If You Leave Me, Can I Come Too?

In 37 columns reprinted from Playboy and the Village Voice, Heimel (Get Your Tongue Out of My Mouth, I'm Kissing You Goodbye) offers her irreverent, confessional, feminist spin on topical and personal matters ranging from the 1994 midterm elections to her friends' midlife crises. Chapters with headings such as ``Rush Limbaugh, Blow Me'' and ``Family Values'' are interspersed with short advice columns written in the somewhat more neutral persona of ``Problem Lady'' and offering brash but sensible tips on relationships and gender politics to troubled, mostly female, readers. Most amusing in this collection are the pieces on life in L.A.; bestseller lists; and her six-odd pet dogs, whose courtship rituals bear an uncanny resemblance to hers (the boundary problems, the pack psychology, the hunting drive). Heimel's neurotic, acerbically funny shtick hasn't changed much over the years. Yet her eye now gravitates toward more mature themes, such as turning 40 and staying in touch with her older children and aged parents. (June.)