Having It All: Your Face and Body and Clothes

Chapters 5 and 6 on ‘Your Face and Body’ and ‘Clothes’ pack a punch (although the black eyes Helen refers to are only from her plastic surgery.) Helen starts us off on the topic of beauty by beating us down, but she’s going to build us back up right? Well. . . let’s not get our expectations up.

“It starts early, our getting the idea – possibly because it’s true! – that we aren’t pretty.” Buckle up, by the end of this chapter you’ll feel that same way you used to after watching an episode of America’s Next Top model; confused, sad, and full from binging on chocolate.

“Playboy, in my opinion, doesn’t denigrate women, only women who are not beautiful.”

— Helen Gurley Brown

“Maybe we can’t be beautiful but we can be better! . . . Even though we will mostly wind up the way we came, stuck with the bones, skin, hair, fingernail structure and figure God (genes) gave us, trying for “beautiful” is not only one of life’s pain-assuagers, it is one of life’s ritualistic pleasures.” I'm already thinking I don't have enough time in my schedule for this. But don't worry, there seem to be some 'lazier' options. We can simply wait around and allow “[Men] breathe beauty into us, endow us with whatever they need, get to thinking we are beautiful.” That certainly sounds easier than learning how to properly apply eyeliner (seriously, despite its seemingly self-explanatory name, I still have no idea what I’m supposed to be doing with that stuff). “Even an older non-beauty (Yoko was older) can attract men if she is sexual, entertaining and good to them.” My heart briefly leapt with hope, but a quick Google search tells me that Yoko was only thirty when she married John.

“We are told to value ourselves without feedback, but if nobody is making a pass at you or trying to take you to Bermuda, how are you supposed to feel? Confident?” You know, I think the best part of this book is how relatable Helen makes it. I mean, all of us ‘non-beauties’ can relate to how beautiful we feel when a man tries to take us to Bermuda! There I was in the produce section of the supermarket just last week turning down yet another offer to jet off to this popular destination. Seriously though, your takeaway is this – if you've never been invited by a man to Bermuda (or similar), you’re not hot. Helen-science makes it true.

“Now let’s move on to what we can do with whatever faces we have to make them look better. Lots of people think you shouldn’t do much, that natural is best. Good God, nature can destroy you. As my beloved Dr. Orentreich says, “You can either let spinal meningitis and polio in their natural virulent form kill a little kid or you can fight back. You can let the body deteriorate, stop functioning, as in the aging process, or you can fight back. . . I have been fighting back, mouseburger-fashion, with every shred of me all my life.” Did she just use the idea spinal meningitis killing a child to talk to us about wearing more make-up? Yes, she sure did.

Well, Helen believes that if we “pretty much” accept ourselves and become absorbed with our work, we will “sexually catnip somebody.” However, in order to do this, he must first notice us. And in order for him to notice us, we must send up the equivalent of emergency flares from a sinking ship by applying make-up to our faces. “. . . even the subtlest makeup is a shorthand to the soul. It says, “I want to attract you so I have tried to perfect myself. I am wearing my badge. I am ready for a grown-up, exciting, full-fledged romantic man/woman relationship”. . . whether you’re doing it right – makeup delivers a message from the inner girl. It says, I want you to like and admire me.” The best part about it is that once we have succeeded in snagging a man we can apparently get back those extra few hours in our days by dropping the whole charade, “. . .once a man is hooked on you, he doesn’t care if your face is maggot white and your eyes sink into your skull like olives in a glass of grape juice. . .” Phew!

Helen says that wearing make-up signals a man that a woman is approachable. “Does that sound silly?” she asks us. “Well, when feminists wanted to show their contempt for men and men’s rules, they scrubbed their faces clean, let their hair hang straight and gray and wore black turtleneck sweaters. Men got the message.” Was that message that women who get paid the same still enjoy fulfilling relationships? Was that the message, Helen?

Not really into ‘fixing’ your looks or pandering to men to feel beautiful? Don’t worry, you can still make up for your plain face by being nice, as Helen tells us from her personal experience. “This very morning I looked in the three-way mirror, observed this unsymmetrical face – not ugly or repelling, just totally undistinguished, and, what with the aging, I said to myself, My God, I’ve got to be nicer to people, got to endear myself to them with love pouring out of every pore of me to make up for this face!” Um, Helen? You’re not really pulling that off very well. Maybe top up the old calorie count and try again.

So, you spend your whole life with a subpar face – and then you start aging. Well isn’t that just a bag full of dicks? Don’t worry, Helen has the answer and it rhymes with spastic perjury. I’m as pro-plastic surgery as I am pro-choice; if it’s right for you, then you should do it. Helen, however, believes that “anybody who cares how she looks should.” At the time the book was written she’d had rhinoplasty, dermabrasion (skin scraped) and her “eyes done.” Twenty years after this book was written, at 74, she also got her breasts augmented. . . and possibly a bit more work along the way. “Surgery will not change your life, solve your problems,” she tells us, “but it can give you a great emotional lift.”

Pro tip: “Lose weight before the operation – then if there is sagginess in your face from weight loss the sag can be snipped right away with the lift.”

Some of Helen’s advice is quite reasonable and is still true today, “A booze-free, cigarette-free, junk-food-free diet definitely shows (advantageously) in your face provided you also keep it clean and sleep enough. Sleep is so pleasurable I think most of us get enough but hitting the booze and cigarettes too heavily (by me, hitting them at all except to make love is too heavy!) are big temptations and they aren’t your skin’s friends.” She needs booze and cigarettes to make love? Back in dear old Chapter 3 – The Diet, Helen told us “What few calories I’m allotted I prefer in food, except in sexy moments. (P.S. You know which is healthier.)” Have you ever been stuck in a conversation with someone at a party who tells you a story you can’t quite follow and then ends it with an emphasized and somewhat rhetorical, “Right?” And you have no idea what you are meant to be agreeing too, so you just nod and take a drink, so you can’t be expected to chime in? That is basically what reading this book is like – every single paragraph.

“Do we all agree? That cared-for nails with unchipped polish separate the rich, glossy girls from the others more surely even than clothes or accessories?”

— Helen Gurley Brown

The current state of my nail polish. . . or lack there of. 

“Regardless of what you were born with or born without, what you do to fix yourself up, some days you like you, some days you don’t. One day you are crazy about your small breasts, curvy hips, intelligent little face, actually kind of all swelled up with pride, and then one measly day later you are so disgusted with this same group of parts you’d like to put yourself in a big manila envelope and mail yourself to Bolivia!” Why Bolivia? Are the men there less choosy? Well if you can’t afford the shipping, don’t fret, we still have the chapter on clothes and I’m sure all of our insecurities will be wiped away with the right spring fashion tips!

A note on insecurities: I was a hella-awkward kid, teenager, and young adult (who am I kidding, I'm still awkward as hell), but when I think about if I would rather have been born beautiful, not had to wear those braces, or not got that awesome perm when I was ten, the honest answer is no. Every part of who I am and who I have been has contributed to who I am today - and I really love who I am today. So, I fully believe in loving your nerdy-self, your plain-self, and your weird-self whether you add make-up, fashion, or other alterations to the mix or not. 

“You can actually wear almost anything” – woohoo! – “unless you’re fat. . .” Well, shit. When will this emotional rollercoaster come to an end? Since the last chapter was a bit of a nut-punch about our looks (again, assuming that we are non-beautiful mouseburgers; as if there are any other kinds!) I thought I would start this chapter with some ideas I could get behind.

“As long as you are clean, not even neat, but clean – though others don’t agree with me on this – I believe your brain and drive are about all that matter and people don’t give a toot what you wear except in the fashion business.” Deal. I can do this. Showering is totally in my wheelhouse. “Clothes will not get you a man, that’s for sure.” Things continue to be looking up. “I think one of life’s top ten (top five?) pleasures is shopping for the lingerie, party dress and swimsuit you’re going to wear with him.” Okay, so I may be stretching here (to the dismay of my boyfriend) but I did really enjoy shopping for the snow pants that I wear when we ski together. That was a nice positive interlude, but now back to regular programming.  

“Of course you learn fairly early that what you put on your body isn’t as important to the opposite sex as the shape of the body you put it on (and possibly having naturally curly hair), but still you care.” Right, clothes aren’t actually important, just starving yourself is. And if you’re not starving yourself – and getting a perm, don’t expect fashion to pick up the tab.

In my early 20’s I had a boyfriend tell me that I had no fashion sense because all I wore were t-shirts and jeans. Nearly two decades later and that combination is still working for me – the boyfriend, however, fell out of style. But if you are worried about your taste in clothing, don’t be – “The first and only thing you need is desire. . . You have to want to have taste. Some people have inherently bad taste. Their problem is really not the bad taste – that can be fixed – but they don’t know they have it!” says Carrie Donovan, fashion editor of the New York Times Magazine, who Helen quotes. Helen then goes on to add her own spin to it, “My opinion is that having the kind of chic and flair Carrie is talking about is like sex after forty. You can decide to let sex slip away, not participate, or you can get on the train, hang on to your seat around the curves and have a great sex life.” Sex slips away after 40? Let’s back this train up.

The essence of the clothing chapter can be summed up with these quotes, “You can be better dressed when you own a lot of stuff. . . One thing that separates chic girls from others is that the former wear enough things. Fearful girls skimp. . . I think more mouseburgers don’t wear enough stuff. . .” In other words, the secret to Having It All when it comes to clothes is literally 'have it all. I mean, it was the 80’s and the height of consumerism after all!

Helen at home. 

What did I get out of the last two chapters? I’m pretty damn lucky that any men ever spoke to me given my complete and utter lack of knowledge around beauty products, I’m fairly devastated to find out that I’m not beautiful (I’m basing this solely on the fact that no man has ever tried to take me to Bermuda – willingly or otherwise), and until my closet is so full the door won't close, I'm not going to be fashionable. 

Now, on to Chapter 7 - Sex! I suspect there will be a lot of wine drinking in this next chapter . . . but hopefully fewer eggs than in chapter 3.

Have you missed a chapter on having it all? Click here to catch up!

Having It All: Exercise (Obsessively)

Both Helen and I had lacking childhoods where prescribed fitness was concerned. 

After Helen’s last chapter on diet, I expected this one on exercise to be full of unhealthy and near-neurotic advice and anecdotes – and it was, but I was also surprised to find how much I agree with some of the things Helen had to say on the topic. And given that we share similar childhood experiences when it comes to sports and fitness, I even felt a little bond growing between us as I turned the brittle, yellowed pages of ‘Having It All’ (which incidentally I still don’t).

“If they’d only let us choose. . . I’d have traded my swan neck and pretty ears (who needs great ears?) for a bosom and long legs any time, but it’s all fixed at birth, you see. Your basic body is where your bones are and trying to get any of them rearranged . . . well, you might as well try to get your typewriter to eat grass - but wait, there’s hope.”

— Helen Gurley Brown

“I used to take “rest” while other kids took gym. While they were out on the hockey field, lining up at the baseball diamond, choosing sides for volleyball, about twenty of us scrawnies were given a glass of milk and two graham crackers and put to bed for an hour.” Oh, how I envy the school systems of the 1930’s. The only way I could get out of P.E. class was by claiming to have menstrual cramps – and no one gave me any cookies! Seriously, I did this so often that someone really should have been concerned about my well-being; or at least my iron levels. Once I even rewrote a math test three times to avoid some outdoor group activity that was meant to be a reward for finishing early. No thank you. 

Jane Fonda is just one of the workout guru's that Helen mentions in her book.

She assures me that the more I exercise, the more “more skilled and less clumsy” I will get; I managed to snap myself in the face with a resistance band just last week, so I'm not sure how much I believe her. I do appreciate, however, that she wrote “exercise is so individual," it may be common knowledge these days, but it really wasn't when I was a kid.  When I was in school, you either played team sports or you didn’t participate in fitness –  so I didn't participate. To this day, possibly only on threat of death (or dieting) could you get me to play a team sport; bringing a main dish to potluck is about as close as I get. It wasn't until I was an adult that I found activities that I enjoyed, like hiking and mountain biking. Being somewhat of a late bloomer in this area, I felt comforted to read that Helen hadn't discovered exercise until she was forty-seven. Of course, she promptly became an expert in it, “I have a few thoughts on the subject and nothing is going to keep me from telling you!”

About half the content of this chapter still holds true today as good, or at least not horrifically misguided, advice. For example, Helen and I agree that exercise makes you feel better and improves your overall health and immune system. “Medically proved fact: Exercise lifts the spirits of moody, melancholy people. . . No matter how yucky I feel on getting up in the morning – and sometimes I am mildly depressed then – an hour of exercise miraculously lifts the gloom.” Finally, something in this book that she can claim as a fact. . . that actually is one. Helen also goes on to explain to us how exercise can improve our cardiovascular and respiratory systems and how mental and physical stress can both be helped by better overall fitness. She covers some good tips on getting started – “You also know to start modestly and work up. A few heavy crash sessions will only discourage you because your body isn’t ready for so much abuse, and you’ll stop after exhausting yourself a couple of times. Begin little and move on.” And covers fads – even though she was dedicated to them in the last chapter – “Nearly every exercise maven thinks his system is the only way to salvation and says the others will kill you. They’re wrong, of course! Anything you do regularly is good.” All this advice holds up.

Helen doing yoga in her office.

But just when Helen and I were seeing eye-to-eye and I was starting to wonder if I had completely misjudged her, she gives us a little peek into her own life – “One morning when I was writhing on the floor with stomach cramps after a thirty-six hour fast plus my usual hour of huff-puff. . .” God damn it, Helen! Here we go again.

While touting the benefits of exercise, she is very clear that dieting is still top dog when it comes to having it all. “Even men can’t necessarily tell that you’re exercised; weight loss is far more dramatic and noticeable. . . I must point out again that “smaller” mostly comes from weight loss, which comes from diet. . . People looking at you may think you’re cute and trim from “nature,” but you know it’s from exercise and exercises soul mate, diet,” these are just a few of the reminders peppered throughout. And come on Helen, we all know that exercise’s soulmate is food. Why else would we do it, if not to be able to eat more? Let’s just be clear on motivation here.

“Spot exercise” - to attack certain problem areas - is surely advisable. . . For two years I visited a terrific little gym. . . to work specifically on inner thigh and under arm flab (the terrible two!).”

— Helen Gurley Brown

“Could we agree that getting dysentery from eating unpeeled vegetables in a foreign country doesn’t count as sick?” No. I’m like 99% sure that only counts as one thing – and that one thing would be getting sick. “I was sick, but exercising never went. For an exerciser there is no exhaustion, fatigue, home or office crisis, too-late night, too-early morning or illness extreme enough to keep you from your accustomed workout. . . the exercise generally makes you feel better.” In fact, Helen believes that “Unless you’re felled with a hysterectomy or lockjaw, it seems to me you’d best continue, without pause, once you begin and every day is best.” In thirteen years (at the time the book was written) Helen had only missed two days of exercise. Even after having her eyes ‘done’ she was back exercising the very next day – “The doctor had forbade all exercise for two weeks so my energy could go to healing, but I was certain he meant me to be an exception.” Obviously. 

Helen working out in her office. 

At one point Helen asks us – “Am I getting too intense?” Helen, honey, it’s chapter four and page one-hundred-and-three and only now you’ve become concerned about your intensity? That ship sailed around the first paragraph of the first chapter – possibly even on the contents page. 

“There is almost no such thing as too much exercise if you can carve out enough time,” Helen continues. This sounds vaguely as accurate as the advice in the previous chapter about how there is no such thing as being too skinny. “Eleanor” someone Helen knows (I hesitate to use the word ‘friend’), “exercises two hours a day at Lotte Berk salon (their routines are killers), then swims one hundred eighty laps in her pool. She also doesn’t eat. Well, seeing this paragon with her dear, perfect little arms and legs sticking out of her newest Scaasi is enough to make you want to do just one thing – push her out the window. . .” Retract those claws there Helen! Meow!

“Some exercises actually produce horniness.” Okay, you’ve got my attention! But apparently we are going to have to wait for a few chapters before she gives us her ‘recipe’ for it – Helen, you are one heck of a tease! She goes on to tell us that one of the benefits of exercise where sex is concerned is that “You can get into any position ever invented without dislocating a thing. It seems to me a man used to an agile girl could hardly put up with one whose bones kept cracking or who said things like, “Oh, God, Henry, I think my back went out.” I suppose being in love with the woman helps.” Um. I guess, maybe love has something to do with it. “I don’t fear death but I do fear the loss of femininity, of attraction between me and a man. If I could die f-----g, that would be the way I would want to go, and if the moment came a little sooner than I’d hoped that would be a small price to pay for having stayed female all my life. . .” Recently, I was telling a friend about how Helen got breast implants in her mid-70’s to which she replied “if I still have to worry about shit like that at that age, then what’s the point of getting old? Finally, not having to worry about all this,” she gestured to her body, “is the only thing I’m looking forward to.” I couldn’t agree more. Although, I suppose dying in the middle of a sexual-encounter-induced-by-a-fit-of-horniness-resulting-from-a-Helen-Gurley-Brown-prescribed-exercise is not a terrible way to exit this world. 

“A nurse I know who jogs four miles a day tells me she never has to worry about meeting men. Between the ones who come to her doctor boss for hair transplants and the ones who jog, she has a great pick.”

— Helen Gurley Brown

As a final closing thought to ponder I would like to offer up a topic that may be near and dear to the hearts of many of the women I know. “Herb Goldberg, author of the New Male, says a woman who concentrates on health instead of hair and clothes can run with a man, play tennis with men, go skating, boating, river rafting, that being sports-minded is the new attraction available to all women. It’s a thought.” Now, all my life I have intuitively focused more on, well – just about anything, other than my hair and clothes, so I’m grateful to hear that men may still find me attractive. But at the same time, isn’t this book called ‘Having It All’? Shouldn’t I be able to spend time on my looks and go boating?

How lucky do I feel that back in the late 70's Herb Goldberg suggested in his book that "being sports-minded is the new attraction available to all women"?

On to chapter five to find that answer; “Now let’s talk about a subject I get the jaw-wobbles about just contemplating what I’m going to say. . . beauty (the facial kind)!" I am uncertain if ‘jaw-wobbles’ is an occurrence that happens when you are excited or afraid or post-coitus, but I’m sure I will find out!

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Having It All: The Diet (or How to Survive on Wine and Eggs)

Helen and I are both 5'4 and I weigh 31 pounds more than she did. By her definition, I'm not cute or sexy. I disagree. 

“It is unthinkable that a woman bent on “having it all” would want to be fat, or even plump," Helen tells us from her pulpit, "so I am going to give you my diet rules.” I’m just going to take a minute to let that sink in, because not only is it a horrifying statement, I want you to be prepared because this chapter gets a lot worse. “Do you like fat men? Of course not. . . [and] you ought to be suspicious of men who say they like fat women. Those men want mothers, at least a comfy, cushiony, sofa-pillow girl to sink into and hide out in.” Yes, it even gets worse than this. 

“if you’re frightened of [job and/or sex success], fatness will pretty much guarantee you won’t get them.”

— Helen Gurley Brown

Right off the bat, she advises us not to talk to our doctors about dieting, “Many doctors don’t know anything about nutrition, incidentally.” And yet, shockingly, she finds a number of professionals – and I use the term loosely – who back up her recommendations, which include a daily calorie intake of 700-1000, fasting – as punishment for binging, and crash diets. “That’s dieting: eating less than you’d really like to for the rest of your life!” Well, I’m going to jump right in without medical advice so that I too, can have it all – although I’m so hungry right now that I would trade having it all for a big piece of cheesecake. Actually, I’d trade pretty much anything for cheesecake most days. I might be in trouble here. 

“Now, many women say they don’t want to look cadaverous like a model. Well, models don’t happen to look cadaverous, they look great.” After this statement, I stopped to take inventory in the mirror. I’m 5’4 on a good day, I weigh 136 pounds, I have birthing hips that farm women of the 50’s would be jealous of, thick cankles that I maintain keep me from tipping over in high winds, and a trunk with enough junk to classify me as a hoarder. My only bone that sticks out is certainly not a rib, it’s a wonky collarbone that I broke five years ago. Got the image? Okay. I think it's only fair that you have a solid understanding of my credentials as we get deeper into this.

Cheryl Tiegs at 5'10 and 102 pounds. 

“Cheryl Tiegs – one hundred two pounds, and she’s five feet ten inches!” Cheryl Tiegs – if you don't know – was a model in the 70’s and 80’s and is known to have been the first woman to grace the cover of the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit edition twice! To put Helen's words into context using the Body Mass Index – a score of 18.5 or under is considered underweight. Cheryl Tiegs would score 14.6. A gorgeous, healthy, and fit friend of mine who is also 5’10 and weighs 145 pounds would score 20.8 (a score falling between 18.5 – 24.9 is considered a normal weight). While the Body Mass Index is far from perfect, it does help to illustrate my point. “Insurance companies," Helen continues, “say you can weigh a lot more than you did at nineteen. They say you can carry around the most fantastic amounts, like one hundred twenty-eight pounds when you’re five feet three inches! Those weights are mythical if you want to be cute and sexy.” Again – in case you missed it – I am 5’4 and 136 pounds. My BMI at 23.3 might be the most normal thing about me. I’ve also never considered my weight as a factor in being cute and sexy – I've always thought that my lack of coordination has a much bigger impact on my sex appeal. “When one-hundred-and-two-pound Cheryl Tiegs gets up to One hundred five,” Helen tells us, “she says she stops eating and maybe you, too, will have to stop eating occasionally.” Well, it looks like I’m going to have to because to have the same BMI as 1983 Cheryl Tiegs, I would have to weigh 85 pounds. But don’t worry, according to this book, Dr. Myron Winnick, (then) director of Columbia University’s Institute of Human Nutrition, says, “It’s almost impossible for a healthy person to be too thin. There are very few medical problems associated with thinness.” As recently as 2005, this doctor published a book about children’s nutrition. I'm not even joking. In any case, I'm feeling reassured that as long as I'm healthy, I can be as thin as I want! Sure, that makes sense. 

“your body and your brain feel best on a low-calorie, low-carbohydrate diet. . . They really do.”

— Helen Gurley Brown

“Well, the price for the ideal weight is, yes, semistarvation!” God damn it, Helen. “But can’t you weigh a little more than “ideal” and still be healthy?” Fingers crossed she says yes! “Yes, a little more perhaps – five or ten pounds – but now we come to pride.” Well, shit. “If you want a flat stomach, huggable hips, round but slender arms, you’ve probably got to be at the “ideal” weight or less, because those extra five or ten pounds never go to the throat, breasts or shoulders where we’d like them, but always to the stomach and hips.” The throat and shoulders? Breasts I get, but has anyone ever said would you look at the throat on her?” Not to mention that clearly the '80's were not a booty-loving heyday. “Anyways, from “decent” skinny eating (no salt, no sugar, minimal starch), exercising an hour a day, taking vitamins (sixty a day now), no smoking, no drinking, no caffeine, no drugs, and being motivated to stay well, your life can change utterly. Mine did.” 60 vitamins a day? Who’s got the time? “No matter what diet you’re on, if you cut carbohydrates and don’t even eat all the meat, eggs, fowl and fish you want, I think you’ll get there faster.” Yes, no matter what diet you may already be on, if you eat less, you will lose more weight. I can’t argue with that logic.

“When you’re into big-time serious dieting, you must plan what you’re going to eat that day – seven hundred cals, one thousand cals – and not eat another thing.” By my calculations, eating in my usual and healthy way, I have blown through her allotted calories by early afternoon. True story. The amount of hanger that would rain down if I should cut my calories to 700 a day, would surely drive my boyfriend into hiding – I think he’s nervously trying to pick up extra work shifts as I type this. It’s no wonder that Helen was such a bitch. “I have never been fat,” – okay, she was a skinny bitch – “because I have always made myself pay for binges (thirty-six hours without any food . . . ghastly!)” Well, this is sounding healthier. She tells us about the time that a pound of chocolate was delivered to her door in the form of a Candygram, “As soon as the Western Union boy departed, I sat down by the front door and ate the whole thing. Incredible what the human tummy will hold. . . it just stretches and stretches!” While she doesn’t completely endorse it, she also uses her own euphemism to make purging sound not exactly unpleasant. “Never mind that ancient Romans did it, some determined young ladies (a couple famous ones) keep to skin and bones now by eating and whoopsing.” Whoopsing.

Helen at 5'4 and a 'doctor-approved' 105 pounds. 

Don’t feel like whoopsing? Don’t worry, Helen has doctor-approved crash diets to offer as well. “Isn’t crashing bad for you?” According to Dr. Irwin Stillman, author of The Doctor’s Quick Weight Loss Diet, it’s not! “In my experience, there’s no question that quick-action dieting which alters radically and suddenly your ways of eating is the best way to reduce. . . the too-prevalent viewpoint that a fast take-off of weight is linked inevitably with a fast put-on. . . is not true.” This guy sounds credible. On The Stillman Diet, which claims you will lose 7-15 pounds in the first week, you eat six small meals a day – I pretty much do that already, you drink eight glasses of water a day – I also do that, and you eat as much lean meat, poultry, seafood, eggs and non-fat cottage cheese as you want – sounds good to me! But you can’t use any type of oil to cook – well, I can get used to that. Alcohol and sugar are also off the menu – I can accept that if I have to. Tobasco, salt, pepper, and garlic are allowed – that sounds tasty! “The diet strictly forbids carbohydrates, vegetables, and fruits” – um, what did you say now? That can’t be right. Well, it is and that’s why this dude's famous diet resulted often in malnutrition, weak bones, kidney stones, high cholesterol levels, and only short-term weight loss. But once again, Helen comes to the rescue of her bad research and gives us her own proven diet advice, “This is one of my favorite crashes. . . Breakfast: one egg cooked without butter, one glass of white wine. Luch: two eggs, cook without butter, two glasses of white wine. Dinner: medium steak, all fat trimmed, broiled, and finish the bottle of wine.” Drunk, hangry, and with all those eggs in your belly is such a great way to achieve cute and sexy.

But eventually, even Helen found “binge-ing having to be followed by remorse and starvation” an uncomfortable way to live and instead just limited what she ate every day. “I think you may have to have a tiny touch of anorexia nervosa to maintain an ideal weight. . . not a heavy case, just a little one.” We all know that anorexia is super easy to regulate and maintain. Much like how an alcoholic can be just a social drinker when they decide to be.

“I have never been fat because I always made myself pay for binges (thirty-six hours without any food. . . ghastly!”

— Helen Gurley Brown

Once her doormat chocolate binging days were behind her, Helen swore off sugar and alcohol. “They’d have to get my jaws open with a crowbar now to get dessert down me.” And, even with Helen’s busy social life, she managed her choices with grace and dignity. “To get rid of calories at parties and to outfox a determined host, I have dumped champagne (which I adore) into other people’s glasses when they weren’t looking or, in a real emergency, into a split-leaf philodendron, wrapped eclairs in a hanky and put them in my purse, once in an emergency, sequestered one behind the cushion of an upholstered chair – in a napkin of course.” How very thoughtful. “One aggravated hostess put chocolate chips in my Sanka out in the kitchen one day, then gleefully told me what she’d done after I drank. Bitch!” Haters gonna hate, Helen.

Still have a sweet tooth? Helen recommends using artificial sweeteners in place of sugar. “The food and drug administration tells us that saccharine and sucaryl, even the amounts contained in two bottles of diet soda a day, may be carcinogenic. . . Okay, if saccharine and sucaryl suffice for sugar in my life, I think they are worth the risk.” She did live to be 90, so I can’t really argue her logic here. “As I write this a new artificial sweetener, aspartame, is being test-marketed. I’ve used it and it’s sensational. . . the brand name is Equal, it should be available for all of us soon.” And what a joyous day it was for all when Equal came on the market.

Helen’s Desert Recipe

• 1 envelope D-Zerta chocolate pudding
• 2 envelopes Sweet ‘n Low, Sugar Twin or other artificial sweetener
• 1 rounded tablespoon instant Sanka, Brim, or regular coffee
• 2 Cups skim milk
• 2 tablespoons (2 ounces) Hershey chocolate syrup
• 2 tablespoons (1 ounce) brandy

Serves 3 people at 140 calories per serving and is “quite delicious.”

“Even with sugar out of my life, I still weighed, at five feet four, one hundred ten or twelve pounds, still had a pouchy stomach. . .” Again, Helen and I are the same height and I weigh 26 pounds more than her. Maybe my bones are just super dense. “So I went to see one of those gifted doctors that maybe you can only find in New York,” – sorry Helen, I think you can find quacks just about anywhere – “who confirmed that one hundred five would indeed be a much better weight in my case and gave me a product called Optifast to get off the five pounds.” Apparently, doctors don’t know anything about nutrition unless they are telling you to lose weight and do it quickly! Check.

Yes, this dieting advice came from the woman who chose these covers, and many more just like them.

I learned a lot in this chapter – mostly that having it all doesn't include health – under sections titled, Despite All the Controversy About How to Go About It and How Terribly Tough It Is, Dieting Really Is Moral, Sexy and Healthy; Exercise Is Good for You – But It Won’t Make You Skinny; Self-Induced Throwing Up After an Orgy is Brave, But Not Good For You; Crashing is Okay, So Is Fasting; A Skinny Can Invest Her Calories in Food Or Drink – But Not Both. In that last one Helen writes about choosing food or drink, “What few calories I’m allotted, I prefer in food, except in sexy moments. (P.S. You know which is healthier.)” I’m still perplexed at this statement. If we are getting drunk for “sexy moments” then why are we bothering to starve ourselves? Everyone looks sexy after a bottle of wine. Oh, Helen – what a great practical joke on the women of yesterday this book is turning out to be.  

She leaves us with this – “Can you admire your utterly outstanding pelvic bones the way other people admire Bo Derek’s bosom, take endless please in patting your stomach because it (still) isn’t there, thank God!, go into deep depression at the gain of even half a pound? Good!” Well no. But here’s to getting drunk on wine and eggs until I do!

As soon as I sober up, I'll start on Chapter 4 - Excercise. Helen has already said that we should exercise because it "helps especially when you’ve “lost weight in the wrong places,” but not because it’s much help in using up calories.” Noted. 

Missed any of the chapters? Click here to Have It All. 

Having It All: How to Mouseburger My Way to the Top

Photo: Hearst Corporation

“Why, really, should you listen to or do what I say?” It's as though Helen is reading my mind. As a response she tells us about the time that she was visiting Martha’s Vineyard with her husband back in the late 70’s when she “saw a rather pretty girl – twenty-two perhaps,” sun tanning on a dock. “She had a nice body, long legs. . . I studied her – the face isn’t as good as the body, I decided. . . nose a little big, eyes a little small, mouth a bit thin. Nice girl, nothing special.” Helen wondered if this poor disadvantaged girl would have a chance with any of the rich and famous men who frequented Martha’s Vineyard. “She would have a chance as a hanger-on, I decided . . . a little cookieburger that one of these men might take on for an evening.” But Helen knew that if she had her chance to impart her wisdom that this girl could “have her man – a good and “heavy” one . . . as well as a place in the sunshine which will make people listen to her and not reject her because she looks only okay but not great.”

This is from a woman who admits in this chapter that during a press conference with Jimmy Carter she “couldn’t understand a lot of what he was saying. . . because [her] brain turns off at complex subjects!” And that “On Pearl Harbor day, December 7, 1941, the other secretary in my department at radio station KHJ heard the horrendous news, jumped out of bed like a little greased mosquito and went straight to the station. I heard the news, hadn’t a notion what Pearl Harbor meant to the world or radio station KHJ and went back to sleep.” She also admits to having “the wildest crush on Rupert Murdoch.” But still, there might be something to glean from these pages. Right?

This chapter is 63-pages of subsections with titles like, ‘A College Degree Isn’t That Important,’ ‘The Way to Dress for an Office Is Pretty,’ ‘Sexual Harassment Isn’t What It’s Cracked Up to Be,’ ‘Don’t Be Afraid that Success Will Defeminize You,’ and ‘Don’t Be Your Own Best Friend!’

She asks the reader – me – early on, “How old are you? Twenty-one? Thirty?” I wait for her to hand out some other options, but she tops out at thirty. Sure, let’s say I’m thirty. “We (you with me helping) are now going to begin the arduous task of mouseburging your way to the top. . . quietly, steadily getting there although at the moment you feel like nobody special, possibly even a mouse.” Let’s dive right in.

It turns out that the crux of this book – of the whole mouseburger plan – is our job. “Could we talk for a moment?” Helen asks us conspiratorially. Why sure Helen, of course, we can talk. “A beautiful secretary will be asked out; a beautiful account executive will have more impact on a man when she’s asked out and, if you aren’t beautiful, a serious job will bring you to more (good) men’s attention. . . most men have learned to love a doer rather than a dodo.” Helen spends much of the chapter bouncing between how a job will bring us great satisfaction and how it will help us find and keep a man – two things that are clearly meant to motivate us equally.

A quick note about contradictions – of which there are many in this book, only a few pages after telling us that secretaries won’t have much impact on a man, she tells us that “As a young actor, Marlon Brando dated studio secretaries almost exclusively. F. Lee Bailey, Yousuf Karsh, Allen Funt and dozens of other gifted men married their secretaries. I could go on!” We just have to politely overlook Helen’s inconsistencies otherwise our faith in her advice could be shaken.

Okay, down to the bones of this plan. “This is how it works: You get a man by dealing with him on his professional level, then stay around to charm and sexually zonk him. Yes, I know sex exists for us to feel good and enjoy ourselves, but you can feel very good and enjoy yourself like a sea otter and zonk him as well.” In an effort to add a little clarity to this statement – according to dictionary.com, ‘zonk’ means to hit or strike or to fall or cause to fall suddenly and heavily asleep or lose consciousness. When researching sea otter sexuality to better understand that reference I only found an article titled ‘Why Sea Otter Force Sex on Other Species.’ 

It became quite clear in the first chapter that Helen is what I would refer to as a ‘frenemy’ of other women, but here she really lets the claws come out – and mostly directs her ire at stay-at-home wives and moms. “Even lovely stay-homes, with incredible homes to stay in, closets full of Adolfos, and garages full of Mercedes-Benzes get left out in the garage with the Mercedes because they don’t have an identity aside from being somebody’s wife and mother. I’ve observed that the women who have as good jobs as their men get left less frequently. . .” I feel secure in the knowledge that Helen has really done her research before making these sweeping statements.

Much of this chapter focuses on minutely different aspects of women being concerned that men won’t find them attractive if they are successful. “As for your appeal to men, successful women have it. . . don’t even entertain any other idea! Why else are stay-at-home wives terrified of their men “staying at the office late” and spending time “on the road” with their female associates?” Well, Helen, these women may be afraid because of women like you – stay with me here.

It turns out that Helen a big proponent of – you guessed it – sex in the workplace. “The sexual you is part of the whole you and doesn’t snap off – God we hope not, anyway! – between nine and six.” Helen suggests we harness sexual tension we have with co-workers, “Trying to please somebody you’re nutty about can be productive.” And it turns out that Helen was quite productive in her work life. “With the exceptions of my present job at Cosmo, may I say I have never worked anywhere – and I’ve worked a lot of anywheres – without being sexually involved with somebody in the office. What else are office friends for?! . . . As for not sleeping with the boss, why discriminate against him?”

Speaking of bosses. Under a subsection titled ‘Sexual Harassment Isn’t What It’s Cracked Up to Be,’ Helen tells us that in the 40’s jobs were hard to come by and “you did not do anything to rebuff or offend a boss, even a horny one. . . but Jesus,” she exclaims, “I can’t remember anything really heavy or bad coming of it.” Um. What. Even typing this up I’m resisting the urge to wave my hands in the air and yell, “what the fuck! #metoo bitch!” But then she keeps going, as Helen often does. “One of my bosses at dear, staid Music Corporation of America used to ask me to come in on Sundays to “get rid of this extra work,” and he would chase me around his beautiful quiet office with all those fabulous antiques and sometimes catch me, but only for a few hugs and kisses. . . Was that so terrible?” Yes, Helen, that is fucking horrible. Granted she is describing something that happened in 1945, but – she’s using it to give advice to women in 1983! She’s not stopping the cycle, she’s the one with a big stick stirring it up so it doesn’t lose momentum. Just in case she wasn’t clear about her veiled insinuations about how women should handle unwanted sexual advances in the office, she lays it out for our little mouseburger brains. “Of the millions of naughty suggestions made by millions of male employers to their “defenseless” female employees yearly, I’d say half cheered the girls up, half brought the girls down, but probably nothing bad has come out of most of them.” I realize that being speechless isn’t the greatest quality when I’m trying to write – but rest assured that when I read this, all I could do was wave my arms around and gasp like a fish that has escaped Harvey Weinstein's aquarium.

Dolly Parton in 9-5. I'm just going to leave this right here. 

I know we are all still reeling from that last section, but we are finally getting into the nitty-gritty of our biggest concerns. “What about getting masculine and flinty as you climb?” Again, many subsections are devoted to this topic. She tells us that “the way to dress for an office is pretty” and that she’s “never seen a woman held back in a job because of what she wore if her brain and drive and devotion were okay.” So, the only time that what you wear to the office would be considered inappropriate would be if your performance was subpar. Funny, I thought that was when you were supposed to bring out the ‘big guns’ – or ‘walk the puppies’ as my brother-in-law used to say. If you’re still afraid that your success will defeminize you, don’t worry, there is half a page of testimonials about how men don’t find their mother’s masculine, how you should never raise your voice at work, and how you get what you want in the workplace by “being stubborn – a very feminine trait.” Helen then concludes “the bigger job can only make you more desirable to most men. . . That is God’s truth.” She really went all in on that one.

“Okay, how long are you to carry on like a craven little nit, doing all that “pleasing” and all those grubby chores in whatever job you’re in?” Apparently, when it comes to moving up the corporate ladder, you don’t really have to be great because “Companies need to move along anyone who is movable and it’s happening more and more to women since Women’s Lib got after everybody.” It must have been so convenient for Helen to reap the rewards of a movement she didn’t care about - and publicly criticized. It would be like me having greasy McRib fingers when I hadn't even signed the petition to bring it back.

A Few More Highlights From this Chapter:

• “Put vital statistics first – name, address, phone, age, marital status. Put job experience next . . . Education comes after that. . .List extracurricular activities next. . . If you look nice, send along a snapshot – preferably full length – to the hottest prospects.” While Helen herself had sixteen secretarial jobs in nine years, she says, “I simply eliminated eight jobs from my application form so they wouldn’t think I was a drifter!”

• “Give answers and ideas quickly and it will save you from having to give terrific ones!” Phew! I’ll just shout out everything that comes to my mind in a meeting and then I’ll never be expected to actually have any good input. Well, that certainly sounds like the key to success!

• “It’s Okay to “Borrow” Ideas from a Friend when You’re Stuck,” Helen tells us that her husband has written the cover blurbs for Cosmo for years and that the article ideas that he likes are the ones they assign. Scattered throughout the chapter she also tells us that he gave her the idea for her Sex and the Single Woman book – after his first wife didn’t write it and that it was his contacts that got her the job with Cosmo. It certainly sounds like having it all just means having a well-connected husband with great ideas. Incidentally, her husband, David Brown, was a movie producer who is best known for producing Jaws, Cocoon, and Driving Miss Daisy.

• In a section titled “If You Have Daily Anguish from Things that Aren’t Your Fault, the New Isn’t All Bad” Helen asks, “Have you a rotten family, bad health, nowhere looks, serious money problems, a minority background, nobody to help you?” and then goes on a long list of example of successful people who have had challenges in their youth. Come one, anyone who has watched a Disney movie has learned this lesson – over and over and over.

“Now let’s move into the area of looking and feeling good. I know a lot about the latter, a little about the former – both good places to start a life-enhancing campaign.” I'm assuming that the next chapter, titled 'The Diet,' has a subsection titled 'How to Lose Weight and Get Your Lecherous Boss to Notice You.' Tune in next week as I continue my mouseburger journey to Having It All! 

Missed the first chapter? You can catch up here. 

Having It All: Am I a Mouseburger?

“IF YOU’D RATHER BE A TIGER THAN A MOUSEBURGER, STEP RIGHT UP. . . ”

— The New York Times

Last spring, I was perusing a selection of books at a thrift store when the word 'mouseburger' caught my eye on the back cover of Having It All – written Helen Gurley Brown and published in 1983. I wondered what the fuck a mouseburger was – is it something that tigers eat or is it a tiny burger that mice eat? Moreover, I was intrigued by what ‘having it all’ meant over thirty years ago and what women were willing to do to get it. The fact that someone had already expelled it from their personal library made me wonder if they had achieved the promise the title made or been horribly led astray by it. So, I spent the $0.99 – a bargain from the original $4.99 cover price – and took it home.

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The author, Helen Gurley Brown, was the Editor-in-Chief of Cosmopolitan Magazine for 32 years and published many other books in her lifetime including Sex and the Single Girl in 1962. While she once ridiculed women’s-libbers as “a bunch of nutburgers” – she really had a thing for burgers – her role as a feminist is a complicated one. She has both been applauded for empowering women to embrace their sexuality and criticized for creating a magazine that has greatly contributed to the society of body shaming we live. A brief scan inside the covers of Having It All and it is clear that her advice here bounces like a ping pong ball between these extremes.

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BETTMANN / CORBIS

Despite her somewhat dubious legacy and inspired by the new year, I pulled it off the shelf this morning determined to take the step-by-step advice of 'The Ultimate Woman’s Guide to Love Success, Sex, Money, Even If You’re Starting with Nothing.' And with the air thick with soon-to-be-broken New Year’s resolutions I began my transformation from mouseburger to tiger.

Chapter One – Who Are You?

I have to admit the start of this book doesn’t give me a whole lot of confidence – within the first paragraph, the woman who is going to spend the next 374 pages telling me how to become a tiger, takes a rather dark turn in the present tense. "I consider asking the driver to try entering the Hollywood Freeway southbound from the southbound off ramp; if we make it, this would have us moving north when everybody else was coming south and take care of the future." Not only is Helen willing to take her driver with her – but she found it necessary to get into the minute details of how onramps work. Later on, however, it is made clear that this is not the book for intellectual women, and the target audience therefore clearly necessitates the dumbing down of. . . well, everything (this makes for a very wordy book). But don’t worry about Helen's wellbeing. By the time she’s left the set of the Tonight Show – where she has been invited to appear many times (she tells us) – and pulled into the driveway of her Bel-Air hotel, she is already feeling better about her lot in life.

I’m still wondering what a mouseburger is when she reveals to us that she herself is one. What? It turns out that mouseburgers are 'people who are not prepossessing, not pretty, don’t have a particularly high I.Q., a decent education, good family background or other noticeable assets.' Helen – at 59 – wants to share her craft, but only if you hunger for better things and have guts! As a testament to her abilities, she mentions the increasing joy she feels while other women her age feel "dumped and useless." But to be clear this isn’t a book for those women – I’m not even sure it’s a book for me – you must be a youthful mouseburger to benefit from her teachings. She wobbles slightly again towards the end of the fifth paragraph when, after discussing how euphoric she feels most mornings, she again wonders if she can "do it" with an overdose of her hive medication. Okay then. This might be more of a do as I say and not as I do kinda book. 

Apparently, the only way this book will help me is if I share Helen’s goals.

"Do you, by any chance, also want:

• To love and be loved by a desirable man or men?
• To enjoy sex?
• To be happy in your work – and maybe even famous?
• To make money – possibly a lot?
• To look great?
• To have wonderful, loyal friends?
• To help your family?
• To be free of most anxiety?
• Never to be bored and maybe leave the world a better place?"

As rhetorically as that question was stated - I was immediately sucked in. Could this book maybe make me famous? Could it teach me to possibly make a lot of money? Could it free me from most anxiety? Could I maybe leave the world a better place? I am so glad I found this book. But I am still wondering if I am a mouseburger. But don’t worry, there are 17 wordy statements to help me determine, not only if I am one, but also if Helen can help me – or rather, if she is my "guru" as she puts it.

Please answer true or false to these statements (these are mostly abridged versions of the statements):

1.     You’re smart. You may not be an intellectual or a scholar, but you are “street smart.” Like a little forest animal, you are quick and adaptable.

2.     Technically smart people intimidate you, but you know, in your own way, you are as “smart” as they are.

Did Helen invent that backhanded compliment? And why is the word smart in quotations. Is it because little forest animals aren’t actually as “smart” as technically smart people? I am just going to move along.

3.     You are sensitive (intuitive) to the point of near craziness. When a man is falling in love with a woman – not you – you know that (and it usually hurts!)

For further clarity on this near craziness that I may experience she also notes that you can sense when you’re about to be fired, when someone doesn’t like you at first sight, and when the audience hates a stand-up comic. Come on. Everyone knows when the audience doesn’t like a comic.

4.       You get instant telephone vibes. About one sentence into a conversation you know you have somebody on the other end of the phone who is an idiot and will never be able to help you.

If you’re calling your cell phone provider you can pretty much make that assumption before you dial.  

5.     While being intuitive, you are also impatient.

False.

6.     You’re modest.

This is so true. Guys – I’m the most modest.

7.     Envy is not unknown to you. Put it this way. In everybody under ninety who isn’t in jail, terminally diseased or under indictment by the Federal Government, you can probably find something admirable they have and you haven’t (and wished you did). As for the really golden people, words haven’t yet been invented to describe the disparity you think exists between you and them.

So, what Helen is saying here is that there is nothing enviable about those who are over ninety, in jail, terminally ill, or under indictment by the Feds? Those are some interesting subsections of society that she had deemed unworthy – and I suspect some of the people who have had the most fun in life.

8.      You’re more selfish than altruistic. Idealists would not exactly describe you – you are not mad to move to India to push birth control or to Riyadh to hasten civil rights until you get something together for yourself.

I suppose this is true since I am here and not there. Although I can’t say that I’ve ever thought of myself as selfish. This statement feels a little like that game Fuck Marry Kill but the contestants are Donald Trump, Donald Trump, and Donald Trump. There's no good answer here.

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Jackie Bisset and what is clearly the right body. 

9.     You have a sweet natural sex drive that brings you enormous pleasure. This deep gut sexuality may not be discernible to others immediately as it may have been placed in the “wrong” body (nobody is ever going to mistake you for Jackie Bisset), but it’s there.

 Fear not, ladies, you too can have enormous pleasure even if you have an imperfect body. Boy, am I glad to hear that! I was worried that i might have to give all my orgasms back. Also, 'deep gut' and 'sexuality' should never be in the same sentence - or ever paragraph. Please and thank you.

10.  You’re eccentric and not un-proud of being “different!”

So it's okay to be different, but not okay enough to be proud of it, just not un-proud? Helen also goes on to list these as ways of being eccentric: sleeping in a football team sweatshirt, vacuuming at 4 am, and eating salad with your fingers. It seems that it was quite easy to be eccentric in the 80’s – or at least by Helen’s standards.  

11.  You can keep a lot of things going at once. You can cope with more than one job, on love affair, love affair plus marriage (if that’s what you want), one close friendship, etc.

Wait. Hold on. This is true – but only because I have multiple jobs and close friends not because I have multiple loves or am married with a side-piece.

12.  You have drive. You look tame, but there is this fierceness, the never quite giving up on a project, the willingness to put more in. Physically you are not stronger than other people. Your drive comes from your brain.

Guys, I’m really glad she clarified that drive comes from my -easily-intimidated-by-intellectuals brain and not from the physical strength that I don’t have.

13.  While being impatient almost to the point of insanity about day-to-day trivia, you have patience for the long haul. You may have worked eight straight weeks on a television script, but you aren’t really shocked when nobody buys it. You will wear the bastards down!

While this statement rallies at the end with a slightly feminist leaning battle cry, I have to maintain that you should have enough faith in anything you are doing to be shocked and disappointed when it doesn’t succeed. Regardless, this one is false for me. I am an instant gratification seeker – to a fault.

14.   You sometimes hurt. Your getting-hurt-by-a-man capacity is boundless (topless, bottomless, sideless, and backless!) but you’re also pretty good at being other kinds of hurt.

She does bring this one around by adding that the good side of this ability to feel hurt is our capacity for love. Aside from her insistence that the hurt mostly pertains to constantly being spurned by men – possibly because you're in the 'wrong body' – isn’t being hurt and feeling love pretty universal? I mean unless you’re a psychopath, which I don’t think I am. Maybe there are 17 questions to determine that somewhere too.

15.  It’s hard to be casual about anything. “It doesn’t really matter, not REALLY!” you keep muttering to yourself when the job, the soufflé, the weekend plans are falling apart.

Full disclosure, I’ve never made a soufflé – and I’ve never been passive aggressive enough to mutter about disappointments. They tend to come out loud and clear.

16.  Peculiar (to put it mildly!) as you are, you can’t think of anybody you’d rather be. Actually, you feel kind of extraordinary at times . . . different from the others, yes, but somehow, well – don’t laugh – better! You don’t want to change skins, you just want to “improve” the one you’re in. Mousy as you are, on certain days you even feel a sense of power, probably based on having done something well.

Did Helen also invent negging? 

“Negging is an act of emotional manipulation whereby a person makes a deliberate backhanded compliment or otherwise flirtatious remark to another person to undermine their confidence and increase their need of the manipulator’s approval.”

— Wikipedia

17.  You want it all, and are “willing to pay the price.” Let’s put it this way: Your basic mouseburger qualities – brains (though you’re not an intellectual), sensitivity and youth – are the cake mix. Add the hard work and you get a cake.

I have paid the price – $0.99 – and I’m going to bake myself a cake. But the ingredient of youth might be in short supply. I can only hope that the two cups of immaturity I've found in my bare cupboards will be an adequate substitute.   

"If you answered “True” to at least ten of these seventeen possibilities, I think you and I are alike. If you answered “True” to even five, I may be able to help you." I answered true to a whopping nine of these statements – of course that’s if I admit that I’m in the wrong body, am a small forest animal, can balance a marriage and an affair, am selfish because I’m not in India, and that I paid for this book. I am a 1983 mouseburger and Helen Gurley Brown is going to be my guru. 

Tune in next week as I tackle Chapter Two – How to “Mouseburger” Your Way to the Top. I can only assume that mouseburger is synonymous with sleep.