Clipping of the Month

Nardi Reeder Campion of Hanover, N.H., was in the Harvard Club recently and overheard a man discussing his grandson, a freshman at Dartmouth. "Pie went on this hiking trip and slept at a lodge," he said. "In the morning, they had green eggs for Dartmouth, don't you know and had to choose between two pitchers of juice. One was marked 'O.J. Innocent' and the other 'O.J. Guilty.'"

From the New York Times Metropolitan Diary, October 5,1994. (and those of several others) with occasional commentaries from a psychotherapist, the heartbreak busters serve up play-by-play advice for the moments after the bad news: "8:35 p.m. You lock the door behind him. You're stunned...Sit down carefully on the couch and say to yourself, maybe I'm okay, I don't need to cry, I'm doing fine. Think about this for a minute, hurl yourself face down in some pillows, and howl. 8:50 p.m. Come up for air...Keep crying. 8:57 p.m. Continue crying...Entertain the idea of pushing yourself to the outer pain limits, m aking yourself really feel, by doing something like standing outside in the freezing cold without a coat on, or walking barefoot over burning coals or calling your mother. Pick up the phone. 8:58 p.m. Put it down. Hey, you're heart-broken, not insane."

And so on through the agony. The authors understand. That's why they've compiled lists for karaoke and video therapy (try, for example, Sinead O'Connor's "I Do Not Want What I Have Not Got" and Fatal Attraction). In a more serious moment of post beau insight, they suggest: "You have to stop allowing him any impact on your life."

"Actually," they continue, "you don't have to do anything. We both got through heartache without following our own advice and lived to tell." This book, of course, is the tale. (Frankel freely admits it is her revenge.) Read it and laugh. After all, say Val and El, ifyou thinkyou can't live without the dumper, it's definitely time to lighten up.