JUST CALL ME ALLY

The newest facebook trend is changing your profile picture to reflect the fictional character with whom you most identify. It would have been easier had they said "admire," but that wasn't the case, it was identify. With admire an entire slew of fictional characters would have been vying for the honor. I would have been hard pressed to choose between a literary, TV, or character from the silver screen. Who wouldn't want to be Buffy The Vampire Slayer, Wonder Woman, Elektra, Veronica Mars, Lois Lane, or either one of The Gilmore Girls ? But did I really identify with any of them? Nope.

I already knew that the contest was going to come down to Ally McBeal and Meredith Grey. I also knew who would win. Ally and I went through our late 20s/early 30s together. Even though we didn't share the same career (I wasn't a lawyer), we shared a belief that women could have it all. Ally was an optimist in the face of pretty lousy odds. Single women don't have it easy. And it only gets worse the older you get. I think that I identified a little too much with Ally, to tell the truth. Every time she went down in flames (and I am talking the really serious hits to the heart) a little piece of me went with her. It was so bad that when Robert Downey, Jr. left the show (and Ally) because he was jailed for his drug problem I was more than a little angry with him. Ally never recovered from that relationship and neither did I. And the show took the hit, too. It was like being on the Titanic, figuratively.

Ally gave up on men and left Boston after flirting a bit with Bon Jovi. I gave up on men and got married, flirting with disaster. It was like being on the Titanic, literally.