Wednesday, March 30, 2011

Story time with Heather's Hair Dysmorphic Disorder.


I went through this phase many, many eons ago when I was trying to grow my hair out from some sort of "not-quite-like-the-photo" haircut, and in an attempt to sexy-it-up I colored it a truly heinous, not-found-in-nature, also "not-quite-like-the-photo" shade of dimensionless black.

It was straight-up Alan Rickman in Harry Potter.

I was seeing Snape every time I looked in the mirror.

I'm kind of having one of those moments now. Not that it's a horrible shade of teenager-black. Not that it's choppy and Rickman-esque. Just that I've changed it...and every time I look in the mirror, I see a bad haircut.

Okay. It will make more sense if I tell a fantastic little story.......

The story begins long, long ago in an ancient land of blow-drying, drug store self-coloring and all manners of vicious heat styling, where a girl-warrior fought valiantly to beat her unruly, wavy hair into peaceful submission.

The girl-warrior desperately wanted the longest, prettiest hair in all of the Kingdom of Tresses. To her waist was (is) the plan. But in her greedy, length-loving eagerness, the warrior decided to forgo regular trims. Her demoralized, brow-beaten, angst-ridden hair shriveled up in listless abandon. Tried to make a break for it at every opportunity. Was willing to break itself in half if it meant being spared another round of curling, flat-ironing, flat-ironing THEN curling...they couldn't take any more.

The girl-warrior looked at photographs of herself from years ago and realized that her once peaceful locks had...gone rogue. Without scissors or trimming, her hair had lost the will to live, it's will (and it's many split ends) had been broken. Off. Broken off. Inches gone over the course of a few years.

Trims. In her narcissistic quest to rule the Kingdom of Tresses she'd lost her greatest ally - her hair itself. The damage was irreparable and -- the girl realized -- without emergency care, the great army on her head would only continue to wither and break.

In despair, the warrior grabbed a pair of kitchen scissors.

As she chopped away, excising the dead bits, hoping it wasn't altogether too late to save, she had a moment of panic. She realized just how much of her warrior identity was wrapped up in those poor, tortured, lifeless strands of hair. Strands which were now swimming in the toilet, finally free, finally released from their split, fried, frizzy suffering.

Without them, the girl wasn't sure whether she could go on. Her curling irons and straighteners taunted her, she could hear them whisper...."just you try to curl that hair now. your dreams of having Stacy London hair are gone - GONE down the drain! You're AVERAGE now - ORDINARY. Enjoy your tepid, VANILLA hair, Princess - bwuahahahahah."

"What have I done?" the warrior-girl screeched in a panic, tugging at the ends of her shorn, clipped (fine, HEALTHIER) hair, wishing that she could will it to grow. But it was not to be. In order for her ultimate domination of the Kingdom of Tresses to come to fruition, she'd have to nurture, love, care desperately for the strands left on her head.

Regular trims.

Banishment of the flat iron to nether regions unknown.

Recommissioning of the Great Hot Oil Treatment.

Forgiveness.

Only then would she perch upon the thrown of Ultimate Hair Domination.

The End.

Basically.

So, here's what we're left with:


And here is how I know I have Hair Dysmorphic Disorder: I look in the mirror and see SHORT hair. And I panic. Because, truly, like the spoiled hair warrior kid, the closer my hair grew to my waist, the better I felt. And now, seeing this stuff hanging there barely past my collarbone may as well be a pixie cut (ooh, but don't tempt me, I've gone there before) for all the glamour I feel I'm left with.

Seriously.

I may as well have shaved my head. I'm experiencing a crisis of identity. Where is my hair? Where is Heather?

And that's completely ridiculous, because, as I can see in the picture, I have plenty of hair left. And it's happier, healthier, more well-adjusted hair less likely to make a break for Mexico when I'm not looking. No, really, I could run my hands through my hair and it would break off into tiny pieces. I could grab a piece and barely tug and it would break. It wasn't pretty.

But, with enough silicone and curling ironing and punishing into submission it could manage to look pretty.

It was abuse, however. My poor hair deserved better. Continues to deserve better. Therefore, I'm going to lavish all the love, attention, and healthy habits as possible on this new hair so that it will grow to be lovely, strong, dependable hair. So that I can blow dry it without seeing tiny pieces like confetti in the bathroom sink afterward.

Seriously. It was that bad.

Maybe it's time to invest in some actual hair scissors. So that I don't have to send the kitchen shears through the dishwasher every time it's time for a snip.

Monday, March 28, 2011

The beard gets the girl (particularly if scruffy guy looks like her). Odd.


(oh, and I mean that literally - facial hair. beard. whiskers).

Anyway - shocker: I spend pretty much all day on the webernets. Keeping up with celebrity crap, doing "fantasy shopping" by racking up $1200 in an Anthropologie online shopping basket that I'll never be able to actually purchase, planning vacations, cruising other blogs, watching back episodes of SVU or SNL or Big Love, taking Meyers-Briggs personality tests and discovering I rank differently every time I take them....whatever.

So inevitably I stumble upon silly studies from time to time, like the one that identified ideal female proportions (mine! mine! mine!) and others that speculated on cohabitation's effect on the success rate of a marriage (no discernible effect!) and some that look at important things like, um, womens' preference for facial hair on men with respect to long-term relationships.

The latest: we ladies love some stubble. Um, particularly if the man with the stubble looks similar to us. Or our fathers.

Yep. Found a separate study conducted by the University of St Andrews in Scotland that focused on a woman's tendency to be attracted to a man who looks similar to herself. Or shares facial characteristics with her father (if the father was present and the daughter had a positive relationship with him). Odd. BUT, it explains why Kanye is dating this woman. Seriously. At a glance it's not totally obvious, but if you look at facial proportions, its insane how much these two look alike. The distance between their eyes, the relative size of their chins compared to the rest of their face, the space between their nose and mouth, the ratio of their forehead to the rest of their face....it's crazy.

The way the Tamsin Saxton, a postdoctoral research fellow involved in the study puts it in an interview with the UK Telegraph,

"Previous research has often found that women can be attracted to masculine men, but also a bit suspicious of them. However, women tend to trust men more if they look like them. So perhaps the resemblance cancelled out the women’s suspicions. Or maybe the women felt they were better matched with men who looked like them, because if two people resemble each other, they might both be attracted to each other.” 

It's totally true. I see couples who look like they could be siblings all over the place. My working theory has always been that we're attracted to what's familiar - not necessarily in a narcissistic "I want to date ME" sort of way -- but that we find comfort and attractiveness in faces that feel familiar, similar to ourselves - non-threatening. Apparently that's close to true. And the reason has to do with the facial hair study, indirectly.

This is an analysis of the Stubble Study, also presented by The Telegraph:

Researchers found that women are more attracted to men with stubbly chins than those with clean-shaven faces or full beards. 

Women participating in the research rated men with stubble as tough, mature, aggressive, dominant and masculine - and as the best romantic partners, either for a fling or a long-term relationships. 
The findings of the experiment, carried out on British women aged 18 to 44, could explain the appeal of actors such as George Clooney and Brad Pitt who cultivate their unshaven look. 
The explanation for the preference is not clear, but experts in human evolution say that that facial hair may be a signal of aggression because it boosts the apparent size of the lower jaw, emphasising the teeth as weapons.
Psychologists at Northumbria University who carried out the new study believe that stubbly men may offer women the best worlds - not too strongly masculine, but mature and with the potential to grow a full beard.

The researchers carried out the study using computer technology to alter pictures of 15 men’s faces so that they displayed different degrees of hairiness. Five levels of facial hair were used - clean-shaven, light stubble, heavy stubble, light beard and full beard. 

The pictures were shown to 76 women who were asked to rate them for masculinity, aggression, dominance, attractiveness, age, and social maturity. They were also asked how desirable each man would be as a short-term or long-term partner. Faces with full beards were judged to be the most masculine, aggressive and socially mature. They were also thought to look five years older. 

They were rated the least attractive and the worst choice for a short-term relationship. Men with light beards were considered the most dominant. Those with light stubble were rated the most attractive and as the ideal romantic partner for the short or long term. Clean-shaven men finished bottom for masculinity, dominance, aggression, and social maturity, and they were the least favoured choice as a long-term partner. They came second-to-last for attractiveness. 

Writing in the journal Personality and Individual Differences, the researchers conclude: “Facial hair, or beardedness, is a powerful sociosexual signal, and an obvious biological marker of sexual maturity. 

"Facial hair may have been sexually selected by females on the basis of associated male success, despite its threatening appearance. Clean-shaven faces therefore may suggest appeasement, as well as being an obvious sign of sexual immaturity.

"Increasing levels of facial hair were associated with increased perceptions of aggression, in that bearded faces were perceived as being the most aggressive, whilst clean-shaven faces were rated as being the least aggressive. And as facial hair increased in a linear fashion, so did female ratings of masculinity and dominance. 

"In desirability for a short-term relationship, a female preference for male faces with stubble or light beard was found, with clean-shaven and fully bearded faces being the least preferred. This indicates that females are not selecting faces displaying relatively high or low masculinity, but are rather preferring males who are clearly mature - post-pubertal - but not too masculinised. The same pattern was found for preferences for a long-term relationship."

The researchers now want to extend their study internationally. Dr Nick Neave, who carried out the study with Kerry Shields, said: "There are large cultural differences in perceptions of facial hair, and we are hoping to expand on this research by conducting a large-scale study assessing female perceptions of male facial hair in different in as many countries as possible."

Maybe I'm just a sucker for any sort of pop-psychology study that purports to tell us why we like what we like, BUT, I have to agree on both counts. Check the Posh & Becks W cover at the top - I mean, sure, he's BARELY got the facial hair, but the two of them certainly look alike. And if you ask most ladies whether they prefer their Becks shaven or scruffy, most choose scruffy. Myself, eh, I find him too wimpy-pretty, even unshaven to weigh in on that front, but I get it - even wimpy-pretty girlie-men look better with a little scruff.

Let's make it personal and compare some pictures of my hot piece, Mr Wonderful, with myself and my dad. First things first - yep, Mr Wonderful has facial hair. A perfectly stubbly jaw and a more "precisely maintained" goatee-type thing around the chin. Blue eyes. Very little hair on top of the head. I'm a green-eyed kid, but the more I stared at pictures of us, the more I decided we fit the mold:




Our cheeks are very similar. The whole "distance between eyes, nose, mouth" situation is pretty similar. Our complexions are even quite similar. As much as I like to think that I'm above the fray and will fall for a man by the sheer force of his sexy, fact is: ehhhh, there must be part of me that finds him hot because there's a familiar element to his face. 

And, frankly, if I'm being honest, there are even some parallels to my dad. Dad is bearded, blue-eyed, short-cropped hair. Yikes. I fit the mold, I'm a predictable woman. I'd be in the majority with these silly studies. 

I hate to be predictable. Er, I mean, I'm just like Victoria Beckham and that makes my man just like...Kanye? Yeah. Pretty much.
 



And if you accuse me of using the studies as a weak excuse to post cute pictures of me and my hot piece: you're half right. We look good together (even if we look alike). And so do my mom and dad (above).

So there.


Tuesday, March 22, 2011

Who's next for Bradley?

So, a few years ago I managed a bit of staggering brilliance when I created a quantitative scale ranking possible future boyfriends for Natalie Portman. Read the genius here. I thought it might be fun to do the same thing for Bradley Cooper since he finally ditched that waxy, squinty, drawn-looking blonde that used to look something like Renee Zellweger. 

The Frisky had the same idea this morning, but reading their slightly weak list of generic A- and B-listers who seem like cop-out picks, I thought I'd get a little more scientific. You know -- enlist Google and IMDB n' stuff. 

Here's the Super Special Strategy:

First, we make gross generalizations about Mr Cooper.

He's a decently good-looking guy who has no idea what to do with his hair and lacks much fashion sense when left to his own devices.

He plays an asshole really well (leading us to believe perhaps he's not acting all that well and he really is an asshole). He also plays meek and dweeby really well (leading us to believe perhaps he's not acting all that well and he really is meek and dweeby). So, he's either a dork or a douche or a particularly versatile actor... hard to tell which.

He's Georgetown educated (an "honors english" student - he gets points there), he pursued a Masters of Fine Arts program at the Actors Studio Drama School at New School University. So, he values his craft, he's not afraid of academia, he spent time learning.

He's having his "hot right now" career moment but I feel like he's earned it - he's paid his dues, worked the trenches with small bit parts in old TV shows.

Aside from one short-lived, 4-month marriage to actress Jennifer Esposito about which he will say little more than that it was "an experience" he claims to be a romantic at heart who plans to "mate for life." So, more slightly mixed (or difficult to interpret) messages there. Admirably, however, he plays it quite close to the vest with his personal life, opting not to comment on "romances in progress."

He has one nasty mouth in magazine interviews - comes off rather like he's trying too hard - or like he's afraid of being taken as soft so he tries particularly hard to seem edgy, world weary, tormented, tough. So, I suspect under all of the four-letter words, he's insecure. Actually, witness this snippet from Details magazine that pretty well proves my points:

During one shoot for The A-Team in Vancouver, he says, "me and Liam Neeson were supposed to be helicoptering down into Baghdad with fucking guns and the wind machines blowing. So I'm hanging on and there's fucking Liam Neeson and I got a gun and there's music playing and it's as if I'm making a movie. But actually I am making a movie. It was so fucked-up. It was very surreal."


It's a word he uses a lot. It was surreal to see himself turned into a brick-house hunk for The A-Team, which features lots of shots of his sweaty, bulging biceps and concrete pecs. "I had to literally transform my body," he explains—for six months prior to filming and during the shoot, the already fitness-obsessed actor cut out sugar, salt, and flour and underwent grueling two-hour workouts with a trainer every day.

"As the movie progressed, I got in increasingly better shape," he says. "There's this one fight scene with Liam Neeson toward the end, where it's, like, the apex of the work. We finished and Joe's like, 'Brother, come here, look at this,' and he played it back, and I swear to God, it looked like my head was digitally superimposed onto someone else's body.

"I was like, 'This cannot be me—that's the way I look?' " Cooper says. "It was so fucking surreal, 'cause as a kid I only fantasized about looking that way. Remember Soloflex commercials? That was huge when I was a kid. It was like, 'I wanna be the Soloflex guy. Mom, can we get the Soloflex?' "

And yet, even toned and trained into superhuman shape, Cooper still fixated on his physical imperfections—or at least those he perceived. "Even in that body I'm in," he says, "I still saw them, absolutely." He still felt a bit like the Elephant Man. "Oh, sh*t," he says, laughing again. "This is going to be like, 'What a f*cking asshole. Oh, really, you feel like f*cking Elephant Man?'"


So, we've got the Bradley ground covered, now let's proceed to the next phase of the Super Special Strategy:

We decide whether he's better off with someone just like him, or dramatically different from him.

In this case, I'm thinking he's probably going to be better off with ladies of a similar bent. Er, as I did with Natalie Portman, I googled a list of the Bradley Personality Gross Generalizations. Searched for "insecure educated actresses with bad language." Retrieved: Kristen Stewart.

Hmmmm. Okay, she's having a hot-right-now couple of years. Verdict on whether she's a good actress or just a girl perpetually tagged to play someone like herself is up in the air. Her hair is generally bad. Her style is questionable. She gives interviews where she tries to sound wise and worldly and usually just ends up sounding like a high school kid who got her hands on some Vonnegut or Steinbeck. Which she did. She seems to like to read. That's as much as I can give her on the "educated" front - she's young and hasn't hit college yet so not sure if she's going to decide to go the Smart Actress route or the "I'm rich as sin, who needs that stuff" route.

And there's that small matter of "she's young AND already in a relationship." So, while superficially K-Stew might seem decently similar, the age and availability factor drops her on the Bradley's Next Girl Meter (BNGM). On a scale of 10 I'd give her a 5. I like Bradley with someone closer to his age (36).

That's the third part of my Strategy, by the way. The numeric ranking.

So, let's think about women he's dated in the past to point us in a particular aesthetic direction. There were several years with Renee (fair, blonde, waifish). Jennifer Esposito was athletic and Latin. He was "reportedly" linked with Jennifer Aniston briefly (blonde and athletic) and with Sandra Bullock (fair-skinned, brunette, fit). Okay - so, while he doesn't have an obvious inclination to blondes, or a tendancy to spring for the exotic-looking complexions, he likes his ladies in good shape. Nice abs and upper arms.

Okay. We're looking for a lady who likes the gym, has probably been to college, who's career is on the upswing and who is in it for the long term. I'm inclined to want to match him up with someone who has slightly more immediate name recognition than he does because I get this slight "social climber" vibe from him. Like he's not above using a dating relationship to elevate his fame status. Like he's insecure enough he thinks he has to talk a big game and date a big name to feel relevant. But not someone likely to completely overshadow him, because that would leave mister "body image issues" feeling like he's been left behind. He'd feel emasculated.

In that case: a fit and bookish A-lister who would get him past any velvet rope.

Anne Hathaway?

She's pretty A-list right now, but she also manages to stay relatively paparazzi-free (I get the feeling that's important to the Coop). We didn't see him pap'd during most of his relationship with Renee outside of a few shots of them leaving the gym. Frankly, I wondered if the entire extent of their courtship wasn't just a series of Stairmaster dates and medicine ball tosses while making sexy eyes at each other. Anne is immediately recognizable. Seems to take acting seriously. Seems to have toiled for years in the land of goofy, saccharine tween movies before making her mark on the grown-up world. Strikes me as smart. Maybe too smart for Bradley. Maybe too high strung and excited, too. But moving in the right direction. Closer to his age. Single (as far as I know right now). At the top of her game. Seems reasonably baggage free, down to be someone's one and only.

We'll give Annie an 8 on the BNGM. Not bad, but not quite perfect because she has the potential to eclipse him on the celebrity scale.

You know who else is a good-looking actor at the top of their game, certifiably famous but low-key with a smart sense of humor, bad hair, bad fashion, great body who paid their dues with a lot of small bit work before striking it big?

Jon Hamm.

I'm giving the Hamm a 9 on the BNGM meter. Only problem: he's not single. But they'd look good together.

Okay, so we're not quite there yet.

How about Charlize Theron?

Ooh, this could be good. See, I like Charlize. She's beautiful. Seems low-key, strikes me as smart, is pretty widely adored by men and women alike (versus someone like Jessica Alba who's universally gorgeous but universally loathed by women for her whiny "I'm not pretty, I don't get it" schtick that feels so fake). She's precisely his age. She's in fantastic physical shape. She makes some questionable style decisions but has that modeling background that makes most of her missteps forgivable (so, she could teach him a thing or two about looking good - help him figure out his hair issue). She didn't attend university proper, BUT she studied ballet at the Joffrey Ballet School in New York City, so she's spent time honing her craft in NYC just like Cooper did.

She's single. Moreover, she seems like she needs to have a good time. She dabbled in some Sean Penn dates after her split with the long term boyfriend Stuart Townsend (long term - good thing - she seems to want to settle down). She was rumoured to have hooked up (or been pursued by) Jeremy Renner, she dated Stephen Jenkins for awhile, so she, like Bradley, doesn't have a hard and fast "type" that she always dates.

They're both sort of golden and glowing and sun-kissed and would look killer together on a red carpet (or during a post-yoga dash to the local Starbucks).

I'm giving Charlize a 10. Now, go forth and date. Because I said so. And because I'm Patti Stanger-brilliant at these match-ups.

Monday, March 21, 2011

Dear Younger Version of Heather:


Yeah, yeah, you're absolutely copying Brad Paisley, he had the idea first with that "Letters to Me" song, but whatever - original idea or not, how about we have a little chat. With each other. With yourself. With me. One and the same.

So, these days, as I get a little closer to my 30th birthday, I've been nostalgic - been thinking about you a lot and wishing I really could zap myself back in time and give you some tips and pointers along the way. Nothing that would absolutely change the course of your life....I'd just like to take you by the shoulders and shake you silly when you let little things get to you. Wish I could lurk over your shoulder and affirm you here and there when you did something really well. Wish I could assure you that things will really, truly, definitely turn out JUST FINE.

I promise.

You'd be shocked, in fact, by just how fine things will end up.

They'll be nothing like you planned, your path will look nothing like you envisioned, you'll wade through things you never thought you could even dream up, let alone live through - and, miraculously, you'll love where you end up. You'll love yourself for being more tough than you thought. For being more flexible and adaptable and creative and patient than you thought. For being more capable and bold and resilient and loving than you thought.

HOWEVER - we really should have worked harder at that whole math thing. Numbers? Yeah, you probably shouldn't have just let it slide with the idea that you'll be accepting screenwriting Oscars by the time you're 24 and who needs algebra for that, anyway? Reality will step in and remind you that you're no Diablo Cody (you'll hear about her for the first time when you're about 25, when you just started blogging and thought that was the golden brick road toward literary renown. You'll figure out this is not the case about 3 years later). Take math a little more seriously. You may just end up in a job that requires it.


You'll also develop this clothes-buying hangup. The roots on this one are deep - so I'll warn you now: when Dad makes fun of you when you're 15 for wearing that striped t-shirt he bought you every day -- you remember the one, that mustard-colored striped number from Gap that he brought home for you the day you had your braces put on -- don't let it bug you so much. He was right - you wore that thing every day. If he didn't say it, someone else would have. PLEASE dear, don't let that become something you feel like you have to overcome for the next 15 years of your life. Actually, you could speak up at that point and let him know how much the gift from him meant to you - you were thrilled he thought of you, thrilled he spent the money on something frivolous, thrilled to finally have a shirt that wasn't a hand-me-down - tell him that. Then force yourself to only wear that thing once a week or so........seriously.

And that kid in middle school who asked if your hair could POSSIBLY be any more frizzy? If you spend the next decade trying to defy nature and have super-sleek, straight-haired-girl hair, you'll end up with THE WORST split ends imaginable. Badly damaged hair. Like, it will break when you run your fingers through it. So do yourself a favor - embrace the frizzy. Seriously, it will save your hair years from now. What does that kid know, anyway? His hair was sort of, um, worse than yours!

You'll wake up one morning in high school and have hips. Yep. It'll happen over night. No, your jeans won't fit the same way they did when you went to bed the night before. Yes, this will take some getting used to. Yes, you'll appreciate these eventually. It will just take a VERY LONG TIME. But you'll get there. Guess what, kiddo - when you hit your 20s you'll actually find your stride. You'll feel sexy. Wait for it. Really. Late bloomers get the last laugh.

College will be this sort of protracted, hyphenated, drawn-out ordeal that will last more than a decade and is still not finished when I'm writing this letter to you. If I could pass down some earnest encouragement: shop less, school more. YES. Save the dollars, kid, those shoes are really only going to be cute for like, 3 months tops, but a few credits of classes will be priceless. Put the debit card away, go to school. Because you'll beat yourself up a lot over the next few years for not finishing.

Keep writing. But more than that, set goals for yourself - finish the book. Find a publisher. Fight for yourself.


There will be a sad moment in an office restroom when you're about 22 years old where you'll lock yourself in a stall and SOB your mascara off wondering how you managed to so desperately lose touch with that 8 year-old version of yourself who knew PRECISELY what you wanted to do with your life. Of course, that crisis of identity was also during a period of time where you were drinking too much and making sketchy decisions about EVERYTHING, so you were sort of out of touch with  more than just your 8 year-old self. Also - that job you had in that office full of hormonal women? Yeah, maybe don't take that job.

Actually - PLEASE - avoid that job.

But if you completely ignore me, succumb to that temporary sense of cash-strapped desperation and -- against your better judgment -- DO take it: don't feel too bad about taking off with some post-its and ballpoint pens and a few rolls of tape if you eventually decide to quit abruptly and deliver your resignation surreptitiously in the middle of the night. They made you cry over Sweet n' Low, fer the love of pop tarts. And that woman who hated you? She'll end up getting fired, anyway.

Learn some basic HTML as early as you can. It's useful.

When you're in your early 20s there will be this moment where you're cruising down the freeway and decide you MUST - at that very moment - dig out your Britney Spears "In the Zone" cd. You'll look down for a second to flip through a stack of CDs and you'll rear-end someone and total the only car you ever really loved. If you're on a rainy freeway in that little white Acura and have a Britney emergency - seriously - don't take your eyes off the road.  You'll miss that car for years and years and years.

Watch "The OC." Great show. Over much too soon.

If you can afford that little rental house on Alki, go for it. You'll regret not living there. The apartment you do end up with, however: to die for. Get excited for that in advance.

You'll go through a phase where you think about going to cosmetology school. Then you'll go through a phase when you want to go to law school. Then you'll go through a phase when you want to go to culinary school. Then you'll go through a fashion design phase. And a philosophy phase. And a criminal justice phase. Unfortunately, can't tell you which of those to pursue, since, as of today, we haven't pursued any of them.

Mom and Bethy will continue to be amazing people in your life, through every step of the process. You've got a beautiful family - appreciate them.

And those bumpy phases the family goes through toward the end of high school - those get better, too. You'll get to see mom and dad fall in love again and it's fun to watch them adore each other, finally. They'll giggle together. Yes, giggle. There will be pet names and all. Hard to believe, but it's true.

Floss more often. Don't roll your eyes at me - DO IT.


Think about learning to play the guitar or the piano or something. I think we'd enjoy it.

You'll discover joy of the Doyle She-Cousins years too late. We should not all be well into our 20s before we discover how much we really like each other. It's a great discovery (there will be matching t-shirts at an age when you should probably not be wearing matching t-shirts. There will be some line-jumping hi-jinks at Disneyland. There will be this...FROG). Get to know them earlier.

God is there all along. You might not feel like He is, but believe me, he's there. He never goes away. You might not do a very good job of paying attention to him for years at a time - but if you take any of this advice, take this: talk to Him more often.

That belly button piercing will last until you're about 25. You won't miss it when it's gone. You'll be the first person you know who gets hers pierced, by the way, you little trail blazer, you.

Don't cut your hair your senior year. It won't look anything like Kimberly Williams in that Relativity show, it will take years to grow out, you'll get about 3 "whoa, you cut your hair!" remarks of the horrified variety and no one really knows what to say when you show up to school nearly bald. Don't. Cut. Your. Hair.

Absolutely take that life-sized cardboard cut-out to prom. You'll be very proud of yourself for that. It was a moment of true individuality. It was your turn to say, "Hey world, I don't care what you think." You normally care what people think MUCH too deeply. That night will be a glorious opportunity to do something unexpected and revel in how lovely it feels to be unexpected, original, carefree. You'll have fun.

Go to your 10 year high school reunion.  I almost don't want to spoil that surprise for you, but there's someone from school (if I tell you who you will NOT believe me), someone that you've never even spoken to who, later on, will absolutely blow your mind. You'll meet him when you're 28. That will change the course of your life.

Your life, by the way, will be amazing. Full of unexpected twists and turns, but by the time you hit 30 you'll be the happiest, most blessed, most content you've ever been. You'll appreciate the journey that's brought you here, you'll be looking forward to your next 70 years on earth, you'll accept yourself, love the woman God created you to be, and appreciate that the best things, the things most worth having, the things you value the most are the things you worked hard to achieve.

But seriously - don't cut your hair.

With MUCH, MUCH, MUCH love,

Older Heather

Monday, March 14, 2011

BAH.


A lot of Americans are overweight. SURPRISE! Something you didn't know!

The media bombards us with unrealistic physical standards of neo-human perfection. REALLY?! You mean Miranda Kerr doesn't look like that in real life???? You CRAZY.

People in entertainment are expected to be exceptionally thin. WOW! I mean, I always heard the camera adds 10 pounds, but.........

When underweight famous people put on a few, they get called fat. NO WAY! Miley is totally NOT fat, she's just...rounder in the face. And Christina, she's just....booze bloated????

Gee, seems to me there's very little healthy medium. So, what gives? What's a girl to do?

Wellllllll.........


If you're Holly Madison, you strip down and show off your cellulite in an un-retouched photo shoot for a magazine in a bid to convince us that you are, under all of that makeup and peroxide, actually just like the rest of us. Sort of like when Jennifer Love Hewett's cellulite was accidentally broadcast to America and she did her best to talk out both sides of her mouth. The "I love my curves!" side and the "by the way, I'm only a size 2!" side, which sent a sort of jumbled message BUT still netted a huge "how I lost the weight!" magazine cover. 

If you're Giuliana Rancic you starve yourself nearly to death then take to the webernets to broadcast your unhealthy relationship with yourself via a "lifestyle blog" where you desperately attempt to convince people that you're "fab! fit! fun!" Sort of like when a girlfriend says "I'm SOOOO over him!!!!!!" you know they're totally sobbing themselves to sleep to a Berlin soundtrack and living off of Girl Scout cookies.

If you're LeAnn Rimes, you stop eating and replace meals with surgery. Nose job, boob job, you name it. All justified under the umbrella that your man "likes skinny girls and you want to keep him happy." Sort of like....um, I don't know, that desperate girl who used her boyfriend's ex-wife's cosmetic surgeon for her new boobs. Oh, wait - same girl. Same act of desperation.

If you're Christina Aguilera, you maintain an air of obliviousness, let them call you chunky, and drown your sorrows in wine and Mystic tan booths. Sort of like what happens to most pop stars when they fall from public grace by doing the things most of us have probably done out of the glare of flashbulbs and tabloid covers. What? Like you didn't go through a boozy phase after a breakup? Or put on some weight after a big vacation was over (that vacation that involved a bikini and nothing but diet coke for the week leading up to the vacation.....MANY of us have been there, I'm not alone in admitting my own body image issues that have lead to unhealthy choices from time to time.......just without the "welfare-related arrests" or the high profile missteps, lyrically OR literally....).

If you're Jessica Simpson you find a man to validate you and swaddle yourself in a series of really puzzling outfits while falling asleep on a mattress stuffed with nothing but cash. Er, at least I'd imagine she does - the girl's clothing empire has netted her millions upon millions - which is, apparently, not enough to convince a girl not to go out in reindeer-printed leggings, but hey, if I were filthy rich........

If you're Kate Middleton you maintain an air of sophistication, poise, class in public. Then when there aren't babies to kiss and boats to commission and royal events to host, you waste away to nearly nothing, leaving you looking rather like the hipless, waistless, bustless pre-adolescent with very pretty hair and lovely suits who gets to accompany Prince William down the aisle, but about whom newspapers write open letters of desperate concern, begging you to "ditch the wedding diet."

Hey, there's no part of me that's claiming to be better than them, or above these techniques. Shoot, I ended up standing in front of a mirror in my undies the next morning wondering if my backside looked better or worse than Holly's (similar, I decided - we carry it in similar places and in similar proportions). So, let's play "guess which one of these chicks actually makes Heather pissed off?"

Is it:

A) The playgirl has-been who admitted to loving french fries and decided to do away with the digital retouching

B) The tabloid TV personality who claims to want a baby so badly she'd do ANYTHING, but would darn near eat the living head off of someone who suggested she might have better luck if she gained 5 pounds

C) The home-wrecking Twitterphile who must realize on some level that the man who cheats to be with her may be the man who cheats ON her, and so goes desperately out of her way to be "perfect," in a vain effort to keep him loyal (or captive, choose your perspective)

D) The drunken diva who seems to have misplaced her son. Or, um, replaced him with a man-child boyfriend who may or may not be part of the problem.

E) The ditsy millionaire who yo-yos depending on the state of her romantic life but can never escape the paparazzi "did she or didn't she gain a few?" scrutiny that was probably enough to drive her little sis to a pretty obvious eating disorder

F) The Once and Future Princess who knows she's about the become perhaps the most photographed woman in the world and is understandably image-conscious on the eve of her big, history-making nuptials

Take a guess.

Who pisses me off the most? Well, it's not Holly Madison and her shadows of normal-woman-thigh. It's not LeAnn Rimes, misguided though she may be - she is her own worst enemy and will probably implode soon enough (or her implants will......yikes). It's not Xtina - she's in denial, and bound to bounce off the bottom soon enough - it will probably have more to do with needing to replace all of her pants - vanity will get her first. It's not Jessica Simpson - she has harmlessly battled a handful of margarita pounds here and there that she admits she's tired of seeing pictures of in the tabloids. It's not Kate Middleton, Lord knows I'd be the planet's least gracious Bridezilla in the face of that brand of notoriety.

Nope - the one that gets a visceral reaction from my (slightly jiggly) gut:

Why that would be option B, one Giuliana Rancic, the not-quite-celebrity with the most-talked-about womb in America. She's thin. Very thin. Too thin. Image-obsessed. Food obsessed. FERTILITY obsessed. She's quick to cite the fact that Nicole Ritchie, Rachel Zoe and Victoria Beckham were all, also, exceptionally thin women who managed to have babies, as though that -- and fertility treatments -- alone were enough to mean that she should manage to, as well.

Her doctor suggested that she put on 10 pounds in an effort to increase the success of her IVF treatments. She gained 5 and balked that it should have been enough. She snapped at detractors and argued that she works in an "image-conscious industry" in which, I don't know, a 10-pound gain would be tantamount to suicide? I don't get it.

SHE is helping to perpetuate the negatively image-conscious industry that's so obviously damaging and SHE is her own evidence why she is NOT fit to be a mother. To care more about those 5 pounds than she cares about creating a healthy environment for an unborn baby is ridiculously selfish. To be more obsessed with her weight than with the welfare of the child she's yet to be able to conceive is...disgusting. To be so afraid that someone might look at a pregnant lady and say, "ew, she looks.....PREGNANT" is obviously painfully unrealistic, and she's so out of touch with the reality of how she ACTUALLY looks that she thinks people WANT to look like her (hence the weird "Fit! Fab! Fun!" website that really serves to propagate her disordered eating and obsession with body image).

Reality check, Giuliana: if you gained 10, we'd probably think you looked pretty. Right now you look....grasshopper. If you gained 10, we'd be able to relate to you a little. You might look good in those clothes. If you gained 10, you'd still be in an underweight percentile, you'd still look good on camera, but you'd demonstrate that you're serious about giving birth to a healthy baby.

Right now - you're just everything that's wrong with our body images right now. So take part in stopping the cycle of abuse - stop the self-hate and the fear of everyone else's opinion and get healthy. TRULY healthy, not website-fluff-calorie-counting-skinny-jean-recommending-we-can-see-straight-through-the-hype sort of healthy.

We may be an overweight nation, but if the other alternative is dangerously obsessed with the state of our upper arms....we're no better off in your "Fit! Fab! Fun!" world than we are in our cellulite-stricken, heart-disease riddled, diabetic wonderland of flab.

Wednesday, March 9, 2011

You should be watching "Southland."


I don't watch a ton of TV (er, um, unless it involves auctions, storage units, picking, pawning, logging, gator-shooting, or gold mining....). What I do watch I scam online...and when I find a show I love, it's a dangerous thing -- I'll end up watching 9-hour marathons on a Saturday, the characters will pop up in my bizarro dreams...I start thinking that Omar's a real person and wondering how he's doing since they killed his pretty boyfriend. I cry when Stringer gets popped. I shame myself over being the ONLY PERSON ON THE PLANET who preferred Jack to Locke (I mean seriously, kiddo...). I worry about whether or not Audrina will find a good guy, she picks such lame d-bags. I end up falling asleep wondering what Benson will do if they take Maria Bello's son away from her. I think about kidnapping Sally Draper to spare her growing up with that shrew of a mother. I approach my television with the gravity usually reserved for...important things, like new Gaga videos (hated it) or Natalie Portman's Oscar dress (loved it).

So it's no small matter when I find another show I love. It's like inviting someone new to join the family. It's like sitting down to "define the relationship" with someone you've been dating. "Are you my boyfriend? Really? And I'm your only girlfriend? SERIOUSLY, though? And you're ready to declare it on Facebook? Are you sure? And did you know Facebook is now like a proper noun that gets spell-checked if you don't capitalize it?"

That sort of serious. Inviting a new show into my repertoire is a big deal.

So it's with a great sense of triumph and a serious sense of security for the future of our relationship that I publicly declare Southland my new favorite show.

"What-land? I don't think I've ever heard of it."

Yeah, that's probably because it was advertised as the Great White Hope for the prime time slot vacated by ER a few years ago.

UNFORTUNATELY, it was just too smart for the average viewer. Grisly, nuanced, subtle, great writing. You know, the type of show the networks have no idea what to do with and would rather air Two and A Half Men reruns in place of. That sort of show.

The sort of show with characters that have conversations that REAL LIFE people might have, complete with the occasional blank stare or irritated shoulder shrug or stupid comeback. The sort of police procedural drama that doesn't pander to the lowest common denominator with lame interrogation sequences that reek of Psych 101. They don't need fancy famous guest stars or huge budgets with special effects.

It's shot in a very raw, almost grainy single-camera docu-drama style that makes you feel like you're really there, on the streets of LA, working the cases with the detectives.  You're really there in the back seat of the squad car while the patrol cops cruise the streets. You're really there when the angry crowd of gansta punks start to close in on the cops.

Many of their extras are real LA street kids, gang members, moms and dads and normal folks - it lends an air of believability to the entire show to have people that don't look like they were in makeup for three hours to look "rundown and tough."

The show doesn't glamorize the cops or demonize the criminals in a predictably two-dimensional way. These cops have problems. Drug problems, marital problems, self-confidence problems, ego problems. The relationships between the cops and their partners feels authentic. The writing is smart and snappy without being artificially witty (not that I don't love me some Aaron Sorkin, it's just that REAL people don't speak like that. They have to think and breathe before the rapid-fire repartee can commence).

The actors are TOP NOTCH. When an awkward, tough-guy detective is trying not to cry, you really feel that lump in his throat when he speaks. When he twists his mouth in a fake, frozen looking smile, you know it's because he's barely holding it together. It's not over-wrought melodrama, it's real people.

The show just wrapped up its third season on TNT last night and I loved every second of it. Rather than a cliffhanging finale as the last two have been, they went out on a pleasant note, with some upbeat new changes for the characters that left me looking forward to the dynamics of next season.

Also - strangely, for a gritty, often bloody, always suspenseful cop show on a network geared slightly more toward the dudes, I can't help wondering why Southland ended up so short on babes and heavy on guys who look great in uniform.....oh well. Either way, it's a great show. Season 4 can't come quickly enough!

Monday, March 7, 2011

"You know what you really got arrested for? Public intoxi-WINNING!"



Warner Brothers just officially canned Charlie Sheen.

First things first - you know what's totally NOT winning right now? My lunch.

A couple times a week I slum it at the local grocery store sushi cart. Which is wasteful right there because I don't like rice, so my sushi consumption is pretty much limited to peeling the seared eel off the top of the roll, slathering it in soy and throwing away a lot of little rice doughnut debris.

So I take the time to drive the whole 3 minutes up the hill to the grocery store, walk in, and they've just....vacated the sushi rack. No cheerful little chef guy, no overpriced ahi salad, no beloved eel roll. Just an empty rack where the sake used to be. Like they knew it was a MONDAY of a Monday and they knew I'd be coming and they just pulled the sushi rug right out from under my feet.

Begrudgingly settled for a bland "Mediterranean Tuna Sandwich" on a soggy hamburger bun. But I don't like bread, so I'll dig the tuna off the bun and cast a mean-looking glower in the sandwich's general direction because it is, so pointedly, NOT eel and half of it will end up, so pointedly, in the garbage. 

ALSO - while I may patently refuse to go on the record about Charlie Sheen any further at this point (for a lot of reasons, not the least of which is his complete disrespect for women, children, the fame he's receiving for being a wayward asshat, my unwillingness to give any more airspace to men who mistreat women AND his willingness to look a weekly $2 million gift horse in the cracked out mouth), I am perfectly happy to toss up videos of other people doing their best Charlie impressions. So, under the WINNING! front we have Bill Hader on SNL this weekend; he did a pretty spot-on version of Senor Crack himself in their "Duh! Winning!" skit.

He nailed the voice. He nailed the crazy eyes (well, Bill Hader has crazy eyes anyway, so he just has to look at the camera to give me the heebies). Also loved that the guests on his  show were other famewhores of questionable repute. Like my poor Christina Aguilera (who is one more trip-and-fall away from a Britney-level of immortality toward which no one wants to be sentenced). Abby Elliot (who needed bigger hair, more cleavage and worse lipstick to really bring home the Christina imitation) warbled her way through a litany of the pop stars most recent missteps, including the public intoxication arrest, to which Fake Charlie says, "You know what you really got arrested for? Public intoxi-WINNING."

Which makes me think (a little tangentially) that we've yet to see a pop star really RECOVER from their downfall. I sort of feel like the shelf life of a pop tart is increasingly abbreviated and once you do something to bungle your good graces in the public's eye, the ladder back toward redemption and sold-out stadium tours is VERY, VERY, VERY long, high, and difficult to climb in heels. But that's a different commentary for a different day. For now, I think XTina should probably retire to a safe, sober place somewhere in the hills of Montana and return several years from now with a killer role in a Broadway show that will endear her to a newer, higher brow demographic. But that's just my take. If she wants to hire me for publicity purposes I'd be happy to accept my salary in shoes. Otherwise, I'll keep covering her random antics as my inspiration allows, because my "Decade of Christina" post continues to generate more daily traffic than any other post I've ever written.

Back toward the real point.

I'm gonna go ahead and say it: Miley was pretty good on SNL this weekend. She does Bieber better than she does Lohan, and she sang a little too often, but I've gotta hand it to her: the twit has stage presence. She looked classy and appropriate during her monologue - she tackled the Stupid Salvia Controversy very succinctly by drawing attention to all of the celebrities who are notoriously MORE poorly behaved than she is, gave a musical shrug of the shoulders to her bong indiscretion, reminded everyone she never said she was perfect, and EVEN squeezed in a little wink-nod reference to the recurring Vanessa Bayer skit that parodies her. Apparently her weak Lohan impression was enough to enrage Our Lady of the Stolen Necklace, because she sent an email to Lorne Michaels expressing her disappointment over, I dunno, being such a flippin EASY target????

I was oddly thrilled with this little "Face Cream and Rockabilly CD" number in all of it's Dynasty-esque glory. Mr Wonderful was a little puzzled and found it less funny, but the absurdity of packaging face cream with a cd, in proportions that require you to continue to buy more of  both for no particular reason was pretty hilarious. And I felt like she held her own alongside Kristen Wiig pretty well (which all guests aren't so fortunate as to be able to manage). She was pretty natural (which comes from growing up on stage, in front of the camera I'd imagine). She's really filled out in the face lately - which has strangely endeared me to her - she's growing up, her proportions are changing a little, she's wearing a little more...padding these days, which is startlingly normal....and I always like having those, "aw, she's filthy rich and still gets chipmunk cheeks from time to time, too!" moments.

Anyway - she did well. I'll admit it.

Friday, March 4, 2011

On being a girl. Who's neither mermaid nor knocked up nor ugly-hot.


Well, sort of. My alternate title was something like, "Ways that Huckabee, The Little Mermaid, and what I'm calling The Sexy Librarian Complex undermine ladies" sounded waaaaaaaaay too "Wag of the Finger" for a Friday afternoon. And while I'm not, typically, terribly ashamed to spend post after post camped on my slick little soapbox, I figured fewer readers would be inclined to even bother with a tirade that begins with a 16-word title that sounded so...femidictive. New word, by the way. Combine feminist with vindictive and you've got the second viable word I've created this year. The first: VERBUSE. Meaning: verb abuse. The incorrect use of a verb in a way that ratchets up my blood pressure. See the word: GROW.

But ugh, this is off to a boring start (and this really wasn't meant to be a grammar lesson. I was, actually, quite bad in the official grammar part of English classes back in the day. I know how words ought to be strung together, I know the difference between Hung and Hanged, I know Who versus Whom, I know when a semicolon is appropriate, but talk transitive/intransitive and  --- oh holy jeez, this just went from boring to damn near unreadable).

I think I have to just own the fact that I'm not a super-cute, funny, har-har-har, "LOL, ROTFL, OMG you're SOOOOOOO funny!" sort of writer. These days. I manage wit from time to time, but mostly I'm just cranky with well-executed punctuation. There are worse things. I'm just not gonna make you giggle today, that's all. If you want to giggle, go remind yourself how magnificent Natalie was in the "Natalie Raps" days. Here, I'll make it easy for you.



Okay - back to getting serious and un-funny.

First off: The Little Mermaid.

Really, I could use any of the Disney movies to this same end, but I've actually been neck-deep in The Little Mermaid soundtrack over the past week or so and, while singing along with "Poor Unfortunate Souls" at the top of my lungs in traffic and realizing it would be the PERFECT karaoke song, ALSO realized that any little girl who watches this movie is getting about the world's WORST example of what a woman's priorities should be, like, EVER.

So the first question is, "uh, Heather, why the heck are you driving around blasting Mermaid tunes?" And the answer is, "because Part of Your World was stuck in my head and it was driving me NUTS, so I took to iTunes and bought the soundtrack to placate myself - complete with weird covers of half of the songs done by Disney hacks like The Jonas Brothers. Seriously. They cover 'Poor Unfortunate Souls.' And Ashley Tisdale sings 'Kiss the Girl' (gag) and Jessica Simpson sings -- oh nevermind. Anyway - the song was stuck in my head, I bought the album."

The second question is, "uh, Heather, why is The Little Mermaid the most toxic example of womanhood, like, EVER? And what does this have to do with Huckabee and librarians?"

Well, let's look at it this way:

Young girl (fine, mermaid, but since those are mythical creatures upon which the average elementary school student is unlikely to stumble in the course of their day, we'll substitute "human" for "merfolk" and make the analogy easier to follow) decides she's SOOOOO discontented with the trappings of her current life she must absolutely leave it all behind and make a break for the dark side. Cross over to the fascinating, off-limits land of the OTHER people (in this case, upright, air-breathing bi-peds, but for the sake of example, could be anyone DIFFERENT). Her father is a tyrant who'd rather declare the other people "bad" instead of presenting any sort of cogent argument in defense of protecting his cadre of daughters from the "others." This backfires, and daughter decides she's gonna defy daddy and sign over her soul in order to go be with a MAN whom she's only met once (while he was unconscious, mind you), with whom she's never spoken, and for whom she's willing to completely change in order to be with. 

So - in human-speak, we've got a girl willing to endure physical pain to impress someone she's only just met in a bid to piss off her parents. Think, oh, plastic surgery to look more like the girls on TV, maybe. She's so fed up with iron-fisted, ask-no-questions parenting that she'd abandon everything she's every known to chase after someone she's only just met.

In the end, she gets in over her head and her father jumps to her defense, saves the day, slays the, um, octopus to whom girl has sold her soul and reclaims his daughter. At which point a NORMAL girl would be all, "ooh, dad, THANKS for saving me, you were so right, I belong here where it's safe and where I'm not Octo-Prey and where I can be myself, and hey, by the way, these bi-peds aren't all bad, maybe we could talk about it!"

But nope. Disney decides, in fact, that the happy ending would be for her dad to pussy-out, put his daughter's romantic happiness first, succumb to her whining, and send her back to live happily ever after with Prince Stranger. Oh, yeah, Prince. Because if we're taught nothing else by watching Disney movies, we're taught that our primary goal should be to secure a husband, and that he better be a rich prince. Because we're not worth much on our own apart from our good looks and our ability to charm a rich man senseless with our great hair and big, gigantic eyes.

*Cue a massive roll of those big, gigantic eyes.*

Every one of these Disney neo-fairy tales has the same bottom line. Our primary purpose as burgeoning women is to find a rich prince to marry us. No matter how much pain and separation and trial we have to endure to snag the man. Our life is a success once we've netted the prince.

I could go on, but you get it. The funny thing is that the lyrics of that Poor Unfortunate Souls song was supposed to represent the vile, reprehensible machinations of a deranged evil witch, BUT, the trouble is that Disney is espousing PRECISELY this:

You'll have your looks, your pretty face.
And don't underestimate the importance of body language, ha!

The men up there don't like a lot of blabber

They think a girl who gossips is a bore!
Yet on land it's much preferred for ladies not to say a word
And after all dear, what is idle babble for?
Come on, they're not all that impressed with conversation
True gentlemen avoid it when they can
But they dote and swoon and fawn
On a lady who's withdrawn
It's she who holds her tongue who gets a man

Yep. Pretty much.

Okay - moving on to the next knock to girls: Huckabee. Today he's making headlines for suggesting that Natalie Portman is "hurting America" by having a baby "out of wedlock."

Ah, wedlock. That word that's never used alone, only used in conjunction with "out of" and always seems to refer to the conditions under which Poor, Unfortunate Babies are born. Which is fine - that's still pretty much the conservative, evangelical party line on babies, that they must be born within the structure of a traditional marriage - and I'm not going to dispute that fact. I don't plan to have a kid until I'm married, I want to raise my children within the context of a traditional, nuclear family with two parents, I want to parent as part of a partnership, I care fiercely enough for the children I've not yet conceived to want them to be raised in the most supportive, healthy family environment possible, so, yeah, I track with him on that point.

Where I do NOT agree is when he gets into vague stats about single moms:

"Most single moms are very poor, uneducated, can’t get a job, and if it weren’t for government assistance, their kids would be starving to death and never have health care. And that’s the story that we’re not seeing, and it’s unfortunate that we glorify and glamorize the idea of out of children wedlock....You know, right now, 75 percent of black kids in this country are born out of wedlock. 61 percent of Hispanic kids — across the board, 41 percent of all live births in America are out of wedlock births. And the cost of that is simply staggering."

Oh, Huck.

Shut your mouth.

Let's check some ACTUAL, US census stats along a similar vein:

"The age of custodial mothers has increased over the past 14 years. In 1994, one-quarter (25.4 percent) were 40 years or older. By 2008, the proportion had grown to over one-third (39.1 percent). The proportion of custodial mothers under 30 years of age decreased from 30.9 percent in 1994 to 25.8 percent by 2008.9
The educational level of custodial mothers has also increased during this period. In 1994, 22.2 percent of custodial mothers had less than a high school education and 17.1 percent had at least an associate’s degree. By 2008, the proportion of custodial mothers who had not graduated from high school decreased to 15.5 percent and the proportion with at least an associate’s degree increased to 26.9 percent.10 "


"Custodial parents receiving Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF), formerly known as Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC), fell from 22.0 percent to 4.3 percent during the past 14 years."


"Among White children in families, 22.4 percent lived with their custodial parents.5 The proportion of Black children in families who lived with their custodial parent while the other parent lived outside their household (48.2 percent) was more than twice as large as the proportion of White children. Among children of other races— including American Indian, Eskimo or Aleut, Asian or Pacifi c Islander, or other races—16.1 percent lived in custodial-parent families. Approximately one-quarter (25.4 percent) of Hispanic children, who may be any race, lived with their custodial parent."

Look, I don't know where he got his info, it's not possible for me to go out and refute each of his percentage stats in a meaningful way, and I'm not out to disprove him based on numbers - I'm out to raise a little bit of alarm over the cavalier way in which he dismisses single mothers, while at the same time supposing that "out of wedlock" equals "without a partner." The two are not synonymous. Two unmarried people raising children together would, technically, count as "out of wedlock." But are these necessarily poverty-stricken welfare moms living in crack dens with 8 children, depending on the state to support them? Hardly. Oh - and, by the way, along the lines of "the goal of our lives should be to get married," Huck also said, of Natalie's statements during awards season:

"She was very visibly pregnant, and it’s really it’s a problem because she’s about seven months pregnant, it’s her first pregnancy, and she and the baby’s father aren’t married, and before two billion people, Natalie Portman says, ‘Oh I want to thank my love and he’s given me the most wonderful gift.’ He didn’t give her the most wonderful gift, which would be a wedding ring! And it just seems to me that sending that kind of message is problematic."

Hey, heads-up, sir: she's engaged. Getting hitched. Planning to raise the little genius "in wedlock" (or however you use that phrase in the affirmative). But to say that the greatest gift we could ever hope to receive from our men is a WEDDING RING is sort of, oh, ignoring that whole matter of LOVE. Support. Devotion. Loyalty. Partnership. None of which are necessarily guaranteed by virtue of a ring. She's (presently) in a loving relationship, excited to raise her kid with a man who likewise loves her - what's to hate about that?

OH - or is it that he thinks so little of the American public that he assumes any 17 year-old girl who sees a knocked-up actress thanking her boyfriend for the gift of life will automatically use that actress as an inspiration to get pregnant and live off of the state? Trust me, Huck, the institution of marriage is not being denigrated when an engaged woman raves about her fiance and her unborn child.

Some of the comments on the "Feministing" blog where I read the Huckabee quotes were very intelligent. Here's are some favorites (pardon in advance, they're lengthy):

Commenter 1:

Huckabee’s words are really quite telling—he thinks that somehow marriage prevents poverty.

"But it doesn’t.

You know what would prevent poverty among women and children?

Ending sexism.

But that would be too much for Huckabee because he ignores the history of what marriage actually has been."

Commenter 2:
Clearly we can jump all over his assumption that having children outside of marriage is somehow worse than having children inside of it, that somehow a marriage provides something that a committed relationship does not. However, I would like to go after a few highly practical points:

He could increase of participation of marriage by pregnant or would-be-pregnant women by allowing same-sex marriage (relevant when women who have same-sex partners undergo in vitro fertilization), providing children comprehensive sex education, and giving women greater access to birth control. On the topic of baby bumps in particular, not unnecessarily constraining access to abortions would allow women (generally unmarried) to end unwanted pregnancies that would have led to such “unwholesome” baby bumps. 

However, Huckabee has priorities besides just curtailing the rates of pregnant people who are unmarried (or is unmarried people who get pregnant?) He also advocates for his brand of Christianity that is often at odds with many of his stated goals/concerns, and any sort of opinion base needs to establish what the priorities are, and what consequences or trade-offs it is willing to pay to work towards each of its goals.

One more set of points deals with his interest in the racial minority statistics, because history is very relevant. Until 146 years ago, Black people in the US were usually slaves. For them, they did not have rights. They were not in control of their relationships with each other, and any legal notion of marriage was controlled by their masters. For many reasons, marriage was not as desirable to slaves as it was to free White people. Even when slavery ends, Black people were still subject to abuses by White people and the government, and it is not unreasonable that they would not have fully warmed up to participating in the White man’s construction of marriage — and submitting forms that would potentially draw the government’s attention to them. It’s really not until the Civil Rights of the 1960s where racial minorities gained more serious protections that such people would be mostly safe to participate in this institution, but there is still a terrific amount of cultural inertia that leads to the disparity we see today. Marriage wasn’t a real option for so long that it simply lacks the relevance and significance to Black people that it generally has to White people. 

Of course, there are also confounding factors that can contribute to this disparity (wealth, education [wealth-segregation contributes to quality disparities here], a mass media obsessed with differences), but culture is pretty powerful stuff.

It doesn’t surprise me in the least that Huckabee hasn’t thought that through — I hadn’t even really thought about it until ~a couple years ago myself. But then, I don’t have my own opinion show.

DBT: That’s a rather telling omission, isn’t it? The Internet has jumped all over it, and I don’t think Huckabee is going to be able to outrun this idea."

Commenter 3:
"Because I have a Republican father, and heard stuff just like this my whole life, I understand the logic of this particular attitude. But it’s more a tone-deaf assumption that all single parent situations are similar and inherently detrimental. And it’s a romanticism of the old ways where one parent worked and another stayed home. That’s increasingly a thing of the past, just as marriage itself no long resembles its former self.
But before you can criticize single-parent African-American households, we have to talk about the culture of incarceration among black men, and the legacy of generations of economic inequality. And the same basic economic inequality applies to Latinos as well."

Commenter 4:
Man, I so didn’t want to be disappointed by this guy. But to say:
“Most single moms are very poor, uneducated, can’t get a job, and if it weren’t for government assistance, their kids would be starving to death and never have health care. And that’s the story that we’re not seeing, and it’s unfortunate that we glorify and glamorize the idea of out of children wedlock”
That’s ridiculous, it’s arrogant, it’s ill-informed and it’s an out-dated way of thinking. With the divorce rate as it is for our generation, better believe there are plenty of HARD-WORKING, employed, single-moms living WELL above the poverty line, CERTAINLY not relying on public assistance and doing just as well as any other mom out there.
Let’s talk deadbeat dads, shall we? Stop demonizing mothers, Huck.



Oh - and about that whole ugly-hot Librarian Complex? Yeah, this got too long -  you can read about it here on Pajiba. I totally agree. 

Anyway - this ended up long, rambling, unfocused and probably without much of a "thesis." Other than that I kept finding examples today of women being given too little credit - and we're starting our girls on these lame messages very young. Hmmm. And we wonder why I struggle with self esteem and body image issues and a consumer-driven lifestyle that stems from a deep-seated, much-loathed sense that I'm not good enough as-is....hmmmm, thanks, Disney!