So there I was traipsing around downtown San Francisco the day after Thanksiving wearing a gray and white striped knee length dress, creme white tights and black Mary Jane flats, when I hear a group of tourist chicks say in back of me "look there's a miniskirt".

For whatever reason, their remark made me very self conscious. My self consciousness about my mode of dress was made even worse when I started watching the TLC show "What Not to Wear", and they started ranting about women wearing white tights and what a fashion faux pas it was.

So naturally like any good researcher, I typed "how to wear opaque white tights" into google and found all these web pages saying the "mod" look is in, and that short miniskirts and opaque tights with mary jane flats were the outfit du jour for anyone wanting to achieve the "mod" look.

Minis on the Move

The Mini is here to Stay

The Mod Squad

I love wearing white tights. It reminds me of being a little girl, and it reminds me of mod girls from the 60's. Okay, so what if they make my looks pasty white and like white fat logs, I like wearing white tights.

Tights are the perfect thing with a short skirt or a short dress. Somehow the dress doesn't seem so short if you're wearing opaque tights, because it's not like you're showing any skin.

I never wear skin coloured hose or tights. The few times I've worn them with a short skirt, I received too many annoying looks, comments and wolf whistles. What a bother! Better to wear ugly white tights than to have some icky man oggle your legs in public.

And I do love wearing a miniskirt, and god only knows you can never have enough black miniskirts in your closet. But as a gesture to the folks at "What not to Wear", I'm going to exchange the two pairs of new white tights I bought last week with a pair of grey and navy ones. I need gray ones to go with the gray and white striped minidress, and I need navy ones to go with the two knee length navy and blue dresses I just ordered.

All the astrology sites are saying, that as an Aquarian I should be glad that the planet Uranus is finally moving out of my sign after being there since 1995. Uranus, being the planet of change, causes many upheavals in one's life and it sure did in mine.

Let's see.

I'm on my second car, after swearing in my youth that I would never own one because it was bad for the environment. (that inner hippie was raging in my 20's)

I changed jobs 3 times.

I moved into a bigger place, and I'm paying about twice as much rent.

Four people very near and dear to me died; Amy, Paul, Reid, and Grandma.

I decided I needed to find a creative outlet, and I went from acting to writing. I performed in one play, did a couple of solo performances, wrote a couple of screenplays, started 3 novels and hopefully will finish one this month, and finished 24 short stories.

And then there's this bloggie of mine.

The astrology sites say that Aquarians can relax because Uranus will now be the sign of Pisces for seven+ years.

But guess what. My rising/ascendant sign is Pisces, so I think the next seven or so years will be just as eventful. And what's worse, Uranus will now be in my second house of Finance. Like I really need upheavals where money is concerned.

So doing the Nanowrimo got me into such a writing mood, I sent an email to the Turkish Embassy in DC and expressed my regret for the terrorist bombing in Istanbul. I wanted to send the email directly to t5he country of Turkey, but I couldn't figure out where it needed to go.

Here's the email I received back:

From: Turkish Embassy [mailto:turkish@erols.com]
Sent: Monday, December 01, 2003 8:09 AM
To: 'Brenda Elfgirl'
Subject: RE: Expression of Sadness

Dear Ms. Elfgirl,

Thank you for your kind concern in the wake of the acts of terror in Istanbul that took the lives of over 50 innocent persons and wounded 750 more. Your reaching out to our Embassy and thus to the Turkish people at this trying hour is greatly appreciated. The scourge of terror can only be defeated through the joint effort of all nations.

Sincerely,
O. Faruk Logoglu
Ambassador

-----Original Message-----
From: Brenda Elfgirl
Sent: Wednesday, November 26, 2003 4:30 PM
To: info@turkey.org
Subject: Expression of Sadness

I just wanted to express my sadness that the country of Turkey was the victim of a terrorist attack last week.

I think Turkey is a exemplary model of a modern Muslim democratic state, and it's horrible to think that there are people out there who are willing to destroy it.

At some point, as much as I love it, politics bores the heck out of me. All that media hype, all that meaningless mudslinging by the candidates, and sloppy journalist reporting is just boring.

That's when I turn off the new stalk radio programs and listen to sports talk radio programs. Sports is always interesting and always changing.

Okay, the 49ers and the Raiders are each sucking the big ones right now. But there's the NFL football playoffs to think about, the college bowl games and the mysterious thing called baseball transactions in the off season.

Curt Schilling, that fantastic pitcher from the Arizona Diamondbacks, was traded to Boston after the Yankees came sniffing.

Oakland traded away Terrence Long and Ramon Hernandez to the Padres.