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1. Bridesmaids is hilarious. Sure, some of it is lowest-common-denominator scatological humour, but it’s still funny.

2. This is not a movie about perfect twentysomethings getting married. Haven’t we seen enough of those anyway? You’ll see real laugh lines and curvy figures. Sure, the trope of bridesmaids wearing ugly dresses is played for yuks on a regular basis, but this film does it better. Or funnier, anyway.

3. Melissa McCarthy. Sookie from Gilmore Girls steals the picture from the lead Kristen Wiig. I nearly had a Depends moment at the end of the movie owing to one of her scenes.

4. The men. Jon Hamm aka Don Draper being a cad, Chris O’Dowd being a darling.

5. The women. You’ll love the strong, quirky cast. It includes a longtime fave of mine, Maya Rudolph, and a few faces I don’t recognize but found well-cast all the same. (Though it probably would have been as strong a movie with fewer characters.) I’d love to see the gag reel from this film. In fact, when it comes out on DVD, I think I will check for one. Because I’m definitely watching Bridesmaids again.

-Helen

Throw another bad habit on the list: Looking for stress.

Scanning through radio stations after work, I caught John Tesh’s unmistakable voice (remember him from Entertainment Tonight? And Olympic sportscasting?) on his radio program “Intelligence for your Life” for just a few seconds.

I don’t normally listen to his show, and this time was no different, but the scanner function of the radio stayed tuned just long enough for me to hear him say “Are you a stress seeker?” Then it zipped off to a jazz station.

The question lingered in my head after I got home.

Why yes, John Tesh, I am a stress seeker!

While I don’t like to strut about how much work I have to do or how little I sleep, I will admit my mind seeks out the dark places where stress lives. I guess that’s also called worrying. Even if I have nothing to be stressed about, I’ll find something to be stressed about.

One good reason to cool it with the stress-seeking is that your teeth could suffer the consequences. In a More story from last May, this woman shares how part of her molar fell off from stress-related damage.

Are you a stress-seeker? Is this just a pop-psych term to make us feel bad about putting too much on our plates, or is it valid?

-Helen

(Update, May 27th: Are you one of our “Tweeps?” That’s a mix of “Twitter follower” and “Peeps” for those not versed in Twitter-speak. If you are, you’ll know that Linda reveals she’ll be writing about Christy Turlington Burns in the upcoming newsletter. Join us on Twitter if you haven’t already: @more_ca.)

If you haven’t already, you’ll want to sign up for our Haute Flash newsletter right here. In fact, right after hitting Publish on this blog post, I’ll be working on it in anticipation of sending it out next week. It’s full of good stuff.

What makes Haute Flash special is that it’s not just a culling of articles from the site. The real highlight is a thought-provoking message that editor-in-chief Linda Lewis writes exclusively for this newsletter. So if you enjoy “Letter from Linda” in More, you’ll be interested in the thoughts she has to share about the latest issue.

I can’t divulge what next week’s newsletter will be about, but I can tell you if you sign up today, you’ll be sure to receive it next week.

-Helen

Do you know of a celeb or person of eminence that’s roughly the same age as you are? Maybe someone you’ve followed her entire career because you are so close in age?

If so, I’d like to know who, and how you think they’re aging.

Because if it wasn’t bad enough I’ve been worrying about my “office bum” I am now wondering if I look older than other women my age.

It doesn’t help that some of them include Emmannuelle Chiriqui who plays Sloane in the HBO show Entourage, and Buffy The Vampire Slayer Sarah Michelle Gellar. Oh, so now you think I’m in my twenties? No. These women are all in mid-thirties-land, just like me.

I promise I am not normally this self-absorbed, but good weather always brings on a renewed concern about my appearance now that I’ve got no excuse for flaky skin and thick sweaters. Next blog post I will move on to more serious issues, I assure you.

So back to my question, who is your celebrity “age” doppelganger?

-Helen

I’m not trying to be outrageous here, I’m serious. Almost halfway done in my role as interim web editor for More.ca, I’ve noticed my backside is spreading. I have decided that this is the consequence of being seated all day during the week.

Is it the actual act of sitting down? Is it my weekly forays to the greasy spots in the food court across from the office building? Both?

Whatever it is, I have suffered this malady that I call “office bum” a few times before in my career(s). Every time I’ve held an “office” job, my rear-end suffers the consequences a few months in. I’m convinced it gets — sorry to be graphic here — wider and flatter.

Right now, none of my pants fit properly, I find them rolling down my hips, like they’re trying their best to get away from my burgeoning hips. That’s because they’re all low-ish-rise. Yes, you can laugh at me for wearing low-rise pants and jeans when they look best on the hip-less, but mid-rise jeans give me the worst muffin top ever.

I won’t even comment on how I look in high-rise pants because they are beneath contempt.

So, my question. Does office-butt happen to you? What do you do to fight back? Run? Do yoga? Stop eating salty and sugary food?

(Maybe I should just take the advice of this More.ca article: Melt your muffin top.)

-Helen

I’ve never heard many positive things about going through menopause, not from my family and friends anyway, and not in pop culture media either (recollections of an ever-perspiring Samantha in Sex and the City 2, for example). Night sweats, hot flashes, mood swings, it doesn’t sound like a whole lot of fun.

I posed the question “Menopause: Easier or harder than you expected?” to our More.ca Facebook fans, and to my surprise, the results were mixed.

One commenter said at 55, she still hasn’t found out yet. (To which I say, “wow”!) A few women said it was harder, and a couple of women said outright or implied it was not that bad. Yet my fave comment had to be:

“Completely different than what I expected… I love the mental changes it has created for me, no more worrying about what others think..no more ‘shoulds’…that is very very liberating.”

And you know what? I think that’s pretty amazing, and something to look forward to.

How about you? Easier, harder, or just plain different than you thought it would be?

(P.S. We’ve got a stellar collection of menopause articles, right here in More.ca’s menopause manual.)

-Helen

Be careful what you wish for, right? I wished for more comments on More.ca’s articles, and I got them alright.

For every thoughtful comment we’ve received on our new system, Disqus (which I explain here), there are about six stingers of a grouchy and oftentimes nasty bent. (By the way, if you take offense to any comment you find, you can “Flag” them which will call its attention to us so we can take action. You are also welcome to post a witty retort.)

At first the grumps irked me, but after a few days my particular brand of demented humour sunk in and I am starting to find them funny.

For instance, in our “Is polyamory for you?” written by Anne Bokma, we’ve got a comment that says:

“This is the most riduculous [sic], family compromising, relationship wrecking idea this magazine has ever printed. Stick to the recipes!”

My first thought was “So rude!” But now I just think it is somewhat humorous, especially given that More isn’t really about recipes.

In another article, someone wrote “This is trash writing, and not even good as far as trash goes.”

Ouch. But then, when you think about it why would trash writing ever be any good? Or is the commenter implying this isn’t up to the usual levels of trash he or she prefers to read?

To each their own. As for me, I’m already growing a thicker skin. You need it when you’re a web editor!

-Helen

I’m pulling together a story about must-have smartphone and tablet apps. I would be remiss if I didn’t reach out to you More.ca visitors and ask, What are the apps you can’t do without? Bonus points if they are particularly relevant to a midlife audience.

Now that I’ve got my very own iPad (you can read my original review, here), I’ve hit a bit of a slump in the apps department. I’ve got the Angry Birds, the Word Solitaire, and the rest of the game apps, but I’m looking for applications with a little more depth.

I’ve heard raves about Dropbox, a sort of virtual-storage app, and Bump, a new social-networking app. But I haven’t used either of them, even though they’re on my device. Have you? What do you use?

Let me know in our brand-new commenting system, below.

-Helen

For the longest time, More.ca had a system for commenting on articles that (to my mind anyway), was cumbersome. You had to create or login to your MyMore account. If you wanted to know if someone commented on your comment, well, you had to check back on the article.

No longer. More.ca now uses a system called Disqus, which may not mean much for you in terms of name-recognition. What you will notice however, is that you’ll be able to comment much more flexibly, and you can get notifications if anyone else replies to your comments, for instance. Try it out for yourself on one of these recently posted stories:

The doyennes of divorce: How these women used their divorces to become experts in the field.

Yesterday’s blog: “Have any of you read Shania Twain’s new book“.

What to do with your money after you pay off your mortgage

Thanks for reading!
-Helen

I was only faintly surprised to hear that fans slept overnight outside a Toronto bookstore to make sure she would sign a copy of her new memoir Shania Twain: From This Moment On for them.

Did you buy a copy of her book? If yes, I’d love to know what you think of it.

I’m a fan of Twain’s in a sort of sing-alongy-if-it’s-on-the-radio sense, but definitely wouldn’t count myself as a devotee. However, one thing I’ve always been intrigued about is why she tucked away in Switzerland for so many years. I mean, I love Switzerland as much as, say, the next fondue-loving woman (though perhaps not with as much passion as travel writer K. Jill Rigby), but as a Canadian, why Switzerland? Fascinating.

So far I’ve only read a little of her memoir, and I was shocked at how forthcoming she has been, considering she’s been so intensely private (does anyone know what her son looks like? Compare and contrast with the Pitt-Jolies, for example).

Are you at all cynical about her reasons for writing this book?

What do you think?

-Helen