Laura Linney is our 'haggus fabulous'

That's the hilariously made-up term from a new book with one of the longest titles I've seen: Girls Who Like Boys Who Like Boys: True Tales of Love, Lust, and Friendship Between Straight Women and Gay Men. The Chronicle is all over it today: "We can thank Mary Ann Singleton and Michael Tolliver, Carrie Bradshaw and Stanford Blatch, and Grace Adler and Will Truman for paving the way to the recognition of straight woman/gay man relationships,'' the story says. "But as far as these literary and television characters have come, it's still difficult to avoid certain cliches: gay man as fashion adviser, sex educator and brunch buddy. Straight woman as nurturing caretaker, neurotic urbanite and insecure improvement project. And of course, the inevitable falling out when someone gets a boyfriend."

I may owe Laura Linney for my move to San Francisco seven years ago. I happened to watch Tales of the City on videotape (sheesh: remember those?) in the fall of 1999, when Sparky started dangling an offer for me to move here and shack up with him. Living in Louisville, Ky., I related to Linney's Mary Ann Singleton, the innocent from Dayton, Ohio. (Well, the Ohio part, anyway.) Maybe it was kismet: Until today, I didn't know Linney and I were Brown University classmates 20 years ago. She graduated in 1986, a year after me. (Then again, I was more focused on that other campus character: John F. Kennedy Jr. Someday, I'll tell you all about my very, very close encounter with him.)