I've just finished preparing for an interview I am having in a few minutes with author Cathy Alter.

When I first started reading the Washington-based writer's book, Up for Renewal, I thought it was simply a fluffy work of fiction, ya know, more mass produced chick-lit stuff.

Soon in I realized that Alter, who follows the advice given to her (and millions of others!) by women's magazines is actually doing just that - taking the advice and turning it into action.

Only one of the mags on her list - which ranges from Glamour and Cosmo to Marie Claire, O, and InStyle, among others) regularly winds up in my hands - miss Oprah's O magazine.

Should be an interesting interview. Not a big women's mag junky so it's strange to process this: Cathy Alter's life went from borderline shambles to fabulous by taking action on the tips given to her from a stack of glossies. Huh. Chick mags. Who knew?

About to give her a call but I'll be writing the full story on her soon for my Sex Files column. Will keep you posted. In the meantime, I'll also be heading to the magazine rack to check out the goods and maybe take a Cosmo quiz or two.

From Relatively Speaking, originally appeared in July 24, 08 edition of 24 hours

This is the little secret.
The tucked away hobby only leaked upon sharing an first-floor apartment, bills and a bed with the boyfriend.

And it's making noise in our basement, which, in typical unfinished fashion is a rather damp and dreary place. The commotion has been coming up through the floors like a monster who has just busted free and, recently, I came face-to-face with the monster who, apparently, is well-armed with guns (though he seems happy enough simply hanging out in the underground).

This raucous-causing beast is known as the video game.

Seems the guy in my life enjoys kicking back at the computer clicking, dragging and shooting stuff playing Age of Empires and Rise of Nations.
Who knew?
Certainly not this cat.

Let's be straight here - this is not a big deal.
It's not like finding out your loved one is a major firearms enthusiast with a secret stash of bullets and semi-automatics in the closet. Certainly it's far from discovering he's been slipping on your lingerie when you're not around, or that he's got another wife and barrel full of children living in Ohio or some place.

Video games in the large picture, where things can always be more horrible than they are, is about on par with finding Celine Dion's entire body of work in your partner's CD collection, which would actually be far worse because then you might inadvertently be forced to listen to her.

That said, it's perplexing that during our dating/separate household days, not so much as a droplet of evidence had trickled down to even remotely hint at the existence of this pastime.

Seems the boy inside the man is finally comfy enough to make his mark on virtual battlegrounds. Then again, it's entirely possible that this soldier-constructing kid was always there but I was simply too enraptured with blinded-by-love desire to notice.

For me, a girl who hasn't played a video game since saving Smurfette from evil wizard Gargamel by trekking through his evil spider-infested castle, gaming is peppered in confusion.

Maybe it's just easier than navigating regular life, what with all the finicky complications that reality tends to bring. Perhaps building entire civilizations virtually is a far simpler task than navigating a grocery store and stocking up the cart, taking out the trash, or conquering a sink full of dishes. It may be a moment of achieving an unfettered mind, say.
That, I get.

Thankfully though, I am not a gamer widow - a term defined on Wikepedia as someone whose significant other "pays far more attention to the computer or game than to their partner."

I take solace in the fact I am not the "other woman" to a game console or sleeping alone in a cold, sexless bed like so many of the women on the website, gamerwidow.com.
Phew.
After all, I am far too young and way too packed full of energy to convincingly pull off the whole widow in mourning look.
Then again, I do have a killer sampling of black garb in my closet, should it ever come to that.

E-mail me at: tanya.enberg@sunmedia.ca.

Writer types can be tough nuts to crack.

They can be a tad prickly, a pinch cynical and difficult to track down (especially for publicists whose job it is to track them down) so when a PR type shows up unannounced at the Sun building where I work, chances are they won't get the desired face-to-face unscheduled meeting they're hoping for.

Except for today, that is. Blame it on insufficient caffeine in my sleepy bloodstream (I am), but today, I was duped.

When the security desk rang up asking me to come downstairs for unknown reasons, for a fleeting blink of a second I thought something delicious had arrived, something that might be worth stopping my work mid-sentence and taking a trip down to the first floor.

Got off the elevator and headed to security. And there he was - the publicist. He'd somehow managed to word-wrangle his way into making an in-person meeting and, handing me a gift bag and flashing a bright, dazzling smile, he encouraged me to look inside.

Slightly befuddled and borderline cranky, I played along.

I reached inside to find out what was so immediately pressing. There it was - a bottle of booze.

Fact is, I don't drink.
"You have to try it," he said smoothly.
"Oh, no, thank-you, I don't drink," I told him, witnessing the inevitable deflated look that comes whenever I say those words.

I am not sure if it was the devilishly handsome publicist with the hot pink tie, the sleek bottle with the pretty pink liquid inside, or that the vodka drink from France (infused with blood oranges, mango and passion fruits) is called X-Rated Fusion Liqueur (a name guaranteed to grab my eye) but, whatever it was, I am certain that if I were a cocktail-toting dame, I would've twisted off the cap right smack in the middle of the front lobby and poured myself a drink.

Then again, I suspect it's best I stick with my regular sidekick - a giant, sugary cup of Joe. Perhaps this next mug will shake me out of my slumber. Here's hoping ...

Sure, the television isn't exactly the 'cuddling' type, but it can provide comfort when you just need to tune out

Never thought I'd write this (yeah, yeah, yeah, never say never and blah, blah, blah ...)

On a recent overcast day after marathon scrapping sessions with the boyfriend, the TV became my sidekick companion. Sad? Depressingly so. True? Unfortunately, yes.

Quite possibly, that damn oversized beast of a television that has more inches than Ron Jeremy 10 times over became my best friend for a day, which, I should say, is no slight to Maggie the dog who, when it comes to being a kick ass friend, is solid gold.

On this particular day, however, I was too tired, emotionally drained and obsessively running down the 'he saids/she saids' (which tend to unravel during battles between the sexes) to offer Miss Maggie the usual amount head pats and hugs and giant smooches. Just needed to zone out, hit the off switch, cut of the circuit board power ... get the drift?

So, the TV. It simply sat there all super-model skinny and didn't want a bloody thing from me. And there, in that moment, the inanimate object that provides brainless information without expecting anything back in return, became a buddy.

I flicked channels like a seasoned pro, occasionally landing on something promising and then quickly dismissing it. While the boob-tube was filled with crap, it provided mental filler and suspiciously chirpy voices.

It took a horribly glossy entertainment show to snap me back to reality - oh how low I'd sunk. Yes, it had come to this: High-pitched gossip hosts dishing the dirt on celebrity lives.

Eventually, I flicked off the idiot box. Truth is, we may never be lasting friends this giant screen and I, but it's comforting to know that it's sitting in the exact same spot every single day just in case.

Bridget Fonda and Matt Dillon are shown in the movie poster for the 1992 grunge-centric flick, Singles

(Relatively Speaking column from the July 17 edition of 24 hours)

It seemed so easy and breezy way back in the '90s. Well, easy because the juicy relationship drama that was unfolding was tucked away from real life and happening on the big screen.

Recently I backtracked to Singles.
That is to 1992 when Singles, the popular rom-com flick starring Matt Dillon as a shaggy-haired, narcissistic musician named Cliff, was released.

In it Bridget Fonda plays Janet, who has a deep unrequited crush on the Hamster-brained Cliff. Gotta say, back then this seemed a perfectly reasonable pastime to me because when you're young and dumb, nothing seems hotter than a singer wearing dirty denim.
My, how things change.

Now, the instant I hear "musician" as one's job description, I bolt quicker than a rock-star after a quickie.

The film, set during the height of the Seattle grunge scene, follows the messy entanglements of a young-ish set of hipsters finding love, losing it, and just generally getting screwed around.

Watching it the first time, I too craved late nights in loud, smoke-filled rock bars, complicated relationships and the spinning mental dissection that comes from asking, "Why hasn't he called yet?"

Now, many relationships later, the wish list has changed: Simplicity is the new sexy, boozy all-nighters a bore, and who the hell wants to sit around waiting for the phone to ring?

Like flipping through old dusty pics of exes, hearing a particular song or catching a whiff of something familiar, the right movie can send you back in time.

After revisiting this particular grunge-centric flick, I was shaking my head resisting the urge to scream 'Wake up Janet ... Cliff's a loser!" to rouse her out of her rocker-obsessed slumber because a) His song, Touch me I am Dick, pretty much sums him up b) He's desperately in need of a deep scrubbing and c) He's about as bright as burnt-out light bulb

Arguably the lure of musicians to some young women is an unofficial rite of passage, and that theme is brilliantly captured in Cameron Crowe's nod to the '70s music scene in Almost Famous, which sees Penny Lane (Kate Hudson) land the hot rockstar only to play the part of side-dish groupie to his main squeeze.

Somehow - naivety, raging hormones, raw rocker sex appeal - she can't resist his musician mojo, despite lingering rather pathetically in second place. But, like Penny Lane, who eventually snaps back to reality, we learn and grow from our missteps, and gradually gain a better understanding of who we are.

Seriously, pop on down to your local video store and grab a flick - or several - that once spoke directly to your former self and try watching it now. This easy time-travel gateway can either be a gauge of just how far we've come or make it painfully clear that we haven't exactly evolved.

In other words, if you're still sporting big '80s hair and desperately trying to get cast on the train-wreck TV show Rock of Love, starring a group of horny women competing for the affections of Poison singer Bret Michaels (who, incidentally, is 20 years past his prime), some self-reflection might be in order.

E-mail me at: tanya.enberg@sunmedia.ca

Just had to post this pic of Ewan McGregor that came across the wires.

Not one for celeb crushes, but after my last posting about Ewan's famous full-frontal shot in an effort to even out the nudity score with men and women in film and television, he just happened to appear on the photo wire looking as cool as ever at a conference recently. Can't really beat him in the coolness factor, can you?

For fans of the motorbike riding, anti-Hollywood sex symbol, rev up your engines because you may be seeing much more of Ewan next month when the Fox Reality series "Long Way Down" launches. Now that may be one worth tuning into.

David Duchovny is seen here as Hank, a writer with an enormously insatiable libido who beds a string of different ladies, in the Showtime series Californication.

It's about hell time to bring on the man bits.

The family jewels, the snake, the pipe cleaner, whatever you want to call it, bust it out already.

Yes, I am calling for the stuff down under. It's time to start whipping it out. In television and movies, that is.

Sure, women can appreciate a shirtless man with well-defined pecks, but paying witness to a man's pecks isn't exactly charged in the same sexual way as seeing a woman nude above the knickers.

Last night, I saw a lot of eyecandy. For the gents, unfortunately. There on the giant boy-bought television that occupies a good part of an entire wall of the living room, busty, sunny-side up servings continuously flashed before my eyes.

This breast-in-show smorgasbord was brought to me by the Showtime series Californication, starring David Duchovny as Hank, an aging super-stud writer guy who fornicates with more females than a randy sewage rat could handle.

Straight guys certainly will love the gratuitous boob shots and both genders of all sexual persuasions will appreciate the candid, shoot-from-the-hip writing style that captures the vacuousness that is L.A., but where's the damn beef, man?

Since Ewan McGregor's quick-hit full frontal scene in 1998's Velvet Goldmine, gotta say, there's been little below-the-belt action popping up on the big (or small) screen since.

With sex scenes spinning out of control, one would think Duchovny's manhood might accidently slip out into the frame every now and again.

Equality man. That's all this cat is asking for. Let's see what the super-stud's packing ...

Sure single life can mean busting out the stilettos on a Friday night, but damn those fuzzy slippers are looking good.

(From Relatively Speaking - Column originally appeared in the July 3 edition of 24 hours)

It's hard not to appreciate efforts to repackage single gals as trailblazers of the new cool.

It all started with the Sex and the City four-piece who made life in the singleton club look so spectacularly dazzling with nights jam-packed with outings and juicy conversation, it very much seemed a membership worth going after.

With the magical click of some designer pumps, the show's starlets (save for Charlotte) almost had us fooled.
Sadly, the bubble eventually popped.

The HBO series wrapped and the strength of repeats alone couldn't weaken the pervasive message that tells women they simply must find a mate or be relegated to the slow-moving, singles' lane only to embrace the horribly unkind Old Maid stereotype (which of course comes with a house full of whiny cats and a closet stuffed with unshapely moo moos).

But, if anyone has come up with a successful recipe for solo living, it's gotta be Liz Tuccillo.

She's the co-author of the famous book "He's Just Not That Into You," a former SATC writer, and her novel, "How to be Single" - a fictionalized offering for which she talked to single women around the world - recently hit bookstores.

Okay, some bad news here - the New York-based Tuccillo says she's still figuring it out for herself.

"It's a constant kind of balance between knowing you're not having something you really want and ... being happy with what you have."
Apparently no amount of probing into the lives of others provides a neat 'how-to' formula for dining alone and scrounging for a last-minute wedding date.

"I feel like no matter how successful or fabulous your life (there's always the question), 'Why are you single?" she confesses.
Now, depending on the tone, Tuccillo explains this inquiry can either be a compliment (as in 'Damn, you're so fine... any guy with be nuts not to ask you out!), or an insult fired straight at the emotional jugular (as in 'Wow, you're so very tragic!)

On the bright side, seems we can get a better handle on love.

"In Iceland, there really is no big moony-eyed talk of marriage," says Tuccillo.

"It's just a fluid culture, kind of an unromantic ... it's a very liberating culture to be single in."

In Brazil, however, Tuccillo ran across something else entirely - an abundance of infidelity.

"I was with a friend of mine who'd just gotten married and it really upset her," she says.

While there, Tuccillo observed an attitude that seemed to say, "'You silly cute Americans thinking people get married and don't cheat ... that's adorable.' They looked at me like I was the biggest idiot," she says.

In France, ladies kept their pride in tact even after getting chucked by a lover.

There they told her "It's in the air, it's in the culture, it's ingrained in you before you know it."

Huh. Something to be learned there, I suspect.

So what does the 40-something scribe advise?

"I think the first start would be to make 90 per cent less romantic comedies that end in a wedding," she laughs.

While "How to be Single" won't actually teach you how to be single, it is a humorous reminder that when you're dialing in a Chinese food order on a Friday night wearing a pair of oversized bunny slippers, women the world-over are in the very same club.