Let us now praise editors

Wrod. Working with Deena on my story was not quite as soul-gouging as I expected. She had good points, she saw writing habits I have that don't necessarily need encouraged, and when we disagreed we were able to come up with workable solutions.

But working with an editor on something book length must be an almost uncomfortably intimate thing.

I've also worked with writers who have reacted to my gentle suggestion that one of their precious, ungrammatical commas might perhaps be removed as if I'd insisted that Maria Callas perform "Yummy, Yummy, Yummy" as the final aria in Bellini's "Norma."

Snerk

Haven't you been keeping up, Dana? This item ran in the NYP last week

See, now I wanna know who the couple in the second item in that, is, the "hollywood star" and his "hardbodied" wife who are both secretly TEH GAY

I've also worked with writers who have reacted to my gentle suggestion that one of their precious, ungrammatical commas might perhaps be removed as if I'd insisted that Maria Callas perform "Yummy, Yummy, Yummy" as the final aria in Bellini's "Norma."

Snerk

Not that there's anything wrong with "Yummy, Yummy, Yummy."

I loved that song as a young child. But it wasn't until I read Hec's bubblegum pop book that I realized it was about oral sex.

Of all the factors blocking the economic revival of New Orleans, the shattered health care system may be the most important — and perhaps the most intractable.

Except for tourism and retailing, health care was the city’s biggest private employer, and it paid much higher wages than hotels or stores. But there are now 16,800 fewer medical jobs than before the storm, down 27 percent, in part because nurses and other workers are in short supply.

Only one of the city’s seven general hospitals is operating at its pre-hurricane level; two more are partially open, and four remain closed. The number of hospital beds in New Orleans has dropped by two-thirds. In the suburbs, half a dozen hospitals in adjacent Jefferson Parish are open — but are packed.

[link]

See, now I wanna know who the couple in the second item in that, is, the "hollywood star" and his "hardbodied" wife who are both secretly TEH GAY

On Gawker the majority of guesses are saying that it's Will and Jada.

See, now I wanna know who the couple in the second item in that, is, the "hollywood star" and his "hardbodied" wife who are both secretly TEH GAY

Gawker ran a piece on this. ISTR Will Smith and his wife.

I had a minor meltdown yesterday when my publicist told me that she's scheduling radio interviews and I need to have a landline because cells sound like ass.

I don't have a landline. And i have an open office plan with a technical staff that are like toddlers, so I can't have a private phone conversation.

I was like, "oh well, no radio! sorry!"

I always need people to interpret blind items for me. I'm celebrity-gossip-impaired unless it involves a dude in eyeliner.

Is there an office or meeting room you could borrow for bits of time, Allyson?