Why I'm single...

Because I want to be.  Because it would take a a VERY special person to make it worth not being single.

Because I'm busy and full.  I love my work, and I work hard at it, it's demanding, and that's OK. I have friends and fun and family, and they all fill me up.

Because I'm a mom.  She gives me lots of meaning.  Not all meaning, of course.  I have little privacy.  And very little room to take care of me, which I do when I can, and that's always primordial and lovely.

Because I'm strong and independent.  I like being a free agent. I sometimes can't imagine the space to cultivate and tend a relationship. I've struggled with the idea of "reporting" and being accountable to someone else.

Because I focused on men for too long.  This seems ridiculous to me right now.  But ok, no beating myself up and no regrets. I'm on a journey. It's a beautiful one.

Because I'm ok with vulnerability, but not very good at it.

Details, details...

File under Major Blindspots - this article describes a study that finds the IUD the most effective method of emergency contraception, with a failure rate of 1 in 1000.  Great, but for emergency contraception (post-facto-ooops birth control)  the morning after pill does just fine for my money with a low 1 to 3% failure rate. The article states, despite the IUD's efficacy and safety, it is rarely recommended by clinicians for emergency contraception.  The reasons cited - it is not covered by insurance and it is not readily available.  Frankly, I'd add invasive to the list of why it's not a great option as a back-up option.  You have to get an IUD inserted through the vagina into the uterus.  A great long-term contraceptive method, but not super-appealing morning after plan B.

Didn't we just go through this in Virginia?

Please consider a donation to Planned Parenthood.

Venus Project

Awesome project by Italian artist Anna Utopia Giordano.  She takes classic pictures of Venus, and with Photoshop slims her down, flattens her belly, and enlarges her bust to reflect today's standards of beauty. I'm still a fan of luscious.

Props to Cup o' Joe for the link.

DIPE brings out the skeptic in me...

For Actresses, Is a Big Appetite Part of the Show?  Absolutely, bring on the Oscar for BEST DIPE (Documented Instance of Public Eating, a fantastic term coined by film publicist, Jeremy Walker).  Essentially, actresses (or more accurately, their publicists) book interviews with journalists over lunch or dinner, and make a big display of ordering and eating and mentioning of their love for huge portions of highly caloric comfort food.   The actresses are usually young, thin, and HOT.

Seems like a big racket to me.  Eating with gusto suggests a large appetite for other things sensual, while dispelling any rumors of  an eating disorder, and keeping her mouth conveniently full during those pesky, probing questions.  A win-win-win, for the actress, at least.  The rest of us get taken.  I think it's shameless.

And the nominees are:

Drew Barrymore, in Harper's Bazaar: "I actually really love to lie in bed, watch TV, be a total sloth, and eat my favorite food: Kraft macaroni and cheese. Last night I was watching ‘The Next Food Network Star,’ eating mac and cheese, and feeling grand."


Mila Kunis, in Esquire: "This is a woman who, while watching ‘Super Size Me,’ had such a craving for McDonald’s, she had to pause the DVD in the middle and track down a Big Mac."


Padma Lakshmi, in Esquire: "I like the crispy, curly, crunchy, maple-coated, caramelized, blackened slowly kind of bacon on the back of a greasy grill at a five-dollar diner at 4:00 A.M."


Cate Blanchett, in Vogue:  "Blanchett announces that she’s famished and orders salmon and spinach, adding at the last second a side of Parmesan fried courgettes to start. A suggestion that we split the courgettes is met with uncertainty. 'I think we’d each better get our own,' she says, 'or things could get ugly.'"


These skinny, beautiful women have got some lusty appetites.  As for me, I'm not gonna bite.

Sounding the TAMPON ALARM!

For several months now, I've been wondering where the hell are the o.b. tampons? At first I thought it was my local CVS stock-out....then the CVS near work ran out...I found some at Safeway a month or so later, so assumed there must not be a real problem....then, I dipped into a back-up supply so I was good for another little while....I was able to buy some Lil'ets on my trip to London, so saved for another month. Then, as my reserves dwindled, I systematically began to seek my dear o.b.'s out. None at three CVS stores, none at Safeway, none at Giant, nor Rite Aid. Something was clearly up.

I began to hatch conspiracy theories.  Maybe it's that younger women don't use them, and I'm just a dinosaur set in my old o.b. ways.  Maybe it's some anti-feminist thing (my sis calls o.b.'s "radical tampons" because your actually have to touch yourself to insert the applicator-free tampon).  Maybe the U.S. is getting more and more bizarre in it's "American-way" ways because o.b.'s applicator-free-type tampon is way more prevalent than in Europe.   Maybe Kotex pushed them out in its latest re-branding (have you seen those sleek new black boxes?).   And I recently began to freak out- I wasn't out of tampons yet,  but I really didn't want to buy those plastic-y things or those stiff cardboard ones.

Well, I'm not the only one, and I'm not out of my mind.  Through a quick Google search I learned that women all over the U.S are desperate to get their hands on o.b's - even bidding them up on Ebay $76 for three packs!  

Here are some real-life articles on the Tampon Emergency with headlines worthy of the National Enquirer.... and a total hoot! Women in Dismay Over o.b. Tampon Shortage, (CBS News); O.B. Tampon Brand Missing From NYC Stores, (Huffington Post); Women searching far and wide for o.b. tampons after they mysteriously disappear from store shelves (NY Daily News); The Case of the Missing o.b. Tampons, (NY Times). These articles quote o.b. distributor Johnson&Johnson as saying somewhat cryptically, there was a "supply interruption."

But there is hope. As of early February, the Jezebel blog reports "O.B. tampons Return to shelves" (There are 367 comments on that particular post!). And official o.b. tampon website reports:

February 3, 2011: To our valued customers: We are pleased to confirm that o.b.® tampons are increasingly in-stock at more stores nation-wide as well as through on-line retailers such as:Amazon.com, drugstore.com, soap.com.

Supply may continue to vary in your area, however retailers who have received product include:

Acme, Albertsons, CVS, Cub, Duane Reade, Fred Meyer, Giant Eagle, Giant Food Stores, HE Butt, Jewel-Osco, Kroger, Lucky, Meijer, Publix, Rite Aid, Safeway, Sav-a-Lot, Shaw's/Star Markets, Shoppers, Shoprite, Inc., Stop & Shop, Target, Walgreens, Wal-Mart, Wegman's and other regional retailers. 

Well, this may be so, but the shelf was bare at my Safeway tonight. I'm still not desperate yet. I've got until early March to find some before I totally panic.

The Sartorialist. Like.

I'm a big fan of The Sartorialist blog by Scot Schuman.  This photographic blog is focused almost entirely on street style - pictures of people on the streets of New York, Paris, Milan, London, Seoul - who just look good.  Sometimes it's about the fashion, but more often it's their straight-up personal style.  The people are regular people - ok, beautiful regular people - just walking around the city minding their own business without a hair stylist, a make-up artist, or a studio, and The Sartorialist just captures their individual essence expressed just so in what they wear.

I'm especially drawn to the way he captures street style on the fly like this beautiful woman with her bike in Milan or this smiling woman with her checked coat walking across a square in Florence.  I'm completely enamored with these funky, casual threads in the NY winter chill.  And the shades of blue with Dansko clogs and warm woolen socks in Soho.  I love this older man whose individualistic style just seeps from his pores  - or is it eccentricity?  Either way, he totally owns it.  I also like this young scruffy handsome with his portrait collar.

Small chick eats nothing for lunch

I realize it's probably my hang-up, but I do get somewhat annoyed by petite women with weak voices who eat nothing for lunch.  Today at Starbucks, while I ordered a hot chocolate - for both the warmth and pleasure of it - I heard the woman next to me order in a polite squeak - a tall iced green tea, "unsweetened" she emphasized, and an oatmeal with soymilk, "no toppings" she added.  Not the worst lunch, and certainly health-conscious - but as I looked at her petite body, her perfect coif, her stylish, but not overly individualistic ensemble (Heaven Forbid!), and her flawlessly "natural" make-up, I wondered if and when she lets go and owns her footprint in the world.  Does this woman ever even have an orgasm?

It also reminds me of this old blogpost with an excellent quote from my  alter ego, Nigella!

Ground-breaking gamechanger for women's health

At the International AIDS Conference in Vienna promising results were shared from a clinical trial of a microbicide to be used by women for HIV prevention.  This is great news indeed.  Since the beginning of the epidemic, one of the frustrating things has been that a woman has no way to protect herself from HIV infection without depending on her partner in some way.  All three methods of HIV prevention require some degree of cooperation from her guy:

• condom use - ultimately it's his call; 
• mutual monogamy between two HIV-negative partners  - again, she can be as monogamous as she wants, but it won't necessarily protect her if he is not - and vice versa, of course, though sadly the monogamy deck is stacked against her in many cultures and countries where there is high HIV prevalence; and 
• abstinence  - well, we all know how that goes! - not only is it exceedingly challenging between two people with any sort of chemistry and hormones, it's really a non-starter for many woman (and of course, in the case of rape, coerced and otherwise involuntary sex).  In places like Africa, where HIV prevalence is high, partner communication is low, and pressure for married couples to make babies is strong, the notion of refusing sex or insisting on condom use, even if she perhaps suspects he may be infected or at risk, in a marriage setting just won't fly

So where does that leave a woman in Johannesburg where HIV infection is 18% (or anywhere else for that matter)?  Up the creek without a paddle in terms of taking control of her health and life, with any sort of viable option to protect herself from HIV infection.  An effective microbicide could change that.

Clinical trials for microbicides (vaginal gels that can be applied to neutralize the virus and protect from infection) have been going on for years have had mixed results, at best. The news of this study is ground-breaking and could change the HIV prevention landscape.   In this particular clinical trial in South Africa, prevention of transmission os not 100% failsafe, only significantly reduced.  Researchers want to improve the efficacy, continue with additional trials, and if viable, get this thing to market ASAP.

Fabulous news! (Sometimes I miss practicing public health).