Are You Trying To Tell Us Something MoDo?

First Bobo on Saturday publishes a truly bizarre op-ed that Attaturk discussed. Now we have MoDo kvetching about why she hates Christmas. There are lots of reasons to hate Christmas: the consumerism, non-stop advertising, music, and nightly news about how we owe it to the economy to shop till we drop.

But MoDo turns it into a pathetic rant becasue she has lovingly chosen great gifts for ex-boyfriends all of whom dumped her for someone else. And to top it off, the worst of the self loathing is her grim realization that stress causes pre-mature aging.

I think it has to do with how stressed out my mom and sister would get on Christmas Day when I was little. I remember them snapping at me; they seemed tense because of all the aprons to be sashed and potatoes to be mashed. (In our traditional Irish household, women slaved and men were waited on.)

It might be exacerbated by the stress I feel when I think of all the money I've spent on lavishing boyfriends with presents over the years, guys who are now living with other women who are enjoying my lovingly picked out presents which I'm no doubt still paying for in credit card interest charges.

I was embracing my Christmas black dog the other day when I read a Times article so scary it made my hair - and my genes - curl.

It was about how severe stress can make a woman age very rapidly and prematurely, looking years older than her chronological age, because the stress causes the DNA in our cells to shrink, and sort of curl down on itself, until the cells can no longer replicate. "When people are under stress they look haggard, it's like they age before your eyes, and here's something going on at a molecular level" that reflects that impression, said one of the researchers, Dr. Elizabeth Blackburn of the University of California at San Francisco.

Just think, she gets paid a lot of money for that. Sounds like MoDo could use a Guiness with old BoBo.