The American Nursing Association is organizing a protest against Nurse Jackie, the Showtime program starring Edie Falco as a pill-popping, ethically-questionable nurse.

So, starting next week, Nurse Jackie will just lead people to little rooms, take their blood pressure, and show them pictures of her cockapoo wearing a tank top.

The gayest place in New York? The new High Line park. It opened unexpectedly yesterday, and word immediately hit the gay grapevine. So, while the straights in the city were waiting for the official opening this morning, every gay in the city has already been there, done that.

The park is on an old elevated railroad line that runs from the Meatpacking district up to 28th Street, right through the heart of Chelsea. Even just twenty or thirty feet up, the views are pretty good. You can look right into the second floor windows at the Phillips De Pury auction house and the Equinox gym. I should have known yoga would be a fun spectator sport: with profusive sweat and somebody shouting commands, it's got two of the three things I like about sex.

The park is minimalist and modern, but it was obviously designed by heterosexuals. What, no water feature, guys? There's an odd amphitheater centered around a giant window where you can watch the cars stream by. And the architects left some of the old railroad track just for nostalgia's sake.


Lots of wildflowers, lots of colorful plants.


This being Chelsea, the park has to butt up against some skanky billboards.


The new High Line park is definitely a city highlight -- fresh air, foliage, no bicycle messengers. Everybody friendly and upbeat, excited to see a positive change to the city. And of course the gays have already adopted it: a towelless tanner has left his outline in baby oil on a bench, and I saw a couple rather thick bears getting affectionate in some rather thin woods.

Repeat Monday: Two Mistakes

Every time Richard opens his mouth he makes two mistakes. "I absolutely love Picasso's works from his purple period," he declares at the art museum, staring in admiration at a tiny, colorful work.

These pronouncements always stop me in my tracks, because I never know which mistake to address first. In this case I say, "Actually, Picasso never had a purple period. And that picture in particular is a Mondrian."

"Oh," he says. He nods his head like he's suddenly semi-educated, when in reality he's just moving on to his next mistakes. He doesn't seem to realize how hard it is to talk to him. When somebody makes one mistake, the human brain can easily decipher it. One mistake is glaringly obvious: Ellen Degeneres is married to Portia de Rossi, not Tia Carrera. Narcissus aren't orange, they're white. One can't actually dodge taxes by diverting some of their income to a 10K. The brain decides whether or not the err is worth correcting, and that's the extent of that.

When someone makes two mistakes, though, additional parts of the brain are required, because the conversation receptor is thrown into overload. A dialog starts ping-ponging inside the head. It's like the NYPD caught a naked man holding up a liquor store and then couldn't decide whether the case should go to Violent Crimes or Vice. "Have you seen that movie with Roma Downey Jr.?" Richard asks. "Hawaiian Tropics?"

I have to mentally list all the possible permutations and then rank them by the likeliest. Does he really mean Roma Downey? Probably not. Nobody's meant Roma Downey in quite some time. No, odds are it's Robert Downey Jr. But he never made a movie about tanning lotion, right?

Meanwhile, Richard is standing there blissfully, not a thought in his head.

Now, I kind of like Richard. He's attractive and fun and professional, three qualities I've rarely found before, let alone in the same man. But I can't help but wonder. Making one mistake at a time marks you as an ordinary, fallible human. What does two at a time say?

Still, he's my man for most of December. I bite my lip when he tells me he has a crush on David Beckham, the rugby player who's married to Scary Spice. I sigh sadly when he announces that Oreo cookies are made by leprechauns. I watch in silence as he pours champagne into a martini glass that has colored salt around the rim.

And still, somehow, we make it into bed. The usual way, pretty much: we go out to dinner, drink a bottle of wine, go back to his place and start making out. "I bet you've got a big dick and you know how to use it," he whispers into my ear.

I say, "Oh, just shut up and lie down.""

PIERRE, S.D. (AP) -- A 23-year-old rancher who recently had his mobile home repossessed has claimed a $232.1 million Powerball jackpot. After taxes, Neal Wanless will take home $88.5 million dollars.

First thing he's going to do with the money? Tar and feather a revenooer.





BANGKOK (AP) -- The body of American actor David Carradine, best known for the 1970s TV series ''Kung Fu,'' was found in a hotel room closet with a rope tied around his neck and his genitals.

Faithful readers, rest assured that's never going to happen to me.

If my mind wanders for like a tenth of a second, even thread slides off.

Okay, so their version is better, but they don't write in their underwear.



(Thanks to Anonymous for the tip.)

I'm a big fan of Lisa Nichols. In case you live in a cave, she's an inspirational writer who has appeared on Oprah and was featured in The Secret.

Lisa now offers a course called "No Matter What!" that's a breakthrough in personal motivation. For just $327, this affirmational coaching service includes flash cards and CDs that will inspire and encourage you to go out and create your greatness!

Needless to say, Lisa has gone way beyond role model to me. In fact, I'm so excited about her work that I plan to follow in her footsteps. I'm going to write my own motivational program that may one day inspire other people to write their own motivational programs, and maybe one day those motivational programs will inspire still more people to write motivational programs.

I call it the Circle of Motivational Life, but don't even think about quoting me for free.

Cat diarrhea in my container garden today. It's official: there's absolutely nothing that will keep stray cats away. Not whirlagigs, not tulle, not mothballs, not cayenne pepper. I'm going to start leaving bran muffins out, so at least it'll be easier to clean up after them.

How You Know You're Old

You leave home in the morning carrying the same shopping bags you come home with at night.

Sometimes when you're dancing you realize you've accidentally started doing your aerobics.

On a bus, at the movies, at a funeral: you think any time is a fine time for a banana.

Queen Sofia of Spain has given Britain's Royals a lesson in austerity by flying to London on Ryanair for just £13.

Unfortunately she checked three bags and ordered a sandwich on board, so the total bill came to £217,000.

When I moved from L. A. to New York, I didn't realize I was moving to a small town. I found the apartment through an ad in the New York Times, and I didn't know about my new neighborhood. It wasn't a gay ghetto like Chelsea. It wasn't a punk fun zone like the East Village. It was Williamsburg, with three salami stores on every corner and thirty nosy old Italian widows on every block.

Now, I've always loved Italians. I had an Italian mother-in-law once, and I couldn't believe how hard she worked. She'd get up at six in the morning and clean the house from top to bottom, then make pasta for lunch by hand, all to keep her son happy. I come from a German/French family and my mother wouldn't have tossed her beer on me if I were on fire.

Before she agrees to rent me the apartment, Luigia quizzes me on the phone. "Are you married?" she asks. "Do you have a girlfriend? Do you do a lot of dating?"

I say no to all of the above, trying to sound more like Joe Jonas than Liberace, but I can tell she's suspicious. I don't have the most masculine voice, and with the notable lack of women in my life I think she senses that something is up.

Still, eventually she declares the apartment is mine. When my taxi pulls up in front of the building, though, and I find her waiting there in a lawn chair, I realize I'm not just moving into her building. I'm moving into her life.

"You finally got here!" she says, beaming at me and pulling the wrinkles out of her housedress. "How was your flight?"

"Long," I complain. "I had an aisle seat next to a woman with a baby. She was up every five minutes. My butt has never been so busy."

Just as I realize there's a touch of innuendo in that sentence I see the look of horror on Luigia's face. Without another word she flings my keys at me and then runs up to her apartment on the second floor.

As I unpack my boxes it hits me. Luigia knows I'm gay and she's cool with it -- as long as I don't bring it up. It's like we've got our own "Don't Ask, Don't Tell." Obviously it's not the ideal situation, but with a big, cheap apartment involved I'm willing to play along. Besides, I expect a little homophobia from an eighty-year-old woman. She's got Catholic baggage to deal with. I didn't expect her to be hanging off the balcony, waving a rainbow flag and yelling, "I LOVE MY NEW GAY TENANT!"

So, I resolve to watch what I say. Everything will be fine as long as I watch what I say.

Unfortunately, Luigia is no longer speaking to me, so I don't get another chance. I see her wandering around, and while everybody else in the neighborhood gets an animated hello, I get an annoyed grunt. I do what I can to get back on her good side. I water the plants in front of the building. I clean the graffiti off. I take the trash cans to the curb for the garbage men. And after a couple of weeks, there's a knock at my door.

It's Luigia. "I just wanted to make sure you're eating right," she says, almost apologetically, handing me a big foil pan full of food. There's pasta and meatballs and sausages all covered in spaghetti sauce.

I thank her profusely -- homophobia goes down fine with me as long as it's catered -- and the next day she drops by to ask how everything was. I wrack my brain: I can't say I love sausage, because then we'll be talking about stuffing long tubes of meat into my mouth. And I can't say a word about those tasty crimson balls the size of my fist. The noodles were certainly . . . long, thin and coated in sauce. I throw up a thousand compliments in my head but shoot down every one. Italian food is all about gay innuendo.

When I look down at her she's staring at me and wondering if an answer is coming. "It was absolutely delicious," I finally say.

And so, over the months a bond forms. She asks me a question and I find a non-sexual answer, though I have to think for so long she becomes convinced there's something wrong with me.

One day she calls and says, "Roman, I'm going to call an exterminator -- a man who kills bugs -- for tomorrow. Will you be home?"

She's like the thoughtful grandma I never had, I think. I'm really going to like New York.

And I start to say I'll be in and out all day but finally just swerve it into a yes.

Two weeks after native son Kris Allen won American Idol, Arkansas residents are shooting rifles into the air, drinking too much beer, and hugging and kissing their relatives.

Yes, life has gone back to normal in the Show Me State.

Yeah, because they're not the ones who got knocked up.

Hey, it makes sense. I've seen quite a few that were more entertaining than Bolt.

I'm not a total idiot. I won't buy just any crap I see on TV. Regardless how good it looks, they've got to pay some people to say the product works to get me to buy in.

The Ab Circle Pro sounded too perfect. Just three minutes a day to achieve the abs of your dreams! Websites promised it. TV commercials promised it. The Home Shopping Network promised it, for a very short time offering the Ab Circle Pro for the exact same price as everybody else.

But their testimonials backed up the promises. On the Natural Super Foods Blog "Taylor" declares that a friend of his brother-in-law "used this machine and lost over 60 pounds in 8 weeks. . . . He said he just did it for 3 mins. a day."

Coincidentally, a woman on the Ab Circle Pro TV commercial gave the exact same quote: sixty pounds, eight weeks, three minutes a day. It sounds unbelievable, so let's stop and do the math:

Losing one pound means burning 3,500 calories, so losing sixty pounds means burning 210,000 calories. Over eight weeks, that means 3,750 calories a day. Three minutes a day means the Ab Circle Pro burns 1,250 calories a minute.

Now, that's pretty impressive. I mean, according to Good Housekeeping, step aerobics only burns 20 calories. Playing tennis, roller-skating, and swimming only burns 8 calories.

Lifting weights while you're playing racquetball doesn't come close. Chopping wood while you're jumping rope only burns 40 calories. Which, you know, comes up slightly short of 1,250.

Looking back at "Taylor"'s testimonial, I see his brother-in-law's friend was also "watching his food intake as well." Assuming three minutes on the Ab Circle Pro burns five times more calories than parasailing with a microwave oven strapped to each arm, that's still only 200 calories a day. This means he must have reduced his diet by 3,550 calories a day.

Which is more than most people eat.

Fuzzy math also characterizes Jennifer Nicole Lee's testimony, though maybe massive weight loss makes your brain go weird. According to the Ab Circle Pro website and the Home Shopping Network, she lost over 80 pounds! Well, or over 70 pounds, according to another website and her biography, but maybe it's hard to remember stuff when you don't eat. She talks about her weight loss on the Ab Circle Pro website, and in TV commercials. She sold it on HSN. Her before-and-after pictures are everywhere!




Jennifer totally turned her life around, and that's exactly what I'm going to do. Why, since losing that weight, she's become one of America's favorite fitness experts, even appearing on Oprah and on the covers of over 26 magazines!

I saved her story for last because it's most inspiring. See, her weight loss occurred before 2005, when she was named Miss Bikini America, and the Ab Circle Pro wasn't even trademarked until this year.

Jennifer lost her weight before she started using the Ab Circle Pro! Now that's the kind of results I need.

Researchers studying satellite images of Antartica discovered a huge deposit of reddish-brown penguin poo that was visible from space.

And an exhausted male penguin toddling away, holding a magazine.

How to Write Good, by the New York Times

From a Restaurant review:

[I]n one corner of the room is a stack of vases and bowls and artworks under a sign that reads "all for sale."

Oh. Okay. I'll take a vase and a couple bowls.

The Small Print: 70 Police Injured During Scuffle With Protesters

Today the L. A. Times has a big article on harem pants, with the headline "How to make them say 'sexy,' not M. C. Hammer."

Here's one of their pictures.


What make harem pants sexy? A flirty scarf. Chunky gold jewelry. Sparkly stilettos. Also, leave the ass flap cracked open an inch.

Is Your Blog Just a Useless Shill for NBC, Providing Occasional Chuckles for Underachievers at Work?

Do you have a link to anything from Conan last night?

Octomom jokes. Sports jokes. Jokes about his hair.

The bad news: Yeah, that's Conan. The good news: After 17 years, Letterman gets to know what #1 feels like.

When I moved to New York, I thought it'd be fun. I thought I'd be an oversized Mary Tyler Moore moving to another big city. I'd gaze up at the skyscrapers from a crosswalk and, way too suffused with big-city coolness to exhibit any visible signs of delight, at least mentally fling my beret in the air.

Instead, it was something like Godzilla moving to Tokyo. Are all big creatures that clueless? I wondered the first time a startled woman screamed as I lumbered past her in the dark. When Godzilla packed his bags to move to Tokyo, did he think, "Gosh, think of all the great museums I'll get to see!"?

See, nobody cares if you're short and serious. Short and serious is easily ignored. Salman Rushdie is short and serious. Maya Angelou is short and serious. When you're short and serious, nobody gives a damn. Because what are you going to do, hold a poetry reading without a permit?

When you're tall and serious, though, it's another matter entirely. Whether you're sniffing roses at a botanical garden or sipping tea at the Plaza, you're seconds away from the SWAT team being called. The maitre d' quavers slightly as he leads you to a table, then for the duration of your meal he stands ten feet away with a baseball bat behind his back.

After I'd settled into my new apartment I figured the time had come to find a dude to cheer me up. I threw on a jacket and headed to Christopher Street, but when I walked into the Piston everybody froze. It was like a scene in a movie where everyone's laughing and joking and then Mildred Pierce appears. Every eye zipped straight to me and watched in horror as I headed for the bar.

I hadn't gotten five feet when the manager scurried up. "You know this is an establishment for GAY MEN?" he asked.

"Yeah," I said. "I know."

"So if you have a problem with GAY MEN," he continued, "you should leave IMMEDIATELY."

"I don't have a problem with GAY MEN. In fact, I was hoping to bring one HOME."

He shuddered, and I realized he was probably picturing me clonking my chosen partner over the head and dragging his lifeless body away. I pushed past him and got a beer but he stayed in my shadow, glaring at me like a Tiffany security guard watching Winona Ryder shop.

I did my best to ignore him but he finally wore me down. I gulped my beer and left. At the next bar, though, the scene was even worse. I wasn't three feet inside when the manager appeared. "PLEASE!" he shrieked, beads of sweat forming on his forehead. "WE DON'T WANT ANY TROUBLE HERE!"

I backed out immediately and walked the cold street in disbelief. Is this even possible? I wondered. This is the city where everyone's seen everything, yet somehow they come unglued spotting the opposite of Truman Capote? It's incredible. It's unbelievable. And I'm guessing it'd be even worse if they could see the scar I got opening that can of paté.

I spent most of the ride home staring at myself in the rear-view mirror. Yes, I'm a little intimidating. Okay, maybe scary. With deep-set eyes, angular face, and pointy black beard, I could have been the model for the guy who tried to kill Mulan. The serial-killer glare, though, pushed it way over the top.

I'll admit it: I'm not a smiler. I think smiles looks dopey. They're the default facial expression for people who think, "Isn't the Lord just grand?" Besides, I've always found masculinity attractive, and a big dopey grin doesn't exactly scream Sean Connery to me.

I'd never taken into account my size, though. I'm sufficiently large that I cast a shadow on people ten minutes before I'm close enough to talk. They see the darkness, feel the cold settle in, then spin around to see me, and that's when they take on the look of Melty Nazi in Raiders of the Lost Ark.

Maybe I could crack a hint of a smile, I thought. I mean, my size is manly enough. I'm like the Hunchback of Notre Dame, sufficiently strange that a familiar facial expression is required to convey the idea that I had parents too. In fact, if the Hunchback had smiled a bit more I bet he'd be a dental hygienist right now.

I wasn't ready to go home but didn't think my ego could take another blow. Then it hit me: The Ramble in Central Park was supposed to be a sexy little fun zone for gay men after dark. I'd never been there before, never being that desperate, but now I craved it. After all that humiliation I needed the furtiveness, the shadowy thrill, the release. I needed to lose myself in weeds and dirt and sheer, unadulterated animal lust.

I wandered the twists and turns for twenty minutes without spotting another soul, then saw the red end of a cigarette glowing in the dark. I followed it to a handsome, broad-shouldered man leaning against a tree.

Yeah, I thought, this could work.

I fired up my new mantra in my head -- I'm not scary! I'm sociable! People like to be with me! -- and forced myself to smile as I approached. "Hi," I said. "My name's Roman."

He shot me a look of disgust as he shook his head. "Ain't nobody doin' no gay shit over here, officer."