O, The Oprah Magazine articles from February 2004

O, The Oprah Magazine archives from February 2004

We hear you! Readers get testy about surrogate moms, are moved by Ann Patchett, tip their halos to Martha Beck, and more....(Letters)(Letter to the Editor)
February 1, 2004... I was very disappointed in Jane Meredith Adams's article, "One Pregnancy, Four Mothers, Two Fathers, and an Army of Lawyers" {December}. In portraying surrogacy negatively, Adams ignored the successful and wonderful journeys that many take in...

Corrections.(Correction Notice)
February 1, 2004... Corrections: In January's Anticipation List, we incorrectly noted that Super Bowl XXXVII is on January 26. We apologize to anyone who made guacamole, broke out the Doritos, and sat in front of the TV with one of those giant foam fingers. Super...

Love: the real thing.(Here We Go)(Brief Article)(Cover Story)
February 1, 2004... YOU WANT TO KNOW THE TRUTH ABOUT LOVE? Our cup runneth over this month. [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] I was delighted to find after talking with Jennifer Aniston (page 148) that she's as friendly and fun as we all imagine her to be. She...

Calendar.(Calendar)
February 1, 2004... February "We can only learn to love by loving."--Iris Murdoch 1 SUNDAY "Love is that splendid triggering of human vitality... the supreme activity which nature affords anyone for going out of himself toward someone else." --Jose...

Dr. Phil: the love survey; 37,000 readers responded to our questions about sex, soul mates, and recognizing real love. But does Phillip C. McGraw, PhD, agree with them? Read the surprising results.(Tell it Like it is)
February 1, 2004... MY EXPERIENCE COUNSELING thousands of couples has taught me that the success of any romantic relationship depends more on what the smitten one expects to happen than what actually happens. People see depictions of romance on the big screen, and...

Suze Orman: "why settle for less when you know you deserve so much more?" Reconsidering a risky partner ... leaving a job but not your money ... falling for a scam.(Financial Freedom)
February 1, 2004... Q I'm involved with a wonderful man and considering a future with him. I have a good credit rating and live comfortably within my budget. I don't have a credit card balance, and I have a savings account, take advantage of my retirement plan,...

Flying home.(Live Your Best Life)(Poem)
February 1, 2004... ... Very likely she has always understood what I have slowly learned... that love is hard, that while many good things are easy, true love is not, because love is first of all a power, its own power, which continually must make...

Paging Ted Kennedy.(Three Questions)(Interview)
February 1, 2004... IF FRANK CAPRA WERE TO TAKE A LOOK AT TODAY'S Washington, D.C., Mr. Smith would surely stay home. But there is one man who's been seeking justice for all since 1962, when he became a United States senator. Edward M. Kennedy champions the...

Chocolate of the month.(Good to Eat)
February 1, 2004... Though the chances of Benicio Del Toro begging us to spend Valentine's Day as his personal love monkey are slim, Jubilee Chocolates are within reach. This small Philadelphia company uses local ingredients (organic cream from grass-fed cows,...

Anticipation list: what we're looking forward to this month.(LYBL)
February 1, 2004... Let's face it, a girl can reload The Matrix only so many times before a zillion dollars' worth of special effects starts losing its charm. Welcome to Mooseport (February 6) stars Gene Hackman as a former U.S. president who decides to run for...

Sextrology.(Couples)(Brief Article)
February 1, 2004... Unless you can picture Beyonce, Pink, Cameron Diaz, Greta Garbo, and Sophia Loren as members of the same convent, it's time to disregard everything you've read about Virgo's nunlike fastidiousness. In Sextrology (HarperCollins),...

What's playing in Aaron Neville's ear? The angel-voiced soul legend sings out for doo-wop, the Drifters, and lonesome cowboys.(Music)(Brief Article)(Interview)
February 1, 2004... Long before there was Dr. Phil, there was Aaron Neville's 1966 hit "Tell It Like It Is." Therapy, Neville-style, comes in the form of a soaring falsetto. His most recent album, Nature Boy (Verve), is a compilation of standards that's fresh and...

Clean-air act: what, you ask, is a room ionizer? And do you really need one? Apparently, you do, says John House.(Gizmo)(Brief Article)
February 1, 2004... Next time you have a spare moment at home, sit quietly and take a few deep breaths. Empty your mind of everything but the thought of all the gunk you're inhaling: bacteria, mold spores, viruses, pollen, and maybe some pet dander. So what's the...

Emmylou Harris's aha! Moment.(LYBL)(Brief Article)
February 1, 2004... IN 1997 A GROUP I'M A SPOKESPERSON FOR, THE VIETNAM VETerans of America Foundation (VVAF), invited me to Vietnam and Cambodia to see the results of its efforts to help victims of conflict. [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] There used to be more...

Good girls unmasked.(Nice Work)(Brief Article)(Biography)
February 1, 2004... Anne Taintor grew up being such a "nice girl" that even the nuns at her Catholic school thought she was a goody-goody. All we can say is, still waters run devilishly deep. Taintor, now 50, has managed to raise a little hell--and create a...

Something to think about.(Brief Article)
February 1, 2004... HOW DO YOU KNOW IF LOVE IS THE REAL THING? OR, AS COLE PORTER FAMOUSLY WROTE IN THE SONG "AT LONG LAST LOVE," IS IT AN EARTHQUAKE OR SIMPLY A SHOCK? WHILE YOU'RE WONDERING WHETHER YOUR ROMANCE IS FOR KEEPS, GET COMFORTABLE AND CONSIDER THE...

Every little thing he does is stupid.(Martha Beck)
February 1, 2004... Aw, you love the guy! Except when he drives you completely mental. MARTHA BECK shows you what to do with a significantly annoying significant other. RECENTLY, I ASKED A GROUP OF ORDInary American women to describe their significant others'...

The case of the missing CD: Norah's gone. Aretha's vanished. And Elvis has left the building. Where, oh where did your CDs and DVDs go? Julie Morgenstern fine-tunes your storage system.(Getting Organized)
February 1, 2004... WAKING UP LATE ON A SUNDAY MORNING, YOU brew coffee, grab the paper from the front door, and head for your fluffy couch. But first you need the perfect music--ah, maybe the gently energizing, velvety voice of Norah Jones. You open the CD case...

Hello, I love you.(O to Go)
February 1, 2004... If music be the food of love, then serenade your sweetie pie with these lyrical notes. "Ah, love, let us be true To one another!" --Matthew Arnold "O! let me have thee whole,--all, all, be mine!" --John Keats "When we met...

The O list.
February 1, 2004... "A few things I think are just great."--OPRAH Hat Trick "The chocolates in this gorgeous hatbox are not to be believed: from rich caramel toffee and ecstasy-inducing truffles to adults-only bonbons infused with flavors like ginger,...

The look of love: what never goes out of style? Romance, for one thing. Classic clothes, for another. O has a heart-to-heart with four happy couples.(Style Fashion)
February 1, 2004... EVAN HANDLER, actor (Harry on Sex and the City), 43, and ELISA ATTI, biomedical researcher. 33 COURTSHIP BEHAVIOR Stylish. "Fantastic stockings" was the first thing Evan ever said to Elisa (she was wearing fishnets). A few missed...

One suit, four ways.(O Fashion Shopper)
February 1, 2004... Transcend the office uniform with something softer, smarter, more inventive. [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]

The paper route.(Comfort Zone)
February 1, 2004... Exquisite stationery is heaven to write on, send off. This stuff is so luscious, it inspired stylist Elizabeth Press to turn paper into vines and roses, butterflies, a pen, even a tiny Kelly bag.... PHOTOGRAPHS BY ALISON GOOTEE

Look what we found!(Beauty Girls' Toys)(Buyers Guide)
February 1, 2004... Makeup twofers, gorgeous hair on the go, an intoxicating lavender scrub, and more.... Here's what O's beauty editors fell in love with this month. Glossy Touch "Gloss cloth?" we said. "What the heck?" But we became devotees the minute...

Ask Val: questions about complexion enhancers? You've come to the right place. O's beauty director, Valerie Monroe, gives you the straight story.(Beauty)
February 1, 2004... Who wouldn't want her complexion enhanced? Wait, that's not my question. What are these products, and do they really do anything? Complexion enhancers are creams, lotions, or powders containing light-reflecting particles. I shared a...

Tutu heavy.(Body Wise)(Brief Article)
February 1, 2004... Bolshoi ballerina Anastasia Volochkova was fired last September, reportedly because--at 5'6" and 109 pounds--she was too heavy. Those of us who don't leap around for a living had to ask: If her body mass index (BMI)--the ratio of weight to...

Choc it up.(Body Wise)(Brief Article)
February 1, 2004... EATING CHOCOLATE once ranked as a favorite gustatory sin, but recent research (and a lot of hype) is making it look positively broccoli-like. Francene Steinberg, PhD, associate professor of nutrition at the University of California at Davis,...

Invisible exercise of the month.(Body Wise)(Brief Article)
February 1, 2004... To whittle your waist (and get a wonderful stretch) without leaving your desk, take advantage of your swivel chair with a move suggested by Brooke Siler, founder of the re:AB Pilates studio in New York City. Sit toward the front edge of the...

The next big thing? Probiotics.(Body Wise)
February 1, 2004... What it is: Probiotics are live, "friendly" bacteria found in food (usually yogurt), also sold as pills or powders that purport to help maintain a healthy balance of bacteria, particularly in the gut. There are many strains, but the most...

The way to eat: beyond the hype, the fads, and the nutri-nonsense, David L. Katz, MD, gives you all you need to know to step up to the plate.(Body Wise)
February 1, 2004... Q: How much sodium should we be consuming? I've noticed that many foods, such as soups and prepared noodle or rice dishes, are high in sodium. [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] --CHRISTINE TRAPANE, LAKE MARY, FLORIDA According to government...

Reading room.(Brief Article)
February 1, 2004... Sensuality, Italian-Style If you've seen even one of director Federico Fellini's haunting, surreally beautiful films--masterpieces like I Vitelloni, La Strada, Juliet of the Spirits--you've marveled at the complex genius behind them. Now you...

The last empress: a heart-grabbing novel of an ingenious woman who would be queen.(Reading Room)(Brief Article)(Book Review)
February 1, 2004... ANCHEE MIN HAS A REMARKABLE KNACK FOR REHABILITATING women who have been vilified in China's long march into modernity. In Becoming Madame Mao, for example, she transformed the chairman's notorious widow into a symbol of female strength: feisty...

Love and betrayal.(Reading Room)(Brief Article)(Book Review)
February 1, 2004... Jean Thompson's City Boy (Simon & Schuster) takes a painstakingly honest, excruciatingly precise look at all the complicated heartbreaks of romantic love. The novel is populated by ordinary people, doing their best to hide the scars they are...

The lovely neurons: a heady new book goes deep into the nerve-racking mechanics of the human brain.(Reading Room)(Brief Article)(Book Review)
February 1, 2004... For all his insistence on science and reason, Freud was a bit of a mystic. The psyche he mapped was a mythic place, full of large, unruly forces whose origins and aims were often hidden from us. But Prozac told a different story: that mental...

Her dance with history: age 20, in love with love, dance, and the dream of revolution--a memoir.(Reading Room)(Brief Article)
February 1, 2004... IN 1970, ALMA GUILLERMOPRIETO REALIZED that she would never rise to the top of New York's competitive dance scene and accepted an invitation to teach modern dance at Cuba's state-run art school. Confronted by the privations and contradictions...

Hard-knock lives: a gripping report on survival in America.(Reading Room)(Brief Article)(Book Review)
February 1, 2004... With his new book, The Working Poor: Invisible in America (Knopf), former New York Times reporter and Pulitzer Prize winner David K. Shipler takes on people caught in highly American circumstances. His stories of low-income struggle are...

BibliO: recommendations from our shelf to yours.(Reading Room)(Book Review)
February 1, 2004... * Every morning Alison Smith's father blessed his sleeping children--their hands, their throats, their minds. Name All the Animals (Scribner) is Smith's stunning memoir about her family's life after the death of her brother and soul mate, Roy,...

Two of us: a father and a son reach out to each other, tentatively at first, and then come together in the most touching way--with a little help from their friends John, Paul, George, and Ringo--in this totally charming memoir by Peter Smith.(Family)
February 1, 2004... I STARTED TO REALIZE, OVER THE LAST YEAR AND A HALF, that my son and I were having problems. The signs were slight but they were accumulating. At first I hardly noticed them; I was too busy. Which was, as I think back on it, a large part of the...

Oprah talks to Jennifer Aniston: that hair! That face! That TV show! That guy she's married to! The woman who makes you happy it's Thursday opens up about love, intimacy, poker games, girlfriends, working out, tabloid hell--and saying farewell to ten glorious years of Friends-ship.(The O Interview)(Interview)
February 1, 2004... How much do we love Jennifer Aniston? In this month's O interview, she talks about the craziness of fame, the pleasures of home, and what exactly she sees in that Brad Pitt guy--it's a love thing. If love is the answer, we've got a few...

Pucker up! Zing go the strings of old standbys (such as chicken, shrimp, salad dressings, and pies) with a fruity, refreshing splash of citrus.(nutritional aspects of citrus fruits)
February 1, 2004... you've PROBABLY HEARD that there's a movement afoot to make all food be like all politics: local. But for citrus fruits, another adage is more apt: Local, schmocal. It's true that in general, for reasons of taste, health, and ecology, food...

Love actually: partnership isn't about his and hers, yours and mine, IOU and you-own-me. It's a subtler form of math that adds up to magic.(Love: the Real Thing)
February 1, 2004... Here's what we wish you for Valentine's Day. Not just overblown magnificent kisses and someone else's hand creeping into O, we get to the heart of it. We talk to marriage therapists, (but instructive) real-life love stories. But first, Amy...

Five true love stories.
February 1, 2004... BY PATRICIA MARX Here are a few ways I wish I could begin this piece: "My seat assignment was D4, but something made me sit in the empty seat next to the handsome man, who turned out to be..." Or: "They say that passion does not last but...

Love: the game.(Brief Article)
February 1, 2004... Unless you have a twin, you were born single--that is, without a date to the big event. You will probably die alone, too (Romeo and Juliet both did), but in between, if you are lucky, you will find true love, or at least someone to share the...

Extreme breakups! It's emotional agony, but for these five women, breathtakingly bad endings led to new connections, new wisdom, and new beginnings. Love and learn, says Lise Funderburg.
February 1, 2004... MOST LIVING, BREATHING adults endure multiple romantic fractures in the course of a lifetime, but only one actual heart-splitting, Richter-scale breakup. In its aftermath, devastation tucks you in at night and wakes you up in the morning. Your...

Radical romance: what does it take to love well and wisely? Risk, resilience, and a good enough childhood--not a great one, just good enough. Ethel Person talks matters of the heart with Cathleen Medwick.(Interview)
February 1, 2004... ON MY WAY TO INTERVIEW ETHEL Person, MD, the celebrated psychoanalyst and Columbia University professor who teaches and writes about love, I took a little detour into my past. Around the corner from Person's home was the quaint old brownstone...

Love: the verb; If you're doing love right, it can last through joy and heartache, chronic lateness and noisy chewing. Couples therapists-and longtime marrieds-Harville Hendrix and Helen Hunt tell Dawn Raffel why real love means never making the other person say they're sorry.(Interview)
February 1, 2004... ASK ANYONE ABOUT LOVE AND THEY'LL give you an opinion: It's written in the stars. It's succulent, a rose. It's delightful, de-lovely... unless it's a battlefield. In any event, it's one hell of a feeling, right? We might want to rethink...

Breathing space.
February 1, 2004... Stand at the edge of this deserted beach and watch soft, snow-white clouds billow across the Atlantic. PHOTOGRAPH BY SKIP BROWN

Work style: the O memo.(Brief Article)
February 1, 2004... There's a new cool in business clothes: jackets with zip, skirts you can move in, colors that are perfectly clear, the surprise of white. Welcome to our first fashion bulletin for spring. PHOTOGRAPHS BY WILLIAM GARRETT

Beauty man-tested.
February 1, 2004... Glossy lips (on you, not him). Hair that feels silky (not crunchy). Skin fresh from the shower--warm and scented (not too scented). O gave the models on these four pages--and 30 other willing couples--a week to try out some of our favorite...

Is this any way to have a baby? Thousands of women are taking fertility drugs, but no one is telling them they're putting their lives on the line. We asked Barbara Seaman--the reporter who alerted the world to the dangers of birth control pills and hormone replacement therapy--to investigate the risks of pushing the reproductive envelope.
February 1, 2004... WHEN LOUISE BROWN, THE WORLD'S first test-tube baby, was born, in 1978, no one followed the news reports with more excitement than Liz Tilberis, then a 30-year-old fashion editor at British Vogue. After several years of trying to get pregnant,...

Strategies and details for food.(Love That!)
February 1, 2004... THE RECIPES [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Pucker Up! Do the right zing. Infuse shrimp, chicken, and pies with a citrus splash (for story, see page 152). Orange Maple Pancakes Syrup: 1 1/2 cups maple syrup 1 tsp. vanilla...

The Home Depot[R] presents.(Special Advertising Section)
February 1, 2004... Leigh Emshoff & Eric McGough [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Just one look--and a little two-stepping--was all it took for these Texas-born, line-dancing fans to make a love connection. After a first date on the Fourth of July, there were...

Merger: designer rejoy geehan's vision.(Special Advertising Section)
February 1, 2004... "I always start with one key piece that inspires the whole space." [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Color: For the front rooms, the designer developed a muted, primary color palette based on one of the many area rugs available at The Home...

The Home Depot how-to: flooring it.(Special Advertising Section)(Brief Article)
February 1, 2004... #1 Instead of refinishing motor-head Eric's home-office hardwood floors, the Merge team gives them the winning look of the checkered flag at the end of a race. After a light sanding and mopping, apply a diluted wash (40 percent paint, 60...

Color your world: the Solutions revolution.(Special Advertising Section: Approaching the Finish Line.)(Brief Article)
February 1, 2004... "Nothing is more boring than going info a home and seeing every wall the same color," says Merge's decorating diva, Rejoy Geehan. When you're merging or just redecorating, nothing makes selection simpler than The Home Depot's Color Solutions...

What I know for sure.
February 1, 2004... I'VE BEEN RACKING MY BRAIN FOR weeks over what I know for sure about love. Let's face it: Love's an intimidating subject that's been done and overdone, trivialized and dramatized to the point of mass delusion about what it is and isn't. ...