"Are you happy?" Maybe he doesn't ask the question in so crass, so obvious a formulation. But anyway, our conversation comes to be about happiness, mostly mine, or mostly the lack of mine. Is he happy? I don't ask. 

Does it even matter?

Whenever I read something in a conservative magazine or whatnot -- not actually very often, though more than the average liberal whose job isn't in media or politics or academia -- I probably spend more time congratulating myself for 'disproving' the long-tail hypothesis than I do trying to understand the argument. 

Character.

The weight loss came first, then the haircut. He couldn’t do much to change his height so instead he worked on growing his personality, projecting his voice, practicing his laugh so that it had high peaks and deep valleys for others to get lost in. He spent his days smiling to put others at ease. He knew the spots you were allowed to touch on the body of a woman you weren’t sleeping with. If she told a joke, you could take a hold of her shoulder for a moment, as if your laughter were about to literally knock you to the floor. If she was sitting down next to you, lean in slightly and feign asking a deep question, several fingers conspiratorially grazing her knee. Hugs and cheek kisses on coming together and going apart. He gave you always the impression of your being in his confidences.

Janet Malcolm's The Journalist and The Murderer is a book I've vaguely had on my to-read list for a while. I finally picked it up tonight. The opening paragraph:

Where are all the women's magazines?

In this month's GQ there's a piece about the gang rape of an 11-year-old girl in a small east Texas town. You know, the story that the NYT so thoroughly messed up in reporting the first time around. The GQ piece avoids blaming the victim or sensationalizing the behavior of an 11-year-old girl. The writer seems to have spent considerable time with the girl and her family and the result is a thoughtful, humane piece.

One problem: Why is it GQ — a men's magazine and one that's kinda infamous for its gross attitude toward women — publishing this story? A story written by a woman, in fact.

Don't misunderstand, I absolutely am glad that GQ has published it and of course they sometimes turn out awesome features in between their questionable photo spreads. But, where are the women's magazine equivalents who are writing these stories? Duh, they don't exist. I can't imagine this in a Cosmo or Elle or whatever else. Are they still publishing Ms? Probably even that mag isn't anything like it used to be.