SOCIAL NOTES. Tbogg points out two girls passing notes at The Corner:

Observation [Kathryn Jean Lopez]

The last time I've seen as many smiling people as I saw at Tiffany's earlier this afternoon, I was at St. Peter's in Rome in the spring...

Kathryn's Observation [Lisa Schiffren]

Smiles at St. Peter's are about the hope for transcendence. Smiles at Tiffany are about the hopes that come with earthly love -- and the very material proof of its magnitude and sparkle that Tiffany purports to sell. The floor where they sell engagement rings ought to be a happy place.

All gack! aside, I really, really hope this is Corner code for "K-Lo's got a beau." I have a soft spot for this awful woman; she seems to be the product of great suffering, not just its cause. Nobody could actually be as stupid as her writing suggests, so I assume that trauma or disorder has something to do with her often-incomprehensible output. My basic theories are these:

1.) Unhealthy sexual obsessions, exacerbated by the twin, soul-crushing burdens of loneliness and Catholicism, fatally distract her;
2.) A neurotic need to please some distant father-figure overrides her basic editorial skills and drives her to humiliate herself by writing cringe-inducing propaganda and then, in a paroxysm of self-abasement, publishing it under her real name;
3.) All that and a brain tumor.

She deserves a little happiness. Also, given her professed values, if she marries we may presume she'll quit her job. Win-win!