Dame's Eye View

What I'm reading now: The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath. I'm nostalgic for the original chick lit produced by one of the most famous alums of my alma mater. Our hero is single in New York City working for a women's magazine . . . sound familiar? It's based on Plath's experience as a guest editor for Mademoiselle. But it's so much darker, better written and insightful than anything published since then on similar topics. It's ground-breaking, in an over-dramatic, girl meets city kind of way.

What I want to see: An Inconvenient Truth. The scariest movie of the season: Al Gore's dire and all-too-real warning on global warming. Did it just get hot in here?

What to do: did I mention the Anglo-mania show at the NYC's Metropolitan Museum of Art? It's so weird and off-beat I can't believe it's actually in that stuffy place. There are 3-d dioramas of 18th-century dress mixed in with British punk fashions. Then the wall text helpfully points out what's "tradition" and what's "transgression." Trust me, it's not all that subtle when the transgression is, say, a dress made entirely out of pink rosettes shaped into an ice-cream cone.

When to marry: later! According to the New York Times, women are getting married, they're just doing it later rather than sooner. And, they're not more likely to die trying. Still, the article couldn't help get in a couple of jabs at women who are still glad they made their When Harry Met Sally deadline (40, for those of you who don't own the movie or watch it on a regular basis.)

Speaking of Nora Ephron, I just finished her piece in the New Yorker while on the plane ride back from NYC. It describes her decades-long love affair with a rent-controlled apartment. My mom used to live just blocks from that building and I always wondered what went on behind those enormous gates. If you know anything about living in NYC, or if you don't, you must read it. You really must.