That Wonderful Woman! Oh, How I Loathe Her.

Let me be clear. Those we idolspize are not, as Jessica Mitford called them in 1977, "Frenemies," a concept she gleaned from one of her famous sisters. "My sister and the Frenemy played together constantly," Mitford explained, "invited each other to tea at least once a week, were inseparable companions, all the time disliking each other heartily."

As useful as the term is, having a "Frenemy" isn't quite like idolspizing someone -- you can idolspize a perfect stranger, say -- although it's close. So, too, idolspizing doesn't adhere to the rule that it isn't enough you should succeed, but that your friends should also fail; the idolspizer might succumb to the odd moment of schadenfreude -- would I weep openly if, say, Susan Orlean's house developed wood rot? -- but we're sincerely happy for our idols even while we endure their ever-accumulating triumphs.

To be truly idolspicable, someone must be thisclose to your own age, background, educational achievement and career, and they must be of your gender and general situation in life; there's no use idolspizing Gisele Bundchen, Stephen Hawking or those whose surpassing physical and mental gifts put them beyond the pale of human spizolatry. You can idolspize Jennifer Aniston because, without TV stars for a dad and an uncle, she seems like someone you could have gone to high school with. You can't, however, idolspize Angelina Jolie, unless you're Jennifer Aniston, in which case you would most likely bypass "idol" altogether and go straight to "despise."

(Do men idolspize other men? Or do they have more psychologically healthy means of competing, like sports, boardroom coups, barroom brawls? Is idolspizolatry women's response to the have-it-all myths of post-feminist culture? Discuss.)

Celebrities in general are too pretty, rich and thin to provide realistic idolspizing fodder -- plus there's usually a broken marriage or substance abuse problem that allows the rest of us to feel smugly superior -- although who among us doesn't secretly idolspize recent award-winners Reese Witherspoon and Kelly Clarkson (American Idolspize)? Indeed, awards season -- not to mention finales of that-could-be-me reality shows such as "Project Runway" and "The Bachelor" -- makes for perfect idolspizing weather, as yet another deserving winner claims the Big Prize. And make no mistake, the idolspized are nothing if not deserving. They're attractive, friendly, down-to-earth, hard-working -- we want them to succeed, we just wonder why they have to keep succeeding, over and over again.

The idolspized signify the recognition that meritocracy can be a bummer. And that it can be maddeningly random: On some level, there but by the sheer perversity of God -- or more likely your own sloth, self-sabotage or failure to seize the day -- go you. Indeed, they are you, only smarter, faster, richer, thinner, with better hair. To wit: Like Susan Orlean, I'm a redhead, a writer, a dog lover, a late marrier and later-in-life parent; I even have my own weekend house that on paper sounds like a candidate for House & Home-worthy envy, were it not for the sagging plaster walls and the un-Taconic view of a crab shack belonging to a waterman named Junebug.

But still, it's a house on the water, which is precisely one house on the water more than I ever thought I would own. And perhaps there is someone out there who, after reading about that house, or hearing about my awesome job, my sweet husband, my enchanting daughter or my adorable dogs -- has found a reason to idolspize me. As mind-bending as it sounds, maybe there's even someone out there Susan Orlean idolspizes. A girl can dream. In the meantime, Orlean wrote a story about homing pigeons for a recent issue of the New Yorker. I read every word, and it was delightful.

Unfortunately.