Every Sunday, an image or a movie. Happy New Year.

Let’s be frank: Every year you expect it to be the best night of your life, and every year it is so, so not. Or you plan some complicated to-do, you get dressed up, you spend a pile of cash, you end up pressed up against a faceless guy in the back of a humid bar/living room/jail cell, clutching an empty cup of watered-down bathtub gin-and-tonic and waiting in a bathroom line so long you’ve perspired out your pee by the time you get to the backed-up stall. Admit it.

Here is the thing I have to say to you about New Year’s Eve. It doesn’t have to be like this. The best night of your life, or your year, was probably…last night. You know, the night after the afternoon you hung out with your friends and their hilarious houseguest and ate Christmas leftovers and drank wine and then went out carousing and stopped and had an ice cream and maybe ended up at a restaurant where the garden was open and you had mashed potatoes and got home happy and sated. That, my friends, was the best night of the year. And you didn’t plan it. You didn’t orchestrate it, it just happened.

The best nights of your life are going to happen to you, they are seldom going to happen to you on December 31. The odds of a marginally okay night are not in your favor on a night when expectations are raised to the heavens, when it’s cold and/or raining and/or snowing and there are no cabs and you are drunk and you are in Brooklyn or some other unfathomably far-from-where-you-live place and you didn’t get kissed. And you really wanted to get kissed. Or you got kissed by some creep and pretended it was okay.

If you have a good party to go to, and a way home so you don’t end up in your torn fishnets on the corner of No Cab and Frat Boys Brawling, then okay. Okay with your good night. But if you are scurrying around trying to come up with the best night of your life and/or attempting to orchestrate the best night of their lives for a bunch of other thrillseekers, you are better off having those friends come over to your very fun house for dinner and champagne and spin-the-bottle. And it doesn’t have to be “low-key” or “mellow” or whatever people resign themselves to when they don’t force their way past a velvet rope but instead go the rogue, people-you-know route. It can still be totally fucking off-the-wall fantastic, but come on.

Let the thing be what it is, as (I think) Dorothy Barresi once wrote.

This is not me pooping on the fun night. I’m just saying because come on, there’s too much stress anyway. And then there’s the rest of January, and February, stretching out in front of you like Nebraska, with very little by comparison, if you decide all the fun is going to happen in one night and that night is Sunday this Sunday.

My friend Cusi advised me the other day to put a high premium on fun and I advise you to do the same. Your odds for cashing in on that fun are highest on non-December 31sts. You heard it here. Pass it on.

So you want to be a runner? Good girl. Here’s how I did it.

In Chapter 1 of the book I blather on about how I always despised running, lying awake terrified the night before “The Mile” every school year when I’d be forced to lope four times around the track, fearing collapsing before reaching the finish line. I still remember how future Olympians like Lia Walker would run The Mile in six minutes and I’d come skating in at 9:56 on a fast day, my throat sore, all shaky and sweaty and delirious with joy at not having walked and not coming in at the back of the pack with the walkers.

Even if you were a walker, you can try the program I did that transformed me from a running-hater to a person who actually can’t think clearly or digest properly or sit still without a multiple-mile run several times a week. It’s called The Couch-to-5K Running Plan. It takes about eight weeks and it’s very reasonable and rather fun and regimented and will surprise you. I mean that if you don’t run and you want to, you will surprise yourself at what you are capable of.

It might sound like I’m bragging a little about the running thing. Okay, fine, I am. I am truly amazed at how a year and a half ago I couldn’t run a mile comfortably, and now I can and do run many times that.

Thanks to Bobbie, who wrote to me asking about the running program I did, and who articulated what I think a lot of women feel/think about running and other kinds of exercise:

I realized as I read that I’ve always told myself I can’t run and I can’t do this or that — and maybe it’s time I say I want to run, I can run, and I am going to run! I’m a near couch potato right now that’s blessed with a high metabolism, but I don’t want to neglect my health any more.

Hooray, Bobbie! We should all stop telling ourselves what we can’t do.
Good luck, future marathoners.
Lia Walker, eat my dust.

Oh my idiocy, I never until this very minute noticed her last name was WALKER. Lia Walker. I would have done anything at all to run that fast.

Previously:

Today’s question comes from Rachael, a third-year medical student from Kingston, Ontario.

Dear Ms. Kirsch, I just read the “What supplements should I take” section on page 25, and was very disappointed not to see folic acid in the list.

In a woman who becomes pregnant, folic acid is important for the prevention
of neural tube defects (like spina bifida) and other birth defects.
Supplementation with folic acid has been proven to decrease such defects.

I am sure that most of the women reading your book are not trying to get
pregnant. Half of all pregnancies, however, are unplanned. Furthermore,
neural tube defects occur very early on, usually before a woman knows that
she is pregnant. It is therefore recommended that all women of reproductive
age (ie your audience) should be taking folic acid BEFORE they are even
thinking about having children.

I think that this is a very important message, which young women often don’t
receive until they are actually pregnant. Your book targets the very group
that needs to know about folic acid: adult women who are not yet starting
their families. If you produce a 2nd edition at some point, please please
please include information about folic acid in your nutrition section!

Thanks for the great book.

Rachael’s question got me thinking, because I’ve heard a lot about folic acid being necessary for expectant mothers, but never thought it was important for women who weren’t trying to become pregnant.

Since that list of nutritional supplements was compiled with the aid of our resident nutritionist, Dr. Jeffrey Morrison, I took Rachael’s question to him. Here’s his response:

Dear Rachael,

Thank you so much for your comments about the fact that women of child bearing years need to be concerned about adequate folic acid intake.

Currently The U.S. Preventive Services Task force recommends that all women planning pregnancy take a daily multivitamin or multivitamin-multimineral supplement containing folic acid at a dose of 400-800 mcg, beginning 1 month prior to conception and continuing through the first trimester, to reduce the risk of neural tube defects.(1)

Even though it was not expressly written, a diet high in fruits, vegetable and fortified whole grain products contribute to that goal. In addition, my recommendation that women take an additional B-complex will typically cover the folic acid requirement.

That all being said, I agree with you. In the next addition to the book, I will recommend to Melissa to add a bullet point to clarify the importance of folic acid to women’s health. Thank you for your comments and good luck with medical school!

(1) Combs GF. Ch.4 on Vitamins, in “Krause’s Food, Nutrition and Diet Therapy.” Mahan LK, Escott-Stump S, editors. 10th ed. W.B. Saunders Company. Philadelphia: 2000. p. 94

Thanks, Rachael! I hope this helps. As I wrote in the introduction to the book (Who reads introductions? I know), The Girl’s Guide to Absolutely Everything is not meant to be the last word on anything, but the opening of a conversation. I wrote the book so women could benefit from the accrued experience of other women. The exchange continues beyond the pages of the book.

If you have any questions, corrections, stories, comments, ideas, wisdom, advice or anything else you want to get out there, write me at melissa@melissakirsch.com.

Should there be some frisson of ugh-get-me-out-of-here in your holiday revelry, should you be home from, say, college or California or Paris or the trailer down by the river where you live with your cats, and should you be wishing to be elsewhere, unsurrounded by the yule log and the dotty aunts and all of it, all of it, oh all of it, might I assist you?

1. Check out page 302: “Home for the Holidays: It’s All Good Cheer & Egg Nog, Right?”
2. Keep breathing.
3. Don’t touch that fruitcake–what is that candied green fruit? Candied lime? Gross!
4. Go for the pie. It’s hard to justify candied fruit in pie. You’re safe.
5. Think about next week, and New Year’s Eve, and you in your silver dress. Maybe in Vegas? No, that’s tacky. Maybe with your friends someplace not-tacky.
6. This is what iPods were made for. Go for a walk. It’s not that cold.
7. Write it all down. This is what those cloth-covered books were made for.
8. Call old friends. Cell phones, made for.
9. Nap. It’s like a food coma, but refreshing.
10. When in crisis, there’s always a medley! How I miss the Sweeney Sisters. I can’t believe this is now 20 years old.

On Sundays, a picture or a film.

We all know how I love me a good Sufjan Stevens cover. This isn’t my online crush, Cougarman7, but it’s super-lovely just the same and one of my favorite songs, “Casimir Pulaski Day” from Illinois.

Getting your ingrown toenail operated on without anesthesia. Also without that little pleather screen they (in respectable podiatry offices) put between you and the pliers so you can’t see the grossitude. I’m hobbled. I let out little shrieks. I actually covered my eyes with my hands. I wanted a diagnosis. I was told to stop getting pedicures and yes that’s a “tiny bunion.”

I would like to make a felt stuffed animal of a tiny bunion and give it to you for Christmas. It would have googly eyes and a maybe thatch of krazy red hair. It would be like an Ugly Doll–you know, ugly and cute all at once. Except it would hurt.

PS ‘Twas the Friday before Christmas and you still hadn’t bought a copy of my book? Get it while the getting’s good. Surely someone on your list deserves access to your free trial period of Amazon Prime!

Fascinating, this montage of Donald Trump’s semi-controlled vitriolic tirade against Rosie O’Donnell for criticizing him on The View yesterday.

Notice the one thing that Donald keeps coming back to is how “fat” and “ugly” Rosie is. I maintain that criticizing a woman’s appearance is just low, it’s a low, cheap shot for men to take when they feel defenseless or emasculated (Rosie said Donald was “bankrupt”–which, for a man whose entire identity is predicated on his net worth, would be the equivalent of saying he has a tiny pee-pee). Criticizing a woman’s appearance, especially calling her fat, as evidence of her unworthiness is cheap, cheap, cheap. Weight discrimination is the last socially acceptable form of prejudice. I wish it were also an insult empty of venom. But while women know that every idiotic man who can’t think of a way to hurt a woman is going to say something about her body, this doesn’t stop the insult from stinging. It shouldn’t mean anything more than any other subjective epithet, but in our “evolved” society, it does.

As Sarah Silverman says, “I don’t care if you think I’m racist. I only care if you think I’m thin.”

A woman walking down the street in NYC without an iPod on is going to hear an unscientific average of three catcalls, two lewd comments, and receive at least one up-and-down salacious ironing by a stranger. But woe unto the woman who yells something back, for she is undoubtedly going to called an “ugly bitch” or a “fat ass” by the man who was harrassing her in the first place. Not every man is a dirty pig, but all dirty pigs know that they can “win” by criticizing a woman’s appearance. And every woman who’s ever defended herself against the attentions of a dirty pig knows what she’s in for if she dares do anything but smile and walk on by.

I have (male) friends who say “You should feel complimented when men check you out.” I have grown weary of explaining the difference between my boyfriend telling me I look pretty and a stranger hissing that he’d like to “tap that ass.”

Woman Puts Baby Through Airport X-Ray
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Published: December 20, 2006

LOS ANGELES (AP) — A woman mistakenly put her 1-month-old grandson through an X-ray machine at Los Angeles International Airport, authorities said.

A startled security worker noticed the shape of a child on the carry-on baggage screening monitor and immediately pulled him out, the Los Angeles Times reported for a story in Wednesday’s editions.

The infant was taken to a local hospital, where doctors determined he did not receive a dangerous dose of radiation.

”This was an innocent mistake by an obviously inexperienced traveler,” said Paul Haney, deputy executive director of airports and security for the city’s airport agency.

The incident happened early Saturday, airport officials said.

Haney said in 1988, an infant in a car seat went through an X-ray machine at the Los Angeles airport.

_________________________________________________________

Which begs the question.

OK, this is just terrifying. It looks like a pretty poster of flowers, it’s actually a logic-less argument against contraception. Check it out! Condoms grow “lethal experimentation” (whatever that is). Chastity grows volunteers! I’m trying to decide if it’s fair that the dandelion has to bear the fruit of all this Evil.

Brought to you by some creepy organization called “One More Soul,” via the excellent blog Feministing.