On Wednesdays We Wear Pink: Actual Advice from Cosmo

January
Okay ladies. I'll bet you thought that January's Cosmo was going to be packed with tips for a happy, healthy, successful new you for 2011. And it is, as long as that new you understands that finding and keeping a man is really the only resolution that matters. First you've got to find one, and then--this is important--you have to keep him and make sure that he doesn't cheat on you. Because we all know that when a man cheats it's definitely not because he's a scumbag, and almost certainly because he wasn't having enough morning sex.

The Man Manual
Cosmo dedicates several pages to this "special section" called 101 Things About Men. One of the gems from here is "Decode His Emoticons." I mean, it's like Cosmo has just accepted that actual grown women don't seriously take their advice and realized that their actual audience is mainly thirteen-year-olds at slumber parties (Squeezed in between the Zac Efron movie marathon and the "how far have you gone?" conversation). But, having been one of those girls, I can say that their "decoding" is pretty bogus--I mean "Winking face: I just made a joke. Did you get it? LOL because my ego is on the line." Wrong. Wink face means "I just said something raunchy and I want you know know that it was a joke, even though I was kind of serious" In texting, winking face always means sex. So do ellipses. Fact.

The Moment He's Most Likely to Cheat
This article tries to explain what could "drive" a guy to make a "lame-ass" decision like cheating. Now, I'm sorry, but a lame-ass decision is buying an Ed Hardy shirt, or growing a soul patch. Cheating is a terrible decision, but obviously if a guy cheats it's because his girlfriend drove him to it. Cosmo suggests to prevent this you 1.) have morning sex at least once a week 2.) tell him his butt looks good, 3.) flirt with someone else to remind him how good he has it, and 4.) keep things interesting by making an on-the-fly short film on your iPhone. Which, okay. I'm sure everyone would be happier if they were having more sex and getting more compliments. But suggesting that "if you know how it works, you can prevent your guy from ever being tempted" --and, conversely, if you don't have enough morning sex and impromptu cell phone videos it's your fault if your significant other cheats on you--is pretty bogus.

60 Hands Free Ways to Wow Him

#44 Lick his eyelids, then blow on the saliva
This seriously sounds like the least sexually appealing thing ever. This advice comes courtesy of one Sadie Allison PhD, author of a presumably real book called (I'm not making this up) "Tickle His Pickle." Yes.

#36 "I love when a girl puts her mouth on my penis sideways, like it's corn on the cob, and slides her lips from side to side"
Well, thanks a heap for that visual, Schubert, 33.

#57 "On a cold night I went to my girlfriend's place. She put my penis under her armpit. It got me hot, fast. "
Silly Andrew, 22. Girls don't have armpits, we have underarms. Just like we don't have gas, we have occasional irregularity.

#33 "I was out to dinner and the girl I was dating kicked off her heels and gave me a foot job under the table."
Maybe I'm not as much of an exhibitionist as some people, but this is fucking disgusting. Food and feet and bodily fluids...annd I'm just going to be over here Purell-ing my brain. Bye.

Resolutions, I Guess

So it’s January, which means I was supposed to make some resolutions about three weeks ago. I pretty much never make New Year’s resolutions, because I’m a realist. Also, like Neko Case, I believe I’m an animal, and you’re an animal too. It’s the winter. I live in New England. All I want to do is make myself a nice little layer of blubber, curl up somewhere warm, and stay there. I do not want to be lean, or mean, or a fat-burning machine. I want a season of Mad Men on DVD, a slab of apple pie the size of my torso and one of those peppermint monstrosities from Starbucks. Because really, who am I to fight Mother Nature?

But there is a force greater than Mother Nature in this world, and Her name is Oprah. Oprah and her pet gurus all encourage you to visualize what you want for yourself in life, and to make a board with pictures, articles, quotes etc. that are going to help you reach that goal. Now, I’m not really sure what my goals are. But in honor of the new (ish) year, here’s a start to my board of Oprah voodoo—five people I want to be more like in the coming year.

Tina Fey & Amy Poehler: Funny, awesome, successful, down-to-earth and just cool. I wish I could come up with something better than a string of adjectives for these two, but I can’t. They’re that awesome. And yes I know they're not the same person, but I couldn't have one without the other.

Alice Munro: I just read her most recent collection of short stories…it gave me nightmares and made me actually delete several dozen pages of my own writing in a fit of despair. It was fantastic.

Rachel Maddow: Because she basically says what I think a hundred times more eloquently and bad-assedly than I can, and directly to the people I wish I could say it to. I’d like her whole vocabulary, and even half her ballsiness.

Lady Gaga: Yeah, she’s crazy, but she does whatever the fuck she wants.

Gabourey Sidibe: I haven’t yet gotten a chance to see “Precious”, but now I want to, if only because of its star, newcomer Gabourey Sidibe. Left and right she has been tackling interviews and the beginning of award season with grace, humor, and a total refusal to buy into the “movie star” thing. She’s just doing her own thing, and seems happy doing it.