Thoughts from a boho, kooky, unserious, curly-haired woman.

If I’ve learned anything from the News of the World hacking scandal, it’s that if I’m ever called to testify in front of Congress, I really should stop and get a blowout first.

Because like former News International CEO Rebekah Brooks, I have very, very curly hair. The kind of hair where each strand twists and contorts itself until they all join up to form a labyrinthine web of kinky corkscrews. The kind of hair that is, by nature, untamed and wild.

The kind of hair that Robin Givhan, writing about Ms. Brooks in The Daily Beast, characterized as “boho,” “distracting,” “look-at-me hair.” “It was a ballsy rebuke of our expectations…There was no suggestion of humility, timidity, or caution…no attempt to disappear into doleful anonymity.”

Basically, Givhan argues that by virtue of its natural existence, Ms. Brooks’ hair sticks a finger in the eye of all things proper, righteous, and upstanding, and that if she cared about looking like a real CEO, she might have put it in a bun. I can’t speak for Ms. Brooks, but when you have the kind of hair that prompts entire columns about its perceived implications, trust me – doleful anonymity sounds pretty good.

I don’t mean for my curly hair to be a declaration of my identity. I didn’t ask for it to be this way. But whether I like it or not, my hair walks into the room before I do. It is and always has been the singular defining feature of my physical being, and it’s all people want to talk about. I have been forced to discuss it in job interviews and at funerals. When you have curls, no one cares about your big heart or your big thoughts; you are reduced to a person with big hair. My curls signify to the world that I am kooky, scatterbrained, free-spirited, unconventional, unruly, unkempt, unprofessional, un-corporate, rebellious, eccentric, quirky, and nonconformist. Or at least that’s how people like Givhan interpret them.

The idea of a curly-headed woman as distracting and unpolished is well-woven into our pop culture fabric. On any makeover show, the hair transformation will always involve a straightening iron. As they say, Messy Hair = Messy Life. In The Princess Diaries, Anne Hathaway isn’t princess material until she tames her frizz into a sleek blowout. On Friends, it’s no accident that ditzy Phoebe is the only female character with long waves. Even in the Harry Potter series, whip-smart Hermione is considered downright fugly until she emerges for the big dance with her usually wild hair fashioned into a demure straight style. I’ll stop here, but believe me – I could go on.

But curly hair isn’t just a semiotic concept; an idea to be parsed and analyzed in a what-does-it-all-mean kind of way. It’s personal. It’s personal every time I see a news segment showing how employers are less likely to hire curly-haired women, and men are less likely to want to date them. It’s personal when my husband asks, “If we have kids, what’s the chance they’d have hair like yours?” as if it were a disease. It’s personal when I assure him that genetically, it’s unlikely, and realize that I’m relieved, too. And it’s personal when fashion editors write columns decrying women who look like me as messy, defiant, and brazen.

Mostly, it gets personal every time some random stranger comments, “Oh, I’d love to have hair like yours!” Trust me – if people really wanted curly hair, fashion magazines wouldn’t be so full of blowout tips. Curls may be okay in theory, as long as they belong to adorable orphans or cartoon characters, but not on an adult woman. That is, assuming she wants to be taken seriously.

I was walking with my best friend once when a little old lady stopped me on the street to regale me with stories about how much she paid for perms, and how I was just the luckiest gosh-darned girl in the world. As we walked away, my friend said, “I have to tell you – your hair is great, but I would never want it in a million years.” I really loved her for that.

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ColumnA comment on commenting.

In a burst of condescension so brilliant my lady-brain almost didn’t catch it, a follower on Twitter labeled our recent article about nuclear energy as stupid and ignorant. He then admonished us both there and on Facebook to be “ashamed.” Our readers deserve to know “the truth” of which he is evidently the arbiter.

I publicly acknowledged the one constructive point he grandly offered (I had loaded the piece with a deck referencing Japan’s nuclear “meltdown” which, 10 days out from the disaster, is at best totally accurate and at worst, no different from a similar usage by the New York Times). I did resent him mussing my hair with his virtual pat on the head, though. You see, the author of the article, Stephanie Rogers, has the misfortune of cultivating greenery in her backyard while simultaneously not being a nuclear scientist. In other words, despite her long list of environmental writing credits and the piece in question having 13 straight paragraphs of citation after citation, fact after fact, she is clearly not up to the task of considering the topic of nuclear energy because she gardens. That green thumb belongs nowhere near the red button, much less the Publish button.

Coincidentally, this is a subject that’s been on my mind. Class, it’s time for a little lesson called Stop Being So Shallow, You’re Hindering Actual Dialogue, You Insecure Nit.

If Stephanie Rogers, a professional journalist and blogger whom I happen to know as one of the more thoughtful and prolific green writers working these days (her articles have been syndicated by numerous print media during her tenure at EcoSalon), cannot write about the nuclear energy debate that’s been revived in light of current events in Japan because she has an affinity for growing tulips, that’s fine, but we’ll have to be consistent. Let’s just get this out of the way now: Sorry, President Obama, reading a memo here, talking it up with your science people there, does not entitle you to pontificate to the citizenry on nuclear energy. You’re simply not an expert, babe. Nice speeches, though.

In all seriousness, I think the only person who shouldn’t be talking about, writing about or otherwise bloviating about nuclear energy right now is Kenny from South Park, because we know how that ends up. For everyone else, there’s the readily available internet and the mere fact that The Nuclear Option affects us all – and I’m not just talking about nuclear power. I take our editorial responsibility seriously, so here’s me letting the cat out of the bag: we are professional writers and editors, but it is true that we are not nuclear energy “experts.” Few journalists are. Does this mean we cannot discuss one of the most compelling topics of our time?

Most readers are savvy enough to understand that every piece has its limits, if for no other reason than screen size, and are able to air their disagreement or call out an error without resorting to insults. But the world of new media is a Baker’s dozen: for every 12 mindful, sincere readers you get, there is the inevitable reader with a bleeding chip. Such readers react first – they take the nuclear option – and remember we’re all in this together second. And that’s fine. They do not trust their own positions very much, for they are hotly put out by ours. (Even more so when the writer is a woman. Somehow I doubt that Graham Hill or Mike Lieberman or any other green guy would face tweet-shaming for sharing a few well-sourced points about nuclear energy – at least, not because of a fondness for his homegrown tomatoes.)

But sexism is as old as the internet, and who cares? The truly tiresome thing about the not-an-expert slam is that it is so beside the point. Imagine a world where only experts were allowed to comment on a given topic. It would certainly take care of that little cocktail party problem known as Falling Back on the Weather (unless it’s a Weather Channel company party, obviously). The cable TV punditry would soon go extinct. An undeniable upside.

But there might be a few downsides. We wouldn’t be allowed to talk about our cars stalling, our flights being delayed, our computers freezing up, our cell phones dying, our teenagers refusing to shower, our neighborhood recycling program or the origins of thin-crust pizza. That is, unless we’re mechanics, pilots, programmers, engineers, psychologists, municipal administrators or culinary historians (for which there must be a program at Yale). Oh, we could recount these things happening, but analysis and debate, input from friends, indeed Googling would be off limits…even to professional writers. What great fun. The whole of human existence lived as a fourth-grade book report.

If there’s one thing we learned from Gandhi, it’s that change starts with you, and Gandhi? I am so going to be that change. Here at EcoSalon, no writer will be allowed to write on any topic unless he or she is a proven expert in said topic. Confirmation of expertise will be determined by a jury of your Twits and verdict will be rendered in 140 characters or less.

But wait, there’s more! Just think of how much value you will not contribute to your personal life. I won’t be able to offer insights to married friends because I am single, for example. The silver lining is that all this free time not being allowed to do or say anything because I’m no expert should give me plenty of time to become one. With any luck, perhaps I can even become a know-it-all. Better yet, a know-nothing! Sadly, I can never become a man, at least not without better health insurance.

It’s hard work actually thinking through the merits of what someone says instead of reacting based upon what box you’ve got them in, but every day, intelligent adults in possession of a heart do manage it.

Every day, good journalists can and do credibly contribute ideas and information to topics they may not be career “experts” in. But that’s not what it’s about, is it? It’s about a chick. And so some readers will resort to their lizard brains, reacting to their biology as fast as they possibly can to smother the itch, salving themselves with ad hominem.

How expert should we be when discussing topics that matter to us all? There’s a fairly wide field between being peer-reviewed in the International Journal of Nuclear Energy Science and Technology and being an imbecile. Pretending that isn’t the case is dishonest and counterproductive. And coming back with a know-nothing defense – and it is always this defense – such as “I’m no expert either, which is why I don’t write on this topic!” is no comeback at all.

Abortion, war and technology, fertility, fast food, feminism, divorce, drugs, vegetarianism, porn, Peta, trashion, fur, ecosexism, sex, sex in advertising, death, things we want versus things we need, celebrity, nuclear energy: All topics allowed, all consciousness considered, all hyperlinks included, no green stone unturned.

If you’ve got a leg to stand on, stand on it. But if you’re going to take issue with a writer’s proclivity for raising oregano, we’re going to consider the source, as well. And we’ll take a gardener over a troll any day.

Image: Lara604

This is the latest installment in your editor’s column, The Insider’s Guide to Life, exploring topics such as media, culture, sex, politics, and anything else. Cheers and spellcheck!

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ColumnAll the words in our language, and you have to keep using these?

Fresh. Fierce. Fabulous.

Smoldering.

Curated. Edited.

The New York Times, smarting from such journalistic inanities, has compiled a list of the most overused words and phrases in fashion writing. (The Times suggests “culled” as the curated of 2011. I vote for “distilled.”)

In addition to those words listed above, the Times takes umbrage at “DIY fashion,” though they must be all right with upcycling (alas, better luck next year, Etsy).

Also popular in a paragraph near you, everyone’s favorite suffix: [Insert noun of choice] -ista. At this point, we’re pretty much anythingistas. Retroista, travelista, foodista, fashionista. It’s surely a bittersweet irony for Scrabbleistas.

Meanwhile, the paper says prefix aggravation came to us in 2010 by way of eco-. Eco-kill me. Ecoista? Now you’re really smoldering, hot pants.

The gray lady is probably right: it’s all gotten a bit redonk.

What are we, Cosmopolitan? When not even Vogue can spell Lafite correctly, I fear for the future of fashion media. (In September Vogue‘s defense, the misspelling was just a hop skip and a bullet point down from a sentence that actually, swear-to-Tyra, contained the words “freshly fierce”, which is clearly to blame for the subsequent “Lafitte.” It’s hard to recover from stupid, even if it is for champagne. I can’t confirm without risking yet another debilitating episode of PTSD, but I am 99% sure there was a certain other f-bomb in that sentence, as well.)

To wit, most holy loathing goes to the most overused word in fashion: Fabulous.

Whenever I hear the f-word oozing from someone’s mouth, I cringe. Lately it’s escalated to full-blown wincing. I’m like Powder; I can pretty much psychically detect when it’s about to be uttered, and I shudder in spasms of editorial pain. You can imagine the situation following the release of Kimora Lee Simmons’ book, Fabulosity.

No really, that scarf is fabulous? An organic diaper is fabulous? Biodegradable picnic plates are fabulous now? Pumpkin. Let me tell you about fabulous, and how not fucking fabulous scarves are. Fabulous is a nine-carat cocktail ring. Fabulous is a trip to the Caribbean on a private jet with the Italian guy you’ve known for five minutes which you’ll never tell your father about. Fabulous is gloves that aren’t safe brown, shoes that aren’t bunion comfortable and dinners that begin at 10 o’clock. That’s a fabulous life. I’m not saying it’s a good life or a moral life or that I’m living it, I’m just saying a scarf by any other adjective is still a square of fabric you wrap around your throat when it’s kinda cold.

Fabulous is not a new tea strainer. It is not a pair of “stylish” comfort shoes that look marginally acceptable enough for public display on weekends with cousins from the weird side of the family. I’ll tell you what else fabulous isn’t: fresh. Used improperly, which it always is, fabulous more closely resembles flab, or flan, or fanny, and bloat and lousy and other words with too much saliva for my tastes. Unless it’s being used to describe something stunningly not normal in any way, you’re just making everyone think the word “bulbous”. Please let’s quit ruining fabulous.

Fantastic isn’t much better than fabulous, but at least it has the advantage of being accurate. You could genuinely find a scarf fantastic, if you’ve just spent the last seven hours freezing your tears out in New York because the airline lost your luggage and you foolishly forgot to stuff that scarf in your carry-on, for example. It’s pretty fantastic to be warm. It’s still not fabulous, though.

There are other words, and classes of words – whole families and clans, in fact – for which I suffer my craft. Portmanteaus reside in a very special tundra in the Arctic-most nethers of my icy heart. For the recent admission of “shopitude,” I apologize to humanity. Someone let the cockles out on that one, and we’ve put them back in the cage where they belong (the cockles!). Portmanteaus are especially insidious; they’re the puns of our time. Let’s stop aggregating syllables and calling it original content. “Refudiate” and “strategery” can be forgiven because they were invented by special people and are only baby portmanteaux anyway, but grellow? Not a value-add.

There are some very nice words out there, like spectacular and lovely and brilliant and modern (as long as it’s not thoroughly or bracingly modern). But so far, deletion hasn’t come to nearly enough worn words. In honor of a new year for new media, and also because this is my post, I’ll start.

Vacay. Die. Die a blunted backspace death right along with info, meds, mod and delish.

Douchebag. Douche. Douchey. Wait for it: Douchebaggery. Every time someone says this from now on, I’m going to respond with “Yeah, what a tampon.” “So tampony.” “Hey guys, I call tamponigans.” (Breaking the portmanteau rule there, but I believe it’s justified.) Think about it, people. Jon Stewart dropping the d-bag every other sentence is not only sort of disgusting, it’s misogynistic in a casual way that makes the “pussy” of 90s popularity seem downright affectionate. Women who can “hang with the boys” say it now, but so do moms. Wow, us.

It’s Official. It’s official: We need to say this next to true things about as much as we need to say “literally”. Which is never.

Superlatives. The Strangest 23 Spoons Found in a Drawer! The 10 Wackiest Drawings by My Cat…This Week! The Boss’s Craziest Text Ever! Let’s give the -est a rest.

Fun with latinates. It’s converse and orient, not conversate and orientate. It’s delicious, not deliciousness. When did we start piling on the extra endings like an order of supersized poutine? How I yearn for six-pack verbs.

Jeggings. Oops, sorry! How on earth and the laws of physics did those manage to squeeze into this tiny little post? God only knows.

Pop of color. It’s simply incredible how good colors look on things. Walls, rooms, outfits, floral arrangements, websites, salads, fingernails, porches, bathrooms, cheeks, children, mantles, macarons, irises. A pop of color as opposed to no color really shakes up the sad ubiquity of blank, empty, invisible and clear we keep seeing everywhere, just running amok. You might wonder how we ever discovered that a pop of color is a good thing? Fact: we still haven’t, which is why we should be grateful to style writers everywhere, teaching us about this fabulously fabulous trick. Life looking a little bland? Spice it up with a pop of color!

Shortcuts by Rachael Ray™. She had me at EVOO – had me middling my brow, and I haven’t the Botox to face the show again. But I wouldn’t be surprised if ready-chopped garlic cloves is now RCGC and one large can of stewed tomatoes is now OLCST and extra handfuls of salt and cheese is a given is EHSCIG. You have to admit, using letters instead of words is a real handy shortcut, sort of like throwing four or five processed foods together instead of cooking a recipe. Sadly, EVOO pops up all over, from mommyblogs to foodie sites to recipe databases. When I had to ask my mother on the fourth time hearing it this Christmas what “The BY” stood for, and learned it’s The Back Yard, I wept and then I drank and then I drank the Nyquil, all of it and then I slept the artificial sleep of morose spearmint misery. I fear this is a battle we’re losing. Well played, Rachael, well played.

This is the first in your editor’s new column for 2011, The Insider’s Guide to Life, exploring topics such as media, culture, sex, politics, carbs and fonts. If she’s got the strength for it, there will be more to come. Cheers and spellcheck!

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