Amanda Lauren’s tagline on her website reads “I write things that become a thing,” and boy does she! This week two pieces of hers received an influx of attention and response—a Your Tango essay called “Staying Hot For My Husband Is ESSENTIAL To A Successful Marriage” and a now-deleted xoJane essay titled “My Former Friend’s Death Was a Blessing.” In the latter, our focus here, Lauren expressed relief over the death of her estranged former friend, whom she had seemed to decide was a lost cause by looking at said friend’s Facebook page. My first impression was, “What was she thinking?” So I called her up.

On Friday, xoJane published a most necessary confession. The women’s site that brings you the “It Happened To Me” first-person essay series (“It Happened To Me: There Are No Black People In My Yoga Classes And I’m Suddenly Feeling Uncomfortable With It,” “It Happened To Me: My Gynecologist Found a Ball of Cat Hair in My Vagina,” “It Happened To Me: I Live With My Abuser,” which the site fucked up royally by posting the name of the writer) ran a piece by xoJane editor Amber Rambharose that reads like an explainer of the confession industry in which xoJane traffics. “Editors Don’t Cry in the Office — I Still Can’t Believe I Did Last Night” isn’t exactly a warts-and-all self-exposé, but a fine piece of meta-journalism that captures the difficulty of having to perform your life in front of strangers when you aren’t quite comfortable with doing so.

Guys! We have a problem that you could maybe help with, but it's related to a problem that Jane Pratt has that you also may be able to help with, so let's focus on that first: The Sassy/Jane/xoJane boss is going to be photographed nude tomorrow and she's not exactly sure how to go about it.

In case you were wondering, xoJane writer Julieanne Smolinski prefers not to be punched in the head during sex. She knows a lot of people who are into it, though. So if you're into punching during sex, don't have sex with Julieanne, but maybe ask her for a referral.

XOJane.com blogger Cat Marnell attempted to write a column about Plan B today. Instead, she ended up with a bizarre 1000-word treatise on why she never uses birth control or condoms, just the morning-after pill, even though she thinks it's murder:

In your improbably snowy Wednesday media column: CNN's new strategy, all important and unimportant NYT news, HuffPo tells AOL freelancers their fate, Jane Pratt's back, and an honest journalism job ad.

Micro Fashion Blogger Tavi Gevinson is launching a magazine with former Sassy editor Jane Pratt

Demi Moore turns 47 today. Leonardo DiCaprio is turning 35. Calista Flockhart is 45. Senator Barbara Boxer of California is turning 69. Stanley Tucci is 49. Jane Pratt, the founder of Sassy and Jane, is 47. Will & Grace co-creator Max Mutchnick is turning 44. Writer Mary Gaitskill is turning 55. Comedian and actor Jonathan Winters is 84. Interior designer Mariette Himes-Gomez is 67. Jessica Sierra, the American Idol contestant-turned-Celebrity Rehab patient, is 24. And Carson Kressley celebrates his 40th birthday today.

From the mailbag: "I overheard someone blabbing that [former Jane and Sassy editor] Jane Pratt is planning a pow-wow with her old staff this week. Only the ones who worked for her (not Brandon Holley) are invited (Debbie, Josh, Jeff, Jauretsi, Lori, Bill, Eric, Erin, Kenya, Annemarie, Johan, Stephanie, Gigi). I'm dying to know if this is just a friendly gathering or is Jane plotting something? An old Sassy reader can only hope." Like a Phoenix rising from the ashes! Which makes Jane's last editor Brandon Holley, who we've also heard might be rallying the old troops towards some end or other, Madelyne Pryor?

• The Guðmundsdóttir-Barneys anchored their sleek black yacht off Long Island City. Of course. [Page Six]
  

• Paris "I don't do drugs" Hilton was spotted exiting a limo in a cloud of marijuana smoke. Paris, honey: seriously, stop! Quitting weed makes you so much sharper and more inclined to like Park Slope! [Page Six]
  

• In an interview with the Guardian, Conrad Black calls his fraud trial "bullshit" and announces that he's at war with the U.S. government. The paper also has an excerpt from Black's forthcoming biography of Richard Nixon, which praises the former president's "surpassing dignity." Read into that what you will. [Guardian]
  

July, 1993. Sassy had just turned five years old, and wouldn't make it much longer. (On the cover: "My brother's gay. Big whoop.") A young lass named Kim France—Oberlin '87, now the editor in chief of Lucky—had recently left the magazine. Christina Kelly was newly Jane Pratt's number two, doing the real running of the mag. And so Sassy—Christina, we assume—gave Kim a rude send-off in the form of a fake advice letter about her rump. (Recent sightings of Kim France from behind reveal that her butt has not been exceptionally large in some time.) Click to enlarge for the full-page of "Dear Boy," with questions (real and fake) answered by J Mascis.

Lower East Side bloggerbar Lolita had a decidedly high school-ish vibe last night—a generation of ladies whose lives were so changed by Sassy magazine that they grew up to work in the media gathered there to fete the publication of Marisa Meltzer and Kara Jesella's book about that seminal teen mag. Doree and Emily were there. So was Atoosa Rubenstein.

You "love book reviews—sorry I cut down on them for a while; they're now back in full force," declared Jane editor Brandon Holley her April editor's letter. Conspicuously missing from the newly replumped book section, though, was a review of a book that seems like a natural fit for Jane's audience: How Sassy Changed My Life. That's Kara Jesella and Marisa Meltzer's "love letter" to the magazine that kicked off the careers of thousands of women's studies majors turned women's mag editorial assistants—and the career of one Jane Pratt, who served as the seminal teen mag's editor in chief at the tender age of 24. Nary a peep about this book in a magazine that still has Pratt's name on the masthead as "founding editor?"

In an interview with Metro, your alternate choice for subway platform linoleum, former Sassy/Jane editor Jane Pratt comes clean about that rumored dalliance with Drew Barrymore, the actress who so memorably portrayed Amy Fisher in one of the three made-for-television movies they made about that story. Metro's Daniel Holloway asks the tough questions.

This week's Time Out New York will bring readers a Q&A with a lady who shaped many women's lives in immeasurable ways. Ruth Bader Ginsberg? Betty Friedan? Hells no. Jane Pratt! She's back, baby, with a Sirius radio program. Is she well suited to the radio? Well... "I've been on a bunch as a guest. I talk a lot, and I talk long. I tell stories I assume people are interested in. They really may not be!" That actually sounds like a fun show! She also says that she "feels like [she] is working in print now," whatever that means. Then TONY asks the tough question: does Jane read Jane now that Jane she doesn't edit Jane anymore? "I pick it up. There hasn't been any issue that I haven't at least looked at. When I wasn't at Sassy anymore, that was really clear-cut. I didn't read it: I didn't want to support it in any way. This is more confusing. I want Jane to do well. It has my name on it. " Well said.

Hearkening back to last July, perhaps you recall that Sassy and Jane founding editor and all-around adorable cult leader Jane Pratt was forced eased out of the latter publication last July after what WWD referred to as "endless antics." In case you were wondering what sort of "antics" could result in the termination of a magazine's spiritual leader, Keith Kelly's report on Pratt's forthcoming debut on satellite radio safehouse Sirius notes that Pratt's infamous "wanderlust" that led to her departure coincidentally occured after she suffered a miscarriage — an event which likely superceded the magazine in her personal hierarchy of emotional commitments, God forbid. Ladies, take heed: nothing shall distract you from your job.

• The Today Show may be losing Katie Couric's legs, but there's still hope if Meredith Vieira takes her place: Vieira eschews underwear in favor of nature's breeze. [TMZ]
• A moment of sincerity: Jane Pratt and Gwen Stefani working together on a magazine? Holy fucking awesome. We'll spend tonight sleeping on a pile of Sassys, praying for a miracle. [Suicide Girls]
• Because nothing is sacred, bid adieu to the $5 burgers and endless beers at Columbia's legendary West End — it's time for the Cuban invasion. [NY Sun]
• Is Gloria Steinem a Diva Who Dines? [DWD (scroll down)]
• Behold the commuting majesty of the SeaStreak, the preferred boat of New Jersey traders and those nostalgic for a booze cruise. [Dealbreaker]
• In a similarly depressing, finance-oriented vein, we present you with Hedgestock. Oh yes, hell is very, very real. [Dealbook]
• How the Times artfully dodges the Corrections bullet. [Tabloid Baby]

Women's Wear Daily's Memo Pad — one of the city's leading media-gossip columns — is sometimes derided as the Conde Nast School Paper, a comment on the (probably unavoidable) prevalence of news about its corporate owner, which just happens to be one of the biggest mag companies. Sometimes, though, you can learn the most interesting things from an in-house rag.