The Keelhauler and I stopped at the Mental Thrift on the way to lunch. He bought a mitre box, and I bought Cosmopolitan's Hangup Handbook, with foreword by Helen Gurley Brown, copyright 1971. I was mesmerized by its lurid pastel cover, which includes amateurish cartoons of two hearts, a staring eyeball with a lime-green pupil, and a naked woman with blonde hair falling to her ankles, holding an apple. I don't know if the illustrator was going for Eve or Lady Godiva, but he's got both bases covered.

It turns out that the cover is by far the best part of the book, which is a compilation of essays advising women on the best ways to land a man, a man, a wonderful MAN! He doesn't even have to be wonderful, he just has to be a MAN, that is the lesson here, as outlined in the "general advice" section, which advises: "Go out at least once with any man who asks." Any man who asks. That sentence alone sent my brain into a Rolodex-whirl of horrors, imagining saying yes to some of the guys who've asked me out. I've lived in major cities for most of my adult life, which has brought me into contact with a wide cross-section of the population. Had I said yes to every man who asked me out, my already-sketchy dating history would include:

1. The guy with one long, black-painted pinky nail who ran a souvenir cart in Quincy Market and after gleaning my address from a mailing list, sent me long, incoherent poems filled with ill-rhymed references to Greek mythology;


2. The guy--a stranger--who stalked me for more than two years in San Francisco, and whom I finally had sent to jail (twice);


3. My landlord in Boston, who was 65, married, and spoke maybe thirty words of English, and who once faked a heart attack to try and get me to let him in (which I didn't);


4. Willie, the black transvestite wearing thick white foundation and a disheveled Elizabeth Taylor-style wig, who mistook me for a prostitute;


5. Dick, the vice-president of a chemical company I temped at in college, who liked to sit on my desk and talk about how much his watch cost. (OK, admittedly, that is super-hot.)

"Go out at least once with any man who asks," the handbook reads, adding, "Beasts may have beautiful friends." I have to disagree. Well, a qualified disagreement. Yes, a "beast" might have a "beautiful friend," but what kind of good man would be likely to hang around with a beast? In my experience, beasts of a feather flop together.

I'm not really looking to trap a man this week, but if you're interested, I'll lend you the book, and you can absorb and glean wisdom the Cosmo Girl way, via the following essays:

• The Unpretty Girl


• Do You Think You're a Little Nothing?


• Why (Sob!) Didn't He Call?


• Why Package Sex in a Love Bag?


• Keeping Perky in a Pressure Cooker


• So Long "OO" Girl... Who Needs You?

After you read the book, take the little quiz in the back to gauge your progress. ("Have you spent more than a total of two hours seriously plotting revenge?" "Are you still waiting for him to shed his wife?" "Did you wake up in several different beds this week--and wish you hadn't?")

Give it a whirl! You, too can be a Cosmo Girl! As Helen Gurley Brown herself writes in the introduction, "I know you'll make it... because you are willing to work, and because you care."

Star of the day. . .Lily Tomlin