May 29, 1994

In "Sleepless in Seattle," last summer's hit romantic comedy, Tom Hanks's character, a widower in his 30's who hasn't been on a date for 15 years, asks a friend for advice. "I just want to know what it's like out there," he says. "That's what I'm trying to tell you, what women are looking for -- pecs and a cute butt," says his friend, played by Rob Reiner. "You can't even turn on the news nowadays without hearing about how some babe thought some guy's butt was cute. Who the first woman to say this was I don't know, but somehow it caught on."

BUDGETS were defeated this month in 10 Westchester and Putnam County school districts. School officials offer a variety of reasons, all of them variations on themes heard over the last few years. One of the most compelling reasons cited is that hard-pressed taxpayers facing higher tax bills but having lost jobs or income in a poor economy were rebelling against the only tax they could vote on directly. School taxes have been rising because of larger enrollments, salary increases, less state aid and decreasing tax bases brought about by successful tax challenges.

IN less than a month two decisions by the United States Supreme Court have revised rules for garbage disposal that were years in the making. The rulings throw plans on Long Island into disarray, and officials are scrambling for answers. On the heels of a ruling that incinerated garbage has to be treated as hazardous waste if it has toxic residues, the Court struck down on May 16 so-called flow-control regulations that municipalities had relied on to direct garbage to fee-collecting collection plants.

IT'S THE VOICE THAT DATES JACQUELINE Bouvier Kennedy Onassis. Not the face, not the body or the way she moves in the old television news film I watched for hours last weekend. Those are ageless. Her clothes (the sleeveless linen sheaths, Chanel suits and soft cashmere turtlenecks) seem timeless, too. Jackie's image is eternally modern. But the voice is pure 50's and 60's. Demure, reserved, gracious. As I listen to her now, Jackie sounds like a younger, more innocent cousin of Marilyn Monroe. Soft, tentative, ready to laugh, a bit surprised to find herself being addressed. Like Marilyn, she is a child-woman, trying so hard to please, to get it right, to be a good girl. Which is what you did in those days if you were a woman who wanted to get ahead. Actually, if you wanted to get anything.

Ann Christopher, a nursing student, says she routinely gets into shouting matches about service and quality with the workers at her loca: Consumers Food supermarket in East Flatbush, Brooklyn. Mary Hunter, who was buying a few boxes of pasta last week at an Associated market nearby, regularly pays $13 in cab fare to do her "real" shopping at a Pathmark on the other side of the borough.