The Purse Incident

Somewhere, in a purse-snatcher chop shop, a few men are highly under-estimating how nice my makeup and purse are, are looking at pictures of me in my bikini from a recent vacation, and are kicking themselves because I only had $2 on me in cash.

On Friday night I was robbed. In Hollywood.

Two men came up behind me and my girlfriend and took my purse literally off my arm.

Now I am 1)devoid of any semblance of peace of mind 2)busy engaging in the Purse Incident Recovery Process (PIRP).

For any of you who have been robbed, you know that PIRP is not a pleasant process. Thus far, it has involved changing the locks to my home, cancelling cards, getting a new phone and camera, getting a new insurance card and attempting to contact the police with additional details that may help them. Still on the list? Getting new car keys, a new license, and attempting to regain my sense of safety.

That being said, aside from engaging in the PIRP, I have been thinking a lot about things I could have done differently.

A few insights I would like to share (No Man Land Safety Rules if you will):

1) Never take a big bag out to a nightclub. I usually consolidate to a small bag (in fact, my small bag was in the big bag, ready to be used) but we were running "too late" and I was "too lazy" to do it.

2) Never park on the street in Hollywood when you are just two girls who will have to walk back to the car at 1:30 am.

3) This is related to number 2. Always have cash with you. We parked on the street because between the two of us we only had $3 dollars. Also, I was ready to take a cab home earlier in the night, but didn't have any money.

4) If you have no choice but to park on the street, pay attention. My girlfriend and I were fighting, so we overshot the car by over two blocks. It was on the way back to the car that I got robbed.

5) Big purse or small, make sure what you have with you is absolutely necessary. Don't have every credit card, tons of cash, your check book etc. on you. All you need is one card, your ID, and some gloss.

6) Upload your pictures right away. I lost some wonderful ones on my camera that are irreplaceable.

7) Trust your instincts. I had a bad feeling all night, and I should have trusted it and gone home earlier.

I hope this never happens again, to me or anyone else. It is a miserable experience.

SJ.

A Simple Life

In my mind
I see this space
Where everything
Is just as it should be

I see a house
A home
A man who I love

I see children

I see that I love
The little life
We've crafted

-Sexy Jelly

How do you know that the man you're with is that man, the one in your dreams? How do you quantify your happiness?

Self-Perceived Attractive Women Get It All?

So, a recent study by David Buss, a researcher at the University of Texas, has revealed that all women have four basic criteria when they are searching for a long term relationship: good looks, economic resources, nascent parenting skills, and loyalty and devotion. But here's the kicker, the more beautiful a woman thinks she is, the less willing she is to give up anything in any of these areas. The less attractive she finds herself, the more willing she is to relax her expectations. Interestingly, men don't limit themselves this way. Ugly or beautiful, they will still go for the gold standard.

So, there it is ladies, how we gage ourselves physically directly relates to who we think we should be able to date: not our brains, not our success, not our backgrounds, just our looks. Therefore, it could very well be that our own low self-esteem is standing in the way of us getting a man that fulfills all our needs!

You know you've all seen the less-than-gorgeous women who have such healthy self-confidence and a matching gorgeous man to boot... well, this study finally explains how those situations work out the way they do.

If a failure to recognize one's own physical beauty is what's standing in the way of meeting Mr. Right, it seems we have another no man land rule:

"Love thy looks and land thy man"

Here's the article in full:

Do Attractive Women Want it All?

New Study Reveals Relationship Standards are Relative
Although many researchers have believed women choose partners based on the kind of relationship they are seeking, a new study from The University of Texas at Austin reveals women’s preferences can be influenced by their own attractiveness.

David Buss, psychology researcher at the university, has published the findings in “Attractive Women Want it All: Good Genes, Economic Investment, Parenting Proclivities and Emotional Commitment” in this month’s Evolutionary Psychology. Previous researchers argued that what women value depended on the type of relationship they were looking for. Women looking for long-term partners want someone who will be a good provider for them and their children, but women seeking short-term flings care more about masculinity and physical attractiveness, features that may be passed down to children. Buss and Todd Shackelford, psychology professor at Florida Atlantic University, found women ideally want partners who have all the characteristics they desire, but they will calibrate their standards based on their own desirability. “When reviewing the qualities they desire in romantic partners, women gauge what they can get based on what they got,” Buss said. “And women who are considered physically attractive maintain high standards for prospective partners across a variety of characteristics.”

The researchers identified four categories of characteristics women seek in a partner: -- good genes, reflected in desirable physical traits, -- resources, -- the desire to have children and good parenting skills, and -- loyalty and devotion. Most women attempt to secure the best combination of the qualities they desire from the same man, but the researchers said a small portion of women who do not find a partner with all the qualities may trade some characteristics for others. Although women’s selectivity across categories reflected how attractive they appeared to other people, the researchers found the characteristics men desired in a partner did not vary based on their own physical attractiveness.

Silda's Mistake?

Everyone seems to have an opinion on the Spitzer scandal in NY...

This article on slate, entitled "The Silda Spitzer Lesson" specifically focuses on the scandal's effect on Ex-Governor Spitzer's wife. Rather than pity her, this article blames her current predicament on her choice to "opt out" of her career (Silda was a Harvard-educated super-successful lawyer) to raise a family and support her husband's political ambitions.

And here's the inherent problem I have with this logic: what is wrong with a woman deciding to put her career on hold to raise a family? How would her working have changed anything about her cheating husband? With equal rights abounding, have women relinquished the right to chose to raise a family without apologizing for it? Is taking time off to raise a family a mistake, as this article seems to suggest? Why should we view it as "opting out" of a career, instead of "opting in" to perform the very difficult task of educating/loving/caring for your children rather than leaving it to strangers to shape their lives? In this day and age, is it naive to think you can count on your husband's support and fidelity?

Clearly, this situation befuddles me... hence the NUMEROUS questions...

The Silda Spitzer Lesson: Don't quit your day job.

By Linda Hirshman

Posted Wednesday, March 12, 2008, at 12:19 PM ET

Wife again standing mutely at his side, Eliot Spitzer resigned from his office as governor of the state of New York. When Spitzer's wife, Silda, called Hillary Clinton for advice on how to be a good first lady a few years ago, she probably didn't realize how horribly relevant the connection would be. Now, another blond deer caught in the headlights standing by her man rotates endlessly on our TV screens while pundits like Dr. Laura debate whether she was good enough in bed and saner voices implore the public not to blame the victim.

Everyone is asking what he could have been thinking: Gary Hart, Bill Clinton, Newt Gingrich, David Vitter, all caught, all paying a price—many a very high price. The guy had a perfect law-school test score. Don't they teach reasoning by analogy at Harvard Law School? But why not ask the same question about her? She went to Harvard, too. Eleanor Roosevelt, Jacqueline Kennedy, the first Mrs. Gingrich on her hospital bed. Silda Spitzer could not have been ignorant of the history of alpha-male politicians; she called Hillary herself. What could she have done?

What can any woman do?

How about this: Don't quit your day job.

Silda Wall Spitzer was the poster child of the "opt-out revolution." A magna cum laude graduate of Harvard Law School, she was one of the highest-billing associates at the incredibly successful mergers and acquisitions law firm Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom. Later, she went to the office of the general counsel of Chase bank. But sometime in the 1990s, like many of the other women of her class, she decided to "opt out," to quit her job, in her words, as her husband began his electoral career to devote herself to raising their three daughters and to her philanthropies. She helped start the Children for Children Foundation, which teaches rich children social responsibility for the poor.*

It all looked so perfect—the beautiful, beautifully educated blond Upper East Side mom teaching the rich children at their private schools to share the lavish sums normally spent on their birthday parties instead of her working all night in the Skadden, Arps conference room doing deals. The exquisitely mannered Southern WASP smoothing the rough edges of her less refined husband (whose table manners were the subject of negative commentary in her New York Times profile a year or so ago) instead of counseling Chase in how to sell more variable mortgages. Who wouldn't envy her privilege, wealth, insulation from harsh competition, and proxy power of her high-flying husband's position? Real Housewives of New York City, indeed.
What happened? Like all revolutionaries, the opt-out revolutionaries often wind up bleeding on the barricades. Sure, all marriages don't end in the arms of an international prostitution ring. Indeed, in the Spitzers' social class, the divorce rate is far from the 50 percent we so often read about. However, the rate of divorce, prostitution, online pornography, and the rest isn't negligible, either. And even if the marriage does not break up, women's decisions to make their social position completely dependent on the ambition, discipline, judgment, and steadiness of another human being is not only an act of extreme self-abnegation, it risks the very dramatic fall we have just witnessed in the Spitzer matter. Does anyone think that even as well-heeled a divorcée as Mrs. Spitzer would be the same force in philanthropic Upper East Side circles as the governor's wife?

It is true that Hillary Clinton managed to make lemonade out of her situation. But that ending is the rare exception to the narrative that is likely to describe Silda Wall Spitzer's social fall. And it pays to remember that Clinton was a mere six years away from her employment as a partner at the Rose Law Firm and a mere three years away from being the lead player in the first round of national health care when Bill took up with the intern. When she restarted her separate life, campaigning for the Democrats in 1998, she was offering more than her decade with a children's birthday-party philanthropy. Her steely resolve in face of Bill Clinton's depredations did not hurt her, but it was not the only asset she had.

Of course, the women who quit their jobs to tend their alpha-male husbands' ambitions could just hire a private detective to follow him around all the time. But I think I'd prefer the mergers and acquisitions practice myself."

For more on the "opt-out revolution" from other sources:

http://www.nytimes.com/2003/10/26/magazine/26WOMEN.html?ex=1382500800&en=02f8d75eb63908e0&ei=5007&partner=USERLAND

http://www.news.utoronto.ca/bin6/thoughts/060724-2461.asp

All about the ring?

So today was my law school graduation fair. Basically, you go booth to booth, and make sure you have your cap and gown, your graduation announcements, your over-priced diploma, and so forth. There was also a booth for picking out your law school ring. Looking at the rings on the table, I kind of laughed and looked at the woman at the booth and said, "well, I think I learned my lesson with the over-priced high school graduation ring I bought but never wore." She looked at me incredulously and said, "Anyone can graduate high school, this ring is a sign of your achievement."

I had to stop myself but I almost replied, "The only sign of achievement I want on my finger is a large engagement ring."

And there it is. Despite all my education and achievements, when it comes down to it, why does an engagement ring mean so much? Like the lady at the booth said about a high school ring, just about anyone can get married and get an engagement ring. A big diamond only has value because I (we, society?) give it value.

If your finger is the place to showcase your biggest achievement, which achievement merits the honor?

One may be the lonliest number, but is it safer?

The Relationship Express...

Recently, I've begun evaluating what makes for a good relationship. In prior relationships, I was always on the roller-coaster. Exceptional highs, and devastating lows. I remember feeling intoxicated when I was happy. But, when things were bad (and often they were) they were really bad. And so I've come to realize that a truly honest relationship is one that is stable, peppered with bursts of joy. I relish the fact that as a result of my stable relationship, I too have become less emotionally volatile overall. In my current relationship, we consistently share new experiences that feed our love and sustain us and our relationship. There are highs, but we have managed to cut out the stomach-wrenching lows. We are, my friends, on a love train.

When it comes to love, here's to hopping aboard the relationship express and leaving the roller-coaster ride at the amusement park.

Goal-Orientation

Last night over dinner, my boyfriend referenced the fact that he has a running list of goals (431 and counting...).

As you all know, I've recently voiced some of my worries about the future... well, if his goals are any indication, it seems like he is trying to give me a hint that I have no cause for concern:

goal #1: gorgeous wife

goal #2: children