At the risk of sounding completely self-absorbed or vain, I’m going to put this right out there as I see it. I was considered a Pretty Girl growing up, getting regular praise for something completely out of my control and not of my core self — and as a result, feeling strangely uncomfortable about it from a very young age on. Maybe I didn’t totally believe it, or more likely I saw it as a very small window of “opportunity” relative to my lifetime, and so I actively and deliberately chose to work on developing my personality, sense of humor and personal growth in multiple areas. I expect(ed) a lot of and for myself (as my mother drug-pushered onto me) attributing my talents to not hard but smart work.

But enough about me. This is what I think about us.

Humor me on this one. This is all about my own confusion, so it may be more obtuse a read for you than I intend. By the end, maybe you can help me.

Lifetime: Television for Women?

Comedian/actor Tracy Morgan recently rolled his eyes and pithily called Lifetime Television “Man-bashing TV.” But now -- awww! -- our little girlie TV network is growing up! Lifetime grew out of her training bra (the notoriously sappy woman-as-victim-cum-redeemer Harlequinesque movies starring faded but still recognizable glamorzillas of evening serials), and is now swinging her Spanx-clad hips to the "realities" of Project Runway and Tori & Dean. The programmers at the Lifetime network are trying to attract a more hip and youthful female viewer -- one who likes her designer dresses and the woes of celebrity mommyhood as much as her heroine’s redemption via the stalker's/rapist's/killer's comeuppance in Act 3. Fine.

Here Kitty, Kitty

“Don't be a pussy” is a sexist statement to my ears, and it’s my generation’s version of today’s school kids calling things that aren’t cool “gay.” I come from a city where calling someone gay is not an automatic insult, plus I’m a writer who thinks common slang is the poetry of human anthropology, so it took this aware smarty pants a painfully long time to hear what these kids were truly saying.