The Iditarod may sound like a manly adventure — a 1049 mile lonely stretch of dog mushing trail from Anchorage to the burled arch in Nome — but rest assured, Divas dear, that there are plenty of mighty women in the field of dog runners this year. Fan favorite DeeDee Jonrowe, in her signature Taco Bell-sponsored pink coat with matching pink dog harnesses, is also a fierce competitor and cancer survivor. Currently in 14th place, she is the fastest woman on the trail today, trailed by Aliy Zirkle in 21st place, to name a few fab femmes.

Hearkening back to that historic moment in 1925 when the only way to save Nome from a wicked diphtheria outbreak was to send the life-saving vaccine via a relay of dog teams through the ice and snow, today’s Iditarod has not really come a long way, baby. Many mushers I interviewed still live a Spartan life in running water-less cabins tending to their pedigreed kennels in remote corners of Alaska, places where they can easily get a 100-mile run in without running into a human soul.

PETA and others may argue against this old sport/ native way of life, but from what I witnessed, it was clear that these dogs, or “athletes” as they are called, are treated better than most people I know. Because in the end, the mushers are more like coaches — it is these Alaskan huskies (the finest breed unrecognized by Westminster) that do all the work, that expend up to 10,000 or more calories in a run, who are bred for racing excellence and who perform best at sub-zero temperatures. They are loved, trained, and monitored like crazy by volunteer veterinary teams at every checkpoint. If a dog ain’t doing fine, they will wrap it up and ship it out of the field immediately.

Besides extreme cold, sharp ice folding across tundras, and moose blocking the narrow trail, what Iditarod champions need to overcome is the psychological challenge of hundreds of miles of empty snow and silence. Sometimes the Northern Lights will keep them company, but most of the time, it is just man and woman encountering nature as is, in all its inhospitable glory, making Iditarod truly the last, great race.

Enjoy expert coverage either on the official Iditarod.com website or the Anchorage Daily News website.

*Are you a teacher? Teachers rule at the Iditarod. Each year, the race crowns a Target Teacher on the Trail, and there are tons of teaching materials as well as an internal teachers’ conference in Anchorage before the race. Get involved and bring great life lessons to the classroom! Visit www.iditarodblogs.com/teachers.

DeeDee Departs from Anchorage

Lance Mackey and Stephanie!

A new year, a new exhibit at the Contemporary Jewish Museum in San Francisco. Mazel Tov! Just as the Jewish calendar year turns a whopping 5769, Warhol’s Jews: Ten Portraits Reconsidered, otherwise known as his Jewish Geniuses, opens October 12.

Guest curator Richard Meyer, art historian and professor at USC, was on hand to lead press through the promisingly ‘pop’ – ular exhibit. Get it? The chosen people include The Marx Brothers, Einstein, Gertrude Stein, Franz Kafka, Freud, Gershwin and more (four, obviously). These portraits have never been exhibited together on the West Coast, and a lot of the source material has never been seen by the public.

Kind of a shyster and a schmuck (and also Catholic), Warhol agreed to tackle the ten at the suggestion of his agent, Ronald Feldman. Did the controversial portraits derive from Feldman’s Jewish heritage? From Warhol’s own empathy being born of Eastern European immigrant parents? Or because he figured they’d sell real good? Probably all of the above were factors.

Bob Dylan, Woody Allen and Babs Streisand didn’t make the final cut, and neither did Steinbeck after Warhol realized he wasn’t Jewish. This exciting, vibrant, controversial, celebratory, and fully comprehensive exhibit graces the CJM till January 25, 2009.

Contemporary Jewish Museum
736 Mission Street (between Third and Fourth streets)
San Francisco, CA 94105
Telephone: 415.655.7800
http://www.thecjm.org/

*About the image:

Andy Warhol, Gertrude Stein from Ten Portraits of Jews of the Twentieth Century, 1980, synthetic polymer paint and silk-screen ink on canvas, 40 x 40 in. (101.6 x 101.6 cm )© 2008 Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts/ARS, New York/ Courtesy Ronald Feldman Fine Arts, New York/ www.feldmangallery.com.

Claude, the famous albino alligator, had no comment at this time.

Where Life Comes to Life as their slogan and mantra, the museum yesterday revealed to members of the press their two main themes–evolution and sustainability. Basically, how did we get here and how can we stay here? This question is answered through educational and interactive exhibits, planetarium programming, experiences with wildlife, and especially leading by example. The super green building boasts a living roof covered with native plant species that keeps temps inside 10-degrees cooler, solar panels (60,000 cells offset about 10% of their energy needs), water reclamation, radiant subfloor heating and more!

These ground-breaking (literally and figuratively!) engineers and architects passionately believe that museums “should not be castles of darkness.” Rather, famed Italian architect Renzo Piano wanted to “pick up the landscape, slide a museum inside, and put the landscape back down.”

The Rainforest: An open, three-tiered and 3-D look at rainforest life complete with birds and butterflies in the canopies and ants tidying the leaves at your feet. A balmy 75-degrees with 75% humidity, be prepared for some extra curl in your hair! The realistic exhibit is designed so that guests can ‘migrate’ up a winding walkway from the forest floor to canopy making discoveries along the way, like tiny vibrant froggies in the leaves. Lead scientist Dr. Chris Andrews promises that within 3-5 years these young trees will have all grown up, covering the living rainforest in dense vegetation. The way to look at rainforests? It’s as “if nature threw a party and everybody came!” I love it.

Philippine Coral Reef: The world’s most diverse coral reefs are found in the Philippines, a choice model for the living coral reef inside the aquarium. Though all this coral was grown in captivity, it nonetheless will evolve dynamically before our eyes!

This is the world’s largest indoor coral reef.

*A quick note on the large California octopus. She’s lovely in lavender and a total escape artist. Dr. Meg Burke, head of that part of the aquarium dedicated to local sea life, told us that this lady octopus has the only astroturf-covered habitat because she can squeeze herself through holes barely bigger than your fist! She enjoyed baffling unsuspecting biologists who would get to work each morning to find the crab population diminished overnight in the tank next to hers. She does not like the feeling of fake grass on her tentacles so, thus far, has caused little mischief!

African Hall: Yes, one night at the museum may very well prove that the taxaderma-palooza of animals come to life after hours! But even if they don’t, these oldies but goodies—original hunted specimens from the 1930’s—were given new life when they were refurbished. Dr. Terry Goslinger insists that this is a classic diorama hall with all scenes representing real places in Africa. Look closely to see digital tricks in the background like images of elephants moving through the grass.

*Pam Schaller, Mama to Penguins! Twice a day, the live South African penguin population perks up in preparation for Pam. The star attractions in the African Hall, the cute and cuddly penguins follow Pam around as she pets them or plays with them, tossing them into the frigid water or rubbing their necks like a friendly hello.

Food: With uber famous chefs-in-residence Charles Phan (Slanted Door) and Loretta Keller (Bizou and COCO500), the sustainable, local and organic food is outta this world at the Cafe and restaurant!

You may think that the pricey admissions ($24.99 adults, $14.95 kids, $19.95 seniors) need to evolve, but you have to remember that this is the only institution of its kind in the world that houses three major attractions under one roof: an aquarium, a planetarium and a natural history museum. Seahorses, stuffed lions and stars, man! Plan for Wachovia Wednesdays, when admission is free the third Wednesday of every month. Bike or take public transportation to the museum for an extra $3 off ticket prices.

Your ticket includes free entry to regularly scheduled events each day:

* Planetarium Shows
* California Coast Dive (live diver inside the tank will feed sharks and answer questions)
* Penguin Feeding (that’s Pam, man!)
* Coral Reef Dive (live diver in the tank hand-feeding the funny fishes)

Why is this institution ultimately so important? Dr. Carol Tang believes that “as Californians we are leaders. People look to us, and what we do impacts the world.” Perhaps we can change the world one building at a time!

OPENING WEEKEND CELEBRATION!
September 27, 28
Free Admission All Day Saturday: 9:30 AM – 9 PM; Opening Ceremony 8:30 AM Saturday
Sunday Paid Admission: 9:30 AM – 5 PM

Performers, Activities and Food! See website for complete line-up. Events take place both in the Academy and outside in the Park.

Opening Night Party: Big Bang Opening Gala

It’s ‘green’ tie!
Thursday, September 25
For all you mad scientists with mad money. Ticket prices start at $350 for a night of music, dancing and dessert. It’s a once-in-a-lifetime grand opening party!
Check website for more information.

Because there are no limits to his subjects! From cinema (his black tee-shirt–worn both back-to-back nights— read J’aime le cinema on the front and J’aime Sarajevo on the back) to the war in Iraq to Marxism, psychology, and psychoanalysis to pornography… it was all covered, and more!

He’s written forty or fifty books and has even inspired a couple movies. I first discursively met the Giant of Ljubljana in college. In the mid-90’s at Vassar, post-modernism and post-structuralism were all the rage. We students of literary theory and criticism were assigned Looking Awry: An Introduction to Jacques Lacan Through Popular Culture, Zizek’s famous book with its lens focused on Hitchcock among others.

You know how drugs are supposed to take you to an altered consciousness or state of mind? Forget psychedelics and just read Zizek if you truly want to look at things awry. This book totally blew my mind to the point that I wrote my thesis on it. One truly trippy passage in his first chapter, How Real Is Reality?, deals with those most trite of fictional tropes, the ‘thank god it was only a dream!’ moments. Soap operas love them. But according to Zizek’s reading of Lacan, what is always going on here is that in terms of your PSYCHIC reality, you are not the relieved dreamer waking up in your bed, YOU ARE the creature in the dream–the murderer, monster, etc.

This flip-flopping of realities is the cornerstone of his talks the past couple days. When talking about the rhetoric of the current US war in Iraq, he assured us that we had to take great care when listening to the promises of fundamentalism in any form. The ruse of sacrifice for the cause belies the subtext within, that it is precisely a message of obscenity and excess that draws recruits and believers in. The stage of sacrificing for a cause actually promises greater freedoms–you can kill, you can have a gun, you can run amok.

Or the subtext within, of all things, pornography. Zizek called hard core pornography into question and claimed that at its core, what is taboo here is intimacy. The hardest core pornography is sex only, not intimate feelings or emotions, which leave the so-called intimate nature of these films anything but, if you really think about it.

And so on.

I’m probably not doing it justice.

But his latest two books: In Defense of Lost Causes and Violence, continue his inquiry into politics and human nature. He signed my copy of In Defense, which jumps in with both barrels in the first chapter, calling into question that sacred inner life we all have. He calls our inner lives total hypocrisies and demands an end to the lies. He almost hates how our New Age-y modern discourses rely so much on understanding through telling one’s story. Do we think that Hitler would be more human if we knew his story (Zizek’s example, not mine!)?? He calls this ridiculous.

Above all, Zizek rails against hypocrisy and blows apart assumptions that I didn’t even know I had. Wherever you start as your philosophical starting point, you must step back twenty feet and look at those assumptions that got you there. We don’t question our assumptions enough; we are too accepting of rhetoric and ideologies, and this is above all DANGEROUS!!!

Whew.

Zizek himself is a quirky guy. Like I said, he wore the same t-shirt both nights, and with wild gray hair and beard plus exuberant and twitchy physical quirks, his passionate lectures are delivered in a thick Balkan accent complete with biting humor, almost breathless excitement, all the while his hands rubbing his nose and tugging at his shirt in the nipple region.

At his formal public lecture in a great hall brought to us by the always fantastic series, City Arts & Lectures, he was so into his talk and so obsessed with getting to his concluding points after a wild ride through brilliant and hilarious digressions, he proceeded to talk through three ushers telling him to stop, his introducer coming on stage to tell him to stop, and finally in a desperate plea, the house lights coming up. Wow.

And the next night at searingly hot Mission bookstore Modern Times gasping in a heat wave packed to the gills with hipsters…

They were quite the shows.

(Photo from Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Slavoj_Zizek_in_Liverpool_cropped.jpg)

Denver was a total mess of media, bloggers, progressives, protesters, politicians and pundits. Traffic was at a crawl and the few taxis an utter miracle to hail. Downtown’s one-way streets were a hopeless maze of VIP buses, mega law enforcement and total street shut-downs, making any movement other than walking impossible. And yet, we were all stoked to be there. And we all loved those free goodie bags!

I was a total Convention crasher, snapping up the scraps from way better people than myself. Because inevitably there were extra credentials, passes, tickets and Swag that didn’t get claimed. And I was woman enough to dumpster dive for it all.

Hell, I even landed on time during the national FAA system meltdown last week! AND I scored an extra bed in one of Denver’s coveted sold-out hotel rooms in the heart of downtown (Hello, Al Sharpton! Good morning, New Orleans mayor!). Oh, and the DNCC payed for it because my roomie, Mona Brooks, was African-American Chairwoman Leah Daughtry’s official photographer. Ridiculous!

(Too many acronyms for you? Don’t worry–I don’t know what half of them stand for. Probably D is for Democrat?)

Sure, call me a shameless scrapper, but because Bay Area insiders were in force in Denver, I got to see Hillary Clinton’s speech (AWESOME btw—girl, why couldn’t you have bent it like Beckham DURING your campaign?) on Tuesday LIVE at the Pepsi Center, on whose Club Level I saw Oprah’s Gayle, Anne Hathaway and even Michelle Obama. Check me out now!

Because beautiful Gwyneth, Hala and Gia have worked in politics and know absolutely everybody, which is how I got into the Pepsi Center in the first place. Funny story–I couldn’t find my peeps in the crush of people to pick up my pass, so Gwyneth left it for me at the mobile crepe truck next to the wacky pro-life pre-teen protesters. That’s how we roll! Bond James Bond!

And that’s why I caught Ashanti at the Cowboy Lounge (yeehaw!) for Lifetime’s everywomancounts party, and John Legend performing at DLC Chairman Harold A. Ford’s party at hot nightspot Beta with an outdoor patio to die for. I even crashed the California delegates gala at the Museum of Nature and Science!

Talk about rockin’ the vote at some super VIP parties–I should be ashamed of myself!

Sometimes I was actually productive and volunteered at the Google/ Daily Kos Big Tent, sponsored by my favorite progressive bloggers convention, Netroots Nation. My job was to entertain me some VIPs like lucky media maven Mary who got to escort Katie Couric around all day. I hope my Mary dumbed that shit down for the queen of dumb-downing! We use big words up in here, you talking head kindergarten teacher!

(Oops, there went my personal feelings. Sorry.) And Darryl Hannah was twice sighted. And the governor of Washington, Christine Gregoire. And a dude who was like head of the Sierra Club. We all kicked it in the green room or headed to The Huffington Post Oasis upstairs for free massages. I even saw Arianna wend her way. Seriously!

But memories of The Big Tent seemed like nirvana when faced with the behemoth of Invesco Field. Obama’s acceptance speech was a hot ticket what with Sheryl Crow and Stevie Wonder slated to play. Light years early, I followed my friends to the Light Rail. We waited thirty minutes for an every-ten-minutes train. It was 3 PM and Stevie wasn’t on till 6. No worries, right? WRONG. As the train pulled into the final station, we caught our first glimpse of the line.

Mile High Stadium sells out every football Sunday, so what was with the SIX MILE line?? Literally, we stood in the hot sun on some bizarre trail of tears for three hours trying to get inside, trudging across highway overpasses as the pavement seethed heat. And all the while protesters: End the Iraq war; Protect a woman’s right to choose! Well, DUH. We’re Democrats! Get your butts to St. Paul, freaks! Put down the megaphone and sell me some bottled water! I mean, come on people, know your audience!

Still, in my mind (such as it was on 5 hours of sleep in as many days) it was all worth it to unite with Conventioneers from all over the world (a Venezuelan masseuse in line for drinks behind me) under a sky studded with fireworks. With the Black Eyed Peas singing in the distance and a cool wind whipping off the mountains every night, we pooled our energy for change.

Even me, the Convention vulture.

Photographer to the stars Mona Brooks and I took a VIP flight to no where demo flight aboard the A380 — SFO to SFO, baby! Aboard, as they served us Dom Perignon champagne to toast the maiden arrival of the A380 to San Francisco, we got a two-hour tour of the behemoth. With dizzying triple jet bridges (those snout thingies for boarding–1 upstairs and 2 lower) and monster 500 – 600-ish passenger capacity depending on the model (ours was a 15-first class suite and 489 in the main cabin baby A380) the A380 will get you there fast, with style and shockingly lower emissions… providing you are flying less than 9320 miles total, its upper limit.

All hail the A380!!

And the A380 is QUIET… super quiet. So much so that you almost miss that white noise as you hear every word of the person behind you. Bumma.

ICE: The most advanced entertainment system in the skies! Everyone gets about 1000 HD on-demand channels on their super flat screen TV’s, plus a music library of 10,000 tracks plus mood lighting–all customizable! Build your own music playlist for the journey!

But biz and first get a plethora of uber goodies like 2 bar/ lounges where they can trade oil wells. Luckily first class passengers also get the use of two showers so they can rinse off after having to mix with the biz class peons. And because the new planes are made with a much lighter material than their clunky ancestors, they can spare some storage for that shower water.

Yes, a SHOWER! There are two showers on board for first class passengers, who can reserve their 25-minute slots once on board. Five minutes of hot water plus a generous private cabin allow princesses to take a break from their well-appointed private suites and get away from it all. First class suites boast a minibar, bed, huge TV, vanity area and room to stretch out the Jimmy Choos-clad feet. And because they don’t want the poor princesses to have to strain to change the channel on their mega-TV, a remote control is provided to use once you’re lying down in bed. Yalla!

Finally, air travel is becoming luxurious again! And with an extensive selection of connecting flights, Dubai is the new London for your more easterly journeys. Say hello to those 24-hour mega Duty Free stores! You haven’t shopped until you’ve hit the Dubai airport. All that glitters IS gold there!

So, in summation, for about $10,000, roughly the same as Virgin Upper Class and a last-minute business class ticket on major airlines, you can fly first class on Emirates on an A380. Let’s go! I am so very super ultra excited. With a trip to Western Africa on the horizon next April, I am seriously considering flying Emirates to Dubai and then connecting, rather than in Heathrow. I think my paradigm has shifted!

The only other airline that already has A380s in service is Singapore Airlines, the first to fly the A380 of course. If they are committed to elegance, then they fly A380s!

Lorraine Massey, Devachan Salon & Departure Lounge, NYC

“Once upon a curl, a curly-haired teen in England began working in a hair salon. Lorraine Massey quickly became addicted to care of the hair and proceeded to take her scissors around the world…During her travels, Lorraine realized that curls existed everywhere—and so did curl care confusion!

“Armed with this rich experience and a unique perspective on curl types, curl challenges and curl solutions, Lorraine opened the Devachan Salon and Departure Lounge in the trendy Soho neighborhood of New York. The salon became a sanctuary where clients could develop a pro-curl attitude…and celebrate their curls. ‘It’s liberating when you learn to love your natural curls and not work against them,’ says Lorraine. With tens of thousands of enthusiastic clients as curly-girl devotees, Lorraine and a talented CURL-fessional team developed a complete collection of products for the curly lifestyle: DevaCurl.”

*Devachan-trained professionals might be available in your area, like Madusalon owner Marie in San Francisco! See? Women entrepreneurs beget MORE women entrepreneurs!

Playful Chef; Playful Life!

Lisa Ligon has created a Playful Life for fabulous Playful Chefs of all ages! “You want your kids to appreciate good food and form healthy, life-long eating habits. Your kids want to play with their favorite grown-ups. Playful Chef encourages children, and the adults who love them, to roll up their sleeves and engage in fun cooking adventures together.

What can a 3-year-old do in a kitchen? A lot. We’ve designed Playful Chef Kits for 3-11 year-olds to help you tap into your kids’ eagerness to help and to learn from an early age. We’ll outfit you with the nutritional know-how, tools of the trade, and fun food facts you’ll need to get your little one cooking! ”

*Available at retailers and in catalogs across the country!

Haute Jeweler LIZASonia!

Custom-made and haute pieces from Liza Sonia jewelry and accessories for men and women! “LIZASonia’s design philosophy is simple: Start with the best quality materials, listen to its simplest design, then add elements of surprise.

“Born in Guadalajara, Mexico, Liza always embraced art. Liza’s passion shows in every piece. She can look at a person or even hear him or her described, and pick out exactly the right design and color he or she would cherish. Highly intuitive, she uses this skill to design from within the materials. Picking up a rare stone, she adds, “I look at a stone and it tells me what it wants to be. The design is hidden, to be discovered along with its owner.”

*Check her out online as well as in Montclair Village Shopping Center, or contact her to make a personal appointment at her private studio in San Francisco!

Spark’s Black and Pink Ball

Celebrate women the world over at Spark’s Third Annual Black and Pink Ball on Friday night, September 12 in San Francisco! Empower more women around the world with your generous participation in this unforgettable night.

All you have to do to save the world is party with us! Proceeds benefit two incredible global women’s causes: The Center for Young Women’s Development in San Francisco and the first legal aid clinic in Chad. Both of these projects provide training in violence prevention and civic participation, which have improved the lives of thousands of women and young girls here in San Francisco and abroad in Chad.

Tickets available online NOW!
Spark’s Third Annual Black & Pink Ball!
Friday, September 12, 2008
Mezzanine
444 Jessie Street, San Francisco
VIP Reception and Lounge: 7 – 9 PM
Gala: 9 PM – 1 AM
Tickets: Members $85, Nonmembers $120,
VIP Members $150, VIP Nonmembers $175
Website: www.sparksf.org.

She is the highest ranking woman in MMA operations, and what would have happened if Pamela Anderson and Don King had a love child. She’s the ultimate threat here—a blonde bombshell with serious promotions and operations instincts running around to the constant bark of her walkie-talkie.

Divas, I was sittin’ pretty cage-side in a gym full of 3000 fans. (And heeeellll yeah, I had locker room access! More on that later!) Was the audience a scary mixture of rabid men who might otherwise be found at a Monster Truck Show? Why, no!

A graceful good number (25%) were women all dressed up like it was opening night on the Vegas strip somewheres. And there were the color-coordinated gym members representing different fighters. So a group of hot chicks might be flanked by men in green bandannas representing a Jiu–Jitsu gym, say.

Each fight was 3 rounds, and lovely Ring Girls pranced the perimeter of the cage to let you know which round it was, which was helpful because most gaping, gawking guys would have been hard-pressed to come up with numbers as the lithe ladies passed them.

So if you don’t know, MMA is like super tricked out gloves-be-gone boxing. The fighters can hit, kick, and wrestle on the ground in a fatal tangle of torsos and limbs. They can kick higher than any Rockette, and their art is no where more apparent than when they are pinned on the ground. This is when they have to outwit the man on top and topple him with deft maneuvering. Or tap out. Which means throw in the towel. All while the guy on top is pummeling their ears and head. Ouch.

I saw men pick each other up and throw ‘em down, throw ‘em up against the cage, and one gladiator even lifted another high off the ground upside down. Dude! The main event was the tenth and final fight—favorite Kurt Osiander vs. Nate Moore. Moore was more as he knocked Osiander out in six seconds flat!

Whew. But you know what? At the end of every match, the men hug each other. You heard me. Awwww… I think because it’s so much about tactical skill and pitting knowledge against training, a match ultimately with themselves. Not so much about kicking ass. Although that happens too.

For a few of the fighters, this was their first pro match. How exciting! Er, the information as well as the locker room interviews that yielded it! Gabi Solorio is 19 and he won his first fight against fire fighter Justin Hoglund. The whole audience just about lost its mind as hundreds of them were supporting Hoglund. But the house didn’t fall, though tensions were sky high (security rocked.)

And though he lost, Jaime Rodriguez has a winning story—when he walked into his training gym, he weighed 300 pounds. And now he’s a hard-core professional MMA fighter. The sport changed his life!

The good news is that Tracy’s buddy, Ryan Bastianelli, won his fight. It was amazing to watch! Ryan, a head shorter than his opponent, kicked ass with his lower center of gravity. There was no way for Gigo Jara to knock him to the ground!

The guys towards the beginning of the night weren’t the sculpted gods you might expect from a Gladiator Challenge, but they were still formidable. I certainly wouldn’t want to be caged with ‘em! And by the end of the night, it was rippling abs adorned with fierce tattoos melting over taut sinews. Mmmm…

Yeah, there was blood. There was knock-down-drag-out fighting. And no headgear, helmets, gloves or even shoes and shirts! They don’t wear boxing gloves, those pillows for pansies. MMA boys wear what look like biking gloves. That’s it. Just a thin layer between knuckles and pain.

Too, there were tons of officials, and even a WOMAN JUDGE, Susan Thomas-Gitlin of the CA State Athletic Commission! It was a very classy, organized, serious operation. This was no backroom fight club. Though that’s what it felt like—it felt like I was at an underground thang, an undiscovered adventure, yet totally officiated and very safe.

So the next time you’re looking for something new to do, why not grab the girls or impress your male friends or man and head to the next MMA fight in your area! It’s definitely a great night out!

And if it’s a Gladiator Challenge presented by Full Contact Promotions, it extra rocks with a woman’s touch!

I get on the phone with technical support, and travel virtually all over the world– India, Philippines… what a travel Diva! They all tell me that I am speaking to the wrong person and need to be transferred. They all, without exception, HANG UP ON ME!

Unbelievable. Now I try to do this thang online. Funny how my old, ancient computer can’t handle all their flashy graphics. It takes forever to load Hell.com, oh, I mean Dell, and when I finally get the privilege of entering my service tag (god forbid one does anything with Dell without a query for numerical information ten minutes long), it tells me, and I quote:

“Our records indicate that your service tag belongs to a system that was purchased outside the United States.”

Excuse me? I live in California!

I’m still on hold right now, their heavy-on-the-xylophone wait music pounding into my brain…

Lord, saints preserve us– they just hung up on me AGAIN trying to transfer me to a supervisor… I’m SO gonna get you, SUCKA!

Well, the joke’s on me! At the fringe of 35, my body is changing tremendously. It totally sucks.

I just got back from a paltry 6000-ish feet in non-exotic Colorado, and Divas, let me tell you, my first night was NOT pretty. That headache that was complained about so wretchedly in those Andes visited me the first night (champagne after dinner haunting me!), and my skin puckered and twitched like mummy wrappings under a dry moon.

And perhaps you’ll recall that fateful car ride with Hottie McRestaurant with whom I shared a memorable moment barfing out his private car door on the Kentucky state freeway?

Welcome to my new body, friends—vulnerable to twisting roads, for whom altitude is like Kryptonite. WHAT THE HELL IS HAPPENING TO ME?

And then there’s ice cream. As of two months ago, I can no longer eat it. Out of the blue, just like that! One minute I’m a gelato goddess; the next, a tummy teetotaler in the face of 31 flavors… that’s the scoop on a scoop!

Divas, am I crazy or has this happened to any of you? Isn’t it enough to get out the map and learn the topography of a new continent without having to look inward to discover my own new, and certainly not improved, territories???

I can only imagine what it’s like for pregnant travelers. A woman’s body is the most elusive country, the most unpredictable journey!

I feel totally stupid now being like, “I’d love to join you on the slopes. What did you say the elevation was?” Or, “Wouldcha mind if I sat in the front seat? I get car sick…” And worse yet, “No thanks. You enjoy your triple dutch fudge chocolate sundae. I’m fine.”

Who is this pathetic creature?? And what happened to that magnificent mountain goat ready to take on the twists and turns of life from the backseat of any bus that life throws her? I tell you, she is no more. A moment of silence. A tincture of Dramamine. A Lactaid pill. Is this living?

* * * *

A quick word on The Women. Have you seen this oldie but goodie movie? I was enraptured. It’s the original Sex and the City—a black and white bonanza of an all-female cast with the likes of Joan Crawford, Norma Shearer, Rosalind Russell, Joan Fontaine and more.

These women gossip behind each other’s backs, catfight, try to steal husbands, wear fabulous clothes, and deal with life, love, tragedy, comedy…

I learned that women of that time period (1939) had to go to Reno to get divorces, and there were all these ranches and motels set up for them. Totally wild to know! I totally totally loved this movie, to the point that I am going to overlook, file away, gloss over a very bizarre bit of dialog. Tell me what you think:

Mrs. Moorehead: “Well, cheer up, Mary; living alone has its compensations. Heaven knows it’s marvelous being able to spread out in bed like a swastika.”

Huh? What was that? That’s one hell of a simile, sister.