Yes, but do you have to be MEAN about it?

So, it's that time of the year...

The time when Walmart shoppers stampede and kill.

The time when fathers plummet from rooftops while hanging lights.

The time when Toys R Us shoppers pull guns and slay one another in the aisles....

AND the time when Washingtonions decide to berate, sue and otherwise antagonize one another over their respective holiday beliefs.

You know. CHRISTMAS.

Flash back to 2006 when a rabbi asked that a menorah be added to the SeaTac airport's holiday display. Port of Seattle authorities, fearing legal action or requests from other religious observers to add symbols of their celebrations to the display, opted instead to take down the "Christmas" trees altogether in a brilliantly cowardly display of "Bah Humbug-ian" fear mongering.

Imagine the outcry.

Fast forward to 2007. A completely secular - and impressively soulless - display of northwest winter bounty goes up. Fake snow. Big tall trees. Images of the San Juans. Ugh.

Here we are in 2008. This year the debate lands right on the steps of the state Capitol. Alongside a nativity scene and christmas tree we've got "The Atheist Sign."

It reads:

There are no gods,

no devils, no angels,

no heaven or hell.

There is only our natural world.

Religion is but

myth and superstition

that hardens hearts

and enslaves minds.

SO - odd choice of spacing and punctuation aside, it's an ugly sign in its own right. The sign comes to the capitol courtesy of the Freedom from Religion Foundation. The foundation's co-president explains that, "the sign is a reminder of the 'real reason for the season, the winter solstice.'"

Fine, fine, fine. Here's the deal: I'd be a whole lot more tolerant of their right to participate in the holiday disply if they'd taken a softer, kinder, gentler, more "holiday friendly" approach to their consciencsious objection. If the sign had said, "...there is only our natural world...we proudly celebrate the Winter Solstice," that would be one thing. To go on the offensive and attack religion en masse...well I have a hard time believing Mother Earth and her peaceful Solstice Babies would much approve.

Here's my official rebuttal: The nativity does NOT contain little word bubbles coming from Baby Jesus' mouth saying, "Merry Christmas, you'll all going to Hell." Neither does a Mary hold a sign that says, "Jesus is the Reason for the Season...the end is nigh, repent and be saved...your open minds lead to certain death." NOPE. It's imagery. It accuses no one. It directly insults no one. It calls no one stupid, or misguided, or otherwise hard-hearted. It makes no illusions to slavery.

My suggestion to the Freedom from Religion Foundation: focus on the winter solstice - put up homages to the natural world. Love Mother Earth. Leave the low blows at home with the Grinch. Celebrate.

Or I'll sic the Walmart doorbusters on you.

I'd date her.

Confession:

I'm totally cheating on Alessandra Ambrosio.

She was always my favorite (and isn't that sort of an American pastime anyway, picking your favorite Victoria's Secret model?)...she was The One Who Could Do No Wrong. I bought DOZENS of swimsuits over the years strictly because she looked so damn good in 'em I completely forgot they might (MIGHT!) not look "just like that" on me. Eh, I'm a fantastic consumer. I buy the fake image they're selling hook, line and credit card. The husband can verify how many bikinis I jammed into my luggage on the Greece honeymoon.

Then along came Miranda Kerr. Figures she's Australian (been there - the place is TEEMING with ridiculously well-dressed, ridiculously hot women. If Los Angeles and Paris got together and had a kid...that kid would look like a girl from Oz.). She looks like she's sixteen - dig that, since I look like I'm certifiably high-school ("we'd, like, totally get along!"). She's got those dimples...and perfect eyebrows...and she actually SMILES instead of smirks at the camera. She's perfect, I've decided. I'll even forgive the fact that she hooked up with that man-child "actor" Orlando Bloom instead of a proper man's man. She's perfect. I love her.

FHM did her justice this month. They read my mind. She IS my new favorite supermodel.

(doesn't mean she comes anywhere close to Megan Fox on the "Why Wasn't I Born Looking Like That?" pedestal, but hey, she's unseated Alessandra. That's something)

Hmmm...the video reminds me of something....

Oh yes, that's right: it reminds me of Every Other Britney Spears Video. Ever. Right down to the eye makeup. For all the hype surrounding the release of "Womanizer," it could have been absolutely any other Brit video released since...oh...1997. And frankly: it felt about a decade out of date.
Her moves: recycled.
Her attempt at being provocative: cliche.
Her "close-up-shots-while-touching-her-hair" had been seen in every video since she first donned the plaid skirt.
Her song: THE STUFF BAD DREAMS ARE MADE OF. And this from a person with the highest "bad pop music tolerance known to man." I mean, I even listened to Boyzone back in 1999. I knew every word to the Westlife music library. I had BOTH cds by LFO in my car. Own Hilary Duff cds. And Jessica Simpson. Everything XTina ever recorded. Mandy Moore's "Coverage" release (probably the worst of them all). AND STILL: I have to call "Womanizer" perhaps the most grating, repetitious, manufactured, irritating piece of pop...EVER.
Furthermore: why is she singing about womanizing men like they're a bad thing....they're the only type she's ever dated...really, to bring a little edge back to her career she should have taken the honest path and recorded a song about the fact that she's looking for another womanizer to take advantage of her. THAT would be ground-breaking music.
Ah well...she's got nice teeth, still...even after all of that Starbucks...

People having a worse Thursday than I: unemployment edition

I'm trying my very best to be optimistic - to find people out there who aren't just sitting in front of their computers cruising the SAME craigslist postings for the fourth day in a row: they're actually having WORSE Thursdays...

Here are the people with whom I would politely decline to trade places today:

David Beckam/frozen-fried-fish-products:


Apparently Becks is shilling for a line of "healthier frozen food products" called GO3. This one almost has me at a loss. He's a good-looking, famous, reasonably well-respected, international superstar. Since when do international superstars (even UK transplants that haven't exactly changed the lives of every man, woman, and child in the US the way they'd have liked) decide to be photographed on a field full of children, holding their own weight in FISH STICKS? Furthermore, who had the bright idea to "gourmet up" the platter of fishmeal with a measley sprig of parsley and half of a wilted-looking lemon??????? And - if he MUST be photographed with a smile on his face while he holds a thousand fish fingers...WHY IS HE WEARING CLOTHES? I'm dumbfounded. And glad I'm not David Beckham today. I'll take sitting in a worn-out chair, in front of a worn-out computer with greasy hair, in my pajamas, hoping the Job o' My Dreams is still just "one day from being posted." Because at least I can chose to order a pizza.

The Bellevue SuperBlock

Amazing strides have been made in the last several years to force Seattle to become High Fashion. I figure this is sort of like trying to turn Paul Schafer into a sex symbol. Incongruent at best. While I've long held that we REI, socks & sandals, jeans-at-a-wedding Seattle locals need some serious exposure to the Wide World of Style, the approach developers have taken is a little reckless. The upscale, Eastside suburb of Bellevue was the lamb led to the couture slaughter. Saks, Hermes, Nieman Marcus, that's just the beginning of the list. BUT, it all happened at once. Multi-use high-rise condos sprung up over night, most of them gestating designer boutiques at street-level. One developer was particularly ambitious: bought several city blocks filled with low-rent strip malls (ooh! and one of the original Matt's Chili Dog joints!!) and planned to expand the Bellevue Fashion Empire to...unimagined heights! It was deemed the SuperBlock. Too bad reality stepped in. Condo sales came to a screeching halt. Banks got cold feet. Investors backed out. Read today that the SuperBlock is up ON the block. For sale for a cool $113 million. Developers asking for 50% down. Buyers and investors are chuckling. NOT looking good for Seattle Fashion.

Um....Runway models for Lauren Conrad



So, I'll get this little admission out of the way before I launch into the rest of my disparaging paragraph: I envy Lauren Conrad's "career" (YES, I use the term loosely). She's famous for nothing, getting opportunities she's hardly qualified for (NO, I don't care that she attended the "Fashion Institute of Design and Merchandising..." so did lots of other girls who AREN'T on a lame television show getting undeserved offers thrown at them left and right), she's got great hair, long legs, and...a LOT of media attention. I want that. I really do. HOWEVER: she gets herself a packed house at LA's Fashion week and struts out a model with....a wad of Kleenex on her head. I mean...I would have the good sense not to slap a white faux flower on a girl's head - from any distance, it will look like a cheesy stage prop. Like a handkerchief. Like Bounty. I won't knock LC's own "sense of style," that's up to the greater shopping public....but so far, I'm not impressed with her runway savvy.

And, is it just me, or does this look distinctly like it belongs on the Fredericks of Hollywood website?

a letter to my unemployed self...

Dear Heather,

This all feels so strange, doesn't it? Surreal. Difficult to grasp. A shock, like a death in the family. After all of those years essentially...growing up under that roof...you sat in that chair longer than you've even known your husband...you spent more hours in that office than you spent with your family. You toiled, languished, persevered. Now this. After all of those hours spent burning that midnight oil assuming it would be appreciated, you're told, "we're restructuring. we're letting you go."

I'll bet you're going through the stages of grief. The denial, the anger, the numbness. I'll bet you'll have up days and down days. You'll have days of relief (maybe you can find a job where 40 hours means 40 hours, not 55 or 63). You'll have days of sadness. It's OK if your feelings are hurt. It's OK if you feel like you've been dumped. It's normal.

I picked this picture of you because you look determined. Chin up, smile on your face - ready to take it all on. Cling to that. Cling to your determination, your sense of self, your innate knowledge that you're a talented, valuable employee. You inspire respect and admiration for your character, your skills, your determination.

Above all else, don't sell yourself short. Don't let yourself down. Try your best not to be consumed by the fears of "what happens next" and "what do I do when the rent is due" and "what if no one wants to hire me..." Commit yourself to finding a place you love.

Take this odd, unexpected opportunity to finally follow your passion. Don't settle for another desk job that pays the bills. Don't take the first thing that comes along out of fear that nothing else will come along - do what you were so afraid to do for so long: start over.

Remember that eight-year-old girl that told strangers she would be "an author" when she grew up. Tap into that strength you felt when you tore open your scores on that AP exam and realized you were among the top 5% in the COUNTRY. Remember those writing conferences your teachers sent you to when you were young. Remember that fire, channel that vigor, refuse to bow to the little voices in your head telling you you're always a few dollars from homeless.

Rely on K - let him support you while you struggle to find a new place to call home. Be proud of the jobs you've held, they've brought you to where you are now. Don't be afraid of that pay cut - in the long run, you value professional satisfaction so much more than you value the dollar sign. Take pride, peace, and solace in knowing that you can go to bed each night having pursued what you love.

Don't back down. Don't sell yourself short. Don't be afraid to find out who you are. What you're made of. What you're capable of. Who loves you. Who supports you.

Remember this time as one of those dark periods you're all the stronger for having conquered. Dazzle them with your smile, your smarts, your vocabulary...and (let's be honest) your eyelashes. Work hard, let yourself play a little. You haven't played in years. You haven't slept in for years. You haven't let K pull the long hours in years.

It's your turn. Take heart. Take care of you.

Seize your day.

Can someone please give the campaigns a thesaurus?

Here are a handful of useful, pleasant alternatives to the over-used word "maverick" (which, thankfully, can only really continue to bombard us for the next 25 days or so):

Dissenter
Nonconformist
Stray
Individualist
Rebel
Outsider
Eccentric
Radical
Rebel
Irregular
Unorthodox
Lone wolf
Independent
Mutineer
Off-beat
Stray
Unbranded
Uncontained
Atypical

Who's next for Natalie?

Just read that Natalie Portman and her current (scary) manfriend Devendra Banhart split up...so I thought that I'd do a little celebrity match-making and come up with Natalie's next man.

She's a tough one...smart and well-educated (with a "wise beyond her years" vibe that apparently intimidates everyone from Jon Stewart to Peter Saarsgard), reasonably adept at staying out of the gossip headlines, socially conscientious (as a shoe fetishist I can vouch for the unadulterated sexiness of her vegan footwear line - and I was skeptical...I had visions of organic Crocs and glorified Chacos dancing through my head...I was refreshingly off-base. She knows shoes.) and adorable as all get out.

SO - she needs a man able to keep up with her forays into philanthropy, her vocabulary, her status as a budding style icon, and her dependably respectable career path ("The Other Boleyn Girl" notwithstanding). That means paparazzi hounds and brainless cover boys are out.

She tends to favor interesting, unconventionally good-looking types over the standard heartthrob genre. That rules out the George Clooneys and Jude Laws and, oh...Lance Armstrongs. At 27, she's (thankfully) above the MTV Reality Show-/CW Soap Opera-/Teen Choice-caliber fray. No Brody Jenner for Natalie. BUT, she's not yet - quite - to the place where dating thrice-divorced business lotharios or restauranteurs would necessarily suit her, either.

She's visible enough that it seems unlikely she'd date someone entirely out of the business - the "demands of movie-making schedules" would wreak decent havok on the day-to-day dating expectations of anyone unaccustomed to The Biz. That means musicians and actors and...politicians are on the list. Off the list: pro athletes. Unless they're also of the Harvard-educated persuasion, since, frankly, what suits Jessica Simpson will hopefully never suit Natalie (er...shoe design bit aside). So, Rugby extraordinaires or soccer stars are a possibility. Michael Phelps (heh, heh, heh): NOT a possibility.

What that leaves us with: well-educated, socially-conscious, reasonably famous men with impressive vocabularies. Oh dear.

As it happens, I googled "socially conscious famous people with good vocabularies."

The one result (given that google returned things like a list of miami nightclubs...?): Kanye West.

Hmmmm...while good-looking and creatively progressive he seems a little inflammatory for my Natalie (and I can afford to be picky - she's my favorite. We have the same birthday. Right). I'm worried he'd create unecessary drama. HOWEVER - he passes the "famous enough" test. And the man's got style. I'm giving him a 5 on my NNM (Natalie's Next Man" Meter.

I thought about Javier Bardem - he's mysterious, a bit smoldering, exotic, makes smart career moves, flies under the celebrity radar - but ultimately, I think that's a bit of a cop-out because she's already done the on-again, off-again thing with likewise smoldering and mysterious Gael Garcia Bernal. Too similar. Too obvious a pairing (she apparently spent a few weeks partying with Javier and friends in Madrid a few years back, however - so they're friends, in any event). He gets a 3 on the NNM Meter.

I thought Casey Affleck would have made a good candidate (he's Colombia-educated and suddenly, QUITE hunky...) but alas: married.

There's Daniel Craig. He's a theatre buff. Divorced. A respectable 40 years old. A confessed friend of Kate Moss, but I've yet to see pictures of him doing coke lines off of fancy prostitutes...ah, even a rugby player. Comes with the "I'm smarter and more interesting by virtue of my British accent" schtick that a girl finds difficult to resist. And since so many people seem to like proclaiming Natalie the next generation's Audrey Hepbern, I suppose the iconicism of dating James Bond would add just the right amount of poetic kitsch. Danny gets a 7 on the NNM meter.

I'm thinking her best bet would be Adrien Brody. He's a serious, "actor's actor," (that takes care of the career, they're both well-respected, taken seriously for their craft - both have lived in New York; he's unconventionally (and...um...devastatingly!) handsome. He's a huge hip-hop fan (aspiring producer, actually), so there's her musical connection (if the Devendra Banhard gig is an indication that she's a sucker for...musicians). He's got a sort of...rakish charm that would counterbalance the fact that Natalie can seem, at times, a little too...focused. Adrien gets a 9 on the NNM.

Done. Match made. I'll be expecting to see them both at the Oscars or something this year together. Or at a Kanye show.