I have some ongoing gripes about Maureen Dowd, but today’s column, “Should Hillary Pretend to Be a Flight Attendant?,” manages to sum up a bunch of recent studies about intelligent women and their attractiveness to men, young women’s income superiority as a hindrance in dating, what men and men are really looking for &c. without crapping all over Hillary Clinton in the process, as is her wont.

I do wish she had mentioned one additional Times article, August’s “Be Yourselves, Girls, Order the Rib-Eye” by Allen Salkin, which would have made this column a comprehensive roundup of the current “state of the sexes” with a sly nod to presidential politics that doesn’t, like her usual fare, hit you over the head with an agenda-mallet (you can buy one from Sky Mall) or read like a Sex and the City episode with each paragraph turning on one bad pun.

I’ve been complaining about Maureen for a long time because she has a powerful pulpit whose potential impact she often squanders. She asks to be taken seriously as a feminist (Or does she? I can never tell.) and then publishes some infuriated screed in which she complains that young women have squandered the wages of feminism, tarring all women of my generation with the same (unfair) brush. Then she retreats into her cutesy, pun-laden columns whose point is typically obscured by the need to hit a nonsensical punchline at the kicker.

Does Maureen Dowd have a “duty” or “responsibility” as the only female NYT Op-Ed columnist to deliver balanced, NOW-approved opinions? No — just because she’s a woman with a widely read column doesn’t mean she should toe a feminist line. Should she be unequivocally supporting Hillary? Of course not. But I don’t think it’s a coincidence that her best columns lately have included consultation with experts or been written by Stephen Colbert (whose job it is to be funny; and who, not incidentally actually is funny). Her usual slapsticky style detracts from the moments (like today) when her columns are actually interesting and insightful. She doesn’t need to incarnate some distaff version Krugman or Kristof, but regardless of her gender, she should strive for relevance over performance.

NB: This blog post is riling people up over at the Huffington Post.

So, for the past month I’ve been afflicted with an extreme case of delusional parasitosis, brought on by the research for this article on vermin I wrote for New York. There are a lot of people in New York City, and there’s some terrifying statistic that I not dare look up, because I’m in recovery, that insists there are like five rats for every human here, but I would like to argue that for every rat, there are at least ten people with a totally nightmare-inducing tale to tell you about bedbugs.

I defy you to listen to a horror story about bedbugs, or even just a fact about them (they can go for over a year without a “blood meal”) without developing hives. I have grown so used to my delusional bedbug bites that I just scratch them idly now, like I have a permanent case of chickenpox. Or monkeypox. Or another really scary pox. The article covers roaches, bedbugs and rodents, but I’d be remiss if I didn’t offer you some insight into how to get rid of some other common NYC pests that didn’t make it into the package but are probably haunting your adode all the same.

Carpenter Ants
They live in damp wood–their nests have a smooth, sanded-over appearance. Small piles of sawdust are often found near where they’re nesting. They don’t eat wood like termites do; but they’ll eat most any food you leave out.

Get rid of them: Ants forage, then head back to the nest. Apply small dots of MaxForce Ant Bait Gel in crevices and a thin layer of boric acid where you’ve seen activity. Seal off all cracks with silicone caulk, as you would for roaches. Fix leaks and drips, especially around tubs, sinks and windows.

House Centipedes
Hideous and traumatizing, but they feed on cockroaches, bedbugs and other pests. They tend to come inside when it’s damp. Aaaaargh, every time I see one, I lose one of my nine lives.

Get rid of them: Diatomaceous earth or boric acid in cracks and crevices.

Termites
They don’t just eat wood–they’ll eat anything with cellulose in it, like books, carpets and fabrics. They love moisture and need it to survive.

Get rid of them: Call the landlord and bring in the professionals. Detection and eradication of termites often requires special knowledge of building structures .

Clothes Moths
Feed on wool, silk, fur, feathers, leather–they tend to steer clear of synthetics. They stay in dark areas like closets, and clothing and linen storage boxes.

Get rid of them: Vacuum closets and drawers regularly. Wash or dry clean clothes and blankets before storing them–moths are attracted to perspiration. Store clothes in tightly closed bags and boxes with moth balls or crystals. Cedar chests and chips tends to be less effective because the moth-killing cedar oil evaporates too quickly.

PS: I urge you to pick up a hard copy of this issue of New York — the layout of this story can only be described as the ne plus ultra of jolie laide. Gross, but gorgeous.

I walked by tonight and there was a sign, they’re closing next month. That’s weird, right? Like, is St. Mark’s Books rejoicing? No doubt whatever goes in there will be decried as yet another corporate craphouse that’s destroying the neighborhood.

Astor Place, my friends is the least of your worries. It was gentrified before most of the gripers got here, it’s a subway hub like Union Square, it’s congenitally engineered to accommodate five Starbucks and the new Walgreen’s.

Okay, I don’t understand the Walgreen’s. That’s not a New York chain. That’s just weird. I can’t even imagine how much that old Astor Wines space must be in rent. Walgreen’s? Isn’t Walgreen’s the dumpy Duane Reade? But with more space for more shelves of Russell Stover?

I observe the closing of the Astor Place B&N with interest. It means there’s one less place that sells my book in my neighborhood. That’s not good. It just seemed so integral and neighborhoodish for a big chain store. I think I will only shop at the Shakespeare & Co. around the corner since I have been quietly boycotting St. Mark’s ever since I decided the people who work there are kind of shitty.

Okay, now that I think about it, the Astor Place B&N is kind of a dump, as B&Ns go. But always packed! And it was, ah, memories, where I once fell down the stairs so calamitously I got a round of applause.

I recently bragged about being a good speller. It took me four tries to spell “accommodate” correctly. I’m humbled.

What’s the point of the blog if it has not a theme, is sporadically updated, acts coy and withholding when it comes to intimate details?

I don’t know either. But you care, so I persevere, with vague promises of posting more, and my evident discomfort with really revealing everything is maddening even to me. But I think that anyone who really wants to get to the kernel of what is what with me should read/study/commit to memory the following mundane facts about my week.

1. I have yet another ingrown toenail. I’m suspecting it’s genetic. This one can’t be attributed to running shoes because I haven’t been running because either I’ve been working too much, it’s getting cold, or whenever I’m not working I think “Oh it’s too cold I’d rather crawl under the covers and think about work.” Suspicion: combination of the three.

2. I tore through Truth & Beauty by Ann Patchett, Autobiography of a Face by Lucy Grealy, and now I’m slowly making my way through Revolutionary Road by Richard Yates and pretending it’s the book version of Mad Men because I’m sad that the Mad Men season is over.

3. I remain enthralled by the Larry King video podcast and I don’t care who knows it. I watched Kid Rock. I watched Eric Clapton. I watched Jenny McCarthy for chrissakes. I don’t care who it is, if it’s Larry King and it’s on a 2×2″ screen, I am rapt.

4. I started watching The Wire. I never like to admit anything is too hard, but I am having a hard time understanding what the hell.

5. I went to a spelling bee. I felt I could have outspelled the pants off everyone there but that’s an ego thing. I pride myself on being a really good speller. I make typos sometimes and this is painful for me because I kind of think of myself as also a really good typist. And a show-off. I’m braggy.

6. I can’t dress for this shit. I mean, I know: LAYERS. But I hate any season that’s not summer.

7. I felt overwhelmed by malignant envy maybe 2 times this week. This is average for me.

8. I felt sorry for myself maybe 4 times this week. This is a lot for me.

9. I got a new gear shift on my 15-year-old bike that is a non-stop target for neighborhood vandals and man, gear-shift technology has really come a long way since I bought my twice-used Specialized Hard Rock Sport in 1992.

10. My new bike basket is not working out. It’s not attaching properly to the handlebars and it slowly or sometimes quickly starts to dump all my stuff into the street while I’m riding. I get a lot of compliments on it, however, so I’m thinking: who needs stuff? The surly guy at the bike shop even complimented me! Thanks, Jean!

11. I almost missed Halloween because I was holed up at Paragraph and then emerged at 2am and nearly got trampled on 14th Street by drunk revelers and I realized eh, Halloween, not my holiday. My holiday, for those who keep track of these things, is Bastille Day because it’s French and it’s in the summer. And it involves heads on poles. No, not for that reason.

12. I stood behind the so so so pregnant Drea DeMatteo at my pharmacy (or should I say “our pharmacy,” since it’s mine and Drea’s) and eavesdropped on her conversation but held myself back from chuckling along or making a calculatedly clever comment because in spite of the fact that we share a pharmacy and I found her black suede hobo bag with tassels that TOUCHED THE FLOOR remarkable, she is not my friend and I am not a starfucker.

13. Two friends’ bands are playing tonight and I want to go to both. I don’t like going to see bands but I happen to have a minimum of three friends who are in legitimately good bands.

14. I have connected with more random people from my past on Facebook than is healthy or seemingly necessary and it makes me nervous that my policy of being apparently personal but not divulging anything truly personal is going to start getting dicey.

15. I realized that when you interview someone for a story, they Google you. Sometimes you interview like 20 people and you see in your site logs that they all Googled you. I find this creepy and I think this is me just being ridiculous because I mean, everyone GoogleS everyone, and of course I’d Google a reporter who called me. I think Google etiquette involves not admitting you Googled someone, as one of my sources did and I got very “this call is coming from inside the house” scared.

16. I am nursing a very cautious crush.

17. Julie brought me a big bottle of 100% aloe vera and I drank the whole thing as the directions advised me, 2oz. twice a day, and I don’t know what it’s supposed to do but it hasn’t done it yet.

18. Don’t not return an email, especially a business email. Don’t not return a call unless you never want to hear from someone again. Never forget to thank people whom you ask for advice. Don’t take the advice and run. People are busy being important/famous/having ingrown toenails and they took the time to give you, a total stranger, advice via email. Say thanks.

Can I pause here and just say that about 9 months ago, in the throes of doing publicity for my book, a stranger emailed me for advice. I feel no compunction in revealing the details of the scenario because I think she acted abominably. She was trying to decide between the MFA programs at Columbia and NYU, both of which had accepted her, and an old professor of mine suggested she contact me. I gave her a whole boatload of advice, a thorough compare/contrast of NYU/Columbia, based on my experience at NYU and friends’ experiences teaching at/attending Columbia–even though I found her sort of supercilious and full of herself. I was in primo advice-giving mode at the time as I was touring-slash-doing a lot of interviews where I was being asked for my opinion a lot. But I tried to abide by my “all unsolicited advice is self-serving” motto and really help her. We should all be so lucky to have such “problems,” but anyone who ever really wanted to get into one of those programs knows that. Anyway, I never heard from her. And I’m kind of pissed about it. Because if there’s one thing I hate it’s people who don’t express gratitude. I’m old-fashioned: I like to send cards. I like to send gifts. I don’t want to appear entitled, even if I feel entitled. I’m showing off again. Anyway. It’s shitty not to thank someone.

It is also shitty to not RSVP to a party; it is shitty to work very, very closely with someone on their book and then not acknowledge its publication (more common than you’d think!), it’s a good idea to kiss someone’s ass just a tiny bit when you ask them for a big favor, but in a genuine way that shows that you respect them and their time. I’m getting ranty now. I forgive you all. But come on people. Be human. Be nice to each other. Acknowledge people. It’s not a zero-sum game. Even if I am totally winning.

19. I think I should turn this more positive. I like my new shoes. Even if they look a little Wednesday-Addams-ish.

20. I worked hard this week and think I will reward myself this weekend. This means I will go running for pleasure and not beat myself up for only doing half my normal distance because I’ve not been running in weeks. This sounds like a dumb reward but I tend to be extraordinarily hard on myself and I think I will try to give myself this gift. Oh who am I kidding. I’m going to get that Cole Haan bag.