Ever notice how some people shout “Hold the elevator!” through a bullhorn and then run the equivalent of a football field while you stand there, holding the door and growing your beard?  By the time they arrive, the elevator could have floated up twenty stories and gently come back again.  These people don’t understand the concept of an elevator: it’s not a one-time thing and then you’re screwed.  They don’t even run hourly.  They go up and down whenever you push the button.  That’s why they call them elevators.  God bless!

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I saw two trailers for two new Dakota Fanning movies, and it seems to me that she looks exactly the same as she did in Man on Fire a few years back.  Is it possible that she has whatever Gary Coleman has that doesn’t let him grow taller?  Looking at Gary Coleman is like looking at a hot dog, doing a double take, and realizing it’s not just a hot dog but one that exploded in the microwave.  I think Fanning could end up having that same exploded-skull look in about twenty years.  I hope she’s spending her money wisely, because I see “security guard” in her future.

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Washington has been up in arms over Harriet Miers’s lack of qualifications to be a Supreme Court justice, but it turns out that it was all a misunderstanding: Bush never meant to offer her as a nominee.  He was simply saying that she’d do a really good job serving on a jury.  What a relief for everyone involved!

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Every year around this time, the controversy over slutty Halloween costumes rears up again.  And it’s true that a lot of people use Halloween as an excuse to wear slutty outfits. After all, the pagans in the Old Country didn’t invent All Hallow’s Eve so they could scare away the spirits by dressing up as Naughty Nurse Nora; they created fake blood out of the juice of raspberries and fake intestines out of ground beef and some of them also had some excellent Borg outfits.  The point is, I think wearing slutty Halloween costumes is only bad if you’re too afraid to dress slutty the rest of the year, and so you’re using the holiday as an excuse and giving yourself an escape route if people don’t like it: “Oh, it’s just for Halloween.” That’s dishonest, and therefore wrong.  Ask yourself these questions:

Are you comfortable with the idea of being a slut?

Are you using Halloween as an excuse, or does dressing like a slut embody an important aspect of your character?

Would you seize other opportunities throughout the year to unleash your inner slutness?

If you’re unclear where you fall on this spectrum, just email me a jpeg of you and your costume.  I can tell a lot by body language and nuance so I’ll be able to tell you if it’s the right costume for you--or if you should just go as Hermione again.  No, thank you.