I went to a Christmas party last night at the home of Steve�s friends Kevin and Mary and had an unexpectedly great time. This is no bust on Kevin and Mary � Steve and I had made plans to meet four other party people for dinner before festivizing, and although I�d dressed up like the female of the species tends to dress up for Christmas parties, long slinky black dress and Fearless lipstick, etc. � that�s normal, right? � the other two women at the table were wearing jeans, sneakers, woolly sweaters, and zero makeup, not so much as Karmex. (I can hear Vanessa now: "Fucking Seattle. This town is a joke.") So I was mortified, I felt like the biggest dork in the Pacific Northwest. And when we arrived at Kevin and Mary�s, I was the only girl in a skirt and one of only three not in denim. I was standing there holding my gin and tonic and wanting to die on the spot. But I clung to that Tanqueray bottle as if it were a liferaft, and after a little while many of the less formally clad guests went home, and then Alice and finally Alina showed up and their sense of appropriate Christmas party attire was more in line with my own and things were fine. Mary and Kevin are serious about giving people as much booze as they can drink, and in terms of foodstuffs Mary had performed an act of hostessing that would have met even my insane standards. Did you know that Alice and Alina and I all met our fellas at the Cha Cha? We raised our glasses to the Cha Cha. We had to drink with determination because there was a girl in attendance, one of those mousy types of whom you�d never suspect it, who seemed hell bent on leaving with someone else�s boyfriend, and she kept commandeering our escorts for flirtatious close-standing, arm-touching, charmed-laughing two-way conversation, and we girlfriends needed to keep passing by to administer, respectively, I-will-smite-you glares and proprietary ass-pats, etc., and what better excuse than a trip to the liquor bottles on the kitchen counter. (It�s party logic, work with me.) At some point it became incumbent upon the three of us, I forget why, to land-grab the bathroom for our gossip HQ. It had been years since I sat on the edge of a bathtub in a strange apartment, comparing notes with other females about the discrete tragedies of each of our butts, and I felt like a blushing schoolgirl again. Alice and I also discussed British naval history � a topic of interest to us both � and bonded over our mutual wish that we could start stocking up on cannonballs. No lie, I bonded with Alice. So in the new year I might have some new broads to go out marauding with. Mary too, if she�s game. Merry Christmas to me, and pass the ibuprofen.

In the hangover-friendly reading material department, the Entertainment Weekly Best of 2003 issue has arrived. One feature is a section in honor of this year�s deceased, short obituary-cum-appreciations written in the first person by someone whom EW apparently believes can offer personal insight into the subject�s specialness and why he or she will be missed. I�ve been subscribing for a few years now and I don�t remember whether I�ve encountered this execution of the concept before. Now, it�s true that EW is sometimes not so memorable and has been getting stupider and stupider, no mean feat, since I wrote my first check to the circulation department, but this issue sets a new benchmark for bad taste and cluelessness. There is a sound reason why obituaries tend not to be written in the first person, and here it is. This is the first sentence of the one Tom Brokaw wrote for David Brinkley: "David was a seminal figure in my life." Martin Scorsese on Elia Kazan: "When I was 12 years old, I was finally allowed to go to the movies by myself." Sheryl Crow on Johnny Cash: "The first song that popped into my mind when Johnny�s family asked me to sing at his funeral was Bob Dylan�s 'Every Grain of Sand.'" Ronald Isley on Barry White: "As so-called love men, Barry and I were always competitive with each other, but it was a friendly competition." Ry Cooder on Compay Segundo: "When we made the Buena Vista cd�" Jackson Browne on Warren Zevon: "When we were recording Warren�s first album�"

It�s Franzen-tastic! Also, I would bet that even among EW readers there�s a sizable contingent that believes Sheryl Crow is not fit to deliver Johnny Cash�s pizza, let alone to have the ostensible last word on his life and influence. The woman got dumped by Kid Rock, for fuck�s sake. Later in the piece she modestly explains, "I actually got to know Johnny through his wife, June, and then he recorded one of my songs, 'Redemption Day.' I got to have several nice conversations with him before he passed away, right around the time of June�s funeral. I sang there, too." What is this, Sheryl, your resum�? How much do you charge for bar mitzvahs? And that goddess of thorny uncompromising bitches Nina Simone, for instance, must be clawing at her coffin walls knowing that her piece was written by middlebrow cover girl Norah Jones, who cuts to the important stuff and tells us, "When I was growing up, my mom had this beat-up Nina Simone tape with coffee stains on it." ("This beat-up Nina Simone tape." Ought we to be employing such a breezy, seemingly tossed-off writing style in the rest-in-peace section? I know it�s only Entertainment Weekly, but come on, some respect for the dead? Here�s Jack Klugman lazily toasting Charles Bronson: "Charlie was not easy to get to know. Very, very private. We formed a nice friendship, but it was never binding. It was just a nice, good, friendship, very loyal." Did you notice, too, there�s no insight here, you might as well have assigned the thing to Jessica Simpson. Is this peculiar reticence a coded acknowledgment that the two of them were gay lovers all these years, or was it someone on the EW masthead that Klugman blew?)

And who thought it made sense to enlist as writers people whom the editors thought would be unfamiliar to the magazine�s readers? How embarrassing would it be to be Telma Hopkins getting your issue messengered over and seeing, right below your byline on Nell Carter�s obituary, "(Addy Wilson on Gimme a Break)"? Whoa � what a burn! Does this editorial intervention not indicate that for all practical purposes Telma is in fact deader than Nell? For the record, I�d bet money that the greater proportion of current EW readers were "Gimme a Break" fans and have dabbled in the oeuvre of obituary writer Telma Hopkins than can name a single song by obituary subject Warren Zevon outside of those on movie soundtracks. Gillian Welch, writing about Sam Phillips en route to congratulating herself for having started her own record label just like he did, is identified as "Singer-songwriter, O Brother Where Art Thou? soundtrack" � which is insulting to her and downright perplexing considering that subsequent to the release of the soundtrack, a solo album of Welch�s was graded A- by an EW staff monkey in a featured music review. (Note: I do subscribe, but lest you think I�m an Entertainment Weekly savant, you need to know that I looked up that score on the website.) The whole obit section, with the exception of Henry Winkler�s goodbye to his friend John Ritter and LeVar Burton�s respectful tribute to Fred Rogers, is tone-deaf and narcissistic hackwork. I give the editors an F.

Liked the photos in the same issue of Jack Black and Will Ferrell as Liza Minelli and David Gest, though. Please tell me Ferrell�s legs were Photoshopped. Those slim yet shapely calves! I�d kill to have mine look like that.