Feelings

Do you believe Hollywood stars are too trivial a matter to think about in these boiling hot political times? Consider this: The most talked-about political events since Labor Day, a time when voters supposedly get serious about coming elections, were firmly tied up with star-studded show biz. Competing with the MTV Awards for weekend attention was Oprah Winfrey's fundraiser for Illinois Democratic Sen. Barack Obama at her California estate, in which he...

WASHINGTON -- "Poets," noted G.K. Chesterton, "have been mysteriously silent on the subject of cheese." His point was that this was not mysterious: Cheese is not the sort of subject that summons poetic thoughts.Presidents have hitherto been mysteriously silent about child-safety seats. However, last Saturday President Clinton's radio address concerned an improved fastening mechanism for such seats in automobiles. This was the third time this president has used a Saturday address to talk about child-safety seats.

Q. My 4-year-old son is very bright. He has been reading for about a year already and can read Dr. Seuss-type books unassisted. But he's so, so sensitive! The movies "Peter Pan" and "The Wizard of Oz" made him cry so hard. If he feels someone is in danger, he gets upset.Is this part of being smart and seeing more depth to the movies, or is he just a very sensitive little boy?A.It's probably a sign of both - seeing below the surface and being very sensitive to his own issues about aggression.

M. Gary Neuman says there's one sure way not to find out how a child is coping with his parents' divorce."The worst thing you can do is look them square in the eye and ask them," says the family therapist and author.It's not that youngsters aren't willing to share their feelings, he says, it's just that they can't be expected to respond to an adult question like an adult.But put a crayon in their hand - or engage them in a role-playing game - and soon they will divulge their innermost feelings.

FOR EVERY MOM and dad who has been sorely tempted to take a sullen teen-ager seriously when he tells them to ''butt out'' and leave him alone, the Journal of the American Medical Association brought important advice this week: Don't.Early results of the largest survey ever done of adolescent health in the United States show that strong emotional connections with parents and teachers are a key factor in helping teen-agers avoid high-risk behavior.That holds true whether a child comes from a traditional family or a single-parent household and regardless of how much time a parent spends at home.

One fact that's very clear to me as that as an African-American, my family and I cannot thrive and live peacefully in this country without the goodwill of Americans of other races and vice versa.We need more than tolerance of each other, we need more goodwill. It's also my belief that there is plenty of goodwill out there in society. But some people feel a certain vulnerability and have some fears (real and unfounded) about demonstrating that goodwill. People of all races share these feelings.

"Emotional Intelligence: Why It Can Matter More Than IQ," by Daniel Goleman. New York: Bantam Books. 336 pages. $23.95Daniel Goleman, a New York Times journalist with a Ph.D., has produced a book on psychology for the public that will chill any veteran scholar of psychotherapy and any neuroscientist who worries about how his research may come to be applied.Each chapter begins with a little story. "Exactly why David Pologruto, a high-school physics teacher, was stabbed with a kitchen knife by one of his star pupils is still debatable" starts Chapter 3. "As so often happens to five-year-olds with younger siblings, Len has lost all patience with Jay, his two-and-a-half-year-old brother, who is making a mess of the Lego blocks," launches Chapter 8. Each of these stories leads into a broad brush description of some contemporary psychological/neurobiological research that the author thinks illuminates the emotional and brain states of the subjects.

"Ken filed for divorce, and I'm glad," announces Marcia, 32, a beautiful woman whose hands shook as she spoke, "because I can no longer deal with his confrontational, insensitive behavior. I've had five miscarriages in the past few years -- lost five babies -- and he expects me to pretend nothing has happened."Marcia and Ken were in their late 20s when they met four years ago at a ski resort. "We both wanted to have a family right away," Marcia recalls. "At least I thought we did." .After the first few miscarriages, Ken was sweet and supportive, Marcia reports.

We want our teen-age daughters to say "no" to sex, and to that end we drape them in the sack cloth of morality, we pump up their self-esteem, we teach them karate. We sign them up for sports teams and keep them out of the malls. We scare them, we empower them, we wear them out, we lock them up.But those same girls are watching Brad Pitt on the big screen and feeling as though the air-conditioning is off. And we never talk to them about why.We do not teach girls what it is we want them to say "no" to. Until our daughters can identify those sexual feelings inside their changing bodies, until they can say what it feels like to have desires, no one will believe that "no."

Louis Gaste, 88, the French composer who wrote the song that was plagiarized as the hit "Feelings," died of cancer yesterday in Paris. He also wrote the song known as "How Much is that Doggy in the Window?" In 1956, he wrote "Pour Toi" with his wife, Line Renaud. The song went nowhere on the charts. But in 1975, when Morris Albert adapted it as "Feelings," it became a staple of lounge-style crooners, and Mr. Gaste eventually won $500,000 in suing the singer-composer.

Last year was the first Valentine's Day for me and my boyfriend. Never one to fuss over the holiday - it's purely a commercial holiday, in my mind - I casually mentioned to him that I didn't want a big deal made over Valentine's. He agreed, and not another word was said of it. But my casual attitude turned out to be easier said than kept. Since I was covering Valentine's Day for Baltamour, the Baltimore Sun's dating and relationships blog, it was all Cupid, all the time. As I crafted gift guides and picked out card suggestions for those who chose to celebrate the holiday, I fell under its spell.

Do you believe Hollywood stars are too trivial a matter to think about in these boiling hot political times? Consider this: The most talked-about political events since Labor Day, a time when voters supposedly get serious about coming elections, were firmly tied up with star-studded show biz. Competing with the MTV Awards for weekend attention was Oprah Winfrey's fundraiser for Illinois Democratic Sen. Barack Obama at her California estate, in which he...

In the movie Love Actually, a widowed father played by Liam Neeson asks his morose grade-school son what's bothering him. Is it his mother's death? Problems at school? Bullies? "You really want to know?" answers the boy. "Well, truth is - actually - I'm in love." His father is surprised but expresses relief that it's not "something worse." The son fixes him with a look of disbelief: "Worse than the total agony of being in love?" Prepubescent boys aren't supposed to be tormented by romance, and neither are their adolescent brothers.

Any woman who flips through the pages of a bridal magazine knows instantly how she's meant to feel about her wedding day: Like a princess running through a field of daisies on a sunlit morning, with layers of white silk streaming behind. Elated, free, proud and grateful. Complete at last. Talk to the betrothed on the message board of the Web site Indiebride.com, however, and a different picture emerges. "When do the doubts stop?" asks one of the site's 5,644 registered users, going on to discuss her misgivings about the man she's marrying.

At first glance, Valeska Populoh's fancy formal ball gowns look like something lifted straight out of a John Singer Sargent portrait. As upper-class bling, these ornate confections are artworks in their own right: The lines are perfect, the fabrics luxurious and the style impeccable. Each seems to reek of old money and manners. But step closer and the illusion fades. The frilly ruffles, delicate pleats, form-enhancing bustles and other extravagant ornaments of the couturier's art actually are stitched together from bits of plastic garbage bag, black umbrella cloth, old coat linings, carpet scraps and other thrift-store detritus.

It may have been pouring rain, but inside Ryan's Daughter Irish Pub & Restaurant, stars were shining brightly. Three cast members of the movie, Rent, added pizazz to a crowd bubbling with excitement over the film's Baltimore premiere that evening. Wilson Heredia and Anthony Rapp came down from New York to support cast member Tracie Thoms, who is from here. "Family" is how Heredia and Rapp described relationships among the cast. "It's the nature of the story," Herediasaid. In fact, that "family feeling" permeated the place.

The people who come to see psychiatrist Gordon Livingston at his Columbia office are not whiners. That's a common misunderstanding about people who enter talk therapy - that they want someone who will listen to them complain. But the paradox of psychiatry is that it often takes real courage, and sometimes real effort, to crawl out of bed and find help. Just the act of opening the Yellow Pages and picking up the phone may seem impossible to someone in the depths of depression or in terrible turmoil.

ONE THING I pride myself on, as I navigate the rocky shoals of midlife, is that so far I have avoided the many anxiety disorders that pop up in the news every day. Sometimes I wish I could pin my failings on an anxiety disorder, but in all honesty, I know my bad traits are just that - I can't blame them on anything chemical, genetic or hormonal. Finally, though, I may be able to claim an anxiety that is truly caused by an outside force beyond my control. I'll call it Voter Anxiety Disorder, or VAD. Latent symptoms of VAD first surfaced during the last presidential election.

Author Ayelet Waldman has struck a chord with the stay-at-home-mom set. Her bright, funny mysteries weave the woes and wonders of being an at-home mom with the thrills of crime solving. In her Mommy-Track mystery series, Juliet Applebaum, like Waldman herself, is a Harvard Law School graduate and a former Los Angeles public defender who left her job to spend all of her time with her kids. Clad in food-stained sweat shirts and carrying a diaper bag, Juliet solves the murders of such folks as the principal at the most-sought-after preschool in Hollywood and the personal trainer who was going to help her shed those pregnancy pounds.

I AM drowning in bits of information. I am buried under a pile of lists. I have safety tips stuck in my teeth, and I can't move without tripping over a chart, a calendar, a guide or a how-to. I know "What's Hot." I have all the "Details." I have heard the "Buzz." And I am quick with the "Quick Tips." I know everything because I read magazines, but everything I know has come to me in bite-sized pieces -- a word, a sentence fragment, a picture caption, a bold-faced quotation, a glossary, a Q&A, a tearout or pullout.