As reliably stunning as Rhianna is, methinks that dress is wearing her (which doesn't happen very often).

Re the whole T. Swift/bullying discussion. This really hits home for me. As so many of us know, it's really hard to be "different" at that middle school age, whether it's due to color, race, gender, talent, etc. I was a smart white heteronormative girl who was terribly bullied at a young age, and it was scarring.

@ahpooks: thank you all, now I will never get that song out of my head tonight!

@brightpeonies: I know, right? He was one of my first celebrity crushes. I ADORED him and wanted to be one of the Partridge Family, preferably Susan Dey and her straight hair.

@LivingCMYK: Yay for team optimism!

@oaktree89: You know what they say, if you're old enough to wear the clothes/style back when it was first popular, then you shouldn't wear it again — that was my first take when I read "shag". :-)

LOVE IT. I'm getting a nouveau Twiggy vibe here, in a good way. So fresh and adorable.

There is a time for dark hose, and #5 is not one of them. I don't even know what era that whole look is coming from.

@SomeAuthorGirl: I actually thought it was kind of fun and ironic (although am not a fan of fur). It's as if she was poking fun at her/her dress's beauty.

The skirt in #7 is giving me a serious sense-memory flashback to sometime in the 1970s, I think. I can feel it on me, somehow. I'm not kidding. Creepy. I think it reminds me of a plaid jumper my aunt sewed for me. Or maybe my early-college late-hippie phase.

@babyruthless: You know, I read it this way too! I kind of didn't get that it was a letter TO the laundry service (rather than the laundry itself — huh?).

I want to like carnations, but I associate the smell of them w/funeral parlors and sitting at wakes for dead relatives...

@ViralVelma: Marianne Faithfull knows of what she speaks. She was an "it" girl herself, descended in to drug addiction, homelessness, etc., and slowly got out, having seen much tragedy along the way. A "girl" in the boy's club, trying to make her own music, get recognition, stay sober, not be just an appendage to…

I really appreciate this eloquent analysis. I see alot of Betty in my mother. She wasn't upper middle class at all, in fact the youngest of a big poor immigrant family, and always felt deprived. I realized later on in life that she was jealous of my opportunities, freedom, and relative lack of responsibility. She…

@kookla: agree that ship has sailed. I vividly remember mean stuff my mom said/did to me at that age (though she was no Betty by any stretch) and it took YEARS of therapy to work through. I still have occasional twinges, even though I've forgiven/processed/moved past it and all that. What's especially tough is when…

I'm with you re: Dan Choi. Such a hero, in many ways. He's noted by the November issue of The Atlantic as one of its Brave Thinkers — coincidentally just read it over lunch:

I'm going to take a somewhat contrarian view and be optimistic about the Megan-Don pairing. Like most I was totally cringing when he called Faye, I felt so badly for (and identified with) her. I did feel sometimes, as warm as she was, she was playing a bit too much the therapist to him — of course he needed it.

I like the vintagey vibe of the whole thing. I think the light lipstick keeps the look fresh. And it gives me the courage to wear my leopard kitten heels w/something other than black on top.

@NefariousNewt: That crack was LOL of the day for me!

Wow I didn't even realize that was Holly Hunter — she's virtually unrecognizable to me (although I haven't watched her show, is it still on?).