So here I am trying to be all 2012 and update my Facebook situation and now I'm back to square one. I hit the magic number of 5,000 Facebook friends and I could accumulate no more. So I shifted to a "page" instead of a profile. But now I can't message people! So i created an individual profile again. But I have no friends on that profile because they all got migrated to the "page." My head hurts...

So I will discuss something far less stressful: The Golden Globes. I am most fascinaed by the popularity of the mermaid silhouette. Perhps it is just my own personal bug-a-boo, but I do not think that it is a flattering silhouette, pretty much on anyone. If you're too thin, it makes you look hungry. And if you're curvy, it makes you look like a sausage. And yet, it not only survives, it is embraced. To each starlet her own, I guess.

 

It's been such a long time since I've posted on my blog. The day job has been keeping me busy. But I must admit that I have been fascinated with the anger that regular spews from the mouth of Nancy Grace, particularly in relation to the Casey Anthony case, of course. I try to watch as little of Grace as possible because I'm always fearful that if I linger too long on HLN that I will literarlly witness the spontaneous combustion of a human being. She runs so hot with righteous indignation.

She was, of course, in rare form during the Anthony trial. But she is always hard to take. And I'm not proud to say this, but I always feel she'd be a little less painful if she didn't look like such a  hard-edged bully. She looks like the kind of boss who'd go out of her way to make you cry and then take you to task for being so weak that you shed a tear.

Everything about her is angular and sharp: from the prickly hair cut to the piercing eyes to her intensely arched eyebrow to the peak lapels of her jackets. She's all sharp elbows, anger and gnawing southern drawl. I wonder what she would be like in a courtroom. Would she attempt to browbeat a jury into a conviction?

I didn't follow the Anthony trial. I guess I'm alone in that. I know next to nothing about the duct tape, the lies or even what Anthony did or didn't accuse her father of doing to her. But I long ago made the decision that Grace was too aggressive for my taste.

In her style, I always get the impression that she's trying to exude no frills power and authority. That she's not trying to dress in a masculine manner -- a la John T. Molloy's old-school "Dress for Success" manual. But she is trying to come across as strong and determined. But it seems to me that when your voice and demeanor are already on pissed-off over-drive, you don't really need to wear a black leather blazer to get toughness cred'. Grace's style acts like a bullhorn to an already loud and obnoxious voice. So much so, that it makes my ears bleed to look at her.

Grace may never speak in measured tones. Indeed, I'm sure she believes that she is speaking up for all those who have no voice. But as she shouts her passionate, guitly-because-I-said-so opinions, her style doesn't need to  ratchet up the volume.

I was fascinated with the Chris Brown eruption on "Good Morning, America," a couple days ago -- not because of what he did, but because of how he looked.

I happened to be watching the show over my morning coffee and old-school print newspapers when Robin Roberts was doing the pre-performance interview.

A couple of things occurred to me, one of which was why Roberts, a savvy journalist, seemed a bit tentative in the way she posed her questions about the Rihanna restraining order. She was stumbling over an awful lot of words before she got to her point. (But hey, it's live TV. I'd probably be babbling like a fool.) And of course, Brown was acting annoyed that she'd asked. He kept winking -- at her, at the studio audience -- as if he was trying to brush off violence against women like it was a petty annoyance. He didn't seem to have come to grips with the reality that that awful altercation is now part of his permanent record whether he considers himself rehabilitated or not.

I believe in forgiveness and in redemption. But forgiving doesn't necessarily mean forgetting and that's what Brown seemed to have wanted.

Mostly, though, I kept staring at his new public persona. The bleached out hair and the full chest tattoos just didn't mesh with his implied desire to have folks forget what he'd done or decide that it was no longer worth discussing. Maybe he's been sporting this look for a while -- I admit to not being on the man's Twitter feed. Tattoos are hardly subversive anymore, but the abundance of them, plus the distressed shirt and his hunched over, laissez-faire body language suggested that Brown was going for a tough guy facade. Why do you dress like a thug if you're hoping people are going to forget your violence actions? A Hollywood costumer couldn't have chosen a better get up for "the bad guy."

And then you rip up a dressing room and go strutting into midtown Manhattan shirtless with your entourage in tow? It all seems like Brown was trying to make hay of something terrible. Like a rapper using his police record to burnish his image, Brown seemed to be using his past as a way of portraying himself as edgy.

Maybe I'm reading too much into a few tattoos and a dye job. But if you're out to rehabilitate yourself after behaving like a hooligan, those seem like awfully odd style choices. 

 

To be honest, I was never much of an Elizabeth Taylor fan -- at least not from a fashion perspective. I've never seen "Cleopatra," but I adored her in " Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?"

By the time Taylor began to register in my mind, she was no longer the ravishing beauty that so many have spoken of since her death. Instead, she was a middle-aged woman with voluminous hair and a voluptuous body. She didn't fit the cliche of a Hollywood movie star. And I noted that in my mind. What's all the excitement about? Somehow, Taylor seemed to get a pass.

What I most remember is her staunch support of AIDS research and education, at a time when people were still coming to grips with the disease and dealing with their own irrational fears and prejudices. I never really thought of Taylor as an actress but rather as a famous activist who got out there early and had staying power. And I suspect there are a whole lot of people much younger than I am who connect her with Amfar rather than "National Velvet."

I like to think that one of the reasons her beauty endured in the minds of so many people is because of her philanthropic work. She serves as proof that a generous spirit will always be more dazzling than the fashion industry's most ardent expression of glamour.

It's a bit of a cliche, but change really is good. After 15 years at the Washington Post writing about fashion as well as first lady Michelle Obama, I've decided to take a great leap of faith and move on. In January, I'll start as a style and culture correspondent for Newsweek and the Daily Beast. The decision reflects my enthusiasm for Tina Brown's vision of a reinvented Newsweek. It is the magazine that I'd want to read, one filled with stories that help us understand the world around us through the culture that we consume every day. I still believe in print. Words on paper satisfy and excite like nothing else.

The decision was so ridiculously hard and emotional to make. I've been at the Post a long time. I have close and dear friends there. And my colleagues and editors have shaped me as a journalist. No other newspaper would have allowed me to define fashion in such a broad way and I was lucky enough to have editors who believed in me and my work. They supported me even when the flood gates opened and outraged reader comments flooded through.

Anyone who is a writer understands what it means to have a close relationship with an editor. It's about so much more than the words on the page. Fundamentally, the relationship is grounded in trust. You trust your editor to pull you back from the abysss of self-indulgence and misguided notions. You also trust your editor to push you harder when you are ready to give up -- or worse, think your work is done when it has only just begun.

I've been supremely luck. The jerks in my career have been few and far between. And I think I've mostly managed to behave myself.  I've had supportive bosses. Inspiring colleagues. And I've had the best editors in the business, including one who edited me into a Pulitzer. There's a special place in editor - friend, confidante - heaven for Steve.

I'm excited about my new gig. And I'm properly nervous. I think that's a fine combination of emotions.