Every time I've been away from Salon for a while I think it couldn't have possibly been as self-indulgent and full of crap as I remember...and then I come back for a few clicks, and lo and behold...

First of all, Cary, what a major load of new age horseshit. Seriously. Second, LW, for whatever reason you are hanging on to this because you don't want to take responsibility for the quality of the life you have now. You're forty-five. How many more precious years do you plan to invest in this self-indulgent nonsense?

Get yourself a good, ruthless therapist who will tell you when you're bailing on your own life and when you're making progress. Then listen to him/her. You also might want to trot yourself over to a hospice volunteer program and see how much those people would give for just some of the time you're wasting right now.

And then...get over it.

it's okay only if the singers are consistently praised? Because otherwise they're "humiliated?"

And if you've actually seen the show, most of the contestants are praised as often as they're criticized. So where's the humilation?

Everyone of them has seen the show. They know what they're likely to be in for, and over a hundred thousand people audition for it.

But hey, again, everyone has a choice. Don't watch. Most seasons, I don't either.

The problem with many people who self-identify as intellectuals is that a humor-ectomy seems to be required as a rite of passage.

AI is entertaining as hell. So are Top Chef and Project Runway. I don't watch any of the other reality shows, or any of the network shows, because I find them uninteresting. So? Others like them. YMMV.

Don't like AI? Cancel your cable. Don't like to read articles about AI? Click yourself free. I'm sure PBS and the NYT Review of Books have something more in keeping with your self-image.

Sheesh.

P.S. I have watched AI only sporadically (but enjoyably!)over the years...but got sucked in during a random channel-check one night when Adam Lambert was performing Black or White. This guy is terrific! And as for "he's not original," at this point in the history of the world, what can accurately be called "original"?

"Rush Limbaugh is a Republican role model," for WHAT????

drug addiction?

serial divorce?

fact-free hate speech?

obesity?

ARRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHh.

"If I were chairman of the Republican Party, given the state that it’s in, I would quit. I might get out the hari-kari knife," Limbaugh said."

please, please give him the job. Please.

can we please add "Getting itty bitty lap dogs and then never training them"?

Little dogs are just big dogs in small packages. They're just as smart, just as trainable, and IMHO too often get away with screaming bloody murder, to their detriment as well as to their humans'.

I used to work in a vet's office, and I'd much rather trim the nails on a ninety-pound German Shepherd than a 6-pound chihuahua...I was far less likely to be bitten.

If you're going to get a dog, train it! I can't believe how many people I know who think it's acceptable to live with wee wee pads covered with poop on their kitchen floors and snarling, nipping, yipping, shin-clawing behavior while they're dressing up the little darling as a fashion accessory.

Not that I feel strongly about this or anything...

Here are links to their email addresses:

http://snowe.senate.gov/cgi-bin/webform.iq2

http://collins.senate.gov/public/continue.cfm?FuseAction=ContactSenatorCollins.EmailIssue&CFID=4299569&CFTOKEN=24298132

As a Mainer, I'm proud of these women. If more Republicans were like them, we might actually get somewhere.

Email them and urge them to use their influence to help move this administration's agenda forward.

neither one of them is really right for you. You're twenty-five. Move on.

Of course you feel bad for hurting people, and that's a good thing. But it's for the best. Both of them deserve someone who adores them, just as you do.

I guarantee you that in three years you won't even believe you wrote this letter.

Isn't there some better word -- some more exact way of identifying the kind of people we're talking about when we talk about trashy behavior and seedy ways of living

In their case, I really like "grifters".

I agree that this child is an innocent born into tough circumstances. Wait until he's two and getting dragged around the country as the poster child for grandma's presidential campaign. I suspect poor Trig will be sequestered somewhere, having lost that baby cute thing and actually making a sound or two on occasion.

Now let the fifteen minutes FINALLY be over. Oh, wait, I'm guessing there's still the huge white shotgun wedding to come.

Sorry, but if there's anything I've learned over the years is that no one is completely blameless in this type of situation, and since your boyfriend is representing himself that way, there are two possibilities:

1) He's all about being a saintly victim and getting his ego stroked for that and this crap will continue ad infinitum or

2) He's full of it and is shining you on with the Classic Married Man "My wife and I are getting a divorce and we haven't had sex in eighteen months and she doesn't understand me and therefore you should have sex with me" Gambit (really, do they teach this in man school somewhere?)

To agree with other writers, though, either way it's over.

P.S. I know whereof I speak. Save yourself some time and drama and bail, now. I could have saved myself two years.