Love All

Cathy Lund (uber COSMO girl and assistant editor) thinks I should let The Guru have a turn at writing this letter. ‘C’mon,’ she says, ‘the readers have read about him for years, they’ll be interested to actually meet him, so to speak.’
I consider it seriously for about one-eighth of a second.
Um. I don’t think so....
This is my column! I am in charge, and I think The Guru is better a) being written about than writing about himself, and b) left where he can get up to as little mischief as possible – on his sofa, immersed in his beloved Unfit Guys Cycling In Stupid Clothes Monthly.
On the other hand, we have been together for 100 years and we have shared history. Much of what has happened to me has happened to him, and might make good copy. Yin and Yang. More wisdom from the couch. (That was a really popular editor’s letter.) A man’s eye view! What it’s like to be married to a woman who thinks up new ways with sex positions for a living!
But, after that one-eighth of a second of careful consideration, I am decided: absolutely not.
We have different storytelling styles. My way is a) edited for a punchline; b) carefully crafted to make me appear as wise, witty and wryly self-deprecating as possible, and c) as brief as possible. I am an editor, bred that way. I cannot help myself.
When The Guru tells our shared stories, he a) forgets the chronology, gets side-tracked and, by the end, can’t remember what the point of it was in the first place; b) casts me as the fall guy to his wittier wise-cracking George Clooney; and c) includes embarrassing, exposing, cringe-inducing (not funny!) unnecessary detail.
So he is banished to the sofa, forever. At least in the pages of COSMO, where he will remain blissfully under my control. I do like it that way.
There is nothing more irritating to an editor than to have someone recount a shared story without being able to edit it.
The Guru could win an Olympic medal in being irritating. As I am writing this, thinking about him at his irritating worst, and not being all the other wonderful things he is, I am surprised to feel a warm wave of affection wash over me.
It’s a funny thing, loving someone. I used to believe that to stick a relationship out with any other human being, you made your peace with the stuff that wasn’t pure Prince Charming (did Prince Charming snore?!) and focused only on the positive. But in the end, as he so often says himself, love is a package. You can’t separate the good from the snoring. If he wasn’t Prince Irritating he wouldn’t be him. And my life would be immeasurably diminished without him in it.
BUT. The same rules of healthy love do not apply to COSMO. This issue, like every COSMO, is, we think, The Princess Perfect of Magazines! Not least because of the extras: a spicy selection of sex recipes, the bad boys of the A-list; this year’s truly Fun, Fearless Women and a bumper 48 pages of COSMO Rocks. Nothing but good, guys! Enjoy.
Be safe and happy over the New Year. See you in 2010!

Author: Vanessa Raphaely