Ken Cannon's high school hair

When I handed in this column, Editress Lisa said that now I won't have to give Ken Cannon a valentine.

Rain

I liked the rain when I was a kid.

Or maybe I didn't actively like it as much as I didn't mind it.  You know how you are when you're a kid.  Impervious.

But as I grew older, rain became my least favorite weather condition--a personal position that was solidified last summer when I walked across England in the rain through miles and miles of mud and sheep $%#!  (I don't know why I'm so coy about language suddenly.  In real life $%#! is one of my favorite words.)

Anyway, Doni and Cynthia, my walking partners, were in town yesterday and we reminisced about the rain and how Cynthia got stuck in the mud and how we were all afraid of losing shoes and turning into bog bodies and how 1000 years from now, archeologists would find us and ask themselves why people in our era went shoeless in fields covered with sheep $%#!.

But as the three of us stepped out into the rain I couldn't help but think how grateful for it I am right now--for feeding the hills and for cleansing the sky's face.

Lovely, lovely rain.

What I learned this week about writing a column

The main thing I learned is that if you write a column about Christie Brinkley and then post it online with photos of her, you will get a BOATLOAD of page views.  And I do mean a BOATLOAD.  So the takeaway here is that I should figure out how to mention her name every week and also substitute her headshot for mine.

SCORE!

I also learned (again) that people's reactions are hugely varied.  And even surprising.  What surprised me the most were the spirited defenses of Brinkley from other women--how she's so much more than a swimsuit model.  And I agree.  I remember reading an article in Seventeen Magazine about her a million years ago, which talked about how she's an artist who went to a French immersion school, and even then I was impressed with her intelligence and drive.   But it wasn't Brinkley's art that appeared on the cover of People Magazine.  It was herself, Christie Brinkley.  In a swimming suit.  And so I think addressing the subject of appearances and expectations of appearances is fair game.

The other reactions didn't surprise me much.  I knew a lot of people would accuse me of being all sour grapes and other people would tell me to lighten up and other people would tell me I'm a prude.  And they did.  But plenty of people--women mostly over the age of 50--were enormously happy with the column because they find it unbelievable that at even THIS age there's pressure to aspire to a stereotypical notion of beauty.

It's a lot of fun when a column gets this kind of traction.

Entertaining myself

I am forever misreading and mishearing things.  Like I'll see the word "polish" and think it means "Polish" as in the nationality of the late Pope John Paul instead of what you do to your furniture with Lemon Pledge.  Stuff like that.

And I did it again this morning.  I heard Dave Rose on the radio talking about BYU's b-ball team whom I THOUGHT he referred to as a "Brazilian group of guys."  So I started to wonder what that meant.  Are all the guys on the team this year from Brazil?  Or was Coach Rose speaking metaphorically?  And how does "Brazilian" work as a sports metaphor anyway?  I was stumped.  Truly.

And then I realized he'd said they were a "resilient group of guys."  Which makes more sense, right?

But it's so much more fun to think about boys who are Brazilian.  Carry on, Brazilian boys!

I'm a little afraid of myself right now

. . . because I have started taking pictures of my cat.  Lots and lots of pictures.  SEE!  ISN'T MY CAT HIDING IN THE LAUNDRY BASKET ADORABLE?  ISN'T MY CAT SITTING LIKE A VULTURE ON TOP OF THE STAIRCASE ADORABLE?  Pictures like that.

Worse, I want to plaster them all over facebook.  I want to public share all my cat pictures.

Sound off.  Should I be frightened?

Wait. IT'S TUESDAY?

I meant to blog yesterday.  I promise I did.  But then I started eating doughnuts and crying and eating doughnuts and crying some more.

Naw.  It wasn't that bad.  But the day managed to slide by w/o me living up to my sacred vow of daily blogging.  See how badly I suffer from Oppositional Defiance Disorder?  I never do what people tell me to do.  Even if it's myself telling me what to do something I actually want to do.

Anyway.  Here's a column I wrote about Christie Brinkley posing in a bathing suit on the cover of People Magazine for her 60th birthday.  In case you haven't seen them, there are also recent pictures of Jane Seymour posing on a beach in a bikini, proving to one and all that you can look like all that when you're 62.

Unless, of course, you hide in your house eating doughnuts all day.

Maybe I need to . . .

make another vow to blog every day.  I wrote more last year and felt better when I was doing that.  But this year I've just been giving into myself--lolling about while NOT writing.  Which sounds fun in theory but feels less fun in real life.

SO!  Get a grip, Ann Cannon!

Meanwhile, here's a link to tomorrow's books piece.