The New York Times Magazine had a long feature article this past weekend on research into that great mystery:  Women’s sexual desire.   (And yes, they lacked imagination and titled it What Do Women Want? in homage to Freud’s timeless question.  I&… Read full post »

A rare and strange thing has happened to me recently not just once, but twice:  People I used to know in real life are portrayed in the movies – “Milk” and “Frost/Nixon” to be specific.

You may notice a connection – both movies are about politicians, and yes, b… Read full post »

As news of the terrorist attacks on 9/11 spread all over the world, and TV reporters rushed to get the first raw reactions of people in their countries, an ordinary middle-aged French woman said something to a TV news crew that is forever branded in my heart:  “Aujourd’hui, nous somm… Read full post »

Tell someone that you’re a writer, and they will almost inevitably ask, “Oh, what have you published?”

Or if they’re really rude: “A published writer?” (Always asked in a very suspicious tone of voice.)

Those of us who have been only modestly published or are work… Read full post »

This past Friday, the front page article in our small neighborhood paper, The Montclarion, announced that a local author was holding a public funeral for her novel, Family Plots: Love, Death & Tax Evasion, the following afternoon. Spectators were not just welcomed, but invited/… Read full post »

I had many unpleasant jobs as a high school and college student needing to earn money for college.

Aside from babysitting (which I started at age 11), my first job was at a frozen banana factory. I worked there the summer that I was 14 (got a special permit… Read full post »

I’m a middle-aged product of 1970’s feminism who abhors the objectification of women, the unrealistic and often brutal sexuality of porn, the manly action movie, and macho behavior both in art and in life. So why do I love James Bond?

Personally, I blame Sean Connery.

Since… Read full post »

The Nov 3 issue of the New Yorker featured an article, “Red Sex, Blue Sex,” about sexual and marital habits in red and blue states, especially among teenagers. The findings reported on in the article are a powerful counter argument to the superior stance of m… Read full post »

Friday night, K. and I zipped across the Bay to have dinner at Hog Island Oyster Co., located in the insanely delectable San Francisco Ferry Building. And we actually sat outside...on the water…after dark…without jackets…in San Francisco…in mid-November! Perhaps only lo… Read full post »

OK, now that the election is over, let’s get back to talking about what’s really important: Sex.

In all the election frenzy, you may have missed an article in the October 28th New York Times about research showing marital infidelity is on the rise, particularly among younger coup… Read full post »

In the past few weeks, the title of the acclaimed Public Enemy album of 1990 has been reverberating in my head, fed by the hateful words and images of people denouncing Obama.

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 If you’d been in our house lately, you might have heard me putting on my best Meryl-Streep-in-Out-of-Africa accent and intoning “I used to have a 401k account, at the foot of the East Bay hills.”

Of course, I still have the 401k, but it’s a shadow of its former self. And… Read full post »

A million years ago, fresh out of college, I had a low level job in a famous advertising agency. It’s a testament to the richness and depth of the series “Mad Men” that I’ve been loving it for 2 whole seasons before connecting it to my own experience just last… Read full post »