I have, for some time, been a habitual reader of the personal ads in the New York Review of Books. They are astoundingly odd, often hilarious (usually for all the wrong reasons) and I find them fascinating. There was one in particular this week that caught my attention:

AUBURN BEAUTY, breast cancer survivor, witty, articulate; seeks man to give me $1 million so I can buy a house I love; in exchange I will talk to you 10 minutes a night for one year. I will choose only the most interesting man.

Several questions arise.

1. Is this for real?

2. Why �auburn beauty, breast cancer survivor?� Why not �unemployed moneygrubber?� Oh, yeah.

3. Would someone actually offer a million dollars in hopes they would be dubbed �most interesting man?�

And how did she come by the price/time spent ratio? $1,000,000 for 3650 minutes of conversation. By my calculations, that�s about $275 a minute. She must be one hell of a conversationalist. Or perhaps she is offering legal or psychiatric advice, which, it might be noted, would be recommended to someone so willing to part with such a large sum of money in exchange for a compliment and 60 hours of conversation, something one would hope he�d have be able to obtain for free elsewhere, if he put in a little effort. Of course, the donor would have the do-gooder�s sense of self-importance at having purchased a house for a cancer survivor.

I hope there�s a follow-up to this ad. I�m half tempted to answer it myself except that, you know, I�m not a man. And, oh yeah. No million dollars.

Thanks to all who responded to my entry yesterday. It seems Jane Eyre hit home for many of us. The second question I sent around in my list of three last week was �what was your best day and why?� Once again eggsaucted�s entry from this morning has reminded me my personal response to the question in her discussion of childbirth.

My best day was the day AJ was born, hands down, no contest. Better than the day I got into college. Better than the day I graduated from that godforsaken high school. Better than the day my first love told me he loved me. Better than the day my husband proposed or the day we got married. All really, really good days. The day was the best not despite the pain, not forgetting about the pain, but because of the pain. The pain made it possible. It made it mine. My body will always show the scars. My shape is not the same. I�m covered in stretch marks and loose skin. Sometimes I pee when I sneeze. I won�t pretend to love all of these things, but they are all part of something that changed me forever, and part of me likes that the change is visible. The day AJ was born was the most intense experience of my life, something that defies description, that I have not yet been able to write about. For weeks after his birth I ran the sequence of events over and over again in my head like a mantra, so I could remember the feeling, the unbelievable joy, the sudden realization of being part of a network of humanity. The pain is finite and is forgotten. The rest of it lasts forever.

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