Being the curious type, occasionally I go to psychic fairs and have my cards read or find out what my cats are thinking or let someone intuit my aura. OK, I'm not sure what that means, but I get a nice bluish-green printout and assurances that I'm "in a good place," so I figure that's worth $10 now and then.

As a result, friends tend to email me with news from the woo-woo world, whether interesting or weird or just plain outrageous. But I have to say the best thing I've received lately came from a tarot fan with the note, "I think a hot woman is in your future."

Yes, that's exactly who you think it is. The card is part of the Buffy the Vampire Slayer tarot, which Dark Horse Comics announced at New York Comic Con. Paul Lee, longtime cover artist for Buffy comics, is designing the deck with tarot guru Rachel Pollack. Pollack, who's been a Buffy fan for years, also is writing the deck's guidebook, which will explain how the cards fit into the Buffyverse.

Consider, if you will, the dearly departed Michigan J. Frog's network, the WB.

Did you sort of zone out? Me, too. A mere year and a half after the network — in combination with rival UPN — morphed into the CW, the WB is a vague memory. But in its heyday, the network aired some of our favorite soapy series: Charmed, Popular, Roswell, Gilmore Girls, Smallville and … let's see, what am I forgetting? Oh, yeah — a little show about a vampire slayer.

The WB was something of a guilty pleasure for me. I never admitted to watching Felicity or Dawson's Creek, but magically knew every detail of every story arc.

I watch Ghost Whisperer and I'm not ashamed to admit it. OK, a little embarrassed, maybe, but we all have our guilty pleasures. And even though Jennifer Love Hewitt is, at times, a bit too earnest for me, I can think of many reasons why she tops TV Guide 's "Sexiest Stars" list this year. Here are two.

What? I'm talking about her eyes. Hewitt might not be No. 1 on my list — at least not while Tina Fey is on TV — but I am tickled that she can flaunt her sexy status to the paps that trashed her for looking less-than-perfect in a bikini last year. Somehow, the fact that she didn't need to be on the list to know she's sexy makes her topping it even better.

The fact is that several of the female Sexiest Stars defy the young, rail-thin types we usually see on these lists. Vanessa Williams, who still reigns as the queen of mean on Ugly Betty, is not only curvy, but she just turned 45.

Jennifer Weiner – I’d hate her if I didn’t love her

I’m not a chick lit fan. I have no objection on principle. I mean, I’ve certainly read my share of the lesbian equivalent – you know, those read-it-in-one-sitting novels that used to be published by Naiad Press. And, seriously, how can I take issue with the genre that gave us Miranda Priestly?

But my lack of enthusiasm for the chick lit cult aside, I am a true fan of one of its high priestesses, Jennifer Weiner.

My love of Weiner (OK, I often think like a 12-year-old boy, too, but it’s pronounced “Wine-er”) started on a lazy Sunday afternoon of watching movies, one of which was In Her Shoes.

I know the movie isn’t universally loved, but I enjoyed it enough to Google for more information. I learned that In Her Shoes originally was a book by Jennifer Weiner, so I hopped over to her site and began browsing. My crush started here:

“March, 2005: Jen attends a screening of ‘In Her Shoes’ in Los Angeles. Determined not to make a complete fool of herself, Jen holds it together for the first ten seconds, then bursts into tears the instant the Fox logo flashes on-screen.”

In my weekly perusal of the wonderful wowowow.com, I came across a non-gossipy tidbit from Liz Smith recommending Helen Mirren's memoir, In the Frame: My Life in Words and Pictures.

Wait. Queen-of-my-heart Dame Helen Mirren has a memoir that I didn't know about? How could this happen? A few clicks later, I discovered that Mirren's book, which was released in the U.K. last fall, didn't make it to American shores until a few weeks ago. OK, I'm not as far behind as I feared.

But something is amiss. Take a close look at the book cover. Now look at the woman holding the book.

Photo credit: Gareth Cattermole/Getty Images

The same woman? Yes. The same beauty? Not even close. The lovely lady's character lines have disappeared in another unfortunate encounter with an airbrush.

Angie Harmon is so modest that she won't get pictures developed of her and her husband skinny-dipping – she doesn't want the photo lab folks to see them.

Yet, Harmon is one of five gorgeous women who posed nude for the May issue of Allure, due to hit the stands this week. I, for one, find no reason to object to such inconsistency of thought.

The annual “Look Better Naked” issue of Allure celebrates the various shapes and sizes of the female body. (Why can't we get a national holiday for that?) And the magazine actually seems to get the concept right. Harmon certainly is not chunky, but she's not anorexic, either. The same is true of Wilhelmina's sister, Gabrielle Union.

Keshia Knight Pulliam was 5 when she read for the part of Rudy Huxtable on The Cosby Show. At her audition, she kept looking away from the director, who finally asked her what she was looking at. "That's me," she said, pointing at the monitor. "How can you make me on the TV?"

Aw. That's the Keshia I want to remember. Little Rudy — smart as a whip and cute as a bug — or a goldfish.

Sure, I know that the actor and her character are two different people. I know that it's been over 15 years since The Cosby Show's original run. I know Pulliam turned 29 a few weeks ago. When I see pictures like this, I can deal with her growing up. You can still see a little of Rudy in her, can't you?

A sad thing happened to me last Thursday. ER returned with new episodes — and I forgot. Granted, tornadoes were swirling through town at the time, but I didn't even remember to be irritated that bad weather always seems to strike during prime time. For someone who has watched ER faithfully since its first year, apathy is a bad sign. So, I have mixed feelings about the show coming back for one final season.

Photo credit: Brian Bowen Smith

I'm not sure what happened to my fandom. After all, Maura Tierney's still around.

Photo credit: James Sorensen

Considering all that her character Abby Lockhart has been through, that's quite a feat. Alcoholism, bipolar mom and brother, failed marriage, medical school, unplanned pregnancy, life-threatening childbirth — reading Abby's Wikipedia entry is exhausting. Maybe that's part of the problem.

Just in time for the weekend, the fine folks at Gay List Daily alerted us to a great way to spend a lazy Sunday afternoon: The Minisode Network.

Minisodes, as you probably deduced from the promo screen, are abbreviated episodes of some of the best cheesy shows ever. And the site is more than entertaining — it's enlightening. Say, for example, that you're in deep meditation and you have a vision of angels.

Soon, that lofty vision devolves into thoughts of angels in chains, and you wish you could remember more about that "Angels in Chains" episode of Charlie's Angels. So, you click over to the Minisode Network, and there it is: In six minutes, you see Kelly, Sabrina and Jill get hosed down, meet a very young Kim Basinger and bounce through a meadow in chains. Life is good.

If you happened to be one of the thousands grounded last week by American Airlines, at least you got a pleasant surprise once you got on the plane.

Is Amy Poehler adorable or what? She's been in the news quite a bit lately because of her new movie with Tina Fey, Baby Mama, and her dead-on spoof of Hillary Clinton.

Fortunately, we reap the benefits of all of this press and get to learn more about one of our favorite funny people. In the American Way interview, for example, Poehler tells us she's as much of a loudmouth in real life as she is on Saturday Night Live.

The AfterEllen.com Forum has a discussion in progress about which TV character you'd like to date. I suppose I'm a bit too literal for that version of the game, since my first requirement for dating a woman is that she be a lesbian and, given the state of TV at the moment, that narrows the field to, well, zero. But if movies are included, I don't even have to think. Allegra from Puccini for Beginners wins hands down — and up and anywhere else she wants to put them. Sigh.

My crush on Allegra has naturally transferred to Elizabeth Reaser, who played her. And having a crush on Reaser is not as easy as some of my other crushes because her star seems to be rising more slowly than I would like. I just don't get to see her enough.

Björk is not on my iPod.

Don't misunderstand. I think Björk is brilliant. And she's weird — something I value highly, as a fellow weirdo. But her music is an experience, not something to put on the mp3 player to help you keep your workout rhythm. When I play Björk, I listen.

Last year's Volta is a good example. Here's how Rolling Stone described the album: "Ten luxuriant, often dark songs ranging from Martian electronica to inimitable balladry to id-channeling reveries, with African percussion, thick brass and deeply emotional singing."

That rumbling you heard Sunday night was the sound of thousands of jaws hitting the floor as Stanford beat the University of Connecticut 82-73 in the Women's Final Four. (If you were in the vicinity of a UConn fan, you likely heard much more, but we can't print that kind of thing here.)

Unlike many playoff games in which the outcome can be blamed on poor officiating or injuries or just a bad night for the losing team, this game was a simple case of the better team winning. More precisely, the team with Candice Wiggins. Every time UConn stepped up its game, the ball went to Stanford's Wiggins — and she finished with 25 points and 13 rebounds. She certainly was not alone in outstanding play, but, as I said a few weeks ago, Wiggins is a wonder to behold.

Here's something I never knew I wanted: a recording of 15 songs that were almost in Juno.

Juno B-Sides: Almost Adopted Songs, will be available on iTunes starting April 8. Other digital music services will have it May 13. I'm not sure I've ever heard of a collection of songs that didn't make the cut for a film soundtrack. But I'm kind of looking forward to it. I think.

Today, the remarkable Maya Angelou turns 80. Let's take a few minutes to join the throng in celebrating the life of this phenomenal woman.

I do not use “woman” casually, as Dr. Angelou has made clear that she believes the term to be more than an indication of gender.

“There is a world of difference between being a woman and being an old female. If you're born a girl, grow up, and live long enough, you can become an old female. But, to become a woman is a serious matter. A woman takes responsibility for the time she takes up and the space she occupies.”

She wrote those words about Hillary Clinton, whom she steadfastly supports. But it takes one to know one. And Maya Angelou certainly has been a good steward of her own time and space, encouraging us all at every turn to press on, to speak out, to rise up.