BACKSEAT DRIVERS

I've been driving since I turned 18, and I'm waaaaaaaay past that age now (several decades). In all that time, I have not had a single ticket (okay, I've been warned a couple of times) and only one accident - and that was a spinout on an icy highway, with no-one injured except my car. I've driven across the U.S. to Los Angeles on Route 66 and back again. I've driven in driving snow squalls with zero visibility, wailing thunderstorms while passing trucks threw acres of water onto my windshield, sailed through the balmy climes of Texas and the wind-driven cliffs of Colorado. So I can drive, is what I'm saying.

What my husband fails to believe, however, is that I can drive the three minutes it takes to get from the Metro North railroad station to our home a few blocks away. He angles his head a la Linda Blair to ensure that no car is coming up our left side when making a right turn, even though I've done the check and am already on my way. His head is constantly swivelling to check mirrors and side views. He winces if I hit the edge of a high manhole and gasps if I make a swift turn to another lane. Most people would wonder why I deign to get in the car with him at all. Here's my answer: I feel sorry for him. If you're always worrying, always checking, you never know what it's like to relax and enjoy the ride. Then again, that might be his overall challenge in life.

Children as Experts

I've spent a lot of time and error - as have my friends and family - finding my way to what I consider "the best" foods, clothes, movies, cars, services for my money. We've all suffered through the car that needed thousands of dollars of work in its first year, the travel company that failed to stand behind its special offers, the cleaners who "cleaned" our suits to the transparency of fine china.

So it greatly annoys me to watch some pre-teen on television without an iota of real living yammer on about the wonders of a certain grape juice or the technical aspects of cable service. I admit that some of these little ones are humorous and can actually carry off the dialogue with a certain amount of sincerity (because nothing's worse than a kid who knows they're cute and banks on that). I will even admit that I look forward to the odd commercial with children, especially the one with the three toddlers and the crazy dad who watches in despair as his fancy watch gets flushed down the toilet - but hey, that's a likely situation, unlike my five year old granddaughter espousing the culinary merits of a cheese sandwich.

No, what I hate is when the marketing reps for these products fail to come up with a premise that I, as an educated, literate and informed adult can "buy". It might be charming to use a child but it's lazy. When you resort to children for anything but a child's product, you're resorting to the literary equivalent of chick-lit. You're risking alienating a great portion of your audience just to drag in the few who don't mind doing the same thing again and again because it's easier than seeking out true quality. This isn't rocket science. This is marketing. I wish we could see more of it.

THE NOTHINGNESS OF A JOB SEARCH

I'm writing this from the depths of despair today. It's been 8 months since I left a job that paid well but took far too much out of me, and it is with absolute dismay that I sit here and realize how many months I've been looking for something else.

I'm qualified. There have been times when I've been overqualified or just-a-bit underqualified. However, 95 percent of the time, I've had EXACTLY what they require for the position and NOTHING. Not a word, not a call, not an interview, nothing. I can only assume that it's "hire americans first" because my letters are articulate, my resume is solid, and I've had both reviewed by those who should know. Nothing.

The problem is that it's getting more and more difficult to sit here every day and research the job sites. I am intimately involved with everything from monster to media bistro, career builder to the Boston Globe, and every individual work site in between. Nothing.

So how does one continue to do this? Where do we find the drive to keep going? I have the luxury of living with someone who supports me, financially and emotionally. But I have a strong and complete awareness of how this situation can drive you to drink, drugs, malaise and apathy. Nothing is the hardest thing I've ever done.

WRITERS

I was watching Dustin Hoffman on the Actor's Studio (with that awful man, Lipton, but the concept is good) and he was relating the story of Olivier's last dinner with him. When he asked Olivier why he "did what he did", Olivier leaned over the table and said "Notice me. Notice me. Notice me."

And the funny thing was that it took me back to my first play and a line in it that was so true, it startles me even now. I wrote "Osmosis" in the first person and the line I remember was "Notice me, but don't let me see you do it." And that is the difference between actors and writers. Actors live for the attention. Writers live for the attention once removed. But we both need it. The attention.

High end solutions at chain store prices

I just had my hair done. The price was unbelievably ridiculously high. My hair looks fabulous, sure, but my bank account looks as if a tornado blew through it. It buys into my quandary that the working middle class is getting shafted. Why? Because while we actually have a bit of disposable income, it's not as large as we would like and it's not as disposable either. We aspired to and worked hard for the "nicer things in life", getting educated and putting in the long hours at work, making the usual mistakes with job and clothing choices, setting aside money for mortgages, retirement funds and so on, all in the hopes that there would come a day when we could relax a bit and enjoy it. So what happened?

There is no middle ground, that's what happened. Now, in order to have the level of service and quality that we'd like in clothing stores, preschool education, hair salons, we find ourselves paying for the higher end choices that are out there. The problem is that our income doesn't match those who can access these services/items easily. We don't want to go back to chainstore salons or the lady on the corner looking after our children, but we can barely afford the services/items that we now believe we deserve. Why has no-one jumped on this yet? Why are there no choices in the middle? And if they're out there, why are they so hard to find? Can someone not develop high-end solutions at something more akin to chain store prices? I'd buy them. So would my friends. Also my family. And their friends. And their families. Get it?

Still Got It

My husband had decided to walk home from the train the other night. At the last minute, I thought I'd meet him halfway, so still wearing my workout pants and my hoodie, I headed out. Maybe it was because the night was so crisp and I was walking with a real spring in my step, or maybe I was pulling down too much on my hoodie (hands in pockets) so that my breastal region was a bit more significantly on show than usual, but the most wonderful thing happened.

Now, let me preface this by saying I'm not twenty. Not forty. Hell, I passed 50 already. I could stand to lose a few pounds. My hair was a bit past its regular cut. It was late. No makeup. No fuss, no bother.

A young man, perhaps in his early thirties, was approaching me on his bicycle. (Well, a Maserati would have been nicer but then he wouldn't have had the full picture, would he?) As he came closer, he let out a "uh-huh", not one of those confused ones but a "hmmm, what have we here?" kind of uh-huh. Then, as he went past, he said "Whassup?" I couldn't help it, I started to laugh. And I kept the smile from that laughter all the way up to my husband, who pulled me into a hug and got a bit of uh-huh of his own.

Major TV Event?

Riding on the Metro North today, I noticed a poster for "The Starter Wife" (yes, we saw it, so yes, your marketing team put it in a good spot). I took issue with this poster on many levels, although Deb Messing looked fabulous on it.

First, the term "The Starter Wife" is at once scary and ridiculous. Are we to assume that there are women out there who are willing to enter into a marriage for the purpose of marital practice for men? Or, and perhaps more startling, are there men out there who seek out wives with their second already on the horizon? "Yes, you'll do for now but when I'm older and wiser and have achieved a certain level of income and prestige, I'll need something more sophisticated and perhaps better dressed." Not that this hasn't happened since the dawn of time. I'm sure those wives who struggled working two jobs putting their husbands through grad school, law school or medical residencies are nodding emphatically.

So perhaps it's that the implication of this title isn't - well, implied any more. It's there. Solid. Stated. "Starter Wife." Not First Wife, not Only Wife. Starter Wife.

And while that alone could have outraged me enough for my entire ride into the city, I still had to deal with the heading just below the title: Major TV Event. Right. A movie about a women moving on with her life after finding herself in the position of "starter wife" has now become a Major TV Event. Now, I completely support the growth of women at all stages of their lives. God knows, I've been in the position of having to reinvent myself after a divorce. But a Major TV Event? Not only has this story been told before (and I would wager that the First Wives Club might deserve a "major" before this movie does), but I also think we should reserve our Major TV Events for major TV events - wars, floods, tornadoes - any kind of natural disaster, murders, new presidents, Amber alerts. You get the picture.

Overstatement runs rampant in this society. Let's remember that entertaining or not, a movie is a movie is a movie, not a TV event, major or otherwise.