the right to bare arms (& legs)

~ or why I'd never make it as a fashion critic ~

Who wears short shorts? Apparently, not Michelle Obama.

I check Webmail every morning; more often than not, before I get to the correspondence, I am lured into reading the Yahoo "news" articles with their luridly promising titles. Consider them my surrogate for the tabloids I don't read at the grocery store. Well, what should be a hot topic today but the First Lady's right to bare legs. (The article was dated August 19, but I didn't see it there at midnight, so maybe the author did what I confess I sometimes do: begin something on one day, finish it on the next, post it with the original date, and voila! And no, sadly, I can't take credit for this post's title.)

The article was a huge disappointment, very tame. The conclusion? Mrs. Obama is fit, she's firm, and she's not being cheeky. So leave her be.

The article made further reference to a "furor" in February "that erupted after she went sleeveless in her official portrait." Take it from me, that link's a bum steer. It led me to expect to read about outrage or controversy over sleevelessness. Ah, you say, the author's using the other meaning of "furor," that of a fashionable craze. Anyway, you can barely tell that her outfit is sleeveless because there is an enormous red bow front and centre.

You'll recall that a few weeks ago, the media was all a-hype over Barack Obama's jeans. They're pants, people! As long as he keep'em up & on--unlike some past presidents--who cares?

I am so not a fashion maven.

So you can imagine how much I appreciated yesterday's piece by the Fashion Police, complete with photo gallery. The caption for the photo of Maria Sharapova read, "We're loving the shoes and dress, but we are questioning the choice of gold belt and bag." Seriously now. They're loving the dress??? Is it possible to say that with a straight face? It looks like an over-sized velveteen baseball t-shirt! Keep the belt and bag, I say; ditch the dress. "This is how you wear white," they rave over Rachel McAdams. I can't decide if it's a reference to her dress or her skin. Furthermore, I don't see a problem with females wearing pink over the age of 5. Especially if one of them is Jane Seymour. Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman, you had to "man up" enough as Dr. Mike; you deserve to luxuriate in girly girl colors if you so desire. Have to admit, though, they got me with Denise Richards's "tanorexia syndrome" (chuckle, snort).

There, I've exhausted my fashion commentary. Now if you'll excuse me, it's off to reconstruct the friggin' PowerPoint file that I was developing yesterday, and which for some inexplicable reason did not save the last 45 minutes of my changes. I can assure you I am a diligent "saver"--I'm frequently Apple+S'ing (Ctrl+S for PC users) every few minutes as I go along. In fact, I'm pretty obsessive-compulsive about it. I cannot locate the AutoRecovery ".tmp" file either; believe me, I've looked (grumble, grumble, expletive, grumble). Back to the drawing board.