It's taken a while, but we've somehow shed our embarrassment about having grown up in the Jersey suburbs. (Our therapy included a combination of Springsteen and "The Sopranos.") So it was with some amusement, and a good deal of interest, that we read today's Cindy Adams love-in with Carla Katz. Katz is the head of the Garden State's Communication Workers union; more importantly, she used to bang the governor. She tells Cindy that, contrary to speculation, she's got "nothing on" seatbelt-averse Jon Corzine, who apparently proposed to her but then backed out when it became clear that he could leave the boredom of the Senate behind for the top job in Trenton. While Cindy chooses not to air the rumor that former New Jersey Senator and ethical weasel Bob Torricelli set Corzine up with Katz for the express purpose of getting something on the Goldman Sachs millionaire, she does give Carla the chance to explain herself.

"I'm speaking out only because I need to clear my name. I don't want this to hurt me with my union. I'm doing this 25 years. I care deeply about my members. The point is, even when we were together, there was always jealousy that I might be too influential but now people are putting a knife in my back. Characterizing me as a gold digger. Look, I'm from Paterson. My father was a factory worker. I thought rich meant having a fence in front of your house. Jon is a wealthy man but there was no asking on my part.

No telling, either! We kind of love Katz, and it's not just because she's the same mix of Italian and Jew that we are: It's because this whole item is so Jersey. Going to Cindy Adams of the Post to say that you don't have anything on the governor is a not-so-subtle announcement that you totally have things on the governor. Otherwise you'd just bury that shit in the Star-Ledger. Well played, kiddo.

JON'S EX TELLS ALL [NYP]

P.S. Incidentally, we note once again that a Cindy Adams interviewee speaks in the exact same clipped-sentence manner in which Cindy writes most of her items. How does she keep finding so many like-minded people?