I keep falling into the lacunae: Why, after years of fanatically intense desire for motherhood, Irene emotionally abandons her daughter.

How does this emotional distance coexist with hypervigilance, and when does it metamorphose into something fractious and furious.

How hate evolves might not interest the author, but omitting it makes the rest of the story incomprehensible. Could this be related to their physical disparities - what did the invisible and guardian angelic dead dad look like - it is possible he was not the biological father after all.

Why, if Dani & her husband thought of breeding only as an abstraction, had they historically been so consistent with birth control. Doesn't that imply some awareness of conception as more than conceptual?

And on and on, even unto the final sentence. Sure, it's a knockout line, but why? Multiple choice question:

(a) Dani is sad because her mother is dying.

(b) Dani is sad because she is mourning her mother's belated debut as an existentialist.

(c) Dani is sad because she is ordinary.

(d) Dani is mourning the lost future with her mother.

(e) Dani realizes that the perfect moment is not enough and will never be enough, and in that moment, recognizes that she is and has always been her mother.

It is difficult to bond emotionally with an author who keeps her reader at a distance. No SAT question based on her essay could possibly be answered accurately, except perhaps

Q. Irene : Dani as Dani: _________

A. (reader)

I sincerely hope that no one who truly and intensely needs help believes this is the best and final stop. The last thing I look for in Tennis's column is wisdom. The column is billed as "advice," but most often the Tennis response is a self-referential ode: his experiences, his past, his opinions. Good advice comes from awareness of the world. Tennis rarely peeks beyond himself. So why do I read?

It's Theatre. The LWs are pleased with themselves. Tennis is pleased with himself. The LttE's section is full of people who know the answers. Yet, ultimately, within the fell of vitriol and exhibition, lies the steady pulse of a readership that is willing to wade in and help one of its own.

Salon's readers include some of the most genuine and generous writers on line. Sure, the rancorous bickering self-parodies get tiresome. Still, I'm consistently knocked on my virtual ass by the range of depth and candor offered to the LWs. I begin with the Tennis column to be introduced to the topic, and the spectacle has begun: the second act players enter and write their own dialogue. The wits, the therapists, the self-disclosers, the haters of [women/men/victims/lawyers...]; all the readers who take a few moments from their lives to empathize, to consider, to contribute. Whether the play ends with closure or not, the cast has been inspiring. It often gives me hope, and always fills me with gratitude.

I would be much more impressed with Joe's integrity, intellect, and patriotism if he were demanding consequences for Bush's "idiocy," instead of simply viewing it as a harmless quirk. I, too, think that Bush is an idiot, a dickless frat boy who is playing at being a president on TV. When left to his own goofy devices, we have him choosing goats over terrorists, vacations over duty, Meirs & Brown over - well, just about anyone else, really.

Yet when handled effectively, he's also a photogenic mouthpiece for corporate barons and warmongers (oops, I repeat myself) and the voice of absolute wealth and power. He has no idea what a nation is, much less how to lead one. He has never in his life held a job he got for himself. He cannot even recognize a complexity, much less parse one. And yet the Joes & Anns & Bills & Rushes proudly deemed him more than fit for office. Twice. Now Joe is rethinking his former devotion. If Joe is serious, and not simply another of those hypocrites he so smugly derides, he must take this to its logical conclusion.

It's not a quirk to be an idiot president. George II is not just a joke. He is a criminal. If Joe really thinks George is unfit for office, he should be agitating to get him out, as well as calling for his administration's accountability. Not just because omigosh he's not really a fiscal conservative, or because he's using his office gasp illegally and unconstitutionally, or because he sold our energy policies hee hee to the highest bidders, or nudge nudge wink wink is stacking our judiciary with one trick ponies, or has chosen to abandon our smirk citizens in the Katrina disaster. He also decided to kill 2,600 Americans and over 40,000 Iraqis in a counterfeit war, and his death toll continues to rise.

Bush is worse than incompetent: he's a traitor and a mass murderer. Or would reality hurt Joe's ratings?

You know, reading the Forbes article, I was struck by the resemblance of Noer's "career woman," to your average everyday male. As he grows wealthier & more powerful, he will be pickier in his mate selection, less interested in settling down, and more likely to be unfaithful. More successful men are notorious for trading in their used spouses for trophy wives; shedding especially those women who, having (put them through law/medical/graduate school), (financed their first corporation) (worked in the business for free for X years), remind them too much of their own humble beginnings.

As for housework, child-rearing, or servicing his spouse, much less looking after her health and well-being, few men are willing to collaborate equally. It's not surprising one bit that men are reluctant to marry something like that.

Throw in sports, questionable hygiene, and the male propensities for violence and voting Republican, it's astonishing that anyone at all would want to marry one.