Everybody is continuously connected to everybody else on Twitter, on Facebook, on Instagram, on Reddit, e-mailing, texting, faster and faster, with the flood of information jeopardizing meaning. Everybody's talking at once in a hypnotic, hyper din: the cocktail party from hell.

As blue chips turn into penny stocks, Wall Street seems less like a symbol of America's macho capitalism and more like that famous Jane Austen character Mrs. Bennet, a flibbertigibbet always anxious about getting richer and her 'poor nerves.'

Washington is a place where people have always been suspect of style and overt sexuality. Too much preening signals that you're not up late studying cap-and-trade agreements.

I think even the Hollywood money people are saying they've got to get the party back from the Clinton wing. They can't, you know, keep nominating these Northeast liberals. They have to look for people who can win.

Settling is about not embracing what is best for you and accepting what you really don't want. When you settle, you accept less than you deserve. Settling becomes a habit and a way of life, but it doesn't have to be. According to Maureen Dowd, "The minute you settle for less than you deserve, you get even less than you settled for

We are riveted by the soap operas of public lives. We admire the famous most for what makes them infamous: it reassures us that they are not better and no happier than all the people with their noses pressed hard against the glass.

I don't understand men. I don't even understand what I don't understand about men.