A reconsideration: A friend challenged my assertion of Ashlee Simpson's hotness, forcing (yeah, right) me to return to the recent Blender photos which impressed me so. He wasn't disputing my claim for these specific photos, which he hadn't seen, only my general claim that she was hot at all. Having spent several hours pouring over the photos, considering them from every angle and weighing their merits both generally and in context with other photos exemplifying hotness, I have concluded that what Ms. Simpson possesses is in fact Friday night hotness. By this I mean that she is a woman who would not under normal circumstances be considered especially attractive; however, on a Friday night, when all bets are off in the pursuit of physical gratification, she is most certainly hot.

For those who wish to reach their own conclusions, the link below has some of the photos from the magazine.

http://www.blender.com/guide/articles.aspx?id=1805

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A further reconsideration: I was taken to see the Jennifer Aniston GQ cover up close, and based on personal observations, together with Denise Richards' endorsement, I have concluded that Ms. Aniston is a very attractive lady. She is still not, unfortunately, funny, and if she takes Vince Vaughn down with her then I will never watch a "Friends" rerun again. Which I wouldn't normally do anyway, but even a weak threat is better than nothing.

Esquire recently named Jessica Biel the sexiest woman alive. Now, this is a ridiculous statement to make about anyone, even someone as obviously gorgeous in a conventional way as Jessica Biel. Sexiness is such a personal response to another person, and can and should go far beyond that person's looks, into their attitude and behaviour and soul. There are many times when I think my wife is the sexiest woman alive, and I accept that other men will and should feel the same way about their wives and girlfriends. And we are all right when we think that way.

But, on the subject of Ms. Biel, and in a highly personal fashion, there is a photograph of her which, to my eyes, makes a very succinct argument that she is, indeed, the sexiest woman alive, if only for the moment of that photo's creation. It can be found in many places on the web, and I offer the link below for as long as it holds out.

http://www.brawnylads.com/hotties/jessica/jb042.jpg

I can't really explain why I consider this photograph so sexy, which is why I can't say with any certainty that Esquire is correct. I know that it caused me to take notice of Jessica Biel for the first time, and I think that is an important component of sexiness. All it takes is the right look, the right outfit, the right mood, and a woman can cross the magical line that divides those we want to touch from those we don't. For me, the first time I saw this photo, Jessica Biel moved to my side of the line. That my wife immediately pushed her back has no bearing on anything.

One of the things I'm learning about blogging is that a plan is folly, especially for a general thoughts-on-life-and-the-world blog like mine. Every day has new surprises and events that need to be documented, whether for personal sanity or timeliness or just because it's too interesting to me to ignore. Then there are days where the muse deserts you and you either haul out things you pulled from somewhere else or wrote previously but never posted, or else offer comments while browsing through a magazine you just bought that evening. As a result, I'm beginning to accumulate topics for future blogs, which I highly recommend. Already, after less than a month, I'm good for about two weeks' worth of brain freeze, with subjects I could write about in my sleep.

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I feel like a bit of an ass today about yesterday's complaints about that particular lawyer. As I told my wife last night, she's a genuinely good person, maybe the best human being I've met in this business. But she still wears that lawyer hat, and there are times when it shows, despite her best efforts. Today, I swung by her office to check on something, and it was clear that she was bagged and needed someone to vent to. And while I have done this before, as she has done for me, I just couldn't do it today, because in the end I know there will be days like yesterday. The truth is, we are not friends, we're employer and employee, and of different genders besides, with all those normal complications. I understand that she has a ton of work and the strain is incredible. On the other hand, she makes roughly three times as much as I do after several fewer years in the business, and if she makes partner as she deserves to, the gap will only get much higher. In exchange, I get to go home at 4:00 p.m. each day and spend evenings and weekends with my family. I don't own a house yet (although there are other reasons for that besides income), have no car, don't take exotic vacations (unless you consider Cape Breton exotic - and if you do, there's no helping you). She owns two houses and a cabin (with her husband) and takes great vacations, but she also works weekends and evenings to 7:00 or later, and has to do so to maintain the good will of her insurance company clients. If her career falters, someone else, whether at this firm or another, will give me work because I am very good at the largely thankless and glory-free job that I do. I don't care how much she makes - I wouldn't want her life or her income.

Because I several times came close to joining her merry-go-round existence, I am very appreciative of what I have. I have written the LSAT, and with a score in the 91st percentile, many years in the law and great references I know that I would have gotten into almost any law school in Canada. But every time I got close, and there were a few, to taking that final step, I blinked. Too many years working with lawyers taught me that the glory is rare and the headaches constant. I have no regrets about that choice, and can safely say my flirtation with law school is over.

Another side to this is my commitment to the notion of not having friends in the workplace. Now, I have a fairly strict definition of "friend", and as a result have many acquaintances who others night call friends. Making this seem like hypocrisy is the fact that my three real friends were either my boss or co-workers at my first law firm, and for a brief moment I was supervisor of one of them. But the friendships either developed when we didn't work together directly or else after one of them retired. Sometimes you have to bend the rules, because it's pretty rare to find someone with a similar sense of humour and approach to life. You have to accept them where you find them. Now that I have these friends, it's easier to stick to plan. But, other than my children, no one new of importance has entered my life in 10 years. The list of acquaintances is enormous.

Or maybe it's all just because I'm anti-social. Our firm Christmas party is next week, with free food and alcohol of the highest quality. I am beyond dreading it, since I will be obliged to spend six hours talking to people who I would otherwise do no more than say "hello" to. I will spend most of my evening lurking on the edges of conversations before moving to the bar for my next drink. On the other hand, all sorts of rules are being bent as Jonathan, Keith and I try to get together for a pre-Christmas beer or two. It's all about priorities.

An odd moment of triumph. The lawyer who set me off this morning decided to bitch to me about her secretary as I was on my way out to pick up lunch. Now, normally I am very sympathetic to these complaints, since her secretary's marginal competence is only somewhat offset by her physical charms, including possibly the longest legs in the hemisphere. But today I've switched sides. I no longer buy into the lawyer's we're-a-team platitudes. That secretary and I are the real teammates, trodden upon by the high-powered, highly-paid LLB. So I simply nodded, shrugged and marched off triumphant to Mr. Sub. It isn't much, but freedom is often recovered in increments.

If you ever work for a lawyer, it will help you to know this going in. To a man/woman, they are soul-sucking users. Sometimes, you will allow yourself to think that you have transcended that barrier and developed a friendship with one. You are only deceiving yourself. The only hope you have of befriending a lawyer is to not work for that person. Once in an employment situation, they will fawn over you, make you feel brilliant and important and valued when the chips are down and they need you to put in extra time for no remuneration so that the job can get done. But when that moment has passed, they are on Olympus while you are in Death Valley, and that can never change. I allowed myself to forget that a few weeks ago, and I have been reminded ever since that it just isn't so. Lawyers are strictly a what-can-you-do-for-me-today proposition. After 15 years, I really ought to know better, but everyone wants to feel needed, right?

Anyway, I just needed to get that off my chest before resuming my day's activities. I feel better already. And I know for certain now that I am NOT working this weekend. To hell with them all.

Kim Walker is dead. Although this may not seen like much to you, it was a real shock to me. Even more surprising is that she died almost five years ago, on March 6, 2001, of a brain tumour. She was only 32.

I stumbled across this news while looking for info about Christian Slater for what I intended to be today's blog but will now have to wait for another time. Slater's greatest moment was as J.D. in "Heathers", and I was curious what had become of the Heathers not named Shannon Doherty. Lisanne Falk, a.k.a. Heather McNamara, continued to work until as recently as 2002, although not very often and not very spectacularly. But Kim Walker played Heather Chandler, and she was the one that terrified us, as evil as she was beautiful. Regina George learned her trade at the feet of Heather Chandler's ghost.

She didn't do much after "Heathers", most notable being a small part in "Say Anything" (which may actually predate her work on "Heathers") and a TV version of "The Outsiders" with future notables David Arquette, Michael Madsen and Billy Bob Thornton. I Googled her and ended up on the incredibly creepy but very informative www.findadeath.com, which offers a fair bit of material about her career, life and death, including a picture of her home and gravesite.

Slater was on my mind because of "Pump Up the Volume", another teen classic, but knowing that Kim Walker is dead sent me in another direction. Working in personal injury law (15 years as of yesterday), I long ago accepted that while there is no such thing as fate, random events beyond our control have a great influence on our lives. We can do everything right - eat well, exercise, avoid noxious substances, etc. - and an idiot driving too fast can come around the corner and end or ruin what's left of our life. Even more upsetting is when our own bodies betray us, as Kim Walker's did. I'm 41 now, and for most of my life I haven't eaten well or exercised enough, and discussions of noxious substances can only end in criminal charges. Yet, here I am, waking up with my stiff and sore bones and muscles to take on another day of a life that has more pleasures than disappointments. I don't know if Kim Walker took care of herself or if she was a good person or not. All I know is that 32 is too damned early to die. I could scream about the unfairness of it, but I won't. I'm just going to go home, and love and care for everyone and everything that matters to me. Because there are no guarantees how much longer I'll be allowed to do that, and I just don't want to miss any opportunities.

A few quick comments on a day which finds me very tired. . .

The new Harry Potter movie is easily the best of the four, and a huge improvement over the disappointment that was "Prisoner of Azkaban". I remember all the critics going crazy over "Azkaban", saying it was the best yet, when to me it was just a pretentious mess that ignored the series' strengths (mainly, not nearly enough of Smith, Rickman, Gambon, and all the rest of those great British actors) while spending far too much time away from Hogwarts. I can only assume these are the same critics who believe Tea Leoni is talented. Anyway, "Goblet of Fire" is a huge improvement, and I'd prefer to wait a few days to offer a more considered appraisal.

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We are now in election mode in Canada, and I will offer only this. While I am by no means a fan of Paul Martin and the current crop of Liberals, I consider myself to be a Liberal and will almost certainly vote for the local candidate (who has had some dirt in her political past as well). However, I enter this election as I have every one since 1997, looking for someone to convince me to vote for them. Preston Manning failed, Stockwell Day failed, and Stephen Harper failed in his first try. I believe Harper to be a very bright man with good instincts who might have what it takes to be a fine Prime Minister. Unfortunately, he has done nothing to show me that he would lead a country of which I would be proud to call myself a citizen, and while as a white heterosexual male of a certain economic status I am as safe as one can be in Harper's vision of Canada, I know and value and even love far too many people who are not all of the above to allow that vision to come to pass. If Harper can convince me that (A) I am wrong about him and (B) if I am wrong, that he can control the loonies around him who I am most certainly not wrong about, I may just vote Conservative for once. Because the Liberals need a good ass-kicking so they can start cleaning house and get back to the values that once made them a great force in this country.

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In other election news, Olivia Chow has resigned her seat on Toronto municipal council to run for the NDP federally. This is her third shot at the job, and hopefully she will falter yet again. Opinions about Chow and her hubby, Karim Baboolal's friend Jack Layton, fall into two categories only. The pro group considers them to be great advocates for the NDP cause. The rest of us think they are opportunists suckling at the public teat. If the voters in her riding do their part, Olivia may actually have to get a real job for once. Well, at least until the next municipal election in November 2006.

Tonight, I'm off the see the new Harry Potter movie with my oldest daughter. I'll either report on this tomorrow or, if energetic enough at 10:30 p.m., tonight. One interesting thing about this is that I have heard this is a more intense film than previous Potter outings. I was worried that Brittany might not be allowed in, so I checked the ratings. According to Famous Players' website, the film is rated PG. A website called Media Awareness Network (www.media-awareness.ca) has a section reviewing what the ratings mean in each province, and it was an eye-opener. In Ontario, PG means one or more of the following:

Language: Limited use of stronger expletives and/or slurs and/or mild sexual references.

Violence: Restrained portrayals of non-graphic violence, integral to the plot. The portrayals are not prolonged; there are no close-ups; bloodletting and/or tissue damage is limited.

Nudity: Brief nudity in a non-sexual context, non-exploitative close-up.

Sexual Activity: Embracing, kissing in a loving context; mild sexual innuendo.

Horror: Exciting horror scenes and some grotesque images may be allowed in a fantasy or comedic context, but there will be no detailed and/or prolonged focus on gory images or suffering.

Psychological Impact: Sensitive to treatments of scenes and situations that may cause adverse psychological impact on children. May include frightening or emotionally upsetting situations involving threats, injury, illness, family problems, or death to young people, family member and animals (particularly pets).

Now, some of those restrictions are to me just common sense, although every parent views these things through their own unique sensibility. I don't really want my girls seeing anything sexual just yet (mainly because neither my wife nor I are ready for the ensuing conversation), but mildly foul language doesn't overly concern me. (Frankly, sometimes they hear worse from me than any PG-rated movie.) We definitely do not allow them to watch horror, though that may be because we have no interest in watching those films and thus have never formed an opinion on the appropriateness or lack thereof of a particular film or films. And violence at the PG level is, while I would prefer they not see it, tolerable.

(On further consideration, the reason I don't want them seeing anything sexual at this point is that they just aren't mature enough to discuss it rationally. For this I am grateful, reassuring as it is that my 10- and 7-year-old daughters have no interest in sex. There'll be ample enough time in their teen years to go crazy over that development.)

I'm not a prude in any sense, and I think many parents would consider me just a little too liberal in the way I talk with my children. My basic approach is that my children are intelligent aware creatures who can't be lied to. If they ask me about something, I'm going to be honest with them to the best of my ability and to the extent that their psyches can handle that honesty. But I still have that innate need to protect them, if only for a little longer, and that's why Brittany and I won't be sitting down to a Tarentino film festival any time soon. But thank God we still have a world in which Harry Potter appears, based on the film rating system, safe for a properly supervised 10-year-old.

Let's hope I still feel that way when the movie ends at 9:40 tonight.

Merriam-Webster Online defines "misanthrope" as "a person who hates or distrusts mankind". This is in some small way reassuring, since I now know that I am not a misanthrope. What I am, however, is somewhat antisocial. Very few people would know this about me. At work, I am certainly friendly enough, although I take great care not to actually know people in any way that isn't superficial. I think my co-workers would speak very positively about me, saying that I am helpful, sharing, giving, friendly. All of which is true. They just don't know anything about me that matters.

In the same sense, I am very careful in my use of the word "friend". Not counting those few who have endured through irregular encounters since childhood, I have three friends. There is no distinction between work friends, drinking friends, friends through our kids, lunch friends or any of those arbitrary categories that people use. I have three groups of people that I know - family, friends and acquaintances. My family is easy to sort out (and my wife and daughters fall into that special crossbred category of family who are also really my best friends). My friends are Jonathan, Keith and Harry. These are the guys, each of them very different, who I actually talk about things that matter to me, whose judgment I don't fear, who I know I can be honest with and who know they can be honest with me. Do I tell them everything? Of course not; we aren't women. But I don't think there is anything I couldn't tell them, and that's what counts. Everyone else is just an acquaintance.

I was reminded of this basic antisocial nature while sitting at dance class yesterday waiting for Brittany to finish up. While the other parents gabbed about nothing that really matters to them or anyone else, I listened to Fiona Apple on my headphones while reading Kevin Canty's novel "Into the Great Wide Open" (which I highly recommend to this point in my reading). I could have talked to them. They're always very nice to me, and I'm very nice to them when I choose to speak. And these are actually pretty good and interesting people, people whose company I would enjoy if I was a different kind of person. But I much preferred the company of my thoughts, Canty's words and Fiona's voice. I'm not sure what they think of me, and I don't care.

But today we had a visit from my Uncle Sheldon, and I was reminded yet again that I just need the right crowd. Ask Jonathan, Keith or Harry and I'm certain each of them would say I have no problems socially (other than, perhaps, occasional inappropriateness). Ask my wife, and she could tell you about situations where I froze and simply did not speak to anyone at a gathering, most recently this past August. We were at a family function, and I simply could not will myself to sit up in my chair to lean forward and speak to her grandmother. Even while I was failing to do this, I was trying to overcome my resistance, knowing it was just wrong. It certainly doesn't seem like a complicated thing to do, but at the moment it was beyond my capabilities. My desire to not speak with this utterly harmless and pleasant woman was so great that I could not overcome it, earning at least briefly my wife's enmity for my failure. This breakdown forced me to be honest with her about this difficulty which has long dogged me at unfortunate moments.

But in the right group, with people I am comfortable with, I can't be shut up. Today was one of those days, with my girls, two of my three brothers and Sheldon. Sheldon was my favorite uncle growing up, visiting Cape Breton every year or so from Toronto. He knew about movies and music and TV shows and all the celebrity gossip before there was "Entertainment Tonight" and "Premiere" magazine. He was involved on the periphery of show business, as an actor in bit parts and as the road manager for a period for female impersonator Craig Russell (who I once spoke to on an early morning long-distance telephone call). He remains, all these years later, my most interesting relative, still youthful and dynamic at 60, still devoted to Barbra Streisand and Elizabeth Taylor. Growing up, he was a concrete reminder that I didn't have to be crushed by my environment, that I could escape the limitations of my birthplace, what I referred to often as the place where trends go to die. It is always a pleasure to see him, and I always want my girls to appreciate this marvelous man, who will likely spend less time in their lives than he did in mine.