MICRO-APARTMENT DESIGN WINNER ANNOUNCED
New Yorkers are used to living in tiny apartments, but the shoebox is about to get even smaller. Last week, Mayor Michael Bloomberg announced the winners of the “My Micro NY” apartment design contest. The winning designs, by a team from Monadnock Development LLC, Actors Fund Housing Development Corp. and nARCHITECTS, feature 9-to-10-foot ceilings and somewhere around 300 square feet of space. Almost half of the 55 micro-units, which will be built on East 27th Street, will be available at an affordable price.

“New York’s ability to adapt with changing times is what made us the world’s greatest city,” the mayor said when announcing the winner. “And it’s going to be what keeps us strong in the 21st century.”

The space includes ample storage, a tiny kitchen with a full-size fridge and a living/sleeping area. The building itself is a part of Bloomberg’s program adAPT NYC. Construction will begin in the fall.

CORNELL TECH CAMPUS COMES ONE STEP CLOSER
The proposed high-tech Cornell NYC campus for Roosevelt Island is one step closer to fruition. Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer approved the plan last week under a few conditions. The brand-new tech campus is designed to attract students of science and technology and will feature energy-efficient buildings and new degrees like the Master’s of Engineering in computer science. The project, with residential, commercial and academic buildings, is expected to be completed by 2037.

But Stringer did approve the project with some stipulations: He wants to create a community advisory board, expanding the red bus line and expanding the hours of the open campus space.
The new tech campus is part of a citywide plan to help foster New York’s growth as an incubator of technology and innovation.

“The proposed project will have significant benefits to New York City as it will expand our ever-growing tech sector,” Stringer said.

HISTORY BUFFS REJOICE!
The 59th annual Winter Antiques Show at the Park Avenue Armory at 67th Street and Park Avenue is now under way, and runs until Feb. 3. The show will feature 73 exhibitors with wares from Ancient Rome to mid-century Americana. The show will, as it usually does, benefit the East Side House Settlement in the South Bronx. Tickets are $20. Don’t miss “Young Collectors’ Night” on Jan. 31, featuring cocktails and a private viewing of the show.

FIGHTING HEART DISEASE IN WOMEN
On Friday, Feb. 1, Lenox Hill Hospital is offering free screenings for cholesterol, blood pressure, calcium scores, glucose, BMI and vascular health. Visitors can also sample heart-healthy snacks and check out free yoga demonstrations. At the Einhorn Auditorium, 131 E. 76th St., 11 a.m. to 3 p.m.

By Lorraine Duffy Merkl

The New York Jets and Giants are back, and if, like me, you’re not a gridiron fan (or sports reporter like the beleaguered Ines Sainz), then when the men in your life start to talk about “the game,” it’s as though they’re speaking another language.

I’ve done some research into the verbiage used in this macho, rather violent contest, and found that Manhattan women may have more in common with football than we think. Here are some terms that can relate to our everyday, non-pigskin, Big Apple lives:

TWO MINUTE WARNING: What mothers and caregivers give their children when it’s time to leave any of our city’s playgrounds; what some employers believe is fair notice when announcing layoffs; and what our husbands and boyfriends need when we’re going to be late for the ballet at Lincoln Center, which they really don’t want to go to.

FUMBLE: Who drops the ball in your life? The co-worker who refuses to comprehend the meaning of teamwork? The guy who forgets to call when he’s going to be late? Sometimes—embarrassingly enough—it’s us, when there’s just too much to do and only so much time in which to do it. (See following example.)

SNAP: What we feel like we’re about to do when we’re scheduled to chaperone a school field trip, get to a doctor’s appointment on the other side of the park and host a dinner party for colleagues—all in the same day.

SAFETY: The reason we take cabs home late at night, jog around Central Park’s Reservoir in pairs, own dogs and carry Mace.

SACK: That baggy (often black) dress we’re forced to wear after we’ve overindulged on chicken wings and peanuts at happy hour, binged on Häagen-Dazs due to a breakup or downed too much take-out during those late nights at the office.

KICKOFF: What we do with our shoes (even if they’re Christian Louboutins) after a long day of doing everything the men in the office do, except in heels.

BUMP AND RUN: The move that sometimes is the only way to get through the crowds in Midtown, Bloomingdale’s or the cross-town bus, since “Excuuuuuse meeeee” doesn’t always do the trick.

ELIGIBLE RECEIVER: The rare NYC bachelor worthy of getting our phone number.

DEFENSE: What we play most of the time against cutthroat colleagues who keep trying to horn in on our assignments, other parents who think their child is an angel, therefore ours must be to blame, and, it goes without saying, the riders blocking the subway doors.

OFFENSE: What we have to be on when we want something (a job, an apartment, a parking space) and we have to go out and stake our own claim because no one’s going to just give it to us in this very competitive city.

SCRAMBLING: What we do many a morning in order to make that train, bus or deadline. Sometimes it’s the fault of the long line at Starbucks, but other times it’s because we’ve gone out the night before and overslept. Ooops.

TIGHT END: What we strive for with our workouts at NYSC.

FACE MASK: Often gooey and avocado-scented, they protect our skin against this borough’s air pollution.

PASS: What’s made at us, usually by omnipresent construction workers.

Xs & Os: Coaches use these to diagram players’ positions, but we know them as the hugs and kisses which we better get for letting our men watch those seemingly never-ending games on Sunday afternoons and Monday nights.

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Lorraine Duffy Merkl’s debut novel Fat Chick, from The Vineyard Press, is available at amazon.com and barnesandnoble.com.

I recently read that Christopher Hitchens’ upcoming memoir tells of his passionate love affairs with boys in boarding school in England. No big deal for the now-married, smart-as-a-whip pundit and gray eminence.

Have we missed the boat? I think so.

We post-Stonewall generation of Americans seem to believe that a man or woman is either 100 percent homosexual or 100 percent straight. This is despite the fact that a few years ago, Drew Barrymore casually declared herself bisexual, as do some students at all-girl colleges. Recently, Anna Paquin, the New Zealand actress who won an Academy Award for her role in The Piano, the film starring the great Holly Hunter, has declared herself bisexual and in a relationship with a man.

During my years as a Ms. editor and writer (workaholic that I am, I wrote more byline features than anybody), I became intensely puzzled about women’s sexuality. After much reading, I found the most satisfying hypothesis in the writings of researcher Alfred Kinsey, who believed that female sexuality was “plastic,” i.e., malleable. He believed that women were capable of sexual response to a person of either sex. Because of what he saw as our sexual passivity, he decided it just depended on who came on to us.

This satisfied me vis-à-vis the formerly married women I knew who were declaring themselves lesbians—several of whom shamefacedly had abortions after they came out.

But what about men? I assumed they were homosexual or heterosexual.

But for a few years now I’ve been facing the absolutely amazing Scotsman Craig Ferguson, late-night talk-show host extraordinaire and autodidact who writes high-brow, totally honest books and who can respond to anything with a pertinent joke—like Louis Armstrong riffing on a new melody.

Craig is obsessed with sex—and speaks of having had affairs with both sexes. I was beady-eyed for a long time, thinking he was homosexual and trying to hide it. When a female guest touches his knee, he mumbles “do that again, please.” And whenever he mentions Orlando Bloom he makes it clear he’s attracted to him big time. Craig recently married a third wife (much younger and richer). Is Craig lying to us? To his wife?

By way of explanation he says only, “Hey, I’m European.”

Then my brain sprang into action (finally). Craig means that “the English vice”—which is what the French call homosexuality and which is practiced by upper middle class and married Englishmen, as well as boys in English boarding schools, somewhat routinely—is simply that: a sort of vice that is practiced without stigma by otherwise heterosexual men. (Oddly, little is known about Englishwomen and their secrets or vices—the society is, alas, not designed for them; men dress better, have the right to sleep with men on the side and have exclusive men-only private clubs.)

In general, Europeans seem way ahead of us on this matter and other sexual issues. Yawning and in general unperturbed about distinctions regarding his own sexuality, Craig is probably wiser and more sophisticated and less hypocritical than we are—we who kvell and gossip every time a public person is outed as an adulterer, philanderer or homosexual—when in fact there’s probably almost no one who hasn’t practiced one of the three aforementioned sexual behaviors.

I believe bisexuality is our natural state and as we loosen up a bit, it will be become more and more commonplace. 

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Susan Braudy is the author and journalist whose last book, Family Circle: The Boudins and the Aristocracy of the Left, was nominated for a Pulitzer by publisher Alfred Knopf.

This is why people like Dr. Larry Norton, physician-in-chief of breast cancer programs at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, remain important in the fight against this disease. For more than 40 years, Norton has been working on understanding the mathematics of tumor growth or, more simply, how cancer changes and spreads based on numbers.

“Over the last five years or so, that has morphed into a deep understanding about cancer growth,” he said. “We used to think of it as cell division, and now we are thinking about them moving.”

Dr. Larry Norton

Breast cancer is a complicated subject, but one many women have to think about. This is one reason Norton has spoken about it for the past 17 years at the 92nd Street Y. His next public talk at the cultural center is scheduled for Oct. 22.

“It’s going to touch on what the audience wants to know,” Norton said. “I will basically give an update on the biology of breast cancer and what’s happening with drug therapy.”

The first step in understanding breast cancer is to comprehend how the breast works. A woman’s breasts are really glands, and each breast is made of lobes, which are groups of milk glands called lobules. The lobules are placed around the ducts, which are thin tubes that carry the milk to the nipple. There are also lymph vessels in the breast that are used to pass lymph, the clear fluid that transports cells to help fight infections and other diseases. All together, these make up the glandular tissue of the breast.

Norton’s work focuses on the molecular identification of cancer-causing genes and the development of new drugs, which target cell growth. He also researches a newer type of therapy called “dosed density,” which constitutes scheduling drugs to minimize toxicity and maximize the killing of cancer cells.

Norton didn’t always know he wanted to be a doctor, let alone a world-famous cancer specialist. Born in The Bronx, he started out in the 1960s studying music and getting gigs as a working musician. Later, after a friend talked about his inspirational summer working at Roswell Park Memorial Institute in Buffalo, Norton decided to try the medical field. After getting his M.D. from the College of Physicians and Surgeons at Columbia University, he focused on internal medicine at Albert Einstein College of Medicine. Medicine became his true path, though he never lost his love for music.

“I think music and medicine have a lot in common,” he said. “The practice of medicine is about communication and listening carefully. The practical thing about music and medicine is that both require a great deal of time alone thinking.”

In a recent interview, Norton highlighted some of the basics women should know about breast cancer.

Should women fear breast cancer?
Norton: People fear the unknown, but the solution to fear is knowledge. My job is to demystify breast cancer so people can deal with it properly.

How common is breast cancer?
Extremely common. It’s essentially neck-to-neck with lung cancer. But with lung cancer, it’s caused by smoking. With breast cancer, we don’t really know what causes it. Though we do talk about prevention strategies. It is very common—10 to 12 percent of American women have the chance of getting breast cancer.

Does having breast cancer mean you have to lose your breast?
Most people can have breast conserving therapy, where the cancer is removed and the breast is treated with radiation. For the most part, you can’t tell that an operation has been done.

At what age is breast cancer most prevalent?
Breast cancer gets more common as you get older, though it can occur in very young people.

How often should a woman check for breast cancer?
Specific recommendations depend on the individual and family history. For sure we advocate starting annual mammograms at the age of 40, and it’s been shown to reduce breast cancer.

Some helpful websites:

www.healthcentral.com/breast-cancer/check-a-symptom.html

www.mskcc.org/mskcc/html/293.cfm

www.cancer.gov/cancertopics/understanding-breast-changes
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“Update on Breast Cancer,” with Dr. Larry Norton
Thursday, Oct. 22, 8:15 p.m., $18
92nd Street Y, Buttenwieser Hall, 1395 Lexington Ave., 212-415-5500