Leezer

]

 Dear Starlett:

First off, I would like to congratulate you on your spectacular bosoms.   I assume you consider them great friends, at least that’s the impression we get when we see you squishing them together with your biceps in all those photos.  Which brings me to another point.  You are undoubtedly a smart ingenue, but your internally inconsistent remarks to the press together with your ribald photos lead you dangerously close to a reputation as a self-righteous blowhard.    Please don’t misinterpret this as the piggish ramblings of a small-chested matron, but constructive criticism from an older sister.

Case in point - your threat to sue US Magazine over its assertion that your nose was cosmetically altered.   You said,

I have always been straightforward with the press regarding my body image and I am very concerned that my fans (and perhaps even my employers) will feel mislead.

Suggesting that your employers might feel misled if they discovered you had a nose job implies that your employers consider your nose - in its uncosmetically enhanced state - a bona fide qualification for the job as  Starlett.   Here’s a little secret:  I don’t think your nose is what your employers like most about you.

More fundamentally, your threat is nonsensical.   Though you didn’t say under what legal theory you might seek damages from US Magazine, you are likely threatening a defamation lawsuit.   If this is how you wish to proceed, you will have to prove by a preponderance of the evidence that

(1) you are a public figure.  This should be fairly easy for youbecause of your Starlett-esque recognition in the film and fashion industries, as well as in the public eye (there was that little episode where Isaac Mizrahi groped your boobs at the Oscars);

 (2) the alleged defamatory statement is false.  In legal parlance, the burden of proving this element of defamation will shift to the defendant - US Magazine - meaning that the magazine will have to show that the statement is true.  Now, if it wants to hold up a couple of photos of your nose, this burden will be a tough one to meet.  After all, noses can look a lot different depending on lighting, makeup, whether the nose is full of snot, and so on.  Let’s just assume for the sake of argument that the magazine can’t meet this burden.  You’ll still need to show that

(3) the statement was made with malice (with intentional or reckless disregard for the truth).   To prove malice, it’s not enough to show a hostile attitude toward you or a pattern of critical remarks from the defendant.  You will need to show that the reporter who said you had a nose job made that particular statement with the intent of damaging your career; AND

(4) you were damaged.  This is where you’ll fall short, because if you can succeed with the first three elements, you’ll still need to show how a reporter saying you had a nose-job lost you money or notoriety.  Didn’t the reporter make this statement within the past few weeks?  Has your agent called and said, They’re not signing you to Titantic II/Jurassic Park III/Tropic of Cancer because you had a nose job?  Have you taken a look at where you’re working lately?  Are there any working actresses in Hollywood - besides Estelle Geddy - who haven’t  had work done?  Keep them guessing.  It will be better for your career.

Aside from your rather lackluster legal position, your indignation with the reporter sounds kind of snotty in a “Im so perfect I would never need cosmetic surgery”-sort of way.  Skip the lawsuit and donate the money you would have spent to a worthy cause like Vegans for Veterans. 

Then there was the remarks you made to the interviewer for Vanity Fair in which you said,

There does seem to be a mistaken belief out there that I am sexually available somehow which is not to say that I’m not open-minded about sex. . .  Contrary to popular belief, I’m not promiscuous. Yet I wouldn’t say I’m a serial monogamist, either. I mean, I went through periods of time when I was, ah, single. But when I’m in a relationship, I’m in a relationship.

The paragraph above isn’t merely internally inconsistent, it sounds like you’re smoking dope.  Let’s deconstruct it a bit.  You seem offended at the suggestion you’re promiscuous, yet you imply that when you were single, you weren’t a “serial monogamist.”  To make these internal inconsistencies more, well, inconsistent, you admit that:

I get tested for HIV twice a year. One has to be socially aware. . .  .. It’s part of being a decent human, to be tested for STDs. It’s just disgusting behavior when people don’t. It’s so irresponsible.

Call me a prude, but doesn’t getting tested for HIV twice a year mean that you either have a lot of sexual partners or that you’re an IV drug user? Assuming the latter isn’t an issue, then there wouldn’t really be a reason to test for AIDS every six months unless your partners - or their partners - changed every six months.   Call me silly, but perhaps statements like this contribute to the “mistaken belief” that you’re “sexually available.”  All one has to do is stand in line for six months.  Next?

So, dear Starlett, let me leave you with these parting words:  think before you speak, treat your interviewer as though he/she had a brain in his/her head, and don’t put all your eggs in one basket, so to speak.   Although you’re paid mightily for your boobies and that deep, throaty voice,  be sure to develop an inner life.  Someday you will be forty, and although there’s no shame in that, you might not want to play the mother/aunt/accountant.  So you’ll want to have an array of talents to carry you through during such times.  Continue to use sunscreen,  and - by all means -  don’t be photographed in the same venue as Paris, Lindsay, or Britney. 

]

]

             It’s safe to say that for each person breathing on the planet there is an unfulfilled dream with that person’s name on it.  By dream I’m not referring to world domination or a nice, wholesome three-way without the awkward silence afterward, but something actually attainable.  I don’t really like the word dream because it brings to mind nightmares of arriving at work without any pants on or Martin Luther King’s famous speech, both of which have nothing to do with my point, which Jacob articulated here in that pithy way of his.

            The Alchemist is a piece of fiction in which the protagonist, Santiago, has a recurring dream – the nighttime kind – about pyramids.  He visits a gypsy woman who tells him that he needs to travel to the pyramids because there he will find a buried treasure.  The book floats along rather peacefully and predictably without ripping bodices or heaving bosoms – interludes which would have provided a welcome diversion from the tiresome preachiness that often accompanies spiritual discourse – but the moral of the story is compelling.  Everyone, the author believes, is born with a “personal legend” to live out.  Some are born to tap dance at Radio City, others are born to invent software operating systems, and some are born to reenact the Battle of Vicksburg.  Curiously, the author is silent as to whether some are born to perform sexual acts over the internet or bake methamphetamines.  Probably not, is my guess.  These folks are simply ignoring their personal legends. If any Hollywood casting directors are reading this, I would like to recommend Benny Ciaramello for the role of Santiago in the film version of The Alchemist.  He’s already used to being called “Santiago,” as he plays troubled youth Santiago whose parents were deported to Mexico on Friday Night Lights:

            If a person seeks to live out his or her personal legend, as the story goes, the universe will conspire to help that person.  Doors will open.  Omens will reveal themselves.  Annoying bouts of IBS will disappear. 

            I know a bit about this issue, having intentionally abandoned my personal legend for a few years.  During that time, I had a recurring dream of water flowing uphill.  I didn’t visit a gypsy woman because I live in Seattle and I don’t think gypsies visit Seattle much, and because I already knew what the dream meant.  I had dropped out of law school for a few years, having become disillusioned by the very thing I had worked toward for half of my life.  During the two-year hiatus, finishing law school seemed about as likely as water flowing uphill.  On the other hand, my subconscious might have been telling me that if water can flow uphill, though in a dream, then something as pedestrian as finishing a professional degree should certainly be attainable.  I was never as unhappy as I was during this two-year period, but the thought of returning to a situation that led to so much heartbreak and disappointment seemed the greater of the evils.

            Then one day when I was at work, I was informed that I was the recipient of a small scholarship for law school.  I tried to explain that there was a mistake – I had dropped out.  But the scholarship was deposited in my name anyway.  “Well,” I thought.  “I guess I may as well go back since I have a scholarship and all.”  And it wasn’t the first scholarship I was to receive prior to finishing law school.  There would be another as mysterious as the first because I didn’t seek it out but it instead found me.  I didn’t need the money, but something about receiving money to complete school - especially when I didn’t ask for it - made me feel as though I should leave the dance with the person who brought me.  Looking back, nothing was as hard as quitting law school and nothing was as easy as finishing.  Maybe it’s a matter of perception, though had I finished law school two years earlier, I would not have met Mood Ring Mamma, Leezerslawpartner, or MCV. 

            Everyone has a story like this.  Although a personal legend doesn’t always involve visiting a certain place or accomplishing feats of strength, one might wonder whether the various turns we’ve made in our lives at certain, precise, moments, though seemingly random and unintentional, are the universe’s way of triggering a chain of events that make up a certain tapestry.  You’ve heard the saying -  up close, the tapestry looks like an assortment of individual stitches, but far away, it creates a picture.   My husband, the scientist, can’t ponder such questions, believing instead in a more chaotic theory of destiny, which isn’t by definition destiny at all, just, well, chaos.   I’m not good with chaos, so I’ll stick to my version.