I posted most frequently on my signature topic: women and race in media. I scowled when black women reporters took flak for covering Michelle Obama; I pondered why we women love trashing John Edwards’ paramour, Rielle Hunter; I hated on David Letterman for having affairs with underlings and then for making us feel sorry … for David Letterman.

Because the timing coincided with my career switch from paid hack to unpaid scribe, many of the posts tracked my adventures in unemployment: my first trip to the unemployment office, how healthcare reform affects me, and five things I did before I quit my job.

As I pursued novel- and TV writing, I blogged about the dearth of women in the pilots for the 2010 season, the job loophole for minority TV writers, and my unaccountable sense of failure at being deservedly left off the New Yorker’s 20 under 40 list.

I remain most proud of a post I wrote a year ago, after my father died, titled “What not to say when someone dies.” It still gets hits every day; apparently, a lot of people don’t know what the hell to say when someone dies.

As you may have read, T/S recently announced a sale to Forbes. I believe in True/Slant founder Lewis Dvorkin’s talent and vision, and I trust he and his team of friendly brainiacs will have great fun storming the castle.

Me? I plan to spend the rest of the summer fending off my children as I scramble to complete my second book and develop my second TV series pitch. Which is to say I plan to remain flagrantly unemployed. Please check in at my own website or follow me on Twitter (@lisacullen) for profoundly meaningless updates. If you’re a regular reader or a creditor who also buys books, I’d be grateful if you’d drop me a note at lisa dot cullen at gmail dot com so I might add you to my e-mail list (you can spam me if I can spam you).

Have a great summer, everyone. Remember the sunscreen. You’ll see me again sooner than you wish.

Image by Getty Images via @daylife

Something mysterious is afoot in my New Jersey suburb. Around the town pool, at the local library, along the climbing wall at the playground — pasty-faced, sharp-fanged creatures of the night lurk to prey on innocent housewives.

Or maybe not so innocent. Let’s face it: it’s not as if any of us are virgins.

I could take or leave vampires, myself. But I am very much in the minority among the stretch-mark set. Moms are abuzz about Edward Cullen and Bill Compton. Stephenie Meyer, not Stieg Larsson, is the name I see on book spines cradled by women in skirted momsuits patrolling the baby pool. Even my Ivy-educated, mother-of-three sister-in-law is a fan. My sister got her an Edward body pillow.

And Hollywood is cashing in. “The Gates” on ABC is basically “Twilight” for the Tide-buying demographic. Here’s how the New York Times describes it:

“The Gates” is a satire — a cheaply enjoyable one — of suburban lust and maternal anxiety, psycho-social forces that delivered previous generations of women to the pages of Betty Friedan (or Redbook) but that today send a certain kind of young matron to the perverse romance of vampire media.

Why do housewives love vampires? I’m calling it now: the question will launch a hundred doctoral theses over the coming years. In this 2009 article, Newsweek interviews a scholar who teaches a college class (holy elective!) on vampires in pop culture:

It may be an excellent balm for bigger issues, says Donovan Gwinner, assistant professor of English at Aurora University. In Gwinner’s class “Got Blood? Vampires in Literature, Film and Popular Culture,” students were required to read several vampire-related books, including Stoker’s Dracula and popular literature by Rice, Harris, and Stephenie Meyer. “We talked a lot about how things suck,” jokes Gwinner. “But in times of economic contraction, fear of job loss, and war, the vampire myth really speaks to people. What’s so bad about being powerful, almost immortal, always in control, and incredibly desirable?”

Nah. It’s not that. I’d agree more with John Devore on The Frisky, who muses:

Women love bad boys – they’re exciting, and the chance to change him, to break him like a horse, must be an irresistible challenge. If self-destruction weren’t seductive on some superficial level, then no one would ever need rehab.

As for us housewives, the formula’s pretty simple. You take an intelligent, capable woman in her prime years performing an endlessly repetitive cycle of maddening and exhausting chores with the huge yet unrecognized goal of raising citizens who will stay out of jail.  Add the escape of a world in which the woman’s top concerns involve a hot man’s very sharp teeth. We want the blood and the danger and the sex without having to Clorox up the mess. Simply put, vampire stories are porn for housewives.

Wow! A woman, and a black! Now all we need is a gay.

Not yet, ladies. Not yet. (Image via Wikipedia)

Flibberson. Fulibansirdoo. Flubberdashery.

Never mind. We’ll just do as we do with college sports teams and call it Lady Viagra.

The Food and Drug Administration today posted results of clinical trials finding that Lady Viagra doesn’t work.

U.S. News reports,

Although there was a slight increase in the number of sexually satisfying events flibanserin users had each month, the FDA staff who reviewed the results said the so-called response rate isn’t “particularly compelling.”

Stay with me. It gets better.

In an apparent counterpoint, the maker of the drug, Boehringer Ingelheim, posted its own 248-page findings. It concluded

…flibanserin 100 mg q.h.s. was associated with significant improvements in the number of SSE, sexual desire (measured by FSFI desire), distress associated with sexual dysfunction (measured by FSDS-R and Item 13) and sexual function (measured by FSFI) but did not significantly improve eDiary desire score, compared with placebo.

See, female desire is harder to measure (get it, get it?) than male desire. So the pharma had its subjects keep a diary — or an eDiary, because we’re all cool like that — to record their horniness.

Here’s how I’m imagining an entry might read:

Dear eDiary, tonight Bob and I went to bed at 11:30, which is a half hour later than I wanted, because he had to watch Betty White on “The Daily Show.” I was already pissed because he took a business call while I bathed the kids and then let Joey go to bed without flossing. He didn’t even notice my new Victoria’s Secret peekaboo bra. Needless to say, the sex sucked. You can take your flibberflubbershit and shove it.

Stay with me. It gets better. U.S. News adds,

About 15 percent of flibanserin users in the experimental trial stopped taking the drug because of bad reactions like dizziness, nausea, anxiety and insomnia, compared to 7 percent of the placebo users. Side effects were heightened in those who used the drug at the same time they were taking other medications, such as anti-fungal treatments, hormonal contraceptives, and antidepressants. Flibanserin itself was originally designed to be an antidepressant, but past clinical trials found that it didn’t alleviate depression.

So let me get this straight. Lady Viagra not only doesn’t arouse, it makes you vomit. But let’s go back. Boehringer developed it as an anti-depressant, and it didn’t work. Pharma execs fished it out of the reject pile and said, Hmm. It makes depressed people feel queasy. That’s kinda the same as a female orgasm, right?!

Back to the drawing board, boys. Start with the name.

Omarosa is back. Since debuting on the first season of “The Apprentice” as the show-stealing, OMFG-she-did-not-just-say-that terror in stilettos, she’s slipped off the public radar. Her poorly functioning and bizarrely written web site acknowledges as much:

You may know her by just one name… [Omarosa] and one show [Donald Trump's hit show, The Apprentice], but there is much more to this “Washington Insider” than meets the eye.

With all the accomplishments listed on her site (“Omarosa quickly emerged as a pack leader while negotiating tasks with such companies as…” WTF?), the greatest reality show villain of all time has failed in one arena: love. I know. Shocking.

So Trump, her — what, her boss? business acquaintance? pouffy-haired yenta? — sent her to Vegas to hook up. Seriously. And there’s a show. Seriously. In the trailer alone, she accuses one suitor of being a liar and another of trying to kill her. It’s going to air on a network called TV One, wherever the hell that resides on my remote. Oh, I’ll find it. Believe me, I’ll find it.

As Betsy Sharkey, L.A. Times film critic, explains:

For the record, and for all the parents left to search for classes the kids will probably clamor for, the highly choreographed fighting style used here is wushu, a kind of power kung fu that frankly looks pretty brutal, so be prepared for the kids to give and take a lot of punches.

Chinese, Japanese, lookit these—whatever, it all looks the same to you. But it isn’t. Not by a long shot. So why call it what it isn’t?

Take a look:

You could argue the “Karate Kid” brand will strike some nostalgic chord with parents who grew up dreaming they were Ralph Macchio. But our kids couldn’t pick Macchio out of a playground line-up.

“Kung Fu Panda” holds more currency with our progeny. So why not “Kung Fu Kid”? You’d even keep the nice alliteration.

Yesterday I posted rather randomly about the California senatorial candidate’s appearance, asking, “What’s up with Carly Fiorina’s hair?” To which I answered my own question: …oh. Cancer. Excuse me while I go self-flagellate.

Then, randomly again, Fiorina goes on CNN yesterday, forgets her mic is live, and — by now famously — makes fun of her opponent’s hair. See the CBS report on Hairgate 2010:

Oh, Carly, Carly, Carly. I was just beginning to like you. Never mind that I live 3,000 miles away and vote for the other party. But don’t you see? You need me. You need me to like you. In order to wrest a seat from a longtime and influential incumbent female senator, you need women to like you.

Hairgate is not a catfight, as  some opinionators are claiming. And it’s not some damning commentary on how all women in politics behave. You wanna relegate high-school behavior among pols to women? Really? You wanna go there?

Hairgate is about how a promising, experienced and attractive female politician still doesn’t get that she has to appeal to women. Hillary didn’t exactly nail this constituency, either.

A bad gaffe is like bad hair; it draws the focus away from the issues. Voters don’t really want to talk about budget problems and job creation and a bankrupt school system. Bitchy jabs about hairstyles? Yes, please!

Here’s how Fiorina should fix this: go on Ellen and make a self-deprecating funny about the whole thing. Above all, drop the C Bomb. “After I became a cancer baldie a year ago and it grew back in like this, I’ve been fixating on other people’s hair. Barbara, I’ll take your wig, I mean style, any day!”

Fill in your own mea culpa, friends. Just not in Mean Girl.

It’s especially interesting this time around for observers like me because of two headlining contestants: Meg Whitman for governor and Carly Fiorina for senator. Two women, each the former top dog of a global tech brand. C’mon. No matter what side of the aisle you pee on, if you’re a chick, that’s pretty cool.

Meg Whitman’s campaign puzzles me. I met her a couple of times while she helmed eBay, including most recently over lunch in the executive dining rooms of Time Inc. She came across as witty, warm, charming — and as smart as they come. But in her California election ads, she thunders on about some giant wall to keep out those awful Mexicans. Maybe I’m missing something, but the Wall Street Journal says Hispanics comprise the state’s fastest-growing voter bloc. You kinda have to question a business strategy that alienates five million voters right off the bat.

Before . (Image via Wikipedia)

But I’ll be frank. It was Carly Fiorina who shocked me. More to the point, it’s her hair.

Okay. Back when she ran Hewlett-Packard, Fiorina was this attractive, slender executive with a short, blonde do. It was one of those hairstyles that looked good without drawing attention to itself. The haircut said, “I’m a professional. And I’m a good-looking broad. Just deal.”

After.

Let me expound for a moment on how important a silly thing like hairstyle is for a high-profile female. Take Hillary Clinton. Remember those horrible styles she sported back in the day? When she finally graduated to her current short, blonde do (quite similar to Fiorina’s old look, you might notice), we supporters breathed a collective sigh of relief. Now we could stop talking about how bad she looked and start talking about what a bad presidential campaign she was running.

See, good hair takes hair off the table. As a serious woman, you don’t want your coif to be the topic of conversation, the focal point of a photo op. You want your hair to flatter, stay in place and invite trust. When you land on a hairstyle that works, as Hillary finally did, you cling to it like Saran Wrap.

So when I saw the new pics of Carly Fiorina, I thought: what the hell did she do to her hair?

She didn’t do anything. Turns out: cancer.

Aren’t I the asshole.

Fiorina battled breast cancer a year ago. Out fell the blonde. In came the wiry gray.

Chemo’s effect on hair has been well documented (here, information from Breastcancer.org). After it falls out, often it comes in again a totally different texture, even a different color. My dear friend Anna was a willowy blonde in high school, her hair straight and soft. After chemo, she turned up at our 10-year reunion a curly brunette.

Breastcancer.org says most people return to their normal hair in time. But now that I know, here’s to Fiorina’s sassy gray crop.

UPDATE: Alas, alas. It appears Carly Fiorina herself can’t keep from a little hair critique — of her opponent, incumbent Senator Barbara Boxer. My pal Rebecca Winters Keegan (author of “The Futurist: The Life and Films of James Cameron,” in bookstores now!) forwarded me this Mediaite post, featuring video of Fiorina awaiting a CNN interview. She’s checking her Blackberry and chitchatting with producers, seemingly unaware the cameras are rolling. Right around the four-minute mark, she says someone saw Boxer recently “and said what everyone says: ‘God, what is that hair?’ Sooooo yesterday.” Sigh. Ladies, do we have to play into stereotypes? Why not just up and meow?

I don't need you, stupid monocle man. (Image via Wikipedia)

I’m not on The List.

I’m not among the 20 writers anointed the Next Big Thing by The New Yorker magazine. Okay, okay, so I’ve never published fiction, which it turns out is a requirement for inclusion in a list of great fiction writers. (I’m working on it, okay? Geez!)

What makes me feel bad is not that the world’s best literary magazine didn’t publicly acknowledge my burgeoning fabulosity. (That last sentence, with its carefully wrought double negative, ought alone to qualify me.) What makes me feel bad is that I’m breathing hard on 40, and I’ve yet to achieve superstardom.

That’s what these lists do, far’s I’m concerned. They make the rest of us feel like space-hogging slugs who have accomplished nothing on this green earth for four long decades other than emitting more than our share of methane.

And oh, the lists abound. Crain’s New York selects 40 rising entrepreneurs under 40. The Advocate picks 40 influential activists and leaders under 40 in the GLBT community. Cities across America, from New Orleans to Pittsburgh to the Puget Sound, crown 40 young ‘uns who’re shaping their regions.

What I want to know is, what’s so freaking great about 40? Or, rather, what’s so freaking bad about 40 that a lucky chump who’s attained an impressive title or amassed great fortune by that age is considered worthy of an awards dinner? What happens at 40? Does life end? Do all accomplishments thereafter mean squat? What aren’t you telling me?

Here’s my particular objection: those years under 40? That’s when we women have babies. That’s when many of us take a time out from our rocketing path to business or creative success so we can change diapers and mush up carrots and peas.

Patricia Sellers over at Fortune admitted the discrepancy in assessing her biz mag’s own 40 Under 40. She writes:

Men outnumber women in our rankings by a ratio of 7 to 1.

Sellers asks Sheryl Sandberg, COO of Facebook, why. Sandberg muses:

Yet at the college level, more women are getting degrees than men–and even some professional schools are graduating more women than men. “So the question is,” Sandberg says, “what happens between leaving school and age 40 to make this list predominantly male?”

Are you kidding me?

Yeah, yeah, I know . . . I shouldn’t care. I know these lists are uninspired marketing tools designed to a) sell magazines, or rather, the costly, framed reprints to the winners’ vast network of friends, family and would-be clients, and b) get press. The New Yorker list is certainly garnering plenty of buzz, mostly by bloggers like me embittered to have been overlooked, despite our obvious lack of credentials for consideration. Maybe if I hadn’t had babies, I’da turned out a collection of short stories by now. Or not.

Still the lists make me feel bad. So bad I’m going to make it a point to achieve everything I will in life after I turn 40. Watch me. I’m gonna swing for the fences.

A happier day for the Gores. (Image via Wikipedia)

On June 1, the day of my 14th wedding anniversary, Al and Tipper Gore announced the end of their 40-year marriage.

I took it as a sign.

Not as a sign my own marriage was headed for doom. That 26 years from now we’d be sitting across from each other in some lawyer’s office wearing hangdog faces.

But in all the ensuing hand-wringing — What does the separation of a beloved famous couple mean? How does this affect our national psyche? How will this change the shape and nature of marriage? — we’re forgetting something important.

It. Doesn’t. Matter.

Of course it matters . . . to the Gores. It’s hard not to feel awful for them. Imagine how hollow your heart would have to feel to take off that worn-smooth, too-tight ring. I picture the two of them gazing into each other’s teary eyes, calling up 40 years (40 years!) of memories. And God, the children. If my late parents called it quits at 40 years, my sibs and I would smack them upside their balding heads.

The Gores’ divorce is their private tragedy. They’re public people, of course, which in our society nullifies their rights to much privacy at all. But their private actions don’t reflect on the general health of our nation.

Same goes for Elizabeth Edwards, whom bloggers like me frothed over in sympathy as the lurid saga of her own divorce unfolded. We sensationalize the lives of all our celebrities, but political wives we hold up in a way they don’t necessarily ask for or deserve. We ascribe a role to them akin to saints. And who wants to bear that cross?

Let’s leave the Gores alone in their time of grief. The dissolution of a marriage is in that way a lot like a death: it’s a cause to mourn. But let’s be clear: it’s theirs to mourn. Not ours.