You all know I spend four hours each night farming news from the health-care field. Last night’s headline of the evening came from Bloomberg:

‘Designer Vagina’ Surgery Is a $5,500 Danger, Gynecologists Say

If you ask me, “designer vagina” is almost as much fun to say as “ample bottom.” You want to hear it in a song lyric:

Design-a vagina, nothin’ is fine-a / So let’s pour another glass of wine-a…

OK. Sorry for the late post, Danny. You’re not the boss of me, Danny. Actually, I’m not goofing off or anything like it, Danny. I’m working. But since you insist…

My schedule got all discombobulated this morning; I had my eyes checked for a new pair of glasses. It was an interesting experience; the optician took my old ones and led me into the exam room before disappearing with them. A blur entered and introduced herself as the doctor. She asked me to read what I could from the chart.

“And where, exactly, is the chart?” I asked. This is what we call a baseline reading. I was finally able to make out the single-letter line: “That’s an O, unless it’s a C.” It’s official — I’ve turned into Burgess Meredith in the Twilight Zone. Next step is a white cane and a golden retriever, no doubt.

I came home and had to put my nose directly to the grindstone, and am just now coming up for air. Just in time for the end of summer. My brain is already on vacation, as you can plainly see. Since we’ve been trifling all week, let’s keep up the theme, eh?

Today in anorexia: Really, Keira, you look great in that dress. And what man wouldn’t prefer the rag-and-bone Renee Zellweger over the plumper one in the red dress? That picture is horrifying — you can see veins in her shins. Scroll down from Keira’s lollipop figure to Joely Richardson, who appears to have recently returned from a long stay in a country with no food. You could chip your tooth if you tried to kiss her shoulder, but who would?

Meanwhile, I got a note from a fellow fan of “Mad Men” who says the redheaded secretary played by Christina Hendricks is his new dream girl. That picture’s just a headshot, but trust me — she’s got it goin’ on, upstairs and downstairs. Her clothes don’t “hang” well, because in the ’50s they weren’t made to hang; they were made to cling. Clothing designers then acknowledged women have waists and hips and what’s more — crazy to think of — men might appreciate seeing them once in a while.

I was three years old during the era this show depicts. Once again, I miss the boat. Story of my life.

No wonder women feel they need a designer vagina these days. Once upon a time, tits ‘n’ ass would do. Have a great weekend. I’ll be traveling down Columbus way. Marcia, drop me a line if you’re not working. The rest of you, back whenever.

I don’t know about you, but this happens to me all the time — I’m going out, I think I look to-tally hawt, I open the door, photographers raise their cameras to capture the moment, and dang, I forgot my pants, AND my panties, yet again.

The best part of that story? Where it describes Britney’s “ample bottom.” I just like to say that phrase for fun. Our friends across the pond speak the same language, but so much more skillfully.

Sorry for launching today with a Britney Spears ample-bottom item. The Committee started at 7 a.m., directly across from my bedroom window. Today is the day the teacher assignments arrive by mail, which means the phone will ring nonstop from 10 a.m. until mid-afternoon, as the entire incoming fifth-grade class calls to triangulate their first-day outfits. (Last year we were out when they arrived. Came home to find the phone blinking: “You have…seven…new messages.”) I have to work my special kind of magic on four separate stories today, and none of this is helping. Why Nance, you’re saying, it sounds like you’re setting us up for another four-paragraph link dump. Not exactly. I’m just grumpy.

Actually, I was thinking about Larry Craig again, as much as I’d like to put him from my mind. I was thinking back a few years, when conservatives were simmering with anger over where Bill Clinton was putting his dousing stick, and claiming that, because of him, they had to explain oral sex to their children, who then went right out and practiced on one another. Well. Because of Larry Craig, I now know more about foot-tapping signals and wide stances than I ever, ever wanted to know, and I’m a gay-friendly sort of gal. Can I blame this on Craig? Because I want to.

Best rejoinder to the Clinton-made-my-kid-do-it line, from Roy: If he really is responsible for a rise in oral sex, I vote we put him on Mount Rushmore. Of course, this was after a conservative tried to blame Clinton for an increase in mouth cancer. Please.

Final word on the subject: A clip from Little Britain, which I’ve never heard of but perhaps should have. Via TPM.

So now, bloggage:

Who says Republicans can’t smile in this difficult time: Karl Rove’s ride, pimped. It’s a little juvenile — i.e., entirely in keeping with the White-House-as-frat-house culture of the capital these days — but at least no nations were invaded.

Jeez, let’s cut this mudbath short, eh? The clanking outside is making me INSANE. Better to go run bike errands and get it out of my system.

Two years ago, Hurricane Katrina did her best to destroy a great American city. (I know I’m going to get a raft of shit from Ashley for that, because he contends that what did New Orleans in wasn’t the storm, but the crappy levees, but let’s at least agree that the storm had something to do with it, OK?)

In the time since, I’ve had a variety of reactions to the rebuilding effort, but ultimately I come down with Ashley and his profane cri de coeur, FYYFF. It might not make sense to rebuild a city below sea level, but lots of cities flood — Fort Wayne, Indiana, to name but one — and when those places go underwater all we hear about is improving the dikes and giving the Army Corps of Engineers another chance with the riprap and bulldozers. Anyone could argue New Orleans has been more important to the country than the Fort — first night baseball game notwithstanding — and deserves better than the endless incompetence at all levels of government they’ve had to suffer since.

It’s complicated, I know. But since we’ve decided to shit rather than get off the pot, let’s get the shit built.

David Mills at Undercover Black Man marked today with a link to the Dixie Cups’ version of “Iko Iko.” My version of the song is called “Jockomo,” by James Sugarboy Crawford; I think I burned it off a disc that passed through my life, something called “The New Orleans Sound.” (iTunes tells me I also toasted “I’m Gonna Be a Wheel Someday” and “A Certain Girl,” by Bobby Mitchell and Ernie K-Doe, respectively, from the same record. If you’re taking notes.) I don’t generally share music here; I believe in copyrights (most days). Sugarboy Crawford claimed to never have seen a dime from Jockomo/Iko Iko. I can’t even tell if he’s still alive. Maybe Ashley knows. If so, I’d be happy to Paypal him $20. The link will be deleted after 24 hours, anyway. If you get here late, well, that’s the fate of New Orleans if we don’t get moving.

The title of this post comes from a piece of art Ashley’s displaying on his site today.

Enjoy Sugarboy. He played with a group called His Cane Cutters. Clever.

UPDATE: John points, in comments, to this excellent 2002 interview with Crawford. Amazing what could end a career back then:

Sugar Boy and his band were on their way to a job in North Louisiana in 1963, when state troopers pulled him over for the then-crime of being a black man in a flashy brand-new automobile. One of Louisiana’s “finest” took exception to Sugar Boy’s attitude and proceeded to pistol-whip him on the side of the road. Sugar Boy spent three weeks in the hospital and was incapacitated for two years. He attempted a comeback, but after 1969, he confined his singing to church. He then went to trade school and learned to become a building engineer.

This week the Committee is outside a) sawing concrete; b) putting the concrete chunks into a truck; c) pouring new cement and, I don’t know, probably d) sacrificing 20 pigs to the gods. And this morning I have to a) rewrite that memo (for the third time); and b) interview a lawyer. What could make this morning worse? I dunno, maybe reading about Larry Craig’s bathroom habits. (Did the “wide stance” detail turn your stomach, too?)

I’ll be back later this afternoon. In the meantime, take a wide stance over a little bloggage:

Quote of the day: “The real question for Republicans in Washington is how low can you go, because we are approaching a level of ridiculousness.” — Scott Reed, GOP strategist. What it is, dude.

Climate change? What climate change? Lake Superior at record-breaking lows. If you don’t think this affects you because you live outside the Great Lakes basin, think again.

On the recommendation of MichaelG in the comments below: Everything you always wanted to know about restroom sex. Maybe more.

Off to tackle my workload.

Why don’t we just put a template for this story on a macro on standard newsroom computer systems? You could plug in the details, and it would really save a lot of time.

UPDATE: This blog will be respecting Owen Wilson’s request for privacy at this difficult time. Please, do not discuss Mr. Wilson’s personal problems in the comments. General comments about Wilson’s career choices, performances and other public statements, as well as statements of support, are just fine, however. Let the healing begin.

I guess everyone should have at least one good flying experience this summer. Mine qualified. Both flights took off and landed on schedule to the minute, and — far more important — didn’t crash. I never fly without considering the possibility of a crash, whereas I only occasionally think of this while driving. Statistics say if one of the two will get me, it’s the car crash, but I stand by my anxieties.

The picture is of an amusing rarity: A used bookstore in an airport. Because I breezed through check-in in about 15 seconds, I had some time to browse. It was wonderful, my platonic ideal of airport book shopping — no stacks of get-rich-now or kill-your-business-rival tomes, no celebrity biographies, no (or at least fewer) Grisham/DaVinci Code schlock bestsellers. Instead, stacks of well-thumbed mass-market paperbacks, all selling for three-four bucks, plus hundreds of other choices in dozens of categories. In other words, something you might actually want to read, and cheap enough that you might be tempted to “set it free” when you’re finished.

(Ms. Lippman has written about setting books free, i.e., leaving them behind in public places, so that someone else might find and enjoy them, perhaps with a note absolving others of guilt for taking them. I’ve never been that evolved; I either clutch the great ones to my bosom or keep the bad ones on the shelf forever to sneer at every time I pass by. Then I complain bitterly that I own too many books and have nowhere to keep them. No one ever accused me of consistency.)

I bought two — “Riding the Rap,” because I’m going through a reread of Elmore Leonard’s mid-’90s Florida period, and “Lonesome Dove,” in mass-market size. The latter was perhaps a mistake; in order to keep this bricklike tome somewhat less bricklike, the type is small and the leading tiny, but I don’t care. I plucked a copy off Deb’s shelf this weekend for my bedtime reading, and became as mired as a Hat Creek heifer in riverbank mud. Of course I’d read it before, probably twice, but I never owned it, perhaps because I feared the riverbank-mud thing. Deb said when she read it the first time she came to the end and paged through the endpapers to the back cover, hoping to find anything that might take the story an inch further. It’s that kind of book. (Although, in the writers-are-human-too tradition, I’m half pleased to report the sequels are said to be simply awful. At least I don’t have to read those.)

After that I wandered the shops, looking for a little something to take home to Kate. I considered a T-shirt, and noted the choices — “Hillary for President 2008,” “Bill Clinton for First Lady,” at two separate stores. Chocolate candies in novelty packaging were widespread, too, labeled “Wisconsin bullshit,” “Minnesota bullshit,” “Badger bullshit” and “Presidential bullshit,” with a little cartoon of Dubya. As a former newspaper columnist who’s pulled many of them straight out her ass, I’m wary of making sweeping pronouncements based on airport shopping, but I’m going to go way out on a limb here and suggest that perhaps the sitting president is a tetch unpopular.

Kate got three windup toys, btw. I love windup toys, especially when they’re monkeys who march around smashing little cymbals together.

The rest of the trip? Sublime. I slept on a futon in Deb’s basement rec room, where I was watched over by my life’s guiding spirit:

This was a wedding present. I recall at one point, at Deb’s reception, looking up to see this surging mass of humanity on the dance floor. Someone was holding Elvis up over his head, like mourners at the Ayatollah Khomeini’s funeral with a picture of the deceased, and he was bobbing along, too. Wish I’d had a camera. This’ll have to do.

I’m also sorry I forgot my camera Saturday night, when we drove to Madison to meet Frank and Cindy for dinner. What a beautiful city. Liberal paradise. (Question for the room: If liberals are so bad at governing, why do we have all the cool cities? Santa Monica, Ann Arbor, Madison, etc. And if conservatives and/or “the market” is so great, why do all the right-wing cities suck so bad? Salt Lake City, Houston, Jacksonville, etc.) A full moon rose over Lake Monona while we watched from the terrace of the Frank Lloyd Wright-designed community center there. Turn your back on the moon, and there is the state capitol dome in the middle of the isthmus. Frank and I left Fort Wayne about the same time, for the same reason (job elimination). I’d say he landed better, but we’re both doing OK. Life goes on, and if you’re lucky, the planes leave on time.

Bloggage:

I was going to link to Miss Teen South Carolina via YouTube, but I see the clip is now over 2 million views and isn’t loading well, so here’s a cobbled-together Flash workaround that gives you the gist. Poor girl. Someone buy her a map.

LOLBikinis: Everything I know about surfing I learned from Kem Nunn, but one thing I know is that female surfers rarely wear jangling chains, upper-arm bracelets and bikinis that could be stripped off by a medium-size wave when they’re out shooting curls. But then, they’re not Elle Macpherson, either. Do you think she might have been expecting photographers?

Soccer mom tidbit: Emily Yoffe speaks for us all.

And that’s it. Glad to be back from the good land.

Wayne Campbell: So, do you come to Milwaukee often?

Alice Cooper: Well, I’m a regular visitor here, but Milwaukee has certainly had its share of visitors. The French missionaries and explorers began visiting here in the late 16th century.

Pete: Hey, isn’t “Milwaukee” an Indian name?

Alice Cooper: Yes, Pete, it is. In fact, it was originally an Algonquin term meaning “the good land.”

Wayne Campbell: I was not aware of that.

Alice Cooper: I think one of the most interesting things about Milwaukee is that it’s the only American city to elect three Socialist mayors.

Wayne Campbell: [to the camera] Does this guy know how to party or what?

Guess where I’m going this weekend. Yepper, it’s wheels up for the good land Friday morning. Off to visit my BFF Deb, and then on to Madison for dinner with Dr. Frank and his consort, the lovely Cindy. It’s a weekend in the Dairy State — do I live an exciting life, or what? (Although, truly, I think it’s fascinating that Milwaukee has elected three Socialist mayors.)

Cheese for all!

So, apres-memo, here’s the plot of “The Last Kiss,” starring Zach Braff, whom someone who died made Voice of Generation Y:

Zach is a Prius-driving architect in Washington D.C., about to turn 30, with a girlfriend of long standing. She’s beautiful, smart, a PhD candidate, and pregnant. The movie opens with dinner at her parents’, played by Blythe Danner and Tom Wilkinson, who appears to be in pain. He’s in pain (the movie tells us) because his marriage is lousy, but we know (because we’re smarter than Paul Haggis, the screenwriter), that he’s in pain because he made a bad career choice when he signed the contract to be in this stinker.

So everyone’s at dinner, and Jenna, the beautiful doctoral candidate, makes her big I’m-pregnant announcement. Everyone is thrilled. No one asks about when they’re getting married, although Jenna brings it up, and says they’ve just been so busy, they haven’t been able to fit a wedding into their plans. But that’s OK, because they’re committed to one another, and parents in movies like this never ask such rude questions. Blythe Danner calls for a toast, and runs off to find a bottle of Mumm’s Cordon Rouge she just happens to have in the fridge.

Who are these mutants? Already I hate their guts.

Then we have a few short scenes where Jenna gazes into Zach’s eyes and asks him if he’s happy, and he assures her he’s deliriously happy and loves her to death, his mouth forming the words, his eyes darting toward the nearest exit. I wonder what Jenna is getting her doctorate in? Probably math, because she appears to have been studying trigonometry when the rest of us girls were learning to spot a liar.

The next big scene is at a wedding, where we’re introduced to the rest of Zach’s posse — the sex maniac, the perpetual middle-schooler and the guy who married a bitch. She’s a bitch because when she sees her husband holding their crying baby, she immediately yells at him for not calming the child down, and because his diaper is dirty. And then she appears — the other woman. She’s still in college, and she’s beautiful, and she was on “The O.C.,” so of course I don’t know her name. (Googling … Rachel Bilson.) Because she’s 20 and beautiful, and Jenna is 30 and beautiful, Jenna immediately looks like an old hag to Zach. It would be one thing if Rachel had anything to offer other than her adoring puppy-dog eyes, but she doesn’t. She makes stupid statements that sound profound to a 20-year-old, and, worse, does stupid things, like call her friends at the same wedding on their cell phones, plotting when they can blow this boring scene with the free food and booze and go have some real fun. Zach is smitten.

Again: Who ARE these mutants? Thirty is, perhaps, the time when men and women are closest to one another in their sex drives, at the peak of their physical attractiveness, are starting to gain some sophistication in their worldview and opinions; there is no reason in the world for a 30-year-old man with half a brain and a beautiful girlfriend his own age to go running after a 20-year-old dim bulb. Plus, the girlfriend is pregnant! He’s about to learn the dirty secret of pregnancy, i.e., there is nothing in the world hornier than a pregnant woman, and she’s going to be growing out of her B-cup bras. She is about to wear him down to a stub if he gives her half a chance. But he won’t, because immediately he starts chasing after Rachel Bilson.

To be sure, it isn’t just a physical thing for Zach. See, he’s afraid. Not of the impending birth of his child, which would make sense; he’s afraid that “nothing is going to happen” to him for the rest of his life, that he “knows how it will turn out.” And reader, I swear, no one smacks his ignorant face for saying this bullshit out loud. How did he get through grad school?

Well, you know how the rest of this goes. There are some subplots too boring to recap, all of which boil down to this elusive life lesson: Relationships are hard. Duh. The mid-movie setback comes when Zach goes out with Rachel, kisses her passionately but doesn’t take her to bed, and goes home to Jenna, who has figured out where he’s been. She throws him out of the house. Guess what he does? Yes, goes back to Rachel and fucks her. I’m thinking, “Jenna, run. Run run run run run. Take your doctorate to some normal city like Detroit, find a normal guy and get him to adopt your baby.” Does she listen? Noooo.

So, drama drama drama, Zach swears it will never, ever happen again, and the movie ends with — oh, sorry, this is a spoiler — Jenna letting him back in the house. No obviously happy ending, but a strong implication that they will soldier on, sadder but wiser.

If I were writing the sequel — “The Last Kiss, Really” — they’ll both be killed in a car crash on the way home from the hospital. The carseat will protect the baby, who can find a nice normal adoptive family and have a chance for happiness. Although, overloaded with two preceding generations of stupid genes, the deck is certainly stacked against it.

I just wrote a long post about the upcoming fall movie season, and my browser quit when I visited the website for “Rendition,” a film about the CIA secret prison program starring well-known Arab-Americans Reese Witherspoon, Peter Sarsgaard, Jake Gyllenhaal, Meryl Streep and Alan Arkin. Reese plays the wife of a man named Ali or Ahmet or something, played by Some Swarthy Guy.

When the browser quit, I lost the whole thing. And now I really don’t want to see it.

There was also a capsule review of “Last Kiss.” I’ll give you the capsule-capsule review: It sucked.

And now I’ve eaten up my designated blogging time, and have to go rewrite a stupid memo.

Have I mentioned it rained torrentially overnight and it’s supposed to be 90 degrees today?

Not my day, not so far. Play amongst yourselves. I’ll see what I can do post-memo.

You can see, perhaps, that when I really have work to do, I shut down both my browser and my e-mail. The web is a bottomless pit of timewasters, but Google Analytics is a sinkhole with my name on it. Behold, a map of my readership by state. I believe it reveals two things:

1) No matter how much I run, I will never leave Indiana behind, and;
2) I really need to boost my numbers in South Dakota.

And maybe one more:

3) California is my true home outside the Midwest.