And here is the long-dormant-but-now-reactivated, Saturday Morning Fashion Rant:

You know, of course, there's a new movie version of the "Stepford Wives" coming out, no? (Disclaimer: I've not read the book or seen either the 1970s or the new movie, but I think I'm plugged in enough to know roughly what is meant by a "Stepford wife").

Well, yesterday afternoon, trying to recover from mowing my lawn in 90% humidity and 900 grains of pollen per cubic air inch, I was flipping about and ran across some show with the ever-chirpy Deborah Norville on it. And she was talking about "The new Stepford Look and how to get it" (I'm paraphrasing here but I think I'm close). I spit a mouthful of Ozarka water out of my mouth and said something not very ladylike. And then my next thought was: "How to get the Stepford look? Have you tried a lobotomy?"

But no, it seems to be a real fashion trend. Cute little sundresses, cleavage-revealing exercise wear that doesn't look like exercise wear, shiny happy colors, pastels, big flowers, broad brimmed hats like you would expect to see at Ascot...all of that.

Now, okay. I like femininity. I like hats, even if I'm too chicken and too conventional to wear them. I like "pretty". I will admit that I own several floral dresses. (They are not décolleté, I don't go there, especially since I mostly wear them to work and to church, but they are floral, nonetheless).

But: I don't like that this trend is going to be so closely associated with a creepy awful idea: brain-dead, perfect, literally-robotic, always-compliant women as the eternal male fantasy. (Because, I think that insults BOTH men and women). And, no, I'm not sure I'm ready to buy the claim that the movie is some sort of cautionary tale or satire of that idea. Because, you know, we're already looking at a sort of Stepfordization - what with "The Swan," and the extreme make-over shows, and that monumentally depressing show on MTV where they take some person who would probably best benefit from a long course of counseling and personal-identity-formation, and give them surgeries to make them look like some celebrity.

I don't know. I do know that I like and respect the human race in all of its variation and "imperfection." I've seen cases of what most cosmetic surgeons would term "imperfection" and suggest surgery to correct, that are so a part of the person that you couldn't imagine them with a different nose, or with a more symmetrical face, or larger perkier breasts....

I guess my frustration is the idea that there are few or one standards of beauty. The problem with that, is that living things change, but the standards of beauty seem to be calibrated for an age range of approximately sixteen to twenty-five. I know I look different (thank God) now than I did at fifteen. And you know, I don't mind one bit that I'm aging. I think I've grown into my face more. I actually think of myself as better-looking now than I did in my 20s. I don't know if it's part of the aging process going on in my skin and muscles, or part of the maturing process going on in my brain, but I'm happy with it and I'll take it, whatever it is.

And I don't see why it should be seen as the norm that when you start to get tiny little lines around your eyes - like I have, right now, as a result of the smiling and laughing I've done over the years - that you get a big nasty needle stuck into them and one of the world's most dangerous toxins injected into them so the muscles become temporarily paralyzed, and then six months later you have it done again.

I don't know. Maybe that's what some people need to be happy. And it's a free country, fine. But don't make it so I can't let myself change and sag and wrinkle like my body is going to. Let me be me.