Author: sweet-cakes

"It sounds nothing like the Marx Brothers, that’s for sure.”

The hours were ticking by and Sweet Cakes was lying by the radio, checking out the late night tunes on direct assignment from The Editor. She had landed on 91.1 FM, WTJU, which calls itself the “sound choice.” But seriously, Sweet was starting to wonder which sound they were talking about. The show at 15 minutes before 1 in the morning was called Radio Freedonia, but La Cake could discern no connection to Duck Soup. Rather, the music sounded more like a radiator being played with a drumstick.

Now Sweet’s tolerance for the new and different is heralded far and wide. After all, she was one of the first among The Girls to embrace the cork wedge sandal when it resurfaced a couple of years ago. And wasn’t she practically a pioneer with touch-on liquid powder foundation? So she approached the clanging with an open mind. But as the tune veered into something that sounded like King Crimson playing kitchen appliances in an East Berlin cold-water flat, she could feel her sensibilities starting to seal up tight.

It crossed her mind that this could be the score from Mulan as performed by A Flock of Seagulls, but even this hybrid seemed unworthy of further pondering. If people listen to this willingly, Sweet wondered, who are they and if Sweet happens to know any of them should she make discreet inquiries about the balance of salts and chemicals in their bodies?

After another five minutes, Sugar-Girl anticipated kind relief. A new song was coming on. A new song, it turned out, that made her yearn for the previous one. The lyric, and Sweet begs your forgiveness as she mentions it, went like this: “I knew you couldn’t trust me” and then “I fucked all your friends’ girlfriends, now they hate you.” Charming. For this Candy-Honey was neglecting her beauty rest?

As the hour turned, Sweet’s ever-hopeful natural state was restored. A new program, The Hep Imp Show, was coming on. Something mischievous and maybe a little twee, perhaps? Nothing wrong with that. Alas, a number called “Mother’s Womb” would have been more aptly titled “Excedrin headache patched through a Dixie cup,” leaving Sugaree to conclude that if such were the sounds heard in utero, then she would have to be more forgiving of the occasional petulant outbursts of the juvenile Cakes in the clan and other youngsters she encounters from time to time. (Confidential to little niece Cup: All is forgiven.)

Moving up the dial, Sweet landed on WNRN. The show at that hour is called The Core, but Sweet knew before the first note was sounded that it would have nothing to do with Pilates. Instead, she heard—for a few moments—the kind of electro-industrial music that makes Nine Inch Nails sound like a nursery rhyme. Why is everybody so unhappy on the left end of the dial? La Cake wondered. Was she just too tired to appreciate the finer points of the jack-booted drum pulses? Perhaps she doesn’t drink enough Red Bull.

Sweet’s enthusiasm for her assignment was seriously lagging. She scolded herself. She should have argued more vehemently to write a column on punctuality or liquid eye-liner or any of the other topics dear to her heart. Giving it one last go, Sweet switched to KISS-FM, 92.7. There the quiet storm was raging. “Oh girl, come on and rock me.” True, she had abandoned the sound of automatic gunfire and imprisoned elves in steel fortresses, but this inane, creamy ballad (“rock me tonight for old times’ sake”) was, in its own way, as hard to listen to as the furious sylvans had been on the other stations. Syrupy synth lines, wave upon wave of gooey strings—Sweet just couldn’t take it anymore.

She was bored and fatigued, yet as she turned off the radio she was filled with a reborn resolve. She would go in the next morning and face The Editor with a new and important idea. Next assignment: To write a column on the importance of a good night’s sleep.

Is there anything money can’t buy? This is the question that consumes Sweet Cakes at the moment. And it is not, dearest dear ones, because she has been on a big shopping spree and she’s excited about all the portable gadgetry and synthetic fabrics that the Western World spawns like so much pacifying political propaganda. No, La Cake has adhered to her promise to spend less, live more frugally and adopt a measured lifestyle. She does not want to turn out to be one of those self-indulgent, name-checking clotheshorses who either frequent the pages of The New York Times Sunday Style section or wish that they did. That’s not it at all. This column is not an admission that Sugar-Baby needs a credit counselor or possibly a 12-Step sponsor.

But when such intangibles as undivided attention, kind words, and unqualified approval can be bought (and at somewhat bargain prices), then Sweet just has to ask, is there anything money can’t buy?

She is speaking, of course, about her aesthetician, by which Candy Girl means (and she begs the pardon of any gentlemen who might be among her readers at the moment) the fine gal who does her waxing. The position might be compromising, but the treatment is gentleness defined (Sweet does not refer to the act of waxing, itself, of course, which is sharp and briefly painful and which calls for decisiveness and precision). Maybe it’s the contorted position required by a bikini wax that inspires the intimacy, but Sweet finds that some of her most heartfelt conversations occur in the day spa where her unwanted hair is ripped from the root. Wax Gal knows so many of Sweet’s secrets—and she doesn’t just mean anatomy. WG has been enlisted as counsel on impending break-ups, she has heard the details of several silly family feuds, she has charted the emotional effect of sudden weight loss. And of course, given her sphere of influence, she has taken confession about any number of new crushes and hoped-for courtships. You might pay for a waxing service, but by the time you leave, you’ve purchased caring advice and unconditional support.

So Sweet will ask it again: Is there anything money can’t buy?

It’s much the same in the hair salon. Nothing but pure devotion can be said to characterize Sweet’s connection to her stylist. Numerous factors account for this, including Stylist’s expert understanding of Sweet’s hairline and her frank assessment that certain dos just don’t. But there is something that goes deeper than any adroit use of a flat-iron or an intuitive grasp of the Schwartzkopf color guide. Stylist lavishes La Cake with undivided attention and unconditional friendship. By the time the last follicle is blown dry, Sweet feels like the center of the universe—smarter, taller, lovelier in every way. For hours has she benefited from the literal and figurative head-patting that we could probably all use on a daily basis. And she’s left to wonder which of the many services she has enjoyed is being thrown in for free. Is it an esteem-building session with a complimentary style or a cut and color job with complimentary therapy?

Really, does it matter? Accept caring gestures where you can find them, Sweet advises, and don’t fret the commercial nature of the exchange. If you can buy a new smile, why not buy something to smile about?

Sometimes you have to start in the middle. And so dearest reader, that is just what Sweet Cakes is doing. She simply draws a blank on how to introduce this topic, to wit, Crying at Work.

There are two varieties of CAW; La Cake will address them both. First up: tears you shed when the boss criticizes you. As many wise writers have observed before Sweetie, work is about facts and not feelings. This is true no matter how much you quote-unquote love your job. You wouldn’t cry upon learning that two plus two equals four, would you? Why should you cry, then, if your boss tells you that you need to redo a report? It’s data, darlings, not an analysis of your character. (Now if you happen to have a manager who says, “Your report needs fixing, you miserable guttersnipe of a wench with a poor excuse for a personality,” well then, yes, it might be understandable if you start to bawl, though the better choice would be to get another job in a nontoxic environment. But Sweet digresses.)

Yes, Smart Sugar, you reply, but what about when the boss rails on your performance? Isn’t that personal? To which Sweet replies, Maybe. But before you cue the waterworks, sniffling into your hankie and smudging your Origins translucent day powder into a cakey mess, ask a few questions. Out loud. Is there a specific issue or incident to which your mean ol’ foreman is referring? Does the bully have a suggestion for improvement? A few well-placed queries can turn the conversation into an exchange of facts.

Does Candy-Girl sound sour? She doesn’t mean it. To the contrary, she is trying to encourage her sisters-in-arms to give their feelings a proper home. Express your emotions, precious ones, just be sure to do it for the right reasons in a suitable setting.

Which brings us to: Crying at Work over non-work-related stuff. Meaning, of course, a boyfriend.

Is there a gentle way to say this? Lean closer and Sweet will whisper: Don’t do it. A little louder here: He’s not worth it.

Charming, handsome, wealthy gent that he is, he may be worth the dieting and the tweezing and the listening to lengthy exegeses on the themes of alienation in OK Computer, but he has not earned the right to make you jeopardize your reputation at work. You earned it. Don’t give it away by collapsing into a puddle at your desk from which only a tub of Chunky Monkey and an electric blanket will help you recover.

If passion overtakes you and sadness holds you in its grip no matter how hard you try to apply your happy-thought magic (George Clooney in a tuxedo, girls—that’s a trick that never fails), then you should leave the office, if you can. Take a bracing walk around the block, drop ice cubes down your collar, get a pungent whiff of a nearby homeless person—in other words, do whatever it takes to clear your mind. Replace one sensation with another. And then haul tail back to your desk.

Still not convinced? Consider this: There remains on this big blue planet plenty of places where a woman’s only sphere of influence, the one and only place where her work is welcome, is at home with the babies and the sheep (or whatever). Being employed is a privilege, honies. To put your standing at risk with a few indulgent tears when some ladies cannot even get a job—well, you’ll pardon Sweet if she tells you that that would be a crying shame.

“Past season” read the markdown tag on the flouncy linen skirt that Sweet Cakes was trying on at her favorite bargain retailer. “Harrumph,” Sweet sweetly harrumphed to herself. With a new belt (something bold and scarf-y) and a boat-neck tee, what was past will be new again. An intuitive shopper with innate fashion flair knows there’s no such thing as “past season” if you choose wisely—and even better if you can do it at a cut-rate.

But what happens when the tag on a friendship reads “past season”? Can you spruce it up, or must you let it retire in the Returns bin?

Sweet pondered this matter as she took chocolate and Veuve Clicquot with the Girlfriends the other evening. The occasion? The birthday of The Lady Doctor, as she’s lovingly known to the gang. As usual, there ensued giggly and half-serious discussion of new movies, celebrity kids (Rocco is sooo cute! Seems like hell on wheels, though, doesn’t he?), and redecorating projects. It was all as it ever had been during a decade of birthday and promotion and graduate-school-acceptance parties.

Except for one thing.

The circle of friends had changed shape. It was an oval maybe. Or—ouch—perhaps still a circle only now smaller. And it was Sweetie-girl, dear gentle Candy Darling, who found herself perched elegantly on the edge.

The Blue Devil reconstructed in painstakingly detail her recent movie date with a tall, dark and handsome European, and Sweet found herself nearly bored with a narrative that once would have held her rapt.  The Spanish Scholar insinuated that her mother was, maybe, a teensy bit overbearing, and Honey Girl, being honest here, thought, “Well, yes, dear S.S., so are you.” That’s a friendship S.O.S., if ever Sweet had heard one. Not only that, she had to acknowledge that most of the conversation was directed near her but not to her. If she was clearly growing blasé about what mattered most to some of The Girlfriends, she couldn’t deny that her shift in affections didn’t seem to be breaking anybody’s heart. A skilled interlocutor, Sweet could still wrap herself in the manners of loyal friendship. But she had to admit that she was draped in a garment stamped “past season” and it would probably need more than a length of satin to refreshen it.

Maybe the question is not: Why do friendships wane? Maybe the question is: Why don’t they? What are the ingredients of a successful bond that stands up to time’s shifting sands? Sweet knew that she had lost touch with some of The Girlfriends through recent changes. New job duties, new workout routines, new crushes—she’d kept some of these fresh developments from her friends. And it seemed she wasn’t the only one. They weren’t filling her in, either. She had become a secondary supporting player in the cast.

What had Sweet’s assumptions been? That she would catch up with everyone “later”? In these busy days, when would “later” arrive, anyway? Not that Sweet wanted to put her life—or her friends’ lives—on a 24/7 news cycle, but truly, couldn’t she have done a bit more to include her once-reliable Others in her changes?

Heavy thoughts for a weeknight party. Strains of “Happy birthday dear Lady Doctor…” roused Sweet from her contemplations. And though she reached no firm conclusions on what had happened with The Girlfriends or even if she wanted to fix it, she knew what was called for right then. “Happy birthday to you!” she chimed in, finding that, for the moment at least, the circle had expanded to include everyone in expression of that loving sentiment.
The circle of friends had changed shape. And Sweet found herself perched elegantly on
the edge.

It’s not that math in and of itself causes Sweet Cakes’ nerves to palpate with anxiety. Math—what is it? A bunch of dress sizes and inseam measurements thrown together in a big heap! Please. Sweet is not l’imbecile! She can handle math.

But taxes. That, dearest darlings, is another calculation entirely. And with the season upon us to paperclip all of last year’s receipts together and lament another year gone by without taking Papa Cakes’ advice to “save for life’s true frosting—retirement,” La Cake can just feel her heart racing. Pitter pitter pitter. Maybe you can hear it. The motor revs that loudly in her chest.
   

What, you ask, causes this stress? Sugaree thinks there may be some link to the past, specifically that time when Mama Cakes got first a letter, then a phone call, and finally a visit from the suited gentlemen whom everyone called Miserable Government Bloodsucker but truly was one Mr. Turnsworth from the IRS. Though but a wee cupcake, Sweet recalls the agitated bustle throughout the household as bank statements were summoned from boxes beneath the bed and so on. This flurry was something called An Audit. In later years, it was invoked each spring with this incantation: “Let’s try to avoid another G. D. audit.” This remark, Sweet hastens to note, was not uttered with calm.

But Honey-pie is a grown woman now, and surely she has nothing to fear from the Internal Revenue Service. Such is the sage advice dispensed by Melissa Kirsch in The Girl’s Guide to Absolutely Everything, which, believe it or not, is not as exaggerated a title as sounds. Sure, it’s missing the what-to-name-your-pet section, but the book has smart words on things like surviving a break-up (“think back on the lousy times”), cleaning a bathtub (“one must be naked”), and dealing with taxes. Fun fact to know on this subject: Last year the average American had a 1 in 107 chance of being audited. In other words, you are more likely to see John Grisham eating lunch at a Downtown restaurant than you are to be audited by the IRS.  And, should you happen to get that call, Kirsch advises, understand that the Feds “aren’t out to get you—they’re out to get the money you owe.”

Just reading these words gives Sweet the comfort she needs to complete the Form 1040.
   
Which leaves Cookie-baby with one all-important question: On what should she spend her refund? Papa Cakes might want her to save it in an IRA. Sigh. This is surely the right idea; Sweet knows it. Yet she hears the siren call of that cute flower print sleeveless top (in coral) from Orla Kiely not to mention the “Canna” slingback high heeled sandals from Donald J. Pliner. It’s at times like this (O.K., it’s at just this one time) that Sweetie asks herself, what would Melissa Kirsch do, being as how she seems to know everything (except, as mentioned, what to name Fido)? She’d probably suggest something wise like always carry condoms and don’t spend outside your means.

Suddenly Sweet finds herself disliking Know-it-all Melissa Kirsch.

Fine, then. Here is the compromise solution: As a reward for getting over her panic about filing her taxes, Sweet will grant herself one indulgence. Something decadent and entirely unnecessary that spells Luxury. Sweet will purchase a mocha latte with whipped cream and shaved chocolate and a palmier to go with it! She will savor the flavors and when she finishes she will open a retirement account. No point inviting high anxiety in the years to come.

As a young cupcake, Sweet rarely looked to storybooks to fill her imagination. She was more likely to find inspiration in The Bangles than Sleeping Beauty. Somehow the bridge between Sweetling’s reality and Susanna Hoff’s seemed easier to travel than the space between Sweetie and Aurora. Maybe it was the fact that guitar lessons were available in her town but princess training wasn’t listed anywhere in the yellow pages.

Your Candy Girl tells you this so as to properly frame her thoughts on Disney. The bottom line is that La Cake never bought the whole “when you wish upon a star” pitch. Magic Kingdom? No, thanks. Magic Bus? Yes, please may Sweet have another!

Do not get your dearest wrong. She has no argument with Belle’s fans, or even those who favor Ariel, that little chick of the sea. But the Disney Company is a different story altogether.

Inserted into many of the glossy mags this month is an eight-page advertising layout proclaiming the Disney parks as places where “once upon a time happens every day.” Boosting the fantasy factor: Celebs like Scarlett Johansson, David Beckham and Beyoncé are costumed as storybook heroes and heroines. Leaving aside the fact that Disney is the only enterprise that has found a way to turn Beyoncé downright plain or the fact that Scarlett is suitable as an innocent in about the same way that Lindsay Lohan would be suitable as a spokeswoman for M.A.D.D., the ads irritate your usually unflappable, constitutionally bright authoress, dear readers, because THEY ARE NOT TRUE (excuse Sweet for suddenly getting so…LOUD!).

Disneyland is not the place, no matter what the legend declares, “where every Cinderella story comes true.” (If you fear that Sweet is about to trundle down the same old postfeminist lane—women don’t need a rescue; stories about damsels in distress, even clever ones, who wait for their prince to come undermine girls’ self-esteem; etcetera etcetera—fear not. Honey-pie will let you go there without her.)

No, there is something more troubling than Cindy’s Feminine Mistake. If Sugaree remembers the tale correctly, the young lady forced to live in squalor eventually moved into better quarters. She was hard-working, loyal and true. In time she found her reward.

Apparently at Disney low-earning hourly employees need not apply for the Cinderella ending. According to a very lively editorial in the Los Angeles Times (La Cake’s new reliable source of Hollywood gossip) Disney is vehemently fighting to keep affordable housing away from the precious castle gates in Anaheim, California. They don’t think it would look very nice to have cheap apartments jutting onto the roadways just as people are about to surrender their paychecks and wee little brains to buy the storybook ending. “Many of the people who work at the ‘Happiest Place on Earth’ sleep on air mattresses, in by-the-week motel rooms and in apartments shared with other families,” Steve Lopez says in the Times.

Talk about your gulf between what’s real and what’s imagined! Talk about not being a Disney girl! If there is one thing Sweet would like to stand up for, besides a congressional proclamation marking National Nail Technician Week, it’s the rights of working people to live decently near their jobs. If that idea is not O.K. by Disney, then Disney is not O.K. by Sweets. Some bridges were never meant to be crossed, and the path to a wonderless Wonderland will simply not be trod by Sweet Cakes until she can be sure that Disney workers get the happily ever after that all of us, not just Beyoncé, deserve!

Some girls go for a flim-flam man. Some want a right-hand man. Sweet, she likes herself a song-and-dance man. A well-dressed, snap-heeled happy hoofer who can carry a tune and turn on a dime.

Were he here today, Fred Astaire could waltz away with Honey-pie’s heart. Those suits, that wit. Oh, the way he could twirl and tap. The one-handed back dip! Sweet could go on and on and on. Many an evening has she surrendered to the charms of Top Hat and The Gay Divorcee. And don’t even get her started on Funny Face. The combination of Fred and the Audrey “Goddess” Hepburn is like the movie equal to Milanos and milk.

He’s bringing dancing back. And that’s all Sweet needs to know.

But desserts come in many shapes and forms and so do dapper entertainers. Which gets La Cake to Le Timberlake, a.k.a. JT, also known by his given name, Justin Randall Timberlake (www.justintimberlake.com). If you ask Sweet (and she has to suppose that if you’re reading this column, then in some sense you did just that), Justin is Fred’s apparent heir.

Sweet knows, she knows: Some cannot imagine that a former ’N Syncer could be worthy of such acclaim. Lightweight, they cry. They apparently are not among the 2.5 million people who have purchased Futuresex/Lovesounds in the past five months. Those people, who of course count Sugaree among the flock, endorse JT as a well-rounded performer with an Astaire-like sense of humor about his job and they’re not embarrassed to say so. To which Sweet wants to add, just emerging unscathed from a boy band, not to mention a relationship with that other shaved Mousketeer, launches JT into the extraordinary, as far as she is concerned.

But back to the singing and dancing. As everyone but those living in an unlighted, soundproofed closet knows by now, Justin will bring his show to the John Paul Jones Arena on March 18. How rare is it to know the exact date when the man of your daydreams will be coming through town? Usually, these things catch a girl by complete surprise. Mr. Perfect strolls by at the very moment when you’re scraping gum off the bottom of your weekend Danskos, crouched in the most, um, unflattering position between parking spots.

Anyway, back to Candy Girl’s point—and she does have one. With more than two weeks to go, there’s plenty of time to prepare for JT. And what’s the most important thing to do to prepare for a song-and-dance man’s visit? A full-leg wax? Highlights? Fresh mascara and new makeup brushes? No, no, no and no.

The answer is Practice Your Dance Moves, silly! Several parties in town make that easier. For the next couple of Thursdays, R2 is hosting JT-inspired dance nights. And on Thursday, March 15, there will be a big blowout at Satellite Ballroom. Plenty of Justin remixes, show dancers—the whole shebang! And both R2 and Satellite will be doing ticket giveaways, too.
Not to worry. Sweet won’t be competing with any of you for seats. She bought her tickets months ago, leaving nothing to chance. JT is her kind of guy, and if anybody out there thinks that’s silly, well they can just cry Sweet a river. To paraphrase Timberlove himself, ain’t another man gonna take his spot, my Love.

There are certain moments in life when a girl has to search her heart and define the essence of what she wants to say, Sweet reasoned. She has to straighten out her message like so many Betty Grable stocking seams. La Cake speaks, of course, of Valentine’s Day.

When Sweetie says she loves her friends, exactly what sentiment is she expressing? These times, by which Her Confectionariness means February 14, call for precision of affection. To aid her efforts, Sweet consulted those wise forces that have guided her in the language of love since grammar school: the makers of the fold-n-seal Valentines.

Well does Sweet recall the halcyon days of youth, that is, third grade, when the foil-wrapped shoe box that served as a stickered, glittered mailbox on her desk’s edge, was jammed with epistles of love from Raymond Larouche. But though darling, and certainly attention- getting, it was a confusing load of correspondence. “Be mine,” Raymond’s Super-
man card said, promising something exclusive and close—or so Cookiekins thought. But the next card, a little number with Cinderella and Disney mice, if Sweet has it right, was so much more…general. “You fit right in,” it enthused. Was Raymond sending young Cakelet mixed signals? Or had he, like so many of his gender, just dumped in a tray of cards indiscriminately, figuring that one of them was bound to sum up his true affections? Were they puppies in love, or just friends in adjoining pens, Sweet was left to wonder.
   
Fast forward a few years, and Sweet has returned to the perforated love notes with their tiny envelopes. Raymond may have mucked up the intrinsic beauty of the cards’ succinct declarations by throwing them into a sweetheart stew, but any discerning card browser knows that each stands wonderfully alone.

Looking for the right words to express your devotion? “You are truly a treasure,” is the legend emblazoned across a frightfully airbrushed portrait of Keira Knightley from the Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest box. That seems like a suitable message for someone you want to hold close, but not cuddle with. “Hope your Valentine’s Day is enchanted,” from the Harry Potter set, is warm but proffers no personal feelings whatsoever. This one is good for an office friend, Sugaree concludes.

“Best Friends” from the Hello Kitty pack is adorable. It cannot be confused with an outpouring of l’amour, unless you combine it with the flirtatious “You’re Sweet!” also from Kitty or Scooby-Doo’s deliberately ambiguous “Hope you find your way to a Happy Valentine’s Day.” (And exactly how would a lady do that, one might ask Shaggy or Thelma. A nice Valpolicella and flowers given to That Special Gent?)

No, it’s crucial that in All Things Lovey, a bright young lady who is in command of her prospects use the right words at the right time. Harry Potter’s “Have a magical Valentine’s Day!” perfectly suits that charming fellow who pours Sweets’ coffee. It’s just another variation on “Have a nice day,” a salutation that, like sugar and cream, mixes well with leaving a quarter in the tip jar. But when it comes to targeting the object of her considerable and gentle affections, something so generic won’t do. For that job—to ensure that her call for togetherness and special cooperation remains unambiguous—Sweet returns to Johnny Depp and his crew in Pirates. Want to get the job done? Here’s your Valentine’s Day message: “You are a Great First Mate!”

As far as real-life modern romances go, few top the story of Rob Sheffield and his wife, Renée Crist, who lived in Charlottesville in the ’90s when they were young marrieds. Their story nearly swamped Sweet with emotion when she was reading Sheffield’s new book, Love is a Mix Tape (www.randomhouse.com/crown/mixtape), the other night. It’s not just the fact that Sheffield, now a very successful Rolling Stone (www.rollingstone.com) music writer after getting his start here, became a widower after five years of marriage, leaving his love forever young and tragic. Nor the fact that his wife wrote music reviews for this very newspaper and hosted WTJU’s most excellent Thursday afternoon tunefest, “Ground Rule Double Dutch.” Though, take Sweet’s word for it —especially if you want to avoid a streaky, tearful evening—the ending chapters that describe Renée’s premature death and Rob’s struggle to make sense of something insensible are incredibly sad and romantic. It’s a three-hanky ordeal, all the way.
   

No, Sugar has to say, it’s the way Rob appreciated Renée that propels this romance into the Top 10. (What else ranks up there, you wonder? Lucy Honeychurch and George Emerson’s passion, of course, and the incomparable love story of Elizabeth Bennett and Fitzwilliam Darcy. Don’t get Cook-
iekins started!)
   
But back to Rob Sheffield. What really gets Sweet’s pulse racing is the way he took in the good, bad and everythingness of his sassy Appalachian bride. She knew her way around a sewing machine and the Baltimore Orioles’ lineup and the complete Pavement back catalogue with equal authority and accordingly he was ga-ga, as any deserving man should be. Rob was the perfect suitor: driven by instinct yet somehow funny and practical, too. He was very levelheaded about the things that really matter—small stuff like pop music, which can actually break the deal, as everyone knows.
   
“In the animal kingdom, Renée and I would have recognized each other’s scents; for us, it was a matter of having the same favorite Meat Puppets album. Music was a physical bond between us, and the fact that she still owned her childhood 45 of Andy Gibb’s ‘I Just Want to Be Your Everything’ was tantamount to an arranged marriage. The idea that we might not belong together never really crossed my mind.”
   
Sweet will wait to continue while you incurable romantics pick yourselves off the floor and reposition the newspaper in your hands.

To resume: Love is a Mix Tape is also about life’s living soundtracks, as you might expect coming from a music writer eulogizing his love affair with another music writer. As such, the book gave Sugaree some great ideas for tunes to bust out of the locked crate of musical memories. “Kiss Me on the Bus” by the Replacements. “Don’t Worry Baby” by the Beach Boys.
   
But perhaps more than the musical numbers that Rob adds to his accounts, it’s the props and set and New Wavy back story that got to Sweet. What follows is maybe the most charming description in the pop culture canon of a man imagining a thoroughly beguiling woman. Read it and swoon, dear ones. Better yet, read it and then buy the book to savor the rest:
   
“I’ve always dreamed of a new wave girl to stand up front and be shameless and lippy, to take the heat, teach me her tricks, teach me to be brave like her. I needed someone with a quicker wit than mine. The new wave girl was brazen and scarlet. She would take me under her wing and teach me to join the human race, the way Bananarama did with their ‘Shy Boy.’ She would pick me out and shake me up and turn me around, turn me into someone new. She would spin me right round, like a record.”

“Eighty-five is an unnatural num-ber.” Sweet was thinking about weights and measures. She wasn’t in the kitchen at the time (and though it will pain a culinary talent like Mama Cakes to hear this, her little Sweetikins is more a take-out kind of girl, anyway). Still, food was very much on Sweet’s mind. Of course, at this point in the year, before resolutions drop from the psyche’s surface the way adhesives loosen from the rough-spackled walls in Sweet’s Workplace, many people occupy their free time with thoughts of slimming.

La Cake has always taken more of an active approach to figure control—she prefers to add activity (a long, gossipy walk with one of The Girlfriends, especially the charmingly accented Hat Czech, for instance) rather than subtract nourishment when she wants to shed
a few pounds. Everything published in Important Med-ical Journals lends endorse-ment to this method.

Unfortunately, many get their dieting tips not from the annals of science but from the chronicles of inanity, by which Sugar-pie means celebrity tabloids and the syrupy style sections of certain Sunday newspapers. There, one is destined to find Really Bad Ideas for Dropping the Pounds Quickly.

Drugs, coffee, hormone treatments and, of course, starvation occupy honored places among celebrity reduction fads. And the current poster girl for Destructive Means to Get Skinny is Nicole Richie. Sweet knows she has hit this note before, but in this particular case Candy-honey hopes her readers will grant her forbearance. Eighty-five is an unnatural number. Any of Sweetie’s lovelies who wants to shrink to that brittle poundage a la Richie is urged to see a specialist (and possibly to swing by Bel Air Market for a sandwich on the way). The Hollywood pixie seemingly will stop short of nothing, including rumored resumption of her drug addiction, to retain her prepubescent form.

Mere mortals too will trash common sense and risk their health to lose weight fast. And that brings Sweet to something called the Master Cleanse. With its promise of hygiene, this quick weight-loss fad is taking hold on the coasts. The regime is cloaked in pseudo-science (something about intestinal health and the benefits to the bloodstream that come from a 10-day diet of lemon juice and cayenne pepper). But it’s about as scientific as bulimia, if you ask your darling correspondent. Message boards abound with exclamations of delight from those cleansed souls who have literally flushed nasty unwanted pounds practically overnight. Despite standard-issue warnings from the “doctors” behind the fad that the only safe way to lose weight is through long-term lifestyle changes, the Master Cleanse wins converts for its rumored promise of instant skinniness.

The message boards grow considerably more quiet, Sweet observes, when the topic turns to how rapidly the weight is regained.
Dearest readers, you know your Honey-baby to be a girl who celebrates all that is pretty and silly and chatty. You perhaps think you should take her tone of caution and admonition with some reserve. Sweet is grumpy because she lost a button, you figure. La Cake sounds like La Scold because she ate one fudge drop too many.

Not so!

Sweet’s embrace of life’s diaphanous pleasures has always been firmly grounded in principles of Taking Good Care of Oneself (and here, one more time, let’s praise the ever-sensible Mama Cakes). Let us laugh and swing with the joy of finding a well-priced knock-off of Carolina Herrera’s metallic cotton tweed shirtdress. Let us gaze admiringly at the Balenciaga high-heel Mary Janes showing up in all the magazines. But let us never confuse frivolity for stupidity.

Starvation is stupid. Bulimia is stupid. Fad diets are stupid.

Any questions? Good, because Sweet needs to head out now and hit the treadmill!