Diagnosis: Martharexia Nervosa

It came to me the other day, this term for the modern-day woman (and some men) obsessed with Martha Stewart and all that goes along with that.

Martharexic.

And as soon as it did, poof! I felt like a heavy blanket (chenille, just the  shade of cream to go with a perfectly appointed living room of toile and custom-made shutters and other things you’ll never see in my house but that I feel should be there) fell from my stooped shoulders.

Martharexia. If you’ve got it, you know. Trust me. The Martharexic subscribes to the magazine, pores over the Web site and lurks in the Martha aisle at Michael’s. She squints at her holiday table, trying to make it look just like Martha’s — at least to herself, for a moment.

She attempted to make fleur de lys toffee this year, but the truth is, she does better with old sugar cookie recipes that pre-date the Martha Thing and look bad but taste good, and better still with a big shot of Bailey’s in the hot chocolate as the party guests are arriving.

Yesterday we had our annual cookie party (more cookies than cocktails these days, given all the kids in attendance, though Ray and I remarked this morning on the ability of our friends to chug the booze, given the empty bottle count) and after I came up with my new vocabulary word, I gleefully took the jumbo boxes of taquitos from the freezer, heated and served them alongside my mom’s chili con queso dip (recipe circa 1970s, main ingredient: ginormous block of Velveeta) and plopped a cake plate of Trader Joe’s Jo-Jo cookies on the dessert table, to supplement the homemade cookies I did make.

With an hour to go before party’s end, we’d run out of everything but the queso, which was just then reaching its desired consistency in the crock pot. I’d had way too much sangria to care. “Have a Jo Jo!” I called to the late arrivers, from my perch on the couch.

And they did. And we were all happy. And so what if my guests talked about me on the way home? I’m buying the URL www.martharexia.com today, and by next year, I’ll have made a fortune — or at least enough for custom shutters and a caterer.