Solo on Saturday Night

You call your single girlfriends, each and everyone of them, but they've all lined up dates through match.com.

You ring up your best married friend and whine. She says, "You think you have it bad? I'm having dinner with my aunt in the Alzheimer's unit tonight." You beg to tag along, but she thinks you're joking.

You buzz your daughter's cell for the fourth time that day. After all, weekend minutes are free. She sees your caller ID and grumbles, "What now?" You improvise a quick excuse, advising her to drive carefully because it's raining. Well, it is.

When your computer is your only reliable companion, consider a few of our favorite dates:

• Log onto awfulplasticsurgery.com and check out the bad, the worse, and the ugly of celebrity make-overs. Learn all about Melanie Griffith's lip collagen disaster and why Courtney Love looks like she's hoarding chestnuts in her cheeks. We like to begin our search with the Bad Boob Job Hall of Fame.
• Then join the fans who post notes to the webmaster, like: "Good job spotting Natalie Portman's streamlined nose!" Once you've exhausted the archives, more entertainment awaits at goodplasticsurgery.com. (Warning: these sites are addictive.)
• When you're feeling more cerebral, click on www.isc.ro for a rousing match of Internet Scrabble. Don't spend too much time wondering who the other players are, and why this is their choice of activity on a Saturday night. Judge not, ladies.
• There's nothing like a little retail therapy to help you forget your woes. Indulge in an online shopping spree for jeans, shoes, handbags -- you name it -- at bluefly, eluxury, yoox, overstock, and zappos. Our favorite is pamperedpassions.com for va-va-va-voom Italian lingerie. You'll feel like Sophia Loren back in the day.
• Once you've hit your credit limit, opt for celebrity bashing -- its free. Gofugyourself.com features wardrobe malfunctions of the rich and famous. Even Scarlett Johansson's celebrated rack, encased in Couture, gets dished. Nothing like mocking the impossibly beautiful to make you feel better about your A-cup Wonderbra.
• Theres something awfully depressing about settling in with a 1,000-piece puzzle on a Saturday night. Luckily, you can spare a little dignity and do it online at jigzone.com. With hundreds of jigsaws in every difficulty and shape, you'll fill your weekends indefinitely. And just in case you ever have a date, he won't see the evidence of your lonely existence strewn all over the coffee table.
• Check out your teenage son's myspace page. Read all about the rager* (*Wild inebriated party that turns your house into a parking lot) he threw last weekend, and how the cops broke it up because everybody got crunked.* (*Crazy+Drunk) While you were at a serenity retreat with your divorce support group.

Sue Mittenthal has worked as both an editor and writer for newspapers and magazines. Her work has appeared in The New York Times, The Boston Globe, Esquire, Family Circle, Glamour, Ladies’ Home Journal, Reader’s Digest, McCall’s and Consumer Reports. She is currently a freelance writer in New York.

Linda Reing began practicing for a career as a stand-up comic at age 7. When she realized that this would mean performing in front of audiences, she quickly changed gears. Over the years she has continued to embrace humor as her means of coping with the world, as well as a way to entertain friends and family. She is a fundraiser and lives in New York City.

The authors met when their children were toddlers and reconnected when their husbands toddled off.

For more information, please visit http://stillhotbook.blogspot.com/.