Extraordinarily good advice. I'm always baffled about (and a little sad for) people who mistake their office life for the real thing, and their colleagues for friends. Now, some colleagues can become friends, of course, but in my experience that's rare, and even more rare for the friendship to continue to prosper…

Their first year was filled with panic attacks.

My grandmother was always fascinated by the story of Dorothy Arnold, the pretty New York socialite who disappeared in 1910. She went out for a morning of shopping, unexpectedly ran into friends in various stores including Brentano's Books, but then was never seen again. The family acted oddly after word got out, and…

Just to be clear, SCIHHH, I'm filtering whatever else I'm thinking - about you, your writing, this whole memorable experience we've been through together - through my innate belief that any adult who cares (especially this "!!!!!!" much) about birthdays is a little off-kilter.

You see, this is the great thing about getting older. I hit 50 and decided to just fuck it all and embrace my inner Big Old Queen. These days, that means a bunch of silver bangles, bought in places like Egypt and Ghana and the Grand Bazaaar in Istanbul, for weekend lunches; a ruby ring that called to me in Bangkok…

That's extraordinary - I had no idea. Boston's as artifical as Amsterdam!

Jeebus Christ, thank you for this - with the possible exception of the Vice President, it's like a primer to Everything You Should Ignore In Order to Have a Better Year in 2015.

She really had it going on, but milked it just that little bit too much. Had she just drifted 'cross the frame and disappeared, it would have been immortal...

I learned about this kind of thing only this week, reading John Waters's new book Carsick: there's an entire genre of crime writing about this particular putridity - and aficionados call the criminals involved "womb raiders"!

I teach various aspects of communications and PR. Occasionally I'll do favors for friends and do things like lead student brownbags or give informal talks at other institutions. At one such recently (that I hadn't known would be open to the public), we went around to introduce ourselves and one attendee identified…

Mary Martin managed it an hour and forty minutes. Just saying.

Josephine Baker is a really pivotal figure here - in some ways, she's the Saartje Baartman who worked, triumphing over the way she was initially presented. In her first Paris appearances, Baker's act had much in common with Baartman's - she was shown as a savage from a savage land, all but naked, doing a compelling…

Baartman was many things, but she wasn't a vampire.

I'd act all superior, as an older person, about the superior Saturday morning fare of my youth - dominated by Looney Tunes - but then I remembered I'm also of the first generation of Filmation victims, kids who were at least briefly enamored of this:

SUCH an oversight! Major-league, comparatively long-form full frontal from Julian Sands, Rupert Graves, and the husky-but-alluring Simon Callow. Definitely a formative experience.

Don't worry - we figured it wasn't Mama June....

Peter Hurley's video is one of the most practical things I've seen on how to be photographed or to take basic portraits - the simple steps he mentions create dramatically more flattering snaps, and the tricks themselves are totally at the disposal of any sitter or photographer, not reliant on lighting, lenses, or even…

Somewhere, in a deep underground lair, Miss Ross is plotting and planning to figure out how to score a second duet on that album. And somewhere else (maybe a little more sunny, but a lot less expensive) Mary Wilson is considering the idea of at last moving on from being a Supreme and becoming a Staggering Harlette.

I am extremely relieved. I was worried I was going to have learn about another new practice/euphemism that would only make me feel older, staider, and long-married...

Yeah, you're a Father. Like the one I used to used to have. The one I stopped talking to ten years ago - best decision I ever made - who is now alone and demented in a nursing home in some godforsaken corner of Florida, and I hope he rots. Oh, yeah, you're a Father. Good luck with that.