O, The Oprah Magazine articles from February 2007

O, The Oprah Magazine archives from February 2007

At the O-ffice.(this issue: the back story)
February 1, 2007... We've all found ways to make our workspaces in the dazzling new Hearst Tower our own. For Oprah that meant calling on decorators Elissa Cullman and Lizzy Dexter to adapt her sleek corner office to her cozy aesthetic. They asked Mark Uriu to...

We hear you! Readers applaud interracial adoption (but question color blindness), say "hello, kitty" to big-cat sanctuaries, and paint themselves out of the overhelping corner.(letters)(Letter to the editor)
February 1, 2007... Perfect Harmony I was moved by "The Hallelujah Chorus" [by Aimee Lee Ball, December]. I hope it spurs other American families to consider adopting older minority children, as my husband and I did four years ago. We already had a son and a...

We did it!(Letter to the editor)
February 1, 2007... Liz Brody's article about the violence against Congolese women--and how donations from O readers have helped combat its effects--proves what good can happen when we all join forces. I felt enlightened to learn of the progress these five women...

Beasts unburdened.(letters)(Letter to the editor)
February 1, 2007... Thank you for "Where the Wild Things End Up," about Tippi Hedren's California sanctuary for abandoned large cats. I was disappointed, however, to see that you left Big Cats of Serenity Springs, near Colorado Springs, Colorado, off the...

Martha to the rescue.(letters)(Letter to the editor)
February 1, 2007... I read Martha Beck's December story, "Overhelpers Anonymous," with great interest. Like Ivan, the guy with the Messiah complex, I was raised by two mentally ill parents. As a result, my younger brother and sister depended on me for direction...

Blind beauty.(letters)(Letter to the editor)
February 1, 2007... Thank you for Simon Doonan's December article, "The Plain Truth About the Beautiful People." It brought such laughter into my day! I howled when I read about Aunt Phyllis being pulled into her friend's open grave by Lassie, her Seeing Eye dog....

Reality check.(letters)(Letter to the editor)
February 1, 2007... David Foster Wallace put my thoughts into such well-articulated words. In "The Capital-T Truth" [December], he reminded me that other people's actions aren't always about me and that, for the most part, we all act in our own self-interest. And...

Healing outside the lines.(letters)(Letter to the editor)
February 1, 2007... I hung on every word of "Lynn Sherr's Aha! Moment" [December]. I, too, lost my husband--he was 41, I was 32. And as with Lynn, all my "well-intended but clueless friends" told me how long I should grieve, what I should do, what I should say......

Losing grace.(letters)(Letter to the editor)
February 1, 2007... "Holding On" [December], Ann Hood's piece about her relationship with her husband after the death of their child, was one of the best stories I've ever read. I was stunned by the turn it took; I cried and cried, and then shared it with my...

Ms. McDreamy.(letters)(Letter to the editor)
February 1, 2007... Thank you for "Oprah Talks to Shonda Rhimes" [December]. Grey's Anatomy is reminiscent of my days at Harlem Hospital in New York, where we had one of the most diverse medical staffs in the country: Our chiefs were Middle Eastern,...

Eat, think, and be thin.(letters)(Letter to the editor)
February 1, 2007... I loved Aimee Lee Ball's article on the different approaches to weight loss ["Losing Weight: The Mind Game," December]. I've effectively used all the practices described in the article--intuitive eating, hypnosis, cognitive behavioral therapy,...

Corrections.(letters)(Correction notice)
February 1, 2007... Corrections: The starry pendant in December's "Getting Dressed: The World Goes Round" (page 141) is made by Rosiblu, not Vera Wang Fine Jewelry. And in January, the credit for the photograph on page 33 ("Live Your Best Life") should have read...

Here we go!(Editorial)
February 1, 2007... DO YOU REMEMBER YOUR FIRST KISS? How about your first job, the first piece of music you ever heard, your first crush? Mine was a boy named Anthony, but that's a whole other column. This month we're looking at life's major firsts, among...

Live your best life.
February 1, 2007... "If you do not give right attention to the one you love, it is a kind of killing. When you are in the car together, if you are lost in your thoughts, assuming you already know everything about her, she will slowly die." [ILLUSTRATION...

Go figure: bath time: bathing may be an everyday occurrence, but taking a bath--now that's an indulgence. How do O readers like to get clean? An oprah.com poll found out.(O-ZONE)(Survey)(Brief article)
February 1, 2007... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] 75 35 82 33 Percentage of Percentage who Percentage who add Percentage respondents say they something fragrant to who bathe who take baths...

The Situation: must-see little movie of the month.(O-ZONE)(Movie review)
February 1, 2007... THE WAR IN IRAQ HAS INSPIRED A HANDFUL OF documentaries seeking to go beyond daily reporting and uncover the complicated, perilous reality of life in the wake of the U.S. invasion. The Situation, the first U.S. feature to take on the subject,...

Screengems.(O-ZONE)(The Secret Life of Words, Fired!)(Brief article)
February 1, 2007... * In Spanish director Isabel Coixet's The Secret Life of Words, Tim Robbins plays a man so badly burned that his motion is limited to his big, boyish eyes and fleshy mouth. With them, Robbins expresses more than most actors do with their entire...

Nugget.(Excerpt)(Brief article)
February 1, 2007... "We settle for so-so sex because most of us don't know how sexual we could be; we know only how sexual we are. How sexual we are has been shaped by decades of indoctrination by... family and friends, teachers, religious leaders, and romantic...

TiVothis.(O-ZONE)(31 Days of Oscar on Turner Classic Movies, Hip-Hop: Beyond Beats and Rhymes on Public Broadcasting Service)(Brief article)
February 1, 2007... * Turner Classic Movies jump-starts the awards season with 31 Days of Oscar, its annual marathon of Academy-recognized movies. Kick off the festival with Two Arabian Knights (February 1 at 6 A.M. Eastern time), which won Lewis Milestone the...

What's playing in Philip Glass's ear?(Music)(Brief article)
February 1, 2007... Philip Glass's works are as famous as any art-music composer's--except that most people who've heard his modernistic songs don't know he wrote them. Glass is responsible for some of Hollywood's most haunting recent soundtracks--Notes on a...

Would you believe--a mix!(Treat)(Barefoot Contessa Brownie Mix)(Product/service evaluation)(Brief article)
February 1, 2007... SURE, THE BAREFOOT CONTESSA'S OUTRAGEOUS Brownie Mix comes in a box, but making it isn't a piece of cake--it calls for a double boiler (okay, or a microwave), an electric beater, and greasing and flouring the pan. But the resulting...

Cure for the common hospital gown.(Good Stuff)(Healing Threads)(Brief article)
February 1, 2007... As if being in the hospital isn't bad enough, you're forced to wear a drab, drafty, revealing-in-the-worst-ways gown. Peg Feodoroff was thinking about the humiliating garment while both she and her sister Claire were undergoing chemotherapy in...

Why you should be watching Studio 60.(O-ZONE)(Brief article)
February 1, 2007... Okay, it's not The West Wing. But Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip, Aaron Sorkin's behind-the-scenes-in-Hollywood drama, is TV you should be tuning in to. Why? For starters there's Sorkin's smart, thoughtful, mile-a-minute dialogue. Delivering it...

Secrets & lies: if you know a secret the rest of the world doesn't, it can drive you nuts. From dealing with little white lies to exposing a sexual harasser, Martha Beck considers how, when--and when not--to let the cat out of the bag.(advice, etc.)
February 1, 2007... AS A REGISTERED NURSE, JAMIE OFTEN FINDS HERself keeping other people's secrets. Most of the time, this doesn't bother her; she empathizes with patients who conceal a scary diagnosis. But recently, Jamie found herself holding a couple of...

Dr. Phil: "focus on your own marriage, not your parents'".(advice, etc.)
February 1, 2007... Q My father just left my mother after 34 years for a younger woman. This made me suspicious of my own husband, so I did something very wrong: I looked on his computer, where I found a saved conversation between him and his ex-girlfriend. My...

Suze Orman: "you seem to think that it's wrong to have money": what should I do with a big inheritance? ... Is it a mistake to leave a good job and go back to school? ... Can I force my ex to buy me out?(Handling inheritance)(Career change for better life)(Co-ownership )
February 1, 2007... Q As an only child, I'm about to come into a large inheritance. I'm a teacher, and the money (and the interest it generates) could support me for the rest of my life. My difficulty lies in the guilt and confusion associated with this windfall....

Regina King's aha! Moment: she shoots, she scores! Or does she? The actress learns when to let the game go.(advice, etc.)
February 1, 2007... I WAS IN LAS VEGAS LAST FALL FOR an L.A. Lakers preseason game with my son. At a kickoff party, I was talking to a football player who happened to be in town. He wasn't a Lakers fan or anything--not the way my son and I are. "Wow, you...

The thrill of the new.(something to think about)(Brief article)
February 1, 2007... What do boot camps, wilderness programs, and Survivor have in common with a spa? Serious quantities of mud, for one. People deliberately putting themselves in scary situations, for another. The experts at Miraval Life in Balance Resort & Spa...

The O list: "a few things I think are just great."--Oprah.
February 1, 2007... Red, White, and Oooh "Red velvet cake is a Southern classic. It's rich, gorgeous, fun--everything you'd want in a dessert or, for that matter, a man. This month a portion of the proceeds from online sales will go to the American Heart...

Look what we found! Watches that know how to have a good time.(getting dressed)(Buyers guide)(Brief article)
February 1, 2007... Funny Faces Dials and hands beat digital displays any day--they seem more human. (Look closely: The cute, funky pieces in this photo are arranged to mimic a face.) 1. We bet you'll be charmed by a casino-themed bracelet (the roulette wheel...

Look what we found! A rainbow of luscious lipsticks, garden-fresh bath oils, an eye-soothing makeup remover, and more. Here's what O's beauty editors--Valerie Monroe and Jenny Bailly--fell in love with this month.(beauty)
February 1, 2007... Having long admired Japanese ingenuity, we weren't surprised to read that the 48 new shades of lipstick (Rouge Unlimited by Shu Uemura, $23 each) contain a highly advanced pigment technology that delivers rich, long-lasting color. But when we...

Ask Val: you've got questions? Our beauty director, Valerie Monroe, has answers.(beauty)
February 1, 2007... Q In winter I get itchy, dry patches everywhere, and moisturizers don't seem to help. Did you know that 50 percent of women take long, hot showers, even though most of them know that it dries out the skin? (That would be me.) Instead,...

No skidding! Winter driving 101.(body wise)
February 1, 2007... GET IN THE CAR; make sure the doors are closed. (Check.) Gas in the tank? (Check.) Buckle up. (Double-check.) [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] So far, so good. But if it's snowing or icy out, now's not the time to sit back and blast the radio...

Skinny cocktail hour.(body wise)(Brief article)
February 1, 2007... YES, MIXING your rum with diet cola will cut calories. But it may also increase your risk of getting a DUI citation, according to a new study on eight young men. Australian researchers found that cocktails made with diet, versus regular, soda...

Pilates makes a splash.(body wise)(Brief article)
February 1, 2007... THERE'S NO disputing the benefits of exercising in water, and people who do Pilates rave about it as though it's a religion, thanks to its elongating, postural correctness. Put the two together and you get the latest wave in fitness: water...

The wireless wounded.(body wise)
February 1, 2007... WE USED TO PUSH paper; now we push buttons--and the result is getting ever more painful. From BlackBerries and Treos to cell phones and iPods, our miniaturized, high-tech gizmos are leaving us with a whole new set of repetitive stress injuries...

The sounds of sleepiness.(Brief article)
February 1, 2007... FOR ANYONE WHO'S way too familiar with Ambien and Sonata or sick of lying awake while the rest of the world slumbers, a new neurofeedback technique could be music--literally--to your ears. Galina Mindlin, MD, PhD, assistant clinical professor...

The Diet Detective.(Brief article)
February 1, 2007... If you picked up a menu and saw "Three hours of walking" next to the Porterhouse steak--that being what you'd have to do to burn off the calories--would you be more likely to order the "Less than an hour's stroll" roasted chicken? That's what...

The truth about health Web sites.
February 1, 2007... IF YOU HAVE A question about blood sugar, an obvious place to go is the American Diabetes Association's Web site. Bone density? The National Osteoporosis Foundation. Gender differences in heart disease? The Society for Women's Health Research....

"But I don't eat that much!" You may think you're eating less and working out lots. So why can't you lose any weight? Emily Yoffe finds out what's really going on. Before you blame your metabolism--or yourself--read this.
February 1, 2007... THERE'S YOUR FRIEND IN SIZE 6 JEANS WHO ALWAYS SEEMS to be attacking a cookie-dough ice cream cone; there's the stick-figure colleague who lunches on burritos the size of her head. And then there's you. Day after day, you toss the bread from...

The way to eat: David L. Katz, MD, sorts out the healthy, the harmful, and the hype.(Grape juice and red wine show cardiovascular benefits)(Reducol for lower cholesterol levels)(Stress management)
February 1, 2007... Q I've read that drinking red wine benefits the heart. Does 100 percent red grape juice have the same healthy effect? --MONA KRUSE, Milan, Illinois With grape juice, you'd be missing out on wine's alcohol, which in moderation...

To stir, with love: music isn't the food of love. Food is (though never, ever soup or pheasant). Celia Barbour uncovers the most seductive sauce on earth.
February 1, 2007... A SLICE OF BREAD CAN BE SEXY IF IT'S HANDLED RIGHT; TOASTED, FOR example, and spread with pale butter and honey, and brought to you in bed by a man with whom you have just spent the night. Oysters on the half shell are seldom so potent an...

Extreme Close-Ups.(Brief article)
February 1, 2007... It's all about appetite--the "appetite for life," as Danish-born photographer Marc Hom puts it in his introduction to Marc Hom: Portraits (TeNeues), a luxuriously oversize edition of his work. Known primarily as a fashion photographer for...

The Heat Seekers: A shimmering new novel explores the ache and ferocity of desire.(Brief article)(Book review)
February 1, 2007... AN ITALIAN SUMMER, IN THE BUSY household of an American professor on the Riviera, a house where friends and visitors amble down the narrow stairs to the beach for a swim every morning and you never quite know how many people will appear for...

The Fear Factor: Heights, spiders, bridges: a gripping account of what wracks our nerves.(Book review)
February 1, 2007... "A phobia," in Allen Shawn's lyrical description, "is like a pain in the soul," and his catalog of the horrors to which we humans fall prey approaches a kind of poetry: "Some people have a fear of the sound of their own voices (phonophobia) or...

Crooked Hearts: A wonderfully intricate novel of love, murder, and mayhem in Havana.(Brief article)(Book review)
February 1, 2007... I HADN'T HEARD OF MAYRA MONTERO BEFORE picking up Dancing to "Almendra" (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, translated from the Spanish by Edith Grossman), but now I'm itching to get hold of her eight other novels. The Cuban-born writer has crafted a...

Up (and Down) with Love.(Love Poetry Out Loud)(Brief article)(Book review)
February 1, 2007... The ritziest country club has a less restricted admittance policy than the usual cloistered collections of love poetry, with their odes to the joys, passions, and many splendoredness of the thing that's like a red, red rose. Love Poetry Out...

Hardy, Unobscured: An essential English novelist and poet finally gets the biography he deserves.(Thomas Hardy: The Time-Torn Man)(Brief article)(Book review)
February 1, 2007... Thomas Hardy is one of the great novelists in the English language, writing in the last third of the 19th century, when the form was at its peak. With George Eliot, Henry James, and Robert Louis Stevenson, he forms a glittering bridge between...

BibliO: A Gypsy poet, a visionary teacher, a woman warrior, literary friends for life.(Bibliography)
February 1, 2007... * It starts in the back of the throat: the desire to break silence, to cross boundaries, to transpose joy and sorrow into song. Colum McCann's Zoli (Random House) tells of a charismatic singer-poet in 1940s Czechoslovakia who, with her...

After Sylvia.(Lover of Unreason: Assia Wevill, Sylvia Plath's Rival and Ted Hughes's Doomed Love)(Brief article)(Book review)
February 1, 2007... SHE WAS A HIGH-VOLTAGE BEAUTY WITH a taste for literature and intrigue. Assia Wevill's exotic looks and seductively feral behavior attracted poet Ted Hughes (she mailed him a single blade of grass suffused with Dior perfume). Their subsequent...

Books That Made a Difference to Sarah Paulson: The actress finds company and consolation in a familiar-feeling memoir, a collection of poetry, a darkly intense modern novel, and the spare beauty of Ann Beattie.
February 1, 2007... YOU KNOW HOW SOME PEOPLE CAN make you feel safer simply because they're walking around in the world? Even if you were raised differently or one of you is 15 years older, you feel they understand you completely. [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] ...

Lots of love: as sweet as a kiss out of nowhere, four thoughtful little valentines to slip under a door, into a pocket ... Who said love wasn't easy?(O to go)(Brief article)
February 1, 2007... "I have found that to love and be loved is the most empowering and exhilarating of all human emotions." --JANE GOODALL [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] "Still I enjoy The long sweetness of the simultaneity, yours and mine, ours and mine...

Love: what's age got to do with it? We read the women's sports pages (i.e., the wedding announcements) as avidly as anyone, and is it just us, or are there more and more couples with more than a few years between them? Women marrying men a quarter of a century older or a dozen years younger. And we wonder: how's that working for them? Lois Smith Brady gets to the heart of age blindness.(connections)
February 1, 2007... FOR THE PAST 12 YEARS, I have written about weddings for The New York Times, and learned one lesson: Love can blindside you. Over and over again, I've interviewed people who kept lists of qualities they were looking for in a spouse--a Wall...

How to Improve Your Marriage Without Talking About It: forget everything you've heard about frankness, sharing your feelings, getting him to express his. New research into the male mind makes it clear that discussion may be the fastest way to shut down communication. (Oh, you've noticed that, have you?) Barbara Graham reports.(connections)
February 1, 2007... WHEN I FIRST HEARD ABOUT THE book, I thought it was a gimmick. How to Improve Your Marriage Without Talking About It sounded like a title somebody's prankster husband dreamed up after a rocky couples' therapy session. When I mentioned it to...

Lisa Kogan tells all: some couples will always have Paris--some hit the occasional iceberg. Our ever-loving columnist goes in search of real romance.(connections)
February 1, 2007... EVER HEAR THE ONE ABOUT the guy who had peachy-pink peonies imported from Chile every February? Apparently, he wanted to guarantee his sweetheart a touch of spring each morning. Then there's that story of the man who kept his wife's...

Goodbye, hello! When the love of his life left him stranded, was it the end of all his happiness--or a chance to strip away some emotional clutter and let the future come to him? Mark Matousek discovers the incredible lightness of losing.(connections)
February 1, 2007... MY LIFE FELL APART THREE YEARS ago. One cold afternoon, a week before Christmas, my longtime companion dropped a bombshell that ended our ten-year relationship, exploding the shelter--domestic, emotional--I had planned to inhabit the rest of my...

The pain stops here: at home they were starved, flogged, raped. Now an amazing psychologist, Karen Hanscom, is helping torture victims heal emotionally by using the strength that got them to America in the first place. Eliza Griswold is impressed.(PHENOMENAL WOMAN)
February 1, 2007... ON A GIVEN WEDNESDAY MORNING, if you saw 55-year-old Karen Hanscom, PhD, leave the Baltimore Museum of Art in her silver Audi TT sports car after attending an art history class, you might imagine that she's simply out for a morning's...

Leave strong: how do you survive getting divorced (in a painfully public way) from Lance Armstrong? Pay attention to the lessons you can learn from potted plants, pacifiers, and balloons. Kristin Armstrong reports.(connections)
February 1, 2007... WHEN I WAS IN THE MIDST OF MY DIVORCE FROM LANCE AND IN NO MOOD for inspirational tales, someone told me one anyway about a woman who was hiking along a cliff (brilliant idea, always). She falls--but after tumbling and scraping down the hill,...

The O interview: Oprah talks to Bobby Kennedy Jr.: the ardent environmentalist opens up about his family, politics, the worrisome state of our planet, and how a few changes in the law could make us all healthier, wealthier, and safer. ...(Interview)
February 1, 2007... The front hallway of Bobby Kennedy Jr.'s home in Mt. Kisco, New York, bears a framed letter from former president Richard Nixon. "While your father and I were political opponents," Nixon wrote, "I always respected him as one of the ablest...

My first cooking disaster.(FIRSTS)
February 1, 2007... Remember your first day of school? Your first job? Your first crush? Your first broken heart? On the next 13 pages, writers, celebs, and a few extraordinary ordinary people tell the stories of all kinds of milestone moments in their lives. How...

My first 11 pounds of cheesecake (in 9 minutes).(FIRSTS)(Brief article)
February 1, 2007... WITH CHEESECAKE YOU don't need to practice--you just swallow. It goes down smooth. It's not like hot dogs. A hot dog, you have to chew. You have to use your teeth. [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] The competition where I set the record was the...

My first broken heart.(FIRSTS)(Brief article)
February 1, 2007... I've never gone in for clothing with writing on it. Team jackets, T-shirts kitted out with goofy slogans--I can't even bear a discreet logo. At some point, though, I must have owned a pair of pants with KICK ME embroidered in bright letters...

My first job.(FIRSTS)(Brief article)
February 1, 2007... I lied about my age. I think you had to be 16 to work, but I was 14. An old 14. I was a customer at a boutique called Shurries, in Cedarhurst, Long Island, when I said to the owner, "Listen, can I work here?" How much money I made, I have not a...

My first act as president: if celebs ran the White House. ...(FIRSTS)(Brief article)
February 1, 2007... SAMANTHA BEE correspondent, The Daily Show with Jon Stewart BAN MOUSTACHES. Period. (I'm looking at you, Geraldo.) And make panty lines fashionable. I like "coverage" in my foundation garments, and I'm tired of pretending otherwise. ...

My first day off.(FIRSTS)(Brief article)
February 1, 2007... When I retired from the army in 1993, there was a huge ceremony at Fort Myer in Virginia. President Clinton was there, as well as Vice President Gore; there were 1,000 people at the reception. I had served 35 years. I'd had a staff of 1,500. I...

My first casualty.(FIRSTS)
February 1, 2007... I was 22, a rifle platoon leader in Vietnam. It was a great platoon, great guys. Chubby Hale, Whitey Travers, Little Joe Arnold--everybody had a nickname except Guido Farinaro. Having Guido for a name was good enough. [ILLUSTRATION...

My first international incident.(FIRSTS)
February 1, 2007... I WAS 30, WORKING as the Pentagon reporter for a national newspaper chain. Press breakfasts were part of the routine--lots of men and lots of cholesterol around a table in a nondescript hotel meeting room. One morning I listened as the...

My first love scene (with another woman).(FIRSTS)(Brief article)
February 1, 2007... I INITIALLY TOOK the part on The L Word at the suggestion of my daughter Clementine. She said, "I think you should do this. It's important"--which is remarkable, because it's pretty embarrassing to a child to watch her mother having sex...

My first splurge.(FIRSTS)(Brief article)
February 1, 2007... I'LL NEVER FORGET: I was staying at the Essex House hotel in New York City for the U.S. Open. My sisters and I were walking along Lexington Avenue, and I said, "Oh, look at the doggy store! I want a dog." I decided on Jackie the Jack Russell...

My first sounds.(FIRSTS)
February 1, 2007... I GREW UP IN NEW York City, and on September 11 I was living with my sister about five blocks from the World Trade Center. We saw the towers get hit, we saw people jumping, we saw people covered with all that white ash. And everywhere we went,...

My first Brazilian wax.(FIRSTS)(Brief article)
February 1, 2007... Yikes! Having only ever had the gentlest (or at least the most pleasurably ungentle) treatment between my legs, I was left breathless by the ripping-out-hair-by-the-root that is exotically known as the Brazilian bikini wax. The woman who...

My first impression of ...: love at first sight, or not so much? Notable couples recall their fateful meetings.(FIRSTS)
February 1, 2007... MAUREEN ORTH author, Vanity Fair special correspondent We met at a party I was covering for the 1980 Democratic convention in New York. Tim was working for Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan, and he kept giving me funny quotes for my story. Of...

My first date with my wife.(FIRSTS)(Brief article)
February 1, 2007... I met Michelle in 1988, after my first year of law school, when I took a summer job at Sidley & Austin, a law firm in Chicago. A year earlier I had been working as a community organizer in some of Chicago's poorest neighborhoods, and I...

My first "D'oh!".(FIRSTS)(Brief article)
February 1, 2007... IT STARTED WITH THE SIMPSONS SHORTS on The Tracey Ullman Show. Matt Groening directed those early sessions, and when I saw "annoyed grunt" in the script, I asked him, "What is that?" And he said, "Whatever you want it to be." Usually Matt has a...

My first day at school.(FIRSTS)
February 1, 2007... WE MOVED AROUND A LOT WHEN I was a kid, and I'd been new at school a bunch of times--in Canada, in Australia, in Canada again. But in 1980, it felt harder: We were moving to yet another new country--the United States--and this time my new...

My first scare.
February 1, 2007... As a child, I was obsessed with movies. I would get dropped off at this wonderful old theater in Laguna Beach, California, that had murals of pirate ships and Spanish conquistadores done in an ornate rococo style. They had a children's...

My first crush: the ecstasy, the agony, the guy from algebra class ...
February 1, 2007... TY PENNINGTON host of Extreme Makeover: Home Edition THERE WAS A FRIENDLY mom at our neighborhood pool who looked just like Cheryl Tiegs. I've looked forward to adult swim ever since. [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] KRISTIN CHENOWETH...

My first day of freedom.
February 1, 2007... I WAS SENTENCED TO LIFE IN prison for three sexual assaults I didn't commit, and I served 19 years, two months, and 29 days. Not that I counted. On April 1--April Fool's Day--2003, I got the word that I was going to be released....

... Is for chocoholic: where do you go for the most intensely chocolaty gelato; cocoa-dusted truffles; pure, spicy, mega-rich hot chocolate (the way Marie Antoinette drank it); a napoleon that's all ooze and aahs; and a cake that people line up for at midnight? (We'll give you the recipe.) Peter Smith profiles five cutting-edge chocolatiers.
February 1, 2007... A Piece of His Heart THE CREATIONS: Rich, whimsical, uberfresh chocolates spiked with the unlikely flavors of chilies, lavender, black currants, and tropical fruit. Each candy contains the highest possible quality cacao beans, butter, and...

Breathing space.
February 1, 2007... GAY HEAD LIGHTHOUSE, MARTHA'S VINEYARD, MASSACHUSETTS, JANUARY 1981. [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Photograph by Alison Shaw

The ticking point: Peggy Orenstein had a great marriage, a good career, a wonderful life. And then she decided it was time to get pregnant. In an exclusive adaptation from her new book, she tells the story of her husband-alienating, sanity-crushing, money-sucking, tragicomic six-year obsession.
February 1, 2007... I MARRIED A MAN WHO IS FAR BETTER looking than I. It's not that I'm a candidate for a dogfight, exactly, but no one's ever going to confuse me with Heidi Klum. Meanwhile my husband, Steven, a documentary filmmaker, was once plastered on...

What great eyes you have!
February 1, 2007... Blushing is easy. Lipstick? Piece of cake. Eye makeup--that's where a lot of us go too far (obvious shadow, klutzy liner) or not far enough (eyes? what eyes?). If there's anyone who can make you look as if you were born with the most...

45 killer shoes: that won't kill your feet.
February 1, 2007... It was a sole-searching mission: We called in 525 pairs of spring shoes--from chic flats to knockout, I-Am-Woman stilettos. Then we asked top New York podiatrist Jaleh Hoorfar to pick out the ones that your feet will thank you for. Who says...

Oprah's personal pain-O-meter.(Cover story)(Brief article)
February 1, 2007... Most of us organize our shoes according to style, color, or occasion (which pairs are for work, weekends, or big nights out). But Oprah also organizes hers by how long she can bear to keep them on her feet. 0 Minutes "I love these shoes,...