Sarah Palin is Running for First Lady, Not VP

Yep. She is. More about that later.

Apparently Governor Palin Makes Bad Decisions

And I'm not even talking about the banana clip that she was wearing when she was announced as the VP candidate. Who would wear one of those for any reason, not to mention the most important day of her political life? Apparently it is a ploy to attract the soccer moms -- women who have not felt attractive since the 80s when banana clips were acceptable to wear to, ahem, the Sadie Hawkins Dance.

But I digress from the real reason I hesitate to applaud the Republican choice in this case. Reader, she flew while she was in labor. More specifically, she flew from Texas to Alaska, all the while leaking amniotic fluid. In fact, she did not inform the flight crew that she was far along in her pregnancy. Worse, she didn't go to the hospital right away after she landed. Instead, she drove to her home town so that the baby could be born there. How did she get into this predicament in the first place? She was at an energy conference in Texas and scheduled to give a speech. She did not want to miss giving the speech. Um, your water is breaking and you elect to give a speech rather than get your laboring self to a hospital? Um, you choose to speak in front of people while leaking amniotic fluid?

Does the fact pattern suggest that we want her a heartbeat away from the presidency?

Frankly, I am skeptical of the rumor that she wasn't even pregnant in the first place, and that the baby is really her 16 year old daughter's baby. The evidence is too circumstantial, and besides, it just seems so tabloidy. Take this skepticism as you wish. I didn't believe that there was any sort of problem in the marriage of the prince and princess of Wales until the very day that they announced their separation.

I am more appalled by the idea that she would do to her unborn child what the Republicans did to New Orleans -- postponing help and refusing to acknowledge the extremity of the situation. Reader, Governor Palin is pro-life. Here I am, pro-choice and so shocked by her behavior in the face of a high risk (she's 44 -- any pregnancy in a woman over 35 is considered high risk) delivery that I can't even pick my chin off the floor. It seems to me that her actions are saying that it is wrong to terminate a pregnancy, but it is right to endanger yourself and your unborn child by misrepresenting your condition to a flight crew of a commercial airline and not seeking medical attention immediately?

But that's not all. Even if you think it's okay that she behaved as she did in regard to herself and her unborn child, what about her responsibility to her living family? She had minor children. Shouldn't she have acted with more concern for her health at least for their sakes?

I am hoping that you see as clearly as I do the danger in having her in such a high elected office. If her poor judgment extends from matters of personal health and family welfare to matters of leadership, we are really in trouble.

She does seem to be better spoken than Dan Quayle, but it looks like the GOP is going in that direction again.

With the Nation's Premier Style Arbiter Behind Them, How Could They Not Win?

Andre Leon Talley is a Vogue editor and stylist who makes it his mission to advise up and coming African American public figures on style. There has been speculation in the press that he is advising Michelle Obama. He is not. In fact, he gave her what, in the fashion world, is equivalent to an endorsement of her husband's candidacy. He said, "[L]et me go on record saying that I have never, ever given her any advice on what to wear. To put the record straight, I think that Michelle Obama does not need advice."

Dear Reader, the day that Andre Leon Talley says this about me is the day I go to fashionista heaven. There is just no greater compliment regarding one's sartorial choices. True, Michelle Obama was just added to the International Best Dressed List, but this list is widely known as a sort of popularity contest, as in "who looks good enough to be seen boarding your private jet." (By including Michelle Obama and not Cindy McCain, Vanity Fair itself endorsed Barack Obama). ALT's compliment is the real thing.

Fashionista on a Budget: She Does a Little Comparison Shopping

This evening, for entertainment, I went to Target. Now, I have not been to Target in a while, nor have I shopped seriously at Target in several years, but I wanted to check out what was new in "Design for All."

One of the reasons I like Target is that it has this design for all mission. It isn't "Design Within Reach," which is just the Sharper Image of the early twenty-first century. Instead it really believes that the masses might like good design, instead of make-do design. I have several artifacts of this experiment, including my Michael Graves paper shredder, Michael Graves can opener, Michael Graves vegetable peeler, and Michael Graves surge protectors. All of these everyday objects are useful, comfortable, and pleasing to the eye (Calderoj's brother even complimented the surge protectors). Even as I write, form and function are making beautiful music together in my utility drawer.

While all of the aforementioned products have stood the test of time, I have not been impressed by the durability of clothing on offer at Target. I learned about this problem a few years ago when I noticed that Target has cute clothing for cheap. This was shortly after Isaac Mizrahi made Target cool. I bought some items. The shirts ripped at the seams, the sweaters pilled. The knitwear shrunk in the wash. Not only was the durability bad, but the form, while pleasing to the eye, was not so pleasing to the body. Jackets puckered and were strangely sized. I realized that in clothing you really do get what you pay for. Target clothes retail mostly for below $25 per item.

Is the idea that the buyer will wear it once and then throw it away? This never seemed to be the case with Geranimals, which is how I started out wearing Target clothes. Though my mother does consider shopping a raison d'etre, thirty years ago she was, nevertheless, practical, so I don't think she would have bought us stuff that would fall apart. But there is a difference in quality in women's apparel from Target and, say apparel by Stella McCartney. Target clothes don't last the week. Stella designs clothes so your daughter can wear them as vintage decades from now.

But Stella McCartney and Target do have something in common. That thing is Pleather. Neither one of them uses the word. Instead, both prefer to make the word "patent" into a noun, as in "Patent Ombre Handbag." And both of them market products made from "faux suede." I'm not sure about this, but weren't earlier incarnations of faux suede called Naugahyde and Ultrasuede, respectively?

I am not looking down on these retailers. No. I have several pieces by excellent designers that use faux fur.* Indeed, SM uses faux skins and fur because she is a vegetarian and wishes to translate her eating choices into her design aesthetic, which I applaud. The interesting thing is that when you buy a Stella boot in faux suede, you pay 100 times more than you would to buy a Target boot in faux suede.

So when I went to Target, I decided to check out the difference. I tried on a Stella boot yesterday. This evening, I tried on a Target ballet flat. I had to go up a size in both. Pleather must not stretch as well as its natural, cruel counterpart.

*My Rebecca Taylor faux leopard jacket is one of my favorite pieces. Calderoj thinks it makes me look like a streetwalker. This fall I'm going to wear it with a black pashmina scarf and gloves and jeans for a casual look. Mmm, mmm, mmm.

Standing On My Head, Seeing God, Death, and Eternity

Once again, Yoga has proven to me that the soul and body cannot be separated.

Some background. I have been doing Yoga for over ten years now. I have not been an entirely faithful Yoga practitioner, and so my practice has not advanced very far. I still attend level 1-2 classes (there are 3 levels in the tradition I study). My slow advancement is not because I lack discipline or inherently don't like to exercise. Those of you who know me know that the only times in seven years that I have missed Pilates lessons is when I have had pneumonia. I used to run almost five miles every morning before work until I got tired of my hair freezing in winter weather and bought an elliptical machine, which I do every morning before work. I really, really like physical activity. More than physical activity, I like the results of physical activity. I like that I am in my late thirties and I am strong and flexible. I like that I don't have chronic injuries that have been brought about by inactivity. I like that I don't view my body as a burden, and that I look at the years to come with dread because I know that there is a correlation between movement and quality of life.

My practice is slow to develop because Yoga scares me. I first started doing Yoga because I understood it to be a gentle form of exercise that I could do safely when I was 80. I understood it to be just another form of exercise, one that would relax me and increase my flexibility. My first class showed me that it was something else entirely. I practice in the Iyengar tradition, which means that, at the low levels at least, there is really no discussion of what the guru, B.K.S. Iyengar calls the rest of the "tree of yoga," the spiritual path to enlightenment in which the positions are only a small part. In other words, there was no Yoga evangelism, only an earnest desire on the part of my teacher for us to understand that Yoga was more than gentle flexibility, but instead required a great deal of attention to parts of our bodies we had previously no awareness of. I learned that Yoga was a lot harder than it looked.

In that first set of classes, I also came to an understanding of what Yoga promises. After learning some of the poses and then reading a few books about the poses, I began to understand the Kama Sutra. It isn't that I became expert at The Congress of the Crow, this certainly wasn't the case. Instead, it means that I began to understand that the asanas of Yoga and the erotic positions in the Kama Sutra were all about the flow of spiritual energy through the body. That such positions, whether performed alone as in Yoga, or together with a partner in bed, were about an engagement with the Cosmos that other things that we do in life don't necessarily encourage.

After my first initial course, I went to class whenever I could afford it. In these years I was afraid of the positions themselves. I was suspicious of any inversion. Head Stand and Shoulder Stand would surely lead me to break my neck, a fate that my mother was sure to befall any one who participated in activities that were even partially dangerous, from walking down stairs to wearing high heels. I didn't want to advance because that meant that I'd have to spend an increasing amount of class upside down.

It was about two or three years into practice when I had my second realization about Yoga. We were doing Camel, and as I bent back and exposed my chest to the world, I felt fear sweep through me in wave after wave. It was the most intense fear I had ever experienced. Worse, it was totally unexplainable. It was attached to nothing -- no memory, no situation. Because it was so detached, I couldn't even talk about it. I was in therapy at the time because I was bulimic, and both my therapist and I struggled to understand it. We never got it. I didn't go back to Yoga for years.

When I went back it was because I had made friends with an incredible human being who happened to teach Yoga. She started doing a workshop for teachers at our school, and I felt safe with her. Earlier in the year, she had given me my third insight into Yoga. I had recently had treatment for Graves Disease and one day woke up to notice that I'd put on weight and so I couldn't get my jeans zipped. This threw me into a panic, and I expressed my anxiety to my friend. She already understood what I had come to realize that morning. In awe I told her, "We are shape shifters and we don't even know it."

Yoga still wasn't easy, but not because it hurt or was difficult to perform. I was really liking standing on my head. Instead, it was difficult to deal with the spiritual energy that I now realized my body was conducting when I went in to the asanas. I went to class for a while, but then I dropped out.

When I met my boyfriend, Calderoj, and we began a relationship that had a spiritual component, I suggested that we go to Yoga class together. As with all aspects of my life, I am a Yoga snob. I insisted that we study Iyengar. We found a good school run by a husband and wife.

Perhaps that was too much background for you. However, it was necessary to explain my revelation of Saturday morning. The class I attended was great. We did several standing poses and a lot of Downward Dog. I stood on my head for what was a long time for me. For those of you who don't know much about Yoga practice, at the end of each session you do Shivasana, literally Corpse Pose. In Shivasana the practitioner lies on her back, muscles relaxed, eyes closed, mind in a meditative state. The idea behind the pose is that it is like death, and that because they practice it often, yogis are prepared when they meet death.

The teacher had us starting off in another pose where we were lightly touching the wall with our feet. Then, when we moved into Shivasana, he told us to push ourselves away from the wall. I was struck by the affect of pushing away from the wall. Suddenly, other than the fact that I was lying on the floor, I was touching nothing. I had the sensation of floating in space. I thought, "This must be one aspect of death. The dead have no relationship with any object." It was an epiphany. Moreover, I greeted this forth understanding about Yoga with curiosity.

In the end, the class had released happiness in me in the same way that the camel class had released fear years ago. I made a fifth realization, as well. Because advancing in Yoga is about developing your soul as well as your body you have to be an adult on an emotional level to advance. You have to realize that fear and anger happen, just in the same way that happiness happens. An adult doesn't run from these feelings. An adult confronts them.