At least there was Fashion to look at

Did you watch the Emmy's? No? Well, you didn't miss much. It was seriously the worst award show I've ever seen. Ugh. Whose idea was that whole five-reality-show-hosts-hosting idea anyway? They're should be fired. Because those people sucked at hosting an award show. And why shouldn't they? They're not commedians. Did they not learn anything with Ryan Seacrests' lackluster showing last year? They ASKED HIM BACK? Bad, bad Emmy's producers.

I'm starting a campaign to get Ricky Gervais to host next year. His was the only funny part of the show. Except maybe when Jeremy Piven won (a-gain) and said, "What if I just talked for 12 minutes? That'd be the opening."

I read where someone said, "I didn't even know Felicity Huffman was wearing her hair all wrong until I saw her on the red carpet and suddenly realized how great this cut is on her." Or something like that. And I couldn't agree more. She looks great. Also like she could take you in an arm-wrestling contest.

Great color on her, great cut. Not so great little triangle cut-out thingy.

Someone needs to explain to Debra Messing the concept of BALANCE. You are flatter than a 12-year-old boy on top. Do not wear a skirt that poofs out ginormously on bottom. You look like you're standing in an ant hill.

Similarly, Cynthia Nixon has a neck longer than my entire torso. This strapless gown makes it look like there's three feet from her neck to her neckline.

Yikes. This is just one of those WHAT WERE YOU THINKING fashion moments. Can someone please give me one example when a gigantic bows over your chest is a good idea? In Eva Longoria's case, she seemed to be concerned about the shortness of the hem, so she yanked it down a bit, so that it's barely covering her nipples. Another look I can't recommend.

Tina Fey is a good example of a woman who knows what works for her and what she's comfortable in. It's not a knock-out of a dress (although the deep violet color gets bonus marks), but you can tell she feels and confident and secure in it. Her boobs aren't squashed to hell and I bet she wasn't yanking up on the thing all night either. YES, EVA, I'M TALKING TO YOU.

Whoa, Kate Walsh - hot stuff! Her hair is so fab I almost didn't even notice that third boob growing from the bodice of her dress.

And speaking of boobs, something appears to be clawing at Kyra Sedgwick's. Which is a shame, because she looks amazing otherwise. Love ya babe - wish ya'd won.

And don't look now, but whatever was grabbing Kyra's boobs seems to be going for Mary Louise's crotch. I'm sorry honey, but that dress looks like you bought it at TJ Maxx. NOT THAT THERE'S ANYTHING WRONG WITH THAT. Just you know, not for the EMMYS.

Well there's not much one could do to improve on this. It's not a dress I personally would select, but it looks great on her. And didn't she like just have a double-mastectomy or something? You go, girl. You deserve to look great.

I really want to like this (no, I really don't). OK, I like the LOOK. It's a beautiful dress and her figure looks excellent in it (except for the fact that it appears to have eaten her feet). But you're what? 18? This look would get very, very high marks if, say...Kyra Sedgwick were wearing it. On Hayden, it just looks like she's trying to subliminally convince everyone that her 30-something boyfriend IS NOT EITHER TOO OLD FOR ME. NAH-UHH! SHUT UP!

This isn't my favoritest dress in the world - there's something about the textured bodice that annoys me - but Brooke is WORKING IT. She looks like a million bucks. Brooke is one of my faves along with Diane Lane who just gets better with age. And I love her for that.


I couldn't find a photo of Mad Men's January Jones by herself, but you can see her here on the left. I hope her night wasn't too badly ruined once she realized that she totally forgot to put her dress on and had gone on live TV in her foundation undergarments.

In Disguise

Big Daddy & I have been invited to a Halloween party. This has not typically been my favorite holiday. I don't mind the dressing-up part, I just don't like the gory gross part.

I'm trying to come up with a good couples costume for us. Here are my criteria: 1) Both costumes must be people. I do not want to be the UPS man and a package. 2) I want to be someone from pop culture. 3) The costumes can not require an expensive investment - thrift shopping would be ideal. (Okay, that's really Big Daddy's criteria more than mine. Obviously.)

Here's some ideas we've come up with so far (in no particular order):

Prom King & Queen, 1984
He - powder blue tux with ruffle shirt, mullet wig
Me - big poofy pastel colored prom dress, big 80s hair, bright 80s make up, tiara
Problem: Finding these things in our sizes

Kevin & Britney
He - manpris, wifebeater, mesh trucker hat, big gold chain, Elijah's big high top leather basketball shoes (unlaced)
Me - cutoff jean shorts, tacky t-shirt, greasy hair, smeary eye makeup, barefoot, pregnant
Problem: It's kind of an idea whose time has passed.

Becks & Vicki
He - Soccer jersey, shorts, spiky hair
Me - tight dress, high heels, lots of make up, pouty look
Problem - How will they know I'm in costume??? Haaaaaaa. Also, Big Daddy doesn't really want to go as David Beckham.

Big & Carrie
He - Suit, slicked back hair
Me - wacky outfit, high heels, curly hair, mole
Problem - Big Daddy REALLY doesn't want to go as SATC.

McCain & Sarah
He - Suit, "Vote for Me" button
Me - Suit, Tina Fey glasses, updo w/ sideswept bangs, nude lipstick w/ gloss, "Vote for Me" button
Problem - People might think we're Republicans.

Jay & Silent Bob
He - Backwards baseball cap, trench coat
Me - Long straight wig, ski cap, short-sleeved t-shirt layered over long-sleeved
Problem - While Big Daddy would make and excellent Silent Bob, I don't really want to have to say "Snoochie boochies" all night.

The Phantom & Christine
He - Cape, phantom mask
Me - Ball gown, big upswept wig
Problem - $$$

Han Solo & Princess Leia
He - black pants, long-sleeved white t-shirt, black vest, laser gun
Me - long white gown, cinnamon buns hair, (uh, no...not the gold bikini Leia)
Problem - done to death

Gangster & Flapper
He - zoot suit
Me - flapper dress
Problem - costumes are so cheap, real thing is so expensive

What do you think? Do you have any good ideas? Like one of these? Leave your vote or your suggestion in the comments.

Heart not bleeding THAT much

So, two stories this morning have me thinking that maybe I'm not the all-out bleeding heart liberal that I claim to be. Because DAMN people. WHAT DO YOU WANT FROM THE GOVERNMENT???

First were the stories from Houston. I have all kinds of compassion for these people, but I couldn't believe the outright sense of entitlement that I was hearing in these interviews. I understand maybe people on limited income didn't have the funds to go out and purchase a lot of nonperishable food, but I have to doubt that ALL the food they had was in their freezer and is now ruined. Seriously? You can't open up a can of beans? For pete's sake, it's not like you didn't know the storm was coming. You couldn't fill up your bathtub with tap water? That's what we used to do during hurricanes. People should not be screaming for FEMA to deliver them water unless they lost their homes. That is my new law.

Secondly was a report that the auto industry is asking the government to bail them out now. I'm sorry...wha...? Let me see if I got this right: You blew your wad producing giant trucks and SUVs that no one wants now, so you want the government to fund the production of gas-efficient cars? How does that even make sense?

First of all, the government should not be funding private enterprise. Our tax money should not be used to make sure stockholders don't lose their investment. This is not how our economy works, people! The guy on NPR was all, "Newspapers are failing, too. Should the government bail out the newspaper industry?" and I was all, "YES! YES! EXACTLY."

I am sorry if a bunch of people in Detroit lose their jobs. That sucks, I know. That might mean you have to relocate to Jackson, Mississippi and get a job at the Nissan plant and believe me - no one wants to live in Jackson, Mississippi less than I do. So I know. But you know what? If my CEO made really bad business decisions and my company went belly-up, I'd have to find a new job. The government isn't going to swoop in and save me and my 19,000 colleagues.

What if Michael Kors dumped all his money into making nothing but superskinny jeans, only to realize that less than 1 percent of the population can wear them. Now he's out of dough, got a shitload of jeans no one wants and has no money to switch over all his facilities to making cute dresses. Should the government bail him out?

I call SHENANIGANS.

The high price of oil-dependency

Memphis experienced a run on gasoline last night. People waiting in very long lines to fill up before the price sky-rocketed today. In a show of solidarity - WITH EACH OTHER - the gas stations then all turned off their pumps and refused to sell. They said they were "out," but I find it curious that all their pumps just "ran out" at the exact same time, right?

I'll be curious to see if they're still "out" this morning, when prices are probably a dollar a gallon higher than they were last night.

Unfortunately, (according to CNN) only Alabama and Georgia have anti-gouging laws. And that's fucked up. Gouging should be illegal everywhere. It's just so wrong to do that to people. Fucking big oil. Don't even get me started.

*CLEAN ENERGY SUPPLIES NOW!!*

(sorry)

Big Daddy & Elijah have gone out this morning to try to get gas and check out what the astronomical prices are. I'll keep you posted.

The Palin Interview (PR-wise)

So, politically, I don't think Palin made any huge gaffs. Except maybe for that Bush Doctrine thing. Which, kudos to Charlie for finding something to trip her up. Frankly, I didn't know what the Bush Doctrine was either (until Charlie explained that whole unilateral preemptive strike thing, and then I was all, "Oh riiiiiight.") But since I'm not running for VP I don't really have to know what the Bush Doctrine is. Palin, on the other hand, will surely make some of her handlers pay dearly for that omission.

As someone who has done media training for years, let's take a look at the interview from a PR perspective.

PR-wise, she did pretty much everything her trainers coached her to do, the first rule being: don't worry so much about the question, just get your message out. It may be frustrating to the viewer (and the interviewer, too), but that's what we tell people to do. And she did it well.

[A hypothetical conversation]:

Media trainer: So, when he asks you about experience, you just keep bringing it back to being a reformer. Got it? OK, let's try it. 'Are you prepared to be president?'
Palin: I am a reformer. It's in my DNA.
Trainer: Very good.

She did make one huge - and I mean HUGE, HUGE, HUGELY GINORMOUS - mistake. One of the things we drive home in media training is to never, ever repeat anything negative, even to deny it. You do not want the viewer to have burned into his memory the picture of you with those words coming out of your mouth. And in the era of YouTube, you just know someone's going to edit it with only the negative statement and post it and it will get sent round and round and round the internets.

That's why it was such a big no-no when she was walking along the pipeline talking about climate change and she said [quoting here], "Show me where I have ever said that there's absolute proof that nothing that man has ever conducted or engaged in has had any effect or no effect on climate change. I have not said that."

Uh, guess what? You just did.

Everything you need to know about LIPSTICK

First, let's take short look at the history on the use of the phrase "lipstick on a pig," shall we?

• Democrat Jim Hightower, then Texas' agriculture commissioner, used the phrase in 1986 when he lashed out at Ronald Reagan's farm-credit policies: "It's like putting lipstick on a pig," he said. "You can't hide the ugliness."
  
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• Torie Clarke, a Republican and a former Defense Department spokeswoman, partly entitled her how-to book on surviving spin Lipstick on a Pig.
  
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• Vice President Cheney criticized Democrat John Kerry's national security proposals in the 2004 campaign using the same line.
  
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• So did Rep. Charles Rangel, D-N.Y., as he attacked Republicans' Social Security proposals in 2005.
  
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• "When there is no agenda and there's no real direction ... you really can't have a message. You can put lipstick on a pig all day long, but it is still a pig." - Republican John Boehner, about House Democrats, 1998
  
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• "You can put lipstick and earrings on a hog and call it Monique, but it's still a pig." - Democrat Ann Richards, about ineffective government programs, 1992
  
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• "George Bush has given a mission to Gen. Petraeus, and he has done his best to try to figure out how to put lipstick on pig." - Democrat Barack Obama on the Iraq war, 2007
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• They put some lipstick on a pig, but it's still a pig." - Republican John McCain on Democrat Hillary Rodham Clinton's health care plan, 2007
  

Oh wait. WHAT? JOHN MCCAIN USED THAT EXPRESSION ABOUT HRC?? I CALL SHENANIGANS!!

More double standards from the right, I'm afraid.

So, clearly - NOT a sexist statement. But don't take my word for it. Let's see what these professional feminists had to say about it:

• Sherry Bebitch Jeffe, a political scientist at the University of Southern California, said "lipstick on a pig" is a cousin of another old chestnut, the one about making a "silk purse out of a sow's ear." "It means taking something that you can't change — that's a negative — and putting the best spin on it," Jeffe said. "It has nothing to do with sexism."
• 
  
• Marie Wilson, president of the White House Project, an organization dedicated to promoting women in leadership: "I don't think this is about sexism," she said. "I think this is a phrase that both campaigns have used from time to time to talk about change."
  

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• Debbie Walsh, director of the Center for American Women and Politics at Rutgers University, said Obama's quote "seems like it's really being taken out of context."

So enough already with the lipstick.

Something we can all agreee on

"If you don't vote, you're a moron."

Still hard to grasp seven years later

When I think back to THAT MORNING, what is most memorable to me is the amount of time it took to sink in. How long it took us - all of us - to realize what was happening.

7:40-something: listening to NPR in the car on the way in: "Wow, a plane? Really? Man, he was way off course. Hope everything's okay."

8:oh-something: COO's office to discuss upcoming news conference, watching TV: "Wha...? Another plane? Huh? So, like, this was maybe not an accident?"

By 8:30: Realize there is bigger news than what we had planned for the day [I have no idea now what our news conference was even announcing]; cancel news conference.

By 9: Entire dept crowded in our VPs corner office, because it has cable. Watching in horror at what we're seeing. Still not entirely comprehending that our country has been attacked.

By 9:30: phone calls start coming from sister (whose husband was in the army, stationed at Ft. Bragg [Base had been locked down; no communication in or out; she's not talked to him; she is freaking the fuck out; thinks may be Armageddon]); husband (whose brother works in the Port Authority Building just blocks away from Ground Zero [no one can get through via phone; inlaws also scared out of their minds])

Mid-morning: CEO gives permission to leave if desired. Company had Arabic-American name; may have been the tiniest bit of panic or at least concern that we maybe weren't safe there?? Jumped in car; checked son out of school; spent day on couch under a blanket watching CNN.

I asked Elijah this morning if he remembers it - he was in third grade. He said that he did. I'm glad. I hope he never forgets. I know I won't.

Proud Political Junkie

Now that the conventions are over and the real mudslinging has begun, bloggers are starting to talk about whether or not they're going to talk about politics, and why. Most people that read a blog regularly are going to know what the political leanings of the writer are, so I don't think voicing opinions actually comes as a shock to anyone. Most people (that I've read) have decided not to discuss politics so as to not piss off an entire constituency of their readers. I think that's kind of silly since these same people don't have a problem stating their opinions about, oh, say...breastfeeding, or co-sleeping, or homeschooling or any number of child-rearing issues. So it actually kind of bothers me that people think they should voice their opinion on any topic EXCEPT politics. Don't they think this is important? Then again, they have a lot more readers than I do, so WTF do I know?

See, I'm a very political person. And I'm a politically active person. That's part of who I am so I'm not going to pretend like it doesn't exist on my very own web site. I work in a building that looks an awful lot like the Republican Convention - mostly white and male, and very conservative - and you better believe my photo of me & Bill is up on my office window sill for every one of them to snarl at. I am not ashamed!

But what I'm hearing a lot of people say is that they're upset by the intolerance they experience from people with differing beliefs from their own. That they resent being treated like a complete moron because they're not voting for Obama. I think this is something that's become more extreme with the closeness of the last few presidential elections. I don't remember it being so volatile back in the day when they could decisively predict the winner before election night was over. People feel like there's a lot more at stake these days, so they tend to get a little personal. But that's one thing you won't get from me.

Yes, I'm a left-wing, bleeding-heart liberal democrat. But I don't think it would be very liberal of me to be intolerant. So number one, I respect your right to whatever beliefs you hold, and number two, I will respect you for holding them, whether I agree with them or not.

So you can expect an occasional political rant from me over the next six weeks. You may not agree with what I say, but I'm not expecting you to. Nor do I expect to convince a staunch conservative to suddenly see things my way. Read, or don't read. Comment, or don't. But if you do, I will expect that you treat me and my views with the same tolerance that I give you. No name calling or mean, divisive language. No degrading community activists. Otherwise, I will delete you. It's still my blog after all.

Killer.

For some reason, yesterday evening, I decided to go for a run. Since I haven't run since it got hot (back in, oh...April, I guess), I was curious to see if I could even make it a mile.

I did. Barely. I thought I was going to throw up before it was over. But there were all these pre-teen boys playing football in their yard and I'd be damned if I was going to let them see the old lady peter out.

If I haven't mentioned it here before, let me just remind you that FREDDIE MERCURY WAS A MUSICAL GENIUS, YA'LL.

And I have a new theme song.



Also? I want it all. And I want it now.

Clinton Kelly asked me to give you this message

So I totally forgot that Clinton Kelly was going to be at Macy's today. I just went in because I was looking to buy a couple new suits for work, and OMG, the place was crazy packed. WITH SECURITY GUARDS.

I watched a bit of the fashion show, but it was kind of hard to see. He was every bit as fabulous and entertaining as he is on TV though.

I did get a free copy of his & Stacy's book, since I spent $100 in Macy's today. I could've stood in line to get him to sign it, but I didn't want him to see how I was dressed! (It was bad.)

At the end, he took fashion questions from the audience. One of the last questions, the woman said something about being too fat to wear...something.(I couldn't hear it all.) And Clinton said, "I have a message for all of you."

(And I'm paraphrasing here.) (But only slightly.)

He said, "My job is to make women feel better about themselves through clothes and accessories. It may not be much, but it's what I've got. And everywhere I go, I meet women with really warped body images. And the media is mostly to blame for this. I know - I work in the media. All you see are celebrities who are thin and models who are thinner. But I want to tell you: THOSE WOMEN ARE NOT REAL. I worked in the fashion magazine industry for years; I know what they do to those photos.

"You see a gorgeous 17 year old in a shampoo ad, and she's got long beautiful hair, bright blue eyes, skin with no pores, a perky little nose, shiny white teeth, high perfect boobs, and legs that start at her boobs and go on forever. But guess what? THE HAIR IS EXTENSIONS, THE EYES ARE CONTACTS, THE SKIN IS AIRBRUSHED, THE NOSE WAS PAID FOR, THE CHICKLET TEETH ARE VENEERS, THE BOOBS ARE SILICONE OR SALINE AND THE LEGS ARE A FREAK OF NATURE. She is no more real than that chair right there, so quit comparing yourself to her!"

To which hundreds of women - none of whom wear a size 4, I'm sure - broke out in applause.

Now print that out and tape it to your bathroom mirror.

Conservative Double-Speak

"In Dick Morris's defense...he is a lying sack of s***"

Mysterious Ways

Of course I bought way too much stuff for the party. For instance, you don't really need 150 big bakery cookies when you also have a tray of Chik-Fil-A brownies AND a full-sheet cake. I also ended up with a couple extra cases of soda and tons of plates, napkins and plastic ware. (Here's another hint: teenagers don't really fix a plate and sit down and eat so much as they just stand around the food table and eat from it.)

So today I was packaging up all this extra stuff and trying to find places to store all this paper ware - somewhere out of the way but not so hidden that I forget I have it and never use it and even buy more the next time I have the occasion. I double-bagged tons of cookies and brownies and put them into the freezer. Then I got the email.

"All the shelters in town are full," it said. "They've asked us to open our church as a shelter..." then it listed a ton supplies and things they needed for the 100+ people that will be there tonight and for who knows how long.

I felt like I was being extraordinarily generous to give them all these snacks and sodas and paper ware. But the truth is, it was a huge favor for me to get rid of it all. Funny how these things work out.