Getting steamed.

The annoying El Ninoistas danced a brisk "We told you so" to an Apocalypso beat the day forty-eight inches of snow fell on Denver. The magnitude of the storm was not measured in inches per hour but by the fact that--gasp!--the Broncos couldn't fly out of the airport. Personally, I think it was Mother Nature's farewell tribute to John Denver.

The air over New York City has been overheated for months. Wall Street is in the eye of the storm with more high pressure and precipitous drops than the Weather Channel in a hurricane. Chief meteorologist Alan Greenspan, with pointers and clickers, explains global market warming, working backwards in front of a blank blue wall. I felt like that annoying Von Trapp kid after Julie Andrews teaches him "Do, a deer, a female deer," and he whines: "But tit doesn't mean anything."

Speaking of hot air, President Clinton, voiceless from partying all night with his fiftieth-birthday bride, barely broke a sweat on global warming. I can't look at the guy anymore. Not since I mistakenly clicked onto an MSNBC special on the distinguishing features of the Presidential peepee. Don't show me the monty.

The El Ninoistas also attribute the unseasonably balmy Northeast fall to the warm waters off Mexico. I don't. I think the heat wave was caused by the huge amounts of hot air spewing from the national mall when the Promise Creepers stood in their GAP shirts for the Million White Man Mingle. Patricia Ireland, the president of NOW, one of the few women to rain on the non-parade, was burned at the stake, which also fanned the Fahrenheit a few degrees.

That day C-SPAN was part of my required viewing, and unfortunately, C-SPAN insisted on protecting its G-rating and did not follow the Lesbian Avengers when they marched bare-cheated through the throngs.

Most of the reviews written by women were basically puff pieces: You know, we disagree with the things they stand for, but they seemed like nice enough guys. Even the intrepid Village Voice writer Donna Minkowitz, who went undercover, said she had a nice time and seemed more excited about passing as a guy than what passed as compassion. These reviews sounded like the neighbors' description of the homicidal maniac next door. He was quiet, worked hard, loved his family.

I got steamed.

My temperature rose again leafing through Life magazine's 100 movers and shakers of the millennium and found there was not one woman listed. Vanity Fair's special issue on the sixty-five most powerful Americans had two women--The Washington Post's Katharine Graham and Secretary of State Madeleine Albright. Unlike the men who were photographed alone, Graham and Albright appeared with their staffs, apparently unable to handle the photo-shoot by themselves.

I'm not the only one adding a little estrogen-laced steam to the atmosphere. Janet Reno is steamed. And I don't blame her. Seems some of the White House tapes were mislabeled. There was a tape of Chelsea's sixteenth birthday party. A couple of tapes of Ted and Jane sleeping in the Lincoln Bedroom. You know they are taping those. Newt's got a little peephole and late at night you can hear him urging, "Come on, baby, show Newtie your contract." Somehow there was also Al Gore's tape of Ellen's coming-out episode, which Dan Quayle likes to play backwards and show Ellen going back into her closet.

Kate "It wasn't a correction, it was an opportunity" Clinton is a humorist.