O, The Oprah Magazine articles from January 2006

O, The Oprah Magazine archives from January 2006

We hear you! All together now! Readers speak out on gangs, natural disasters, Cindy Sheehan....(letters)(Letter to the Editor)
January 1, 2006... Thank you for November's "What I Know for Sure." Over the past year, the world has watched nature take its toll. And no matter where the disasters have occurred--Indonesia, Pakistan, the United States--humanity has been affected. We need to...

Correction.(Correction Notice)
January 1, 2006... Calla Thompson photographed Katherine Russell Rich for the October 2005 Contributors page.

A fresh start.(Advertisement)
January 1, 2006... The season of focusing all your energy on others is coming to a close. Now it's time to turn your attention back to you--your health, your happiness, your beauty. Check out these refreshing products and services to reinvigorate for the year...

Here we go!(Cover Story)
January 1, 2006... This month we're introducing you to 11 women who are doing work that gratifies, exhilarates, and makes them really happy (page 124). They all started exactly the same way, with a bright idea--no, scratch that--they started with a tiny glimmer...

January.(Calendar)
January 1, 2006... "Never underestimate your power to change yourself...." --H. Jackson Brown Jr. "Getting started, keeping going, getting started again--in art and in life, it seems to me this is the essential rhythm...."--Seamus Heaney [TABLE...

Live your best life.
January 1, 2006... "My life... is about not knowing, having to change, taking the moment and making the best of it, without knowing what's going to happen next."--Gilda Radner [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]

Terrence Howard's Crash landing.(Movies)(Brief Article)(Interview)
January 1, 2006... Terrence Howard is hitting his stride. The 13-year Hollywood veteran gave a breakout performance last year as the temperate-to-a-fault TV director in the word-of-mouth hit Crash. He was then acclaimed for his turn as a Memphis pimp in the...

Springtime for Stroman.(Movies)(Brief Article)
January 1, 2006... WHEN MEL BROOKS asked Susan Stroman to direct the Broadway production of The Producers, she wasn't in an especially comedic mood. The show was supposed to have been directed by Michael Ockrent, her husband and collaborator, who'd died of...

Nugget.(anticipationLIST)
January 1, 2006... "DOING STUFF THAT SCARES the hell out of you... does have a place. In most cases it can't kill you, and the learning curve can be exhilaratingly steep. It opens your head up at an age when you're tempted to shut it down.... You want to slow...

The hallelujah chorus.(Music)(Brief Article)
January 1, 2006... The Soweto Gospel Choir makes our world seem beautifully small. The 26-member group performs in six languages, blending traditional hymns, Western pop, and their native South African harmonies into a singularly joyful sound. Their new album,...

Q & A with Shirley MacLaine.(anticipationLIST)(Brief Article)(Interview)
January 1, 2006... Shirley MacLaine would like to spend more time on her ranch in New Mexico, focusing on her writing and cuddling with her dogs (she has ten). But the 71-year-old Academy Award winner keeps getting movie offers that are too juicy to refuse. "I...

A little slice of heaven: from event designer Colin Cowie, a perfect wintry delicacy--mood mellowing, brandy scented, sublime.(Treat)(Brief Article)
January 1, 2006... Darlings, I'm going to warm up your winter with a little help from my sister, Anne. Her brandy tart is cozy, nutty, and nurturing--a perfect end to any chilly January evening with friends. I always make extras to freeze as gifts. Then I just...

A book-tasting club.(Reading)(Brief Article)
January 1, 2006... Five years ago, Floridian Suzanne Beecher wanted to do something for the busiest people she knew: working mothers at the small software company she ran with her husband. "They had dreams and no time to pursue them," she says. "I thought that...

Nugget.(anticipationLIST)(Brief Article)
January 1, 2006... "MINDFULNESS TEACHES US to notice our thoughts, feelings, and bodily sensations without immediately categorizing them as good or bad. We learn to be more compassionate toward ourselves, responding to our thoughts and feelings as a friend might,...

Six great all-girl getaways.(Travel)
January 1, 2006... New Year's resolutions don't have to be a drag--why not resolve to take that trip with the girls that you've always talked about? You know: no husbands, no kids, just you and your friends getting out of town, trying something different? This is...

What do those women have that you don't? Phillip C. McGraw, PHD, says the first step to becoming one of those sparkling, self-assured women everyone wants to be around is to fall a little bit in love with yourself.(advice, etc.)
January 1, 2006... "I want people to love in a smart way--being smart about who they are, what they have to offer, what they want and need," Dr. Phil says. Having listened to countless frustrated complaints that all the good men are taken, he counters, "Most...

Suze Orman: "you need more than just passion to start a business--you need a plan"; How do you get a fraudulent charge off your report--for good? What's the best way to start your own business? When should you buy a bigger home?(advice, etc.)
January 1, 2006... Q Eight years ago, my identity was stolen. One of the fraudulent debts carries over from collection agency to collection agency, no matter what I do. As soon as it's taken off the records of all three credit-reporting agencies, it finds its way...

Something to think about.
January 1, 2006... We start. We stop. We start again. Each time we get a little further. Then, in a flash, the whole enterprise takes off and we're soaring. Everything significant begins with a vision and a first step. Are you ready? Consider the following: ...

How to be wildly successful: if at first you don't succeed ... ask yourself, Am I an otter? A squirrel? A mouse? The answer could spell the difference between things going swimmingly and squeaking to a halt. Martha Beck helps you find your own winning style.(advice, etc.)(Brief Article)
January 1, 2006... IT WAS A PROBLEM I'D NEVER ANTICIPATED: My brainy daughter was having trouble in school. Katie began teaching herself to read at 15 months and tested at a "post-high school" level in almost every subject by fourth grade. Yet her middle-school...

Virginia Madsen's aha! moment: her career was iffy, her self-esteem careening, her spirit shot, and her neck banged up. So what the heck was the Sideways star doing hurling herself down a snowy mountain?(advice, etc.)
January 1, 2006... AFTER MY SON WAS born in 1994, I was exhausted and depleted--a single mother with undiagnosed postpartum depression and a baby who couldn't sleep through the night. I felt lazy and toxic and had no energy for auditions, and anyway, I was old...

Where does it hurt?(O to go)
January 1, 2006... ... and what can you take for it that won't hurt your health? Even with the killer painkillers like Vioxx and Bextra off the market, there are still plenty of options. Tape these smart cards inside your medicine cabinet as a handy guide to what...

Cosmetic breakthrough: better than Botox[R]*?(cream called StriVectin-SD[R])
January 1, 2006... "The stretch-mark cream turned anti-wrinkle phenomenon![TM]" In a remarkable turn of events, arguably one of the strangest in the history of cosmetics, women across the country are putting a stretch-mark cream called StriVectin-SD[R] on...

The O list.(Buyers guide)
January 1, 2006... "A few things I think are just great."--OPRAH Good, Clean Fun "These artisanal-quality, moisturizing soaps are refined, light, luxurious, and scented in glorious fragrances--think fresh cucumber and mandarin orange--that linger like...

Look what we found! Your own private lip gloss, a buttery moisturizer, and more. Here's what O's beauty editors--Valerie Monroe and Jenny Bailly--fell in love with this month.(beauty)(Buyers guide)
January 1, 2006... Not that we don't like surprises, but being of a certain temperament, we're often happier having at least a hint about what might be coming next. Give us complete control of a situation? Bossy-girl heaven. So you can imagine the depth of our...

Ask Val: the key to clearing up those annoying little bumps ... A solution to dry, splitting nails ... The best (and easiest) way to tame flyaway hair ... O'S beauty director, Valerie Monroe, gets to the bottom line.(beauty)
January 1, 2006... I'm plagued by little white bumps on the backs of my arms in winter. What are they, and how can I get rid of them? [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] A: If the last thing you want to hear from your doctor is, "I've never seen anything like this...

Does the pill kill your sex drive?(body wise)(Brief Article)
January 1, 2006... * THE FINDINGS: In research being published this month in The Journal of Sexual Medicine, 124 premenopausal women who attended a sexual dysfunction clinic were separated into three groups: birth-control-pill users, former users, and those who...

Chicken pox: the sequel.(body wise)(risk of getting shingles)(Brief article)
January 1, 2006... * ANYONE WHO HAD chicken pox as a child is at risk of getting shingles--an often painful rash or outbreak of blisters caused by the same virus that made you scratch years ago. Although researchers don't know exactly why the virus, called...

Do benign lumps predict breast cancer?(body wise)(Brief Article)
January 1, 2006... * THE FINDINGS: Researchers at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota, studied biopsies of more than 9,000 women with benign breast disease (they had lumps or abnormal mammograms) and found that certain changes can foreshadow breast cancer....

Does acupuncture help headaches?(body wise)(Brief Article)
January 1, 2006... * THE FINDINGS: In a study published in the British Medical Journal, more than 250 patients with persistent tension headaches were either put on an acupuncturist's waiting list for treatment or given one of two regimens: traditional acupuncture...

Invisible fitness move: Pilates for your feet.(body wise)(Brief Article)
January 1, 2006... * Next time you kick off your shoes, try this exercise to strengthen your feet and take pressure off your knees, hips, and back, suggests Jillian Hessel, a master Pilates instructor in Los Angeles and the author of Pilates Basics. Stand...

The way to eat: making sense of a gas crisis ... tuning in to your hunger pangs ... and shredded wheat as a diet plan. David L. Katz, MD, serves up his nutritional savvy.(body wise)
January 1, 2006... Q | I recently finished the second phase of the South Beach diet and intend to stay on the plan permanently. But since I've stopped eating a lot of carbs and begun drinking only water, I pass gas all the time. Why, and what can I do about it?...

What's going on: noteworthy events & happenings.(Advertisement)
January 1, 2006... Dixie[R] "Give Yourself A HAND" Winner Congratulations Ronni of Buffalo, NY--the Dixie[R] "Give Yourself A HAND" contest winner! "All you need is a sincere goal and you can achieve anything." Ronni and a guest will enjoy a getaway to...

A literary moonwalk: Margo Jefferson delivers a fascinating riff on the songs, trials, masks, and meaning of the boy from Neverland.(reading room)(On Michael Jackson)(Brief Article)(Book Review)
January 1, 2006... Who would have imagined that Michael Jackson's troubled career could inspire an eloquent and provocative meditation on (among other things) art and life, minstrel shows and Motown, Peter Pan and P.T. Barnum? Perhaps only Margo Jefferson. Her...

Riveting, my dear Watson: Julian Barnes's dazzling novel about the real-life heroism of Sherlock Holmes's creator.(reading room)(Conan Doyle)(Brief Article)(Book Review)
January 1, 2006... THE NOVEL IS A stubborn form--150 years ago it found the shapes and approaches that suited it, and it has never for long been happy in other clothing. The English novelist Julian Barnes accepts this: He has been fooling around in complex,...

First, know your elephant ... and other keys to happiness.(reading room)(Happiness Hypothesis (Basic))(Brief Article)(Book Review)
January 1, 2006... Jonathan Haidt believes (along with Buddha and Marcus Aurelius) that "our life is the creation of our minds, and we do much of that creating with metaphor." Haidt's favorite metaphor for the human mind is an elephant with a rider on his back....

She drives me crazy: Deborah Tannen decodes the veiled insults, hmms, and oh, really's? between mothers and daughters.(reading room)(Understanding Mothers and Daughters in Conversation)(Brief Article)(Book Review)
January 1, 2006... The phone rings. It's your mother. You start to tell her about your slinky new pants, she asks if you've lost some weight. To her it's an innocent question; to you it's an insult. You jab ("I can't believe you said that!"), she jabbers ("Well,...

Castes and characters: a cranky judge, a rattled cook, a romance gone awry light up a rich, layered novel of India on the edge.(reading room)(Inheritance of Loss)(Brief Article)(Book Review)
January 1, 2006... WITH HER SECOND NOVEL, The Inheritance of Loss (Atlantic Monthly), Kiran Desai has written a sprawling and delicate book, like an ancient landscape glittering in the rain. It focuses on one crumbling household in northern India, the Himalayas...

Since you've been gone: a returning South African finds her own version of truth and reconciliation in Lisa Fugard's dramatic debut novel.(reading room)(Skinner's Drift)(Brief Article)(Book Review)
January 1, 2006... IN HER CHALLENGING FIRST NOVEL, Skinner's Drift (Scribner), Lisa Fugard digs into South Africa's recent transformation and excavates the pain and confusion that the end of apartheid brought to many lives, especially in the Afrikaner backwaters...

Risky business: four truth-telling books about loving, grieving, and daring to embrace your dreams.(reading room)(Last of Her Kind; Journalistas: 100 Years of the Best Writing and Reporting by Women Journalists; Death's Door: Modern Dying and the Ways We Grieve; Koula)(Brief Article)(Book Review)
January 1, 2006... * A passionate honesty grips the heart of The Last of Her Kind (Farrar, Straus and Giroux), Sigrid Nunez's subtle and profoundly moving novel about friendship, romantic idealism, and shame. The narrator, Georgette, and her privileged college...

Books that made a difference to James Frey: the Oprah's Book Club author has a soft spot for literary bad boys (Bret Easton Ellis, Henry Miller, Baudelaire). But where would he be without Lao-tzu?(reading room)(Tao Te Ching; Tropic of Cancer; Paris Spleen; Crossing; Rules of Attraction)(Book Review)
January 1, 2006... I LOVE BOOKS. I LOVE LOOKING AT THEM, HOLDING THEM, staring at them, and shopping for them. When I was a child, I read everything I could get my hands on, usually to the detriment of whatever schoolwork I was supposed to do. As I got older, I...

Promises of an unwed father: his pregnant girlfriend came from a long line of vanishing dads. How could he--a young, unemployed college dropout--persuade her (and her mother) that he'd be any different? Ta-Nehisi Coates remembers the nine most thrilling, unnerving, tightrope-walking months of his life.(connections)
January 1, 2006... EARLY ONE AUGUST MORNING, I stand and pledge a shamed fraternity--The Order of Unmarried Dads. I am the prototype: a college dropout with bad credit, a man who can't hold a steady job. I'm also 24, arrogant, naive, and convinced that "good...

Third time's the charm: novelist Julia Alvarez was married twice before--and couldn't wait to get divorced. What makes this time so (relatively) blissful? Maybe she found the perfect man. Or maybe she just grew up.(connections)
January 1, 2006... I DIDN'T SEEM TO HAVE A PROBLEM GETTING MARRIED. STAYING married was my problem. Happily ever after was a phrase that eluded me. [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] By age 30, I had been married and divorced twice. The first marriage lasted a year;...

Is he the one? Sure he's a plumber. But is he the plumber? Use this guide to decide.(Advertisement)
January 1, 2006... HE IS / HE ISN'T When he arrives at your door... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] He Is If he looks professional. He Isn't If you can tell he had a chilidog for lunch. When he enters your home... He Is If he puts shoe covers on...

Oprah talks to Geena Davis.(Interview)
January 1, 2006... The woman who brilliantly inhabits the Oval Office on Tuesday nights tells Oprah how a six-foot, Oscar-winning Mensa member can still be a doormat, how she finally came into her own (self-defense classes helped), why she married a man 15 years...

Start something big.(Letter to the editor)
January 1, 2006... You say you'd like to open a business, start a wine cellar (or campfire), and be the right kind of New Year's Warrior? But you don't know where to begin? You've come to the right place. We've got instruction, motivation, inspiration (11 women...

Life isn't about dieting, it's about enjoying: Laura Pensiero, RD, celebrated chef, restaurant owner, and coauthor of The Strang Cancer Prevention Center Cookbook, offers a four-week approach to transforming your eating habits. Here, her gorgeously simple plan--and ten recipes that will have you loving every healthy bite you put in your mouth this month.
January 1, 2006... ALMOST HALF THE WOMEN IN THIS country are on a diet. And a year from now, 80 percent of those dieters who lost weight will have gained it back--a shockingly high number. As a trained chef, restaurant owner, healthy-cookbook author, and...

Chop! Chop!
January 1, 2006... Long hair is a good thing--but when it's halfway down your back, is it too much of a good thing? Would a little less be just as sexy, just as versatile, and a lot more flattering? Not to mention easier? We persuaded three women who were really...

A breath of spring: you are entering the Midwinter Style Oasis--a zone full of refreshing colors and breezy shapes that you can mix into your wardrobe now ... and keep on wearing till summer's end.(Buyers Guide)
January 1, 2006... THE GREENING of your closet begins with easy-to-layer, season-bridging pieces: Crewel embroidery adds substance to this coat (Tocca, $385)--try it tomorrow instead of a blazer. Or work the skirt (Gregory Parkinson, $414) with a cashmere...

Ask the bunny: seeking wisdom, weight loss, and a map to the rest of your life? Inside everyone (and that includes you), there's a brilliant coach who'll help you solve all your problems, kick depression, ditch anxiety, manage deadlines, fight off flu, and even recover faster from surgery. Marian Sandmaier (whose own guru happened to be a large blue rabbit) takes you inside the astonishing world of guided imagery.
January 1, 2006... The first time I tried guided imagery, I expected a visit from some gauzy, Glinda the Good Witch figment of my imagination who would benignly advise me on fixing my out-of-whack life. All I knew about guided imagery was that it involved...

Breathing Space.
January 1, 2006... Stand still to marvel at these giant water lilies dotting Brazil's Pantanal wetlands. Breathe in their subtle sweetness, and let your eyes trace a path through the splendid pea green maze. PHOTOGRAPH BY THEG ALLOFS

The troubles in Milford Hills: was it something in the water? Even odder than the small town's alarming cancer rate was the fact that so many people were committing suicide. Coincidence? Or could the nearby industrial plants be poisoning minds as well as bodies? Rick Weisler decided to look into his own mother's death--and came up with some deeply unsettling findings. David France reports.
January 1, 2006... THE ATTRACTIVE RANCH HOUSE, with its majestic shade trees and sweeping horseshoe driveway, looks much as it had when Rick Weisler grew up here in the 1960s. And it is largely unchanged from the day in 1999 when his mother called him back home...

Rise and shine.(Beauty)(Buyers guide)(Brief article)
January 1, 2006... Sleep experts maintain it takes 30 to 60 minutes to wake up completely. Beauty experts say the right products can help you get the job done in less than 15. 1. Amp up the energizing potential of a steamy shower with a zesty shower gel,...

Life Isn't about dieting, it's about enjoying; Funny, they don't look (or taste) dietetic: chicken and couscous, spicy sweet-potato fries, a raisin-rich bread pudding (for story, see page 140).(THE RECIPES)(Recipe)
January 1, 2006... All recipes make 4 servings unless noted. Citrus Pomegranate Chicken over Whole Wheat Couscous [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] 1 chicken (3 1/2 to 4 pounds), cut into 8 pieces, skin removed 3/4 tsp. salt 1/4 tsp. freshly ground pepper 2 Tbsp....

Shop guide (all prices are approximate).(Buyers guide)
January 1, 2006... COVER/HERE WE GO P.27 Carolina Herrera cashmere sweater, Bergdorf Goodman; 800-558-1855. Roland Nivelais taffeta skirt, Bergdorf Goodman; 800-558-1855. LOOK WHAT WE FOUND! P.71 Prescriptives Custom Blend Lip Gloss, $26, select...

What I know for sure.
January 1, 2006... GETTING THREE NEW PUPS AT the same time wasn't the smartest decision I ever made. I acted on impulse, charmed by their cute little faces, intoxicated by that sweet puppy breath and the underbite on Puppy Number Three (Layla). Then I spent weeks...