Remember how your parents and teachers always said, "Just be yourself and you'll be fine"? You probably wished that were true, while shaking your head at getting such bad advice from people who really ought to know better.

One of the keys to personal happiness (and to having fun)… Read full post »

Long weekends are awesome. Even when they're rainy, cold and dreary (hello Bay Area!) they still rock.

Martin Luther King is now remembered as much for giving us the first holiday of the new year (don't quibble with me over New Year's Day) as for his humanity. But thanks to the early… Read full post »

Obviously, life's better when we're having fun. So why is it so difficult to remember to just enjoy our daily lives instead of scheduling our fun for the upcoming weekend or that evening out with friends?

I'm not big on New Year's resolutions. But this irresistible, animated vid is so in… Read full post »

 

People are always telling me more than I want to know. This happens so frequently that I wonder if my face somehow sets up an expectation of sympathy and understanding that my personality can’t deliver on.

Waiting in line is a particularly hazardous undertaking. The bank, the pos… Read full post »

“The great question that I have not yet been able to answer, despite my 30 years of research into the feminine soul, is, What does a woman want?” —Sigmund Freud

A century has passed and Freud’s famous query still echoes. Men ponder it in terms of what women… Read full post »

Michigan only knows one way to move merchandise. But with owner surrenders up at shelters nationwide, an old gimmick can yield new results.

The Michigan Humane Society's clever "Certified, Pre-Owned Cats" campaign is offering humans who need a (or another) shelter cat to boss them around the… Read full post »

I rarely "watch" TV ads. I sometimes see them in passing, and only because something happens to catch my attention. So the first couple of times I actually tuned into this ad for the Schick Quattro TrimStyle for women, it was because I did a double-take about 16 seconds in.… Read full post »

Dear Vixen:

Sleep. I stay up all night. I don't get sleepy until 4:00, don't FALL asleep until 5:00 and then I get up at 1 or 2 in the afternoon. This would not be a problem EXCEPT . . . I am missing out on auditions… Read full post »

 

Dear Vixen:

How far would you go for someone that you love, whether that person be a sibling, a parent, a lover, or a close friend? Would you love someone so much that you give them as much love as you want to give even though you… Read full post »

You know you're back in the land of "Mad Men" when . . . Betty says of her young daughter, "She's taken to your tools like a little lesbian" and no one bats an eye.

You know you're back in the land of "Mad Men" when . . .… Read full post »

 You’d think it was the first time anyone’s ever gotten a divorce.

Sandra Tsing Loh’s recent admission in The Atlantic that she’s divorcing her husband after 20 years (following her own extramarital affair) has ignited a firestorm of high-minded controversy deba/… Read full post »

When I was in my mid-20s I was quite a dish. I was blonde and bubbly and eager-to-please. I tended to believe the things people told me, especially things they told me about me. I didn’t know whether I… Read full post »

True fact: I have an opinion on just about everything.

It’s also true that I’m not shy about sharing my opinions with other people, even if they haven’t yet realized that they’re dying to know what I think. In fact, it’s often those who fail to ask who… Read full post »

I have a love-hate relationship with Angelina Jolie. Angie (as she prefers) seems blissfully unperturbed by this. But I, feeling constantly pulled in opposing directions, am less sanguine about it. And since she’s arguably the most popular woman in American culture, I have to think abou… Read full post »

 At President Sarkozy’s request, the French parliament has established a bipartisan panel to study ways of restricting the burqa in French society, including an outright ban on wearing it in public. Calling the garment “a sign of subservience [and] debasement&rdquo… Read full post »

I was commiserating with my friend Jackie over the recent breakup of her two-year relationship. "I thought breakups would get easier after my 30's," she lamented over triple-tall-non-fat mochas at Starbucks. "But instead, they seem to be getting harder."

I suggested that perhaps that’… Read full post »

Ending the week on a lighter note, here are some fun vids of Farrah’s early days, before she got her big break with Charlie and the other gorgeous angels.

Let Farrah Cream Your Face

First up, the famous ad with Joe Namath, where she promises that Noxema will “cream your… Read full post »

I feel strangely sad about Farrah Fawcett's death. She was such a huge star during a formative period of my life. Growing up in the south, in the 1970’s, there were no feminine role models showing us how not to turn into our stay-at-home moms.

When Charlie’s Angels exploded/… Read full post »

Married or single, if you’re a modern woman you’re actually a real, live princess. I know this because advertising tells me so every time I turn on the television or open a magazine. And as privileged princesses, we have our very own products that make everything in our lives magically be… Read full post »

 

If comparing something to sex doesn't make it more interesting, then we're not doing it right. Take branding, for instance. Here are the three most important ways that branding is like sex.

#1: It’s simultaneously ubiquitous and mysterious. Like sex, branding is everywhere. And like… Read full post »

Starting off your workweek with a bit of humor, here are four edifying corporate lessons complete with memorable epigrams. I didn’t write these—they’ve been floating around for so long that I have no idea whom to attribute them to. Happy Monday!

Corporate Lesson #1
A man is ge… Read full post »

The emcee's voice boomed through the high school auditorium, but I didn't hear it so much as feel it reverberating through me. All I could actually hear was the sound of my heart pounding. I knew my… Read full post »

 

 "Opposites Attract" by Chris Overcash. Used by permission.

Last week I realized that my friend Cheryl is in a lesbian relationship .  .  .  with her boyfriend of four years.

This accidental discovery surfaced when their recently purchased dream house sprang a plumb… Read full post »