A little more than a year ago, I wrote about the Perfect Woman Project. Now, Laura Milkins, the brains (and beauty) behind that performance-art piece, is off on a new journey that mixes self-discovery with eye-opening insights for the person exposed to the project. Milkins is using a Fulbright grant to "get to know Mexico on a humble, human scale, and share the enormous diversity of experience in Mexico."

Overheard in Portland rarely updates these days (this one, however, gets updated much more frequently). I'd like to start carrying the torch in its absence. Readers, feel free to submit your own eavesdropped gems as comments.

Heard in Arabica this a.m.: "Frankly, that's what capitalism is all about."

Things I'm pretty sure he wasn't referring to:

For those who think I don't give credit where it's due, I am announcing that the Blethen Maine Newspapers have today published a must-read piece. Naomi Schalit, opinion page editor at the Kennebec Journal and Central Maine Morning Sentinel, has an excruciating - and no less so for its nobility - account of domestic violence in her own life, and in the lives of others

A federal court ruled on Monday that the Food and Drug Administration must make Plan B emergency contraception (a/k/a the "morning-after pill") available over-the-counter to 17 year olds within 30 days, and must reconsider making the drug available without a prescription to females of all ages. Currently, Plan B is available without a prescription to women 18 and over.

Hoboe - the oboe-enhanced rockers led by Zen Ben - need your help. Bob Bergeron, the band's bassist, had two of his basses stolen from his car on Exchange Street early yesterday morning.

They are described as "a black Rickenbacher with a white pick guard and a bartolini pickup in the neck position, and a Jazz Fender bass with a distinct burn mark in the bottom cutaway."

Brian from Sly-Chi checked in the other day to let us know that they are finalists in the Anthem International Music Festival. (No, we hadn't heard of it either.) They're up against six other bands - and it seems like the whole thing's a little oddly organized. There are seven finalists in the group they call "the Final Six," and only one is from outside the US (and that one's from Canada), so we're not sure how "international" this whole thing is, but nevermind).

In this week's issue of the Portland Phoenix, Christopher Gray wrote about, among other musicians, Bonnie "Prince" Billy. Thanks to a coincidence we'll just call "synergy," Sara Willis's In Tune By Ten radio program on Maine Public Broadcasting will feature BPB this very evening at - you guessed it - 10 pm. Listen online or over the airwaves.

Local author Hannah Holmes, whose natural history of humans, The Well-Dressed Ape (Random House), I reviewed back in January, is on a "viral campaign" to help market her book. I showed you the first installment of her effort in February, and now, just in time for St. Patrick's Day, she's out with another clip of video from a reading.

Here is a complete list of Senator Damon's co-sponsors on An Act To End Discrimination in Civil Marriage and Affirm Religious Freedom:

The lead co-sponsor is Representative Hannah Pingree (D-North Haven).

Senators:

Justin Alfond (D-Portland)

Phil Bartlett (D-Gorham)

Larry Bliss (D-South Portland/Cape Elizabeth)

State senator Dennis Damon (D-Hancock) filed a bill this afternoon that would legalize same-sex civil marriage in Maine. A look at the bill's co-sponsors offers some insights into what the debate will look like once the legislature takes it up.

-- No surprises that Portland's entire delegation is on the list.

-- Notable, however, are names from Lewiston, Bangor, Skowhegan, and Calais.

Portland activist Jill Barkley, who works for Caring Unlimited, a York County DV awareness and support organization, was on WPOR this morning talking about the Rihanna-Chris Brown situation. (to listen, click the link) The WPOR Morning Crew invited Barkley back to talk about dating violence next week. Jill -- let us know if that happens!

The Maine Family Planning Association has 56 pledges so far in its "Pledge-A-Picketer" campaign. Basically, the model is this: For every anti-choice picketer that shows up at the family planning clinic in Augusta over the next month (Maine Right To Life just launched its 40 Days of Life "peaceful public witness" campaign last week), the pledger donates $X.

So, apparently recovering from bird flu makes me an insomniac. Awesome!! Around 3 a.m., I pulled out my Selected Poems of Anne Sexton (hey, if you're going to be miserable, might as well go all the way, right?) After reading some uterus/madness/Freudian shit for a while, I decided to (re?) read the intro by editors Diane Wood Middlebrook and Diana Hume George.

There's still time - Restaurant Week doesn't end until tomorrow night. (And the stuff diners found out about restaurants around the city will last for much longer than the tasty meals did!) The budget didn't allow a ton of sampling, but we did make it to the Cockeyed Gull out on Peaks Island, and we took a second trip to Pepperclub with some friends.

I have returned to the real world after almost a week of deathly illness. Seriously, black-plague-level health status. So there are lots of completely unrelated items banging around in my head and in my Inbox. Here are some of the more compelling ones:

-- So that we can continue to marvel at what a clusterfuck the Maine State Pier planning process is / has been, the city will host a series of public meetings to get input on what people want to see down on that chunk of Portland's waterfront (Really? We haven't done this already? Either we have, and these meetings are redundant, or we haven't, which was an absurd oversight the first time around.