let me know that she's so happy that Obama administration has announced that it will no longer defend the Defense of Marriage Act and she urged me to join the nationwide movement to get Congress to repeal DOMA, so we can achieve marriage equality and all loving couples can have the rights and privileges of marriage she and her hubby of ten years get to enjoy. I too would love to see everyone get married, because misery loves company.
See, I've been married for 15 years, and at this point, we're just not that into us. Disillusioned? Maybe, just a little. He's always hot, I'm always cold, we don't even share the same blanket anymore. Why do we stay together? Is it love, our shared health care plan, raising our child, inertia, the fact that I'd have to work really hard to get my ass back into "dating shape" if we split up -- who knows? Maybe all of the above, but we're in a dwindling population, we're so last century. For the first time in one hundred years, unmarried young adults outnumber married people in this country. Though I'm the mayor of my marriage, it's safe to say the Foursquare generation doesn't care about marriage.
It's something of an irony that we're so focused on marriage equality, as getting shacked up is becoming obsolete in the U.S. It's like announcing improvements are being made to the rotary phone.
Study after study tells us that Americans are not exactly lining up to tie the knot, nor are they experiencing connubial bliss. A recent study at Harvard titled "Less Is More: The Lure of Ambiguity," proved that familiarity really does breed contempt. The more information participants received about their potential partners, the less they registered liking them.
University of North Carolina research quantified something people have long suspected: marriage does makes you fat! Couples who wed experience a seven pound gain over their single and co-habitating peers. Once thought to be good for your health, we now know that only men seem to benefit, health-wise, in marriage.
On top of that, Pew tells us that fewer Americans feel the need to get married any more and are doing so at an older age, preferring to remain single or in relationships being coined as "committed unmarried." The social stigma of raising children out of wedlock is disappearing everywhere except in Mike Huckabee's head. Yes, the future looks bleak for the child of Natalie Portman, a Harvard graduate, and one of the few household name actresses who has never had a drug problem or been photographed doing anything remotely illegal, much less going commando. While populations in Western Europe, in countries that provide health care, are shunning marriage in droves, why are we focused on this vestige of the past? Is this the liberal equivalent of the Tea Party's insistence on American exceptionalism?
Of course, it's the economy stupid, and the most tangible benefits of defeating DOMA would be economic. However, as of now, the Obama administration isn't prepared to act until either a definitive ruling comes from the courts that DOMA is unconstitutional, or repeal of the law by Congress, which is why my new BFF Kirsty is writing me. Until then, lawfully married same-sex couples will continue to be denied federal recognition and its associated rights, and health care benefits for federal employees -- so of course I agree that it's important to level the playing field.
However, to really experience total marriage equality, same-sex couples will have to learn to suck at it as much as heterosexuals. So as a long-married lady, I'm offering my five time-tested strategies that are sure to make your marriage suck. Top 5 don'ts:
1. Listen to Each Other
Don't bother, listening just takes time away from talking, which is what you wanted to do anyway.
2. Build Intimacy
I say, give me a little mystery. Too boring. The new Me Marriage model suggests developing your own interests as a way to bring new energy to your marriage, but it's also a great way to meet new people for you to date after you split.
3. Relationships Take Work
Working is hard enough these days; who has the energy to work on a relationship? We've done the math. Skip couples therapy and go to Paris instead -- you may end of divorced (38% of couples who try counseling split up anyway), so at least you'll have he memory of arguing in front of Notre Dame instead of some cramped, windowless therapist's office.
4.Keep the Peace
Nothing is more boring or is going to send you into an affair faster than a spouse who agrees with everything you say -- but don't just bicker, bring your A-game. No one likes a push-over.
5. Forgiveness Is for Pussies.
Holding a grudge is way more fun, and is the one hobby my husband and I have managed to cultivate. Besides, if you forgive and forget, what are you going to bitch about to your friends?
Try these strategies and you can be headed in the same direction as most married couples today: divorce. Let's face it, even if you 're excited by the prospect of a wedding -- everyone loves beginnings -- it's the staying married that just isn't very glamorous or popular. When Scarlett Johansson and Ryan Reynolds divorced, they announced they did so after "a long consideration." They were married for less than 18 months. My husband and I have had arguments that lasted longer than their marriage. Of course, being that they are in the top one percent of wage earners in the U.S., they can afford to marry or divorce as often as they desire, while so many American's are unable to get health insurance on their own or liquidate their assets due to the crash of the housing market. And that's as important as any benefits associated with getting hitched -- the gains associated with getting divorced. So perhaps we should focus equal attention on fixing the economy as marriage equality, that way, we could ensure that any couple, gay or straight can enjoy the opportunity to divorce, that would be real progress.
This morning as I slogged through the scores of liberal outrage emails I now receive on an hourly basis, I noticed an email from Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand. Oh no, I just heard from Babs Boxer on the budget, what's up with Kirsty, I wondered, and will she start writing to me daily? Yes, it was fun when I received the very first personal notes from my BFF Justin at MoveOn, my pal Robert at Campaign for America's Future, Charles at DFA, buddy Ben at PFAW, bestie Becky at CREDO, Deena at HRC, but I don't know if I have room for one more generically positive sounding but progressively leaning acronym in my life. But I'm a sucker for causes and I support K.G. so I hit open. Note: I am not a violent person, but I would pay top dollar to sit ringside at a political spanx-down between Gillibrand and Bachmann.
K-Brand was writing to let me know that she's so happy that Obama administration has announced that it will no longer defend the Defense of Marriage Act and she urged me to join the nationwide movement to get Congress to repeal DOMA, so we can achieve marriage equality and all loving couples can have the rights and privileges of marriage she and her hubby of ten years get to enjoy. I too would love to see everyone get married, because misery loves company.
See, I've been married for 15 years, and at this point, we're just not that into us. Disillusioned? Maybe, just a little. He's always hot, I'm always cold, we don't even share the same blanket anymore. Why do we stay together? Is it love, our shared health care plan, raising our child, inertia, the fact that I'd have to work really hard to get my ass back into "dating shape" if we split up -- who knows? Maybe all of the above, but we're in a dwindling population, we're so last century. For the first time in one hundred years, unmarried young adults outnumber married people in this country. Though I'm the mayor of my marriage, it's safe to say the Foursquare generation doesn't care about marriage.
It's something of an irony that we're so focused on marriage equality, as getting shacked up is becoming obsolete in the U.S. It's like announcing improvements are being made to the rotary phone.
Study after study tells us that Americans are not exactly lining up to tie the knot, nor are they experiencing connubial bliss. A recent study at Harvard titled "Less Is More: The Lure of Ambiguity," proved that familiarity really does breed contempt. The more information participants received about their potential partners, the less they registered liking them.
University of North Carolina research quantified something people have long suspected: marriage does makes you fat! Couples who wed experience a seven pound gain over their single and co-habitating peers. Once thought to be good for your health, we now know that only men seem to benefit, health-wise, in marriage.
On top of that, Pew tells us that fewer Americans feel the need to get married any more and are doing so at an older age, preferring to remain single or in relationships being coined as "committed unmarried." The social stigma of raising children out of wedlock is disappearing everywhere except in Mike Huckabee's head. Yes, the future looks bleak for the child of Natalie Portman, a Harvard graduate, and one of the few household name actresses who has never had a drug problem or been photographed doing anything remotely illegal, much less going commando. While populations in Western Europe, in countries that provide health care, are shunning marriage in droves, why are we focused on this vestige of the past? Is this the liberal equivalent of the Tea Party's insistence on American exceptionalism?
Of course, it's the economy stupid, and the most tangible benefits of defeating DOMA would be economic. However, as of now, the Obama administration isn't prepared to act until either a definitive ruling comes from the courts that DOMA is unconstitutional, or repeal of the law by Congress, which is why my new BFF Kirsty is writing me. Until then, lawfully married same-sex couples will continue to be denied federal recognition and its associated rights, and health care benefits for federal employees -- so of course I agree that it's important to level the playing field.
However, to really experience total marriage equality, same-sex couples will have to learn to suck at it as much as heterosexuals. So as a long-married lady, I'm offering my five time-tested strategies that are sure to make your marriage suck. Top 5 don'ts:
1. Listen to Each Other
Don't bother, listening just takes time away from talking, which is what you wanted to do anyway.
2. Build Intimacy
I say, give me a little mystery. Too boring. The new Me Marriage model suggests developing your own interests as a way to bring new energy to your marriage, but it's also a great way to meet new people for you to date after you split.
3. Relationships Take Work
Working is hard enough these days; who has the energy to work on a relationship? We've done the math. Skip couples therapy and go to Paris instead -- you may end of divorced (38% of couples who try counseling split up anyway), so at least you'll have he memory of arguing in front of Notre Dame instead of some cramped, windowless therapist's office.
4.Keep the Peace
Nothing is more boring or is going to send you into an affair faster than a spouse who agrees with everything you say -- but don't just bicker, bring your A-game. No one likes a push-over.
5. Forgiveness Is for Pussies.
Holding a grudge is way more fun, and is the one hobby my husband and I have managed to cultivate. Besides, if you forgive and forget, what are you going to bitch about to your friends?
Try these strategies and you can be headed in the same direction as most married couples today: divorce. Let's face it, even if you 're excited by the prospect of a wedding -- everyone loves beginnings -- it's the staying married that just isn't very glamorous or popular. When Scarlett Johansson and Ryan Reynolds divorced, they announced they did so after "a long consideration." They were married for less than 18 months. My husband and I have had arguments that lasted longer than their marriage. Of course, being that they are in the top one percent of wage earners in the U.S., they can afford to marry or divorce as often as they desire, while so many American's are unable to get health insurance on their own or liquidate their assets due to the crash of the housing market. And that's as important as any benefits associated with getting hitched -- the gains associated with getting divorced. So perhaps we should focus equal attention on fixing the economy as marriage equality, that way, we could ensure that any couple, gay or straight can enjoy the opportunity to divorce, that would be real progress.
On: Making an Effort
F##king Fifty was the original title of my forthcoming memoir. I think of this book as a mid-oir, a mid life memoir, I started writing it at 49 and was shooting for the book to come out when I turned
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