I recently spent a week at the beach with friends. We ate ice cream, we swam, and we drank a truly inestimable amount of red wine. Jealous? You should be. Anyway, my beach read of choice this year was the chick-lit phenom Eat, Pray, Love. Was it good? Not even a little. (I think my friend Kevin’s assessment of the plot says it best: “White people have so many problems!”) Did 300+ pages of pontification get my advice-giving juices flowing? Oh, yes. Those juices flowed like the fat off of a slice of Neapolitan pizza. Maybe, I started to think, the self-absorbed heroine of Expedite, Photograph, Lunge is on to something. Maybe, just maybe, another insanely rich woman out there could benefit from taking a sabbatical to find herself through gelato and yoga. That woman, dear readers, is Jennifer Aniston.

Remember Jen Aniston? Remember when she was plucked from obscurity to star in a wonderful little sitcom called “Unemployed People Drinking Coffee” or something like that? Remember when she was America’s Sweetheart? Remember when that all disappeared in a puff of smoke after Elizabeth Taylor sank her harpy claws into Jen’s husband, Eddie Fisher? What happened to this poor girl? Apparently she makes movies now but damned if I know the names of any of them. She sort of faded behind a veil of dreams deferred, that one. I knew that Our Lady of Smart Water’s self-esteem was really hurting, though, when I read about her recent war of words with Bill O’Reilly. See, Jen’s in this movie about babies and on the press tour she was all “Big ups to single moms!” and Bill really took offense to that so then he was all “Witch! Burn the witch!” and then Jen was all “Oh, my bad, Bill. Sorry about that.”

Really, Jen? Is that how it’s gonna go down, with a semi-snarky comment that reads more like a mea culpa? LAME. If you don’t realize that you are totally and completely right about this non-issue, and if you’re not willing to stick up for yourself and stand behind your words, then you have lost your sense of self. Which means it’s time, Jen. Time to do some eatin’, some prayin’, and some lovin’.

First up, you need to go out and buy yourself a copy of Evict, Penetrate, Listen and read it cover to cover. Devour it as heartily as the protagonist of Erupt, Paddle, Lurch devours plate after plate of spaghetti carbonara. Don’t worry; it should only take you about forty minutes to read the thing. Then, once you have absorbed every drop of Elizabeth Gilbert’s sage wisdom like a sponge, go forth and liveth, Jen! Eat! Pray! Love! The eating part may be difficult for you as you clearly haven’t had anything to eat since 1998. The praying part should be easy – as it is, don’t you do something like twenty-two hours of yoga per day? The love part…um…well, that Harry Potter kid is of age, right? You could have a whole cougar thing going on. Then, when you’ve listened to the silence of your soul long enough to hear the voice of God, you take your newfound wisdom and your newfound 20-something arm candy and you go on Bill O’Reilly’s show and you Blow. His. Ass. Away.

Let’s face it: Some celebrities could use good advice. Meg Boyle gives it to them every Tuesday.

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