I went to a cocktail party tonight, and all anyone could talk about was Rosanna Arquette's new movie on Showtime "Searching for Debra Winger." It's about women aging in Hollywood and what they have to go through to get parts.

I hope it comes out on video because I'd like to see it, since I don't have Showtime.

Apparently there's a scene in the movie where the actresses say that when an actress leaves an audition, which is usually run by men, the guys then go around and say to each other "she was good, but would you have sex with her?"

This scene reminded me of something one of my exec type corporate boyfriends told me. Corporate director boyfriend said that the guys in upper management would talk about, when women weren't present of course, the physical attributes of all of the women in the corporation. And one of the questions that always came up about women executives was, "would you have sex with her?"

Corporate director boyfriend said they would go around the table and offer their "two cents" about the desirability of the woman executive.

I used to think that corporate director boyfriend was making all of this stuff up, and I used to just listen to his stories and think nothing of it. But maybe he was telling the truth, because the Hollywood guys do it too. And if the Hollywood guys behave that way with actresses, they probably treat female writers the same way.

I've worked with corporate america upper management most of my working life, so I'm no stranger to the way guys in corporate america treat women. But maybe this is a good thing because I'll be familiar with how I'll get treated and I'll know how to react. I've definitely had to play that game before. I don't like it, but I know how to operate in the game.

It's ill, very ill I know. But sadly, it really does seem that way. And the higher up you go on the corporate ladder, the worse it gets. You just get used to it, and you adjust, and you learn to use the rules of their game to your own advantage.

I remember going into a difficult meeting with a corporate controller, where I had to talk about why my group was over our department. He was not a happy camper about our expenses that month.

I made sure I wore a very tight sweater to the the meeting just to make sure that I had every advantage. Not sure if it worked, but the meeting went better than expected and I managed to calm him down and we figured out a way to show that my group really wasn't doing that much damage to the corporate bottom line.

I got what I wanted, but I did get sick of the "hooter jokes" that he kept making. I figured it was a small price to pay to calm the poor man down and to keep my group out of trouble. And after that incident, my boss promoted me and gave me a big fat raise.

Hollywood can't be that much worse than what I've had to go through in the halls of publicly traded corporate american executive management.

Borrowed from "Hooray For Anything"

What turns me on- intelligence, smells, sweetness
What turns me off- lying, lack of pragmatism and/or common sense (is there a difference?), right and left wing puppets and parrots, smells, petty meanness, people who don't have facts and figures to back up their claims (we used to call this marketing math)
Favorite Sound- laughter
Least Favorite Sound- static
Favorite Word- obdurate
Least Favorite Word- schadenfreude (media's new fave word)
Dream job- bestselling writer
Currently Reading- Possession
Currently Listening To- Dusty in Memphis
Currently Worried About- weight, finances, terrorism, what' going on in Iraq
Currently Happy About-lists as a way to create a story's structure, plot and architecture

A quote from a NY Times article today on fashion with the headline, "Fashion recalls 1950's nostalgia."

"Fashion is so fragmented, so indefinable," Mr. Doonan replied. "So, many people are looking for what they recognize." The retro trend "mirrors the chaos in our society."

I have the view that art and fashion are at the forefront of what's happening with society. This 1950's nostalgia reinforces my view that american society in general is only becoming more conservative because society is changing too rapidly.

When changes in society happen too quickly, it's too much for most people. Most people fear change as it is, and right now changes are forced and in your face. In fact, everything about american society in so in your face, so out there, so not private.

It's perfectly normal and reasonable for people to start clinging to the past, not because they don't want to move forward, but because the past is familiar and safe. Changes in society are happening so quickly that people are clinging to the past so they can slow the changes down, so they have time to adjust, reorient their lives and values.

What's sad is that you can't slow the change down in the end, but you sure as hell can go kicking and screaming into the future.

I think people are going to start doing that now, if they haven't already. And one sure way to slow to change the change down is to bring back values from the past.

The 1950's was such a dark time in America. I mean, sure you had family stability and all that stuff, but there was also McCarthyism and a darkness and violence in society underneath the sugary sweet stability. And the 1950's didn't last that long either, because then the beatniks and the hippies came along.

Maybe we need to all take a collective look back into the past, take a break for awhile, only to realize in the end that what we have now is so much better that we had back then.

You can never go back, but maybe you can visit for awhile as long as you don't get stuck or lost there.

I checked out the annual US News and World report rankings of colleges to see where my alma mater Grinnell College ranked.

Grinnell College is ranked # 15 for Liberal Art Colleges and
ranked # 7 for Best Value in Liberal Arts Colleges.

Not bad for a school of 1,200 in the middle of the cornfields in Iowa.