Best. Lesbian. Week. Ever. (January 11, 2008)

BEHIND THE LENS WITH JENNIFER BEALS
The new issue of The Advocate also includes a slew of photos of L Word cast members taken by Jennifer Beals. Here's a sneak peek at the first page of the fascinating spread of black-and-white pics:

Beal took the top photo of Leisha Hailey at a Vanity Fair photo shoot. But I really like the bottom photo, which is a shot of Mia Kirshner, Kate Moennig, Leisha Hailey and Sarah Shahi (R.I.P., Carmen!) from an earlier season. Beals explains in the caption: "Leisha's holding this book where you think of a question and then you open the book to see what the answer is. We were slightly obsessed with it during downtime."

What do you think the book would say if the question were, "Why is Mia Kirshner being tortured by having to play the most annoying character ever?"

LESBIAN BUYS WNBA TEAM (NO, REALLY!)
Earlier this week, a group of four Seattle businesswomen and civic leaders secured an exclusive option to purchase WNBA basketball team the Seattle Storm for $10 million from SuperSonics owner Blay Bennett, ensuring that the Storm will remain in Seattle. Among the four women, who now comprise Force 10 Hoops, L.L.C., is Lisa Brummel, Microsoft's openly lesbian senior vice president for human resources. The other three women of Force 10 Hoops are software industry exec Dawn Trudeau, entrepreneur and philanthropist Ginny Gilder and former Deputy Mayor of Seattle Anne Levinson.

Trudeau, Gilder, Brummel and Levinson

Lisa Brummel was previously corporate vice president of Microsoft's Home & Retail Division, was drafted by the Dallas Diamonds in the professional women's basketball league draft in 1981, and played softball and basketball at Yale University.

A few summers ago, Sarah and Lori had season tickets to the Storm games (when they were living in Seattle) that happened to seat them next to Lisa and her partner, Celeste. They weren't surprised to hear Lisa has become one of the team's new owners.

"Lisa and Celeste were always big fans of the team," Sarah told me, "and a lot of fun to watch the games with. They knew all the players' stats better then we did, and filled us in on what happened whenever we missed a game. In exchange, I kept them updated on the latest AfterEllen.com stats, which weren't nearly as interesting, but they pretended they were. The team is definitely in good hands!"

Levinson, Trudeau, Brummel and Gilder

I think they should make a one-hour dramedy about these four high-powered, successful businesswomen. They could call it Microfiber Mafia.