The signals given by society and particularly by women, to other women who are striving to reach the top of their professions or build their own businesses can be confusing and dispiriting. News articles reporting that woman owned business fail at greater rates than male owned ones and they grow more slowly and stay smaller. Reports of significant numbers of women who have received advanced degrees and who are advancing quickly in their chosen field, withdrawing to stay home and raise children or move to a lower risk, lower reward career path. The news of Justine Henin’s retirement at twenty-five, while she is ranked the top women tennis player, got me thinking about this again. Having seen two of her French Open victories, her skill and mastery of the game was apparent even to a tennis neophyte and now she’s gone.

Perhaps in a few years I’ll feel different, but now I’m focused on my business, at times, almost to the exclusion of everything else. It bothers me to have other women pooh-pooh that effort and tell me that I should kick back and accept less because I have that option. Fortunately the women, to whom I’m closest, understand and are supportive, even if they would make different choices. One thing I would like is to feel the enthusiasm and even arrogance that I find at male dominated groups of entrepreneurs, among the women centric groups that I meet.

Kim

For a while I’ve been meaning to mention other English language blogs of Paris based writers, but this post made me burst out laughing, mostly in sympathy, as my early days in Paris often left those who I had conversations with wondering what the hell I was saying.

If you are interested a nice sampling of Parisian bloggers can be found at the a group blog called, The Paris Blog.

Visit ParisDailyPhoto for the story behind this picture.

Anne Marie, Chole and a friend, Marlene have become interested in burlesque. But they’re shy and can’t quite make it to the just G-string and tassels. They claim that they’re afraid someone they work with will see them (not unreasonable), so we’ve dared them to take their show on the road and go to a club in another city. They’re considering that. My though is that while they think themselves as…



They’re really…



Kim

Hanging on the rack it screamed KIM try me on. A summer dress, sleeveless with a rounded neck, slightly off shoulder and not demanding décolletage, I picked up and held in front of me and studied my reflection in the mirror. I glanced at Anne Marie for affirmation and she nodded, so off to the dressing room to try it on.

I did a little pivot and the skirt flared out, “What do you think?” I asked AM, she replied that it looked great on me. Fidgeting in front of the mirror I tried viewing myself from all angles, “I don’t know,” I muttered. AM gave me the look she gives me when I’m being stupid about clothes, I have a version for her and she shook her head. “What’s wrong?” She asked. I didn’t reply, then went and changed, hang the dress back on the rack.

“It’s floral,” I whined. “So,” she said, “you’ve been complaining that you don’t have enough color in your wardrobe. “I was thinking some nice bright solids or a pattern, or maybe something like a drip painting, even a few flowers would be fine, but this looks like someone tipped over a stand at the flower market,” I commented. She rolled her eyes.

An hour later I circled back and bought it. As we left I told AM that I hoped no one tried to water me or put me in a vase.

Kim

The grocer’s son has been…bagged. Sorry. He was nice and all, but I was getting bored and not much was clicking except the physical thing, and that doesn’t sustain a relationship. I broke it off before going to Greece as impulsively as I started the relationship, though I’ve been thinking about it for a few weeks.

It was a manic moment when I decided to seduce him, kind of like the dog that chases cars and finally catches one, I wasn’t sure what to do with him when he entered my life. So I went with the flow and for a few weeks it was pleasurable. He could be described as lacking maturity, but that would be unfair as he’s mature enough for his age and I expected more than he was capable of. In my relationships I grant and expect loyalty, not fidelity mind you, but respect plus, and he couldn't comprehend what that meant.

Following a movie we were walking in the drizzle and he suggested that we go to my apartment, ever the horn dog, so I stopped and turned to him and broke if off. As we stood under an awning, I explained why and strongly implied that he shouldn’t pursue me, which he ignored, but undertook appropriately and has since ceased. Then I turned and walked away.

Kim

Kerfuffles , I love them. Vanity Fair got everything they wanted in spades, yes all the newsstand copies of the magazine will be dog eared with every adolescent boy in America checking Miley out. Not to mention the purloined copies that will be passed about, digitally and otherwise, among tween girls. Who, without a doubt, will check out the remainder of the magazine and make a subconscious note to come back to VF again when they get to be around seventeen or eighteen.

And Annie Leibovitz, some what bemused perhaps, that Miley’s dishabille was her fault, but another feather in her cap as the leading portrait photographer of our time. But what of poor Miley and her bumpkin parents and clueless managers, didn’t it occur to them that a fifteen year old, naked, wrapped in a sheet, looking to all the world as if she was glowing from an energetic romp would cause a bit of a flap? Sheesh.

Their intent is understandable, after all the use-by date for Hannah Montana is fast approaching. The tweens that are hooked in will come home from school one afternoon and throw their Hannah backpack on the floor and demand their mother’s buy them a different one as Hannah is so yesterday. This of course will take the mothers completely by surprise, as if their little darling was frozen developmentally in amber always to be cute and precocious.

Of course this has been happening right along, the fans hit 12-13 and Hannah is no longer cool, but there has been a new group of six year old recruits to take there place. But that train will end. Its not that younger kids won’t enjoy Hannah in re-runs, they will, they’ll just have no need for Miley. Part of the magic of Hannah for an 8-9 year old is that you can imagine being 12 to 15, its something you aspire to be. But now Miley is slipping beyond that age and no nine year old is going to be real excited about the live Hannah/Miley if she reminds them more of mom than themselves.

Quite likely, Miley is tired of Hannah also, and she wants to grow professionally and grow up. The intent of the VF article was to help Miley grow up professionally by beginning a shift in her image. But her parents and managers wildly miscalculated.

The recasting of child stars as hopefully adult stars has a long history of failure in popular culture. It is so notoriously hard to do that when it happens it is widely noted. A quick google on child stars who made the transition mostly turned up people like Natalie Portman and Jodie Foster, who were stars as children, cast as children in movies that were otherwise aimed at adult audiences, rather than in productions aimed at children.

Reportedly Miley canceled a Disney gig after the controversy started, I’d like to think that Miley is demanding to be Miley and is beginning to put Hannah behind her.

If you thought the Disney Company’s snippy press release about the Cyrus/VF kerfuffle was justified, check out this picture of a little bit of Disney kiddy-porn masquerading as a billboard in Beijing, it was photographed by a Slate correspondent.











Kim

Reading this made me cry. I wouldn’t want it to happen to anyone, but particularly to someone who I like and respect as much as her.


Nia tagged me a couple of weeks ago and now I’m finally getting around to responding. It’s a six-word memoir; conveniently the tag line of the blog’s name is six words (eight actually). So here goes.

Eloquent, shrewd, active, volatile, erratic and fickle.


Now a Blues for the evening.



"Shave 'em Dry" Song by Lucille Bogan (Bessie Jackson) 1935 – Thanks Athena!

Kim

Sun, sand and a sexy friend, what else does a girl want on vacation? I’m leaving tomorrow to meet Irena in Lesvos where we will have a tiny bungalow. See ya.

Kim

Over the weekend I read news coverage of Deborah Jeane Palfrey’s, the D.C. Madam, trial. In the months before the trial there has been much clucking in the blogosphere regarding the case gossipy stuff about the men and debates in the escort blogs as whether or not Palfrey should have released her phone records. But now that the trial has begun a different dynamic is playing out.

Prosecutors, protecting their own, are not calling the well-known Washingtonians such as Sen. David Vitter, the men get a pass; they are calling the women who formerly worked for Palfrey. One woman worked as a prostitute 15 years ago, another is a career Naval officer and a third now a mother of three. Fifteen women in all have been dragged before the jury and ask to graphically describe the services they provided. I suspect that for most of these women, believed their time as prostitutes was long buried in their past.

You may think that I’m going to go off on the prosecutors, but I’m not, their protecting the powerful is a given. Deborah Jeane Palfrey is the scum bucket of this story, she knows she’s going to be convicted and likely will go to jail, but rather negotiate a plea agreement she decided to take everyone down with her. Well Deborah Jeane, when the jury returns the guilty verdict, I hope the judge in reviewing the sentencing guidelines decides that you should have maximum jail time. Have a nice life and be careful in the showers.

Kim