skirt! Magazine Decembmer 2011

Unwrap the dark days from

December to find the surprises inside:

tissue paper and tree toppers, glitter dust

and gold stars, mangers and menorahs,

tape and twine, fruitcake and wine,

evergreens and Yule logs, twinkle lights

and solstice nights, Santa suits and elfin

boots, Scrooge’s ghosts and midnight

toasts, mittens and mufflers and ribbons

and bows, candle glow and small globes

Cover copy by Nikki Hardin, Art by Daria Jabenko

Shaken With Snow,tinsel streamers and tacky sweaters,

gingerbread houses and eggnog hangovers,

branches of holly and an overdose of jolly,

stockings stuffed with tiny treats and

children jacked up on too many sweets,

poinsettias because you don’t have a choice

and when they expire a time to rejoice.

Mistletoe over every door, Rudolph

playing in every store, and New Year’s Eve

to close the month with

a c o r k - p o p p i n g r o a r .

“Surprise is the greatest gift which life can grant us.”

Boris Pasternak

skirt!isfree!www.skirt.com

Augusta, Aiken & Columbiadecember

Columbia/Augusta/Aiken

skirt.comskirt! is published monthly and

distributed free throughout the greater Augusta/Aiken/

Columbia area. skirt! reserves the right to refuse to sell space for any advertisement the staff

deems inappropriate for the publication. Unsolicited manuscripts

must be accompanied by a self-addressed, stamped envelope.

Letters to the editor are welcome, but may be edited due to space limitations. Press releases must

be received by the 1st of the month for the following month’s

issue. All content of this magazine, including without limitation the

design, advertisements, art, photos and editorial content, as well as the selection, coordination and

arrangement thereof, is Copyright © 2010, Morris Publishing Group,

LLC. All Rights Reserved. No portion of this magazine may be copied or reprinted without the

express written permission of the publisher. SKIRT!® is a registered

trademark of Morris Publishing Group, LLC.

skirt! is all about women...

their work, play, families,

creativity, style, health and

wealth, bodies and souls.

skirt! is an attitude...spirited,

independent, outspoken,

serious, playful and irreverent,

sometimes controversial,

always passionate.

sheMAILskirt! 127-A 7th Street Augusta, GA 30901 Sales: 706.823.3373Sales Toll-Free: 800.622.6358FAX: 706.823.6083

www.skirt.com

about skirt!Publisher

Nikki Hardin [email protected]

National Art Director Caitilin McPhillips

[email protected]

National EditorMargaret Pilarski

[email protected]

Market Manager

(Augusta/Aiken/Columbia)

Kate Cooper Metts

[email protected]

Contributing Editor Columbia

Jenny Maxwell

[email protected]

Contributing Editor Augusta/Aiken

Gracie Shepherd

[email protected]

Sales Executives Libby Salvador

[email protected]

Susan Eaker [email protected]

Graphic Designer

Cher WheelerMeaghan Pafford

PhotographyMolly HarrellChris Thelen

Essays

A Trick of the Light

Stacy Appel .................................................................................. 13

No Joke

Susi Gregg Fowler...................................................................... 14

20-Year-Old Me Meets 40-Year-Old Me

Amy Vansant .................................................................................. 31

Features

Letter from the Publisher ......................................................... 6

Letter from the Editor ............................................................... 6

Feel Good ...................................................................................... 10

He’s So Original .......................................................................... 26

Skirt of the Month..................................................................... 39

F-Word ............................................................................................. 34

Survival Guide .............................................................................. 16

Gift Guide ....................................................................................... 35

Meet ................................................................................................... 32

Planet Nikki .................................................................................... 42

Dec

embe

rthe

Surprise issue

Women make more than 80% of all purchasing

decisions.

Women spend almost 2 of every 3

healthcare dollars.

Women control 2/3

of the nation’s disposable income.

Women influence 80%of all car sales.

Women make more than 85% of all purchasing

decisions.

Women spend almost 2 of every 3

healthcare dollars.

Women control 2/3

of the nation’s disposable income.

Women influence 80%of all car sales.

4 december 2011 www.skirt.com

T

he

S u r p r i

se

I

ss

ue

December 2011

Surprise someone with a gift from your heart

that doesn’t have to be wrapped, ribboned or

requested.

www.skirt.com december 2011 5

From the Publisher

Jenny [email protected]

From the Editor

There are good surprises—like getting that red Francis Francis espresso machine from The Gourmet

Shop as your Christmas present. And there are bad ones—like coming home from vacation, for

example, and discovering on Facebook that the man who went with you is “in a relationship” with

someone else. The best surprises for me have always been the ones in which I surprise myself—

running farther than I ever thought I could, discovering that I can play mountain tunes on the fiddle,

being strong enough to handle an unimaginably difficult family problem. In this issue, we hear from

women who’ve done things that may seem amazing, crazy or even downright shocking. Would you?

Could you? Read and mull it over—you might just surprise yourself.

Nikki [email protected]

theSurprise issue

Eureka!

Surprise! My newly installed operating system erased my address book

and calendar. Surprise! I lost my ATM card—again. Surprise! Wall Street

took another mouthful of my retirement fund. I get so fixated on my

Whack-a-Mole miseries (“poor me!”) that I neglect to step up to the

piñata moments. I’m a sucker for piñatas because to me they represent

taking a wild swing at life and flying with exhilaration when it cracks open

raining gifts and blessings on my head. I’ve always been a sensation junkie,

needing more, better, faster in order to feel alive. Always waiting for “real

life” to begin in some vague future time. Always seeking a big epiphany,

the one that would change my life forever. I’m starting to understand

that piñata moments don’t have to be hair-raising adventures; in fact, I’m

more blown away by being able to recognize everyday extraordinariness.

Falling in bed and in love with new white sheets and pillowcases. Being

on the bike in Spinning class instead of counting the minutes until it’s

over. Suddenly seeing into a friend’s hidden pain and feeling overwhelmed

by tenderness. All in now-time. When I took trapeze lessons, it should

have been a huge piñata moment, but like so much of what I undertake,

I was focused on getting it over with, having done it rather than the doing

of it. Now that I’m teasing myself with the idea of skydiving lessons,

I hope that I will focus on the jump and the fall rather than the landing.

I want to learn to love the swing into thin air, the breaking open of self,

the surprise of finding what’s inside.

US!VISIT

The United Skirts of America

The United Skirts of

America was founded

on the blood, sweat and

estrogen of our fore-

mothers, who won us the

freedom to choose...to

break The Rules, to wear

combat boots or high

heels, to run for office or

run a marathon, to form

our own rock groups

instead of being groupies,

to shatter Glass Ceilings

and Glass Slippers, to

shoot hoops instead of

settling for hoop skirts.

The ones who came

before us made it pos-

sible for our daughters

to dream bigger, to have

the chance to grow up

to be President and turn

the Oval Office into

the Ovary Office. In the

United Skirts of America,

every day is Indepen-

dence Day!

Cover Artist

Daria Jabenko

Illustration, for Daria, is inspir-

ing a world of dreams. Every

illustration has a personality.

The palette of colors can be

sensuous and complex or sleek,

simple and gleaming, but above

all, unexpected, potent and

creatively ambitious. The

invented world should be

a place to go that’s familiar,

almost nostalgic, yet strange and

new. Her main objective is to

provoke positive feelings and a

better mindset in the audience.

Daria creates most of her illus-

trations by hand using gouache

medium in combination with

ink and watercolor. Her clients

include Condé Nast Germany,

Cosmopolitan, Cunard Cruise

Lines, Grand Canyon Railway

and others. dariadesignca.com


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Decembersurvival guideTwinkle Lights

Snow Days

Winter Solstice Parties

Ticket to Tahiti

Champagne Nights

The Nutcracker

No Layovers


Painting Americathe Beautiful

“grand and glorious”-The FortWorth Star-Telegram

“a rapturous encounter”-The Boston Globe

“remarkable”-The NewYorkTimes

November 19, 2011 - April 1, 2012

Nature and the GrandAmericanVision:Masterpieces of the Hudson River School Painters

Special Exhibition Presented by the Blanchard Family

Organized by the New-York Historical SocietySupported by an indemnity from the Federal Council on the Arts and the Humanities

Thom

asCo

le(American,1801-1848)C

atskillCreek,N.Y.,1845,(detail)TheRobertL.StuartCo

llection,S-157

Starbucks has teamed up with Opportunity Finance Network,

a network of community-minded lending institutions, to launch Create Jobs for USA.

The program utilizes OFN’s commitment to financing neighborhood businesses that need help.

To kick off the project, the Starbucks Foundation donated the first $5 million.

It’s easy to help—just donate online or at your local Starbucks.

Donors who give over $5 can get a red, white and blue “indivisible” bracelet.

Or More

FE

EL

GO

OD

DEC

EMBE

R

All proceeds go into the network in order to finance community businesses that create and sustain

jobs in underserved areas across the country.

createjobsforusa.org

Let us know you gave $5! Email us at [email protected]

Feel good about creating and sustaining American jobs.


Morris Museum of Art

1 Tenth St. I Augusta, GA 30901 I 706-724-7501 I www.themorris.org

The Morris Museum is FREE every Sunday!

Image: Philip Juras, Swamp Forest on Stagger Mud Lake, Ocala National Forest, Florida, 2010. Courtesy of the artist.

Working SouthPAINTINGS AND SKETCHES

BY MARY WHYTEExhibition opening 12.2.2011 • 6:00 p.m.

MaryWhyte, Trap, Crabber, Pinpoint, Georgia, 2008. Private collector. Image courtesy of the artist.



Susi Gregg Fowler lives and writes in Juneau, Alaska. Her work has appeared in newsmagazines, literary journals, and anthologies, including The Christian Science Monitor, The Binnacle, Windfall, Tidal Echoes, Underwired, and The Centrifugal Eye. She is also an award-winning children’s book author. Contact her at [email protected].

No Joke

My heart almost stops. Really. A prior marriage and divorce had left me bruised and disappointed. I rarely felt beautiful—but I see something in Jim’s eyes. This is magic. I don’t know what to say. His words dance around my brain. “Sometimes you just look so beautiful.”

But spells, alas, are easily broken. He pauses only a moment before saying, “And then again, other times…”

End of magic moment. Curtain comes down on that picture. I must say, however, that to Jim’s credit, once he realized that I was hurt, that I felt like the butt of a joke just when I was most vulnerable, he fell all over himself apologizing. It was just that he couldn’t resist a punch line waiting to happen. That’s his credo. I learned to be prepared.

Lest I seem to be painting a sad picture, I must say that Jim’s ability to laugh at a wide range of foibles, pretensions, and fantasies, including his and mine, has taught me to take myself much more lightly. This, in turn, has made my life easier, better, and a whole lot more fun. So he’s not romantic. So what?

I know Jim’s sense of humor and his style so well that these days I can anticipate the one-liners before he speaks. I know his repertoire of jokes and often begin rolling my eyes before he opens his mouth, sensing, as I do, what’s coming. He is quick with unexpected quips or puns, too, but even with his “new material” I can guess the tenor of the remark brewing. As he has aged, he has also learned that there are times for silence, but I have been amused on several occasions knowing that he’s holding his tongue while someone pontificates and imagining—almost like thought transference—the quip he longs to make. I guess I’ve internalized his sense of humor. Our daughters share my skill at reading their father, and sometimes we’ll all groan before he even starts a familiar story. He accepts our teasing with his typical good humor.

And so, for better or for worse, Jim’s predictability is woven into the fabric of our family life and the tolerance and affection we have for each other. There is, after all, comfort, not to mention entertainment value, in this predictability. And he can, of course, predict our reactions, too.

But there was once a Christmas no one could have predicted. It is a memory that still possesses a glow—a kind of halo—around it when I think of it, although it occurred many years ago now.

Amidst the chaos of the opening of stockings, the crumpled wrap-ping paper everywhere, and the music of my mother’s old Harry Simeone Chorale record playing in the background (as it still does every Christ-mas, never without a groan from Jim), my very predictable husband took my hand and led me to a wrapping paper-free spot on the carpet and asked me to sit down. What on earth was this about? He sat op-posite me and took both my hands in his, and looked deep into my eyes. Shades of that moment 20 years earlier! I knew I was about to become the butt of a joke and steeled myself. I wasn’t going to get suckered in this time; no one can say I don’t learn from the past.

And then Jim began to recite. “Come live with me, and be my love, / And we will all the pleasures prove / That valleys, groves, hills, and fields, / Woods, or steepy mountain yields…” This wasn’t happening. Jim doesn’t memorize poetry—okay, maybe a limerick or two. Poetry is my thing.

“And we will sit upon the rocks, / Seeing the shepherds feed their flocks, / By shallow rivers to whose fall / Melodious birds sing madrigals…”

He continued. Time held still—I swear. The dog and cats quit rus-tling through the gift wrap. The girls were motionless. At least, I think those things happened, or maybe I was just suspended in my own per-sonal snow globe, a magic place. And there, in that magic place, Jim recited to me all of “The Passionate Shepherd to His Love.” His hands trembled—or was it my hands that trembled? His eyes never left mine. He left me breathless, and the children witnessed yet another miracle: their mother, speechless.

There was no punch line.A Christmas surprise? Oh, yes. The best gift ever? Indeed. Romantic?

Oh, my, yes. Does it balance out all the jokes at my expense? Hmm. I might have to get back to you on that one. But it did remind me that the possibility of surprise always exists. You can’t prepare for it. You don’t know when it’s coming. You can only be grateful. Delighted. Surprised!

Michelle Parker, MD, RD7 0 6 . 7 3 6 . 2 2 7 3Member of Trinity Hospital of Augusta Medical Staff

Offer good through 12-31-11

Trinity Hospital of Augusta is directly or indirectly owned by a partnership that proudly includes physician owners,including certain members of the hospital’s medical staff.

This holiday season treat yourself or a loved one to the

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Ladies Shoes & Handbags

Mon. - Fri . 10 am - 6 pm • Sat. 10 am - 4 pm • Surrey Center • 487 Highland Ave. • Augusta, GA • 706.504.3532

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January/February is our DOUBLE issue

Space deadline – December 8th


Give the gift she’ll really love!Choose from Designer Fabrics,

Exclusive Furniture & Accessories

Exclusive dealer of Highland House Furniture

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he gift she’ll really lov

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GENEROUS GIFTING FROM FRIVOLOUS TO REFINED

Gift RegistryPickard • Skyros Designs • Julia Knight

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• Spode • Simon Pearce

141 Laurens Street, SW| Aiken, SC

803.648.7592

AWonderland of gifts and sparkle & shine

Mallard Feather inspired sterling silver money clip,baby cup, and spoon from Grainger McCoy

“Begin a beautiful tradition at Holiday time”

371 Highland AvenueSurrey Center – Lower level

Augusta, Ga. 30909706-736-2004

www.angevinesfinesilver.com

“Augusta's Original Silver Shop”


345 HAYNE AVE. SWAIKEN, SC | 803.644.0990MON-FRI 11-5 , SAT 11-3

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1202 Town Park Lane | Suite 103Evans, GA 30809

GIFT CARDS AVAILABLE!Book your appointments online

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Wewant to wish everyoneAMerry Christmas &Happy New Year!


“Store Closing Sale”beginning December 5th.

All fixtures and furniture included in sale.

803.649.9663137 laurens street sw • downtown aiken

monday-friday 10-5:30saturday 10-5 • closed sunday

9663

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southern art

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Dr. Ron Eakerof Women’s Health of Augusta

2258 Wrightsboro Rd. Suite 400 (next to Trinity Hospital)New patients mention this ad and get a free copy of Dr.Eaker’s new book“Healthy Habits for a Fit Family”

www.roneaker.com and www.womenshealthof augusta.com

For more information about prenatal care call

Dr. Eaker at 706-733-4427.

O F A U G U S TA

Dr. Eaker at 706-733-44227.

O F A U G U S TAWomen’s Health

Remember, pregnancy is a normal, natural state and not a disease. Use some commonsense and prepare yourself as best you can. For complete pregnancy care for both low riskand high risk pregnancies call Dr.Eaker at Women’s Health of Augusta today.

Dr. Eaker delivers at both Trinity Hospital of Augusta and University Hospital

What can you do to promote ahealthy pregnancy? Here are somesuggestions from the American

College of Obstetricians:

• Have a preconception checkup with ahealth care provider.

• Get early and regular prenatal care.

• Take a multivitamin containing 400micrograms of folic acid daily, startingbefore pregnancy and in early pregnancy,to help prevent neural tube defects.

• Begin pregnancy at a healthy weight (nottoo heavy or too thin).

• Don’t drink alcohol.

• Don’t smoke and stay away fromsecondhand smoke.

• Don’t use any drug, even over-the-countermedications or herbs, unlessrecommended by a health care providerwho knows you are pregnant.

• Eat healthy foods, including foodscontaining folic acid and folate (the formof folic acid that occurs naturally infoods). Good sources of folate arefortified breakfast cereals, enriched grainproducts, beans, leafy green vegetablesand orange juice.

• Don’t eat undercooked meat or change acat’s litter box. Both are possible sourcesof toxoplasmosis, an infection that cancause birth defects.

• Get tested for immunity to rubella (Germanmeasles) and chickenpox before becomingpregnant and consider being vaccinated if notimmune.After being vaccinated, a womanshould wait 1 month before getting pregnant.

Like us on facebook tosee our new arrivals

FurnitureConsignment

Now accepting new consignments!139-D Davis Rd, MartinezMon.-Sat. 10am-5pm

Holiday Hoursopen to 6:00 on Tuesday and Thursday

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We roast to order and ship anywhere.

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MoonBeans is a small shop dedicated to the art of coffee. It’s a well-keptsecret among the area’s coffee snobs. For over a decade we have beencraft-roasting specialty coffee from around the world in small batches forsomeof the area’s best restaurants, specialty grocers, caterers, anddiscerningcoffee enthusiasts.

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shopMoonBeans online via NewMoon’s websitewww.newmoondowntown.com

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Locally roasted coffeemakes a great gift!

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You can find us on Baston Road across from Augusta Christian School.Drop by for a visit or call us at 706.945.0176

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150 Davis Road(Look for the green and white tent!)Augusta, GA 30907 • 706-550-0227

Mon-Sat 8 to 8 • Sun 10 to 8

Kick off your HolidaysBring the family and pick

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Fringe Hair Salon101 Maple Drive (Next to Firehouse Subs on Columbia Rd.)

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Cut A Thonto benefit MCG Childrens Medical Center

Sunday, December 1111am - 5pm

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We wish you all a blessedholiday season!


I look at the woman sitting in my aisle of the plane. She is young. She is familiar. My god, she’s ravishing.

“Wait, are you...?She nods. “Yep. I’m you, 20 years younger. Surprise!”I gasp and flop down in the seat beside her. Okay, maybe

she isn’t ravishing, but she’s 20 years younger than me, and that is about as ravishing as I ever was.

This is it. This is the moment when I tell Young Me all the things I wish I knew then. Either that, or I’m in a Lincoln Finan-cial commercial and I’m supposed to tell Young Me how proud I am she’s saving money by flying in coach. Like she had a choice.

No, that’s not it. My idea of saving money is not feeding a parking meter and gambling the ticket lady won’t stroll by.

I clap my hands together, giddy with excitement. “Do I have things I want to tell you!”

Young Me seems happy to see me, but she has dark circles beneath her eyes, marring otherwise tight, fresh skin. How did I not appreciate that skin? I make a mental note to tell her to wear sunscreen.

“Can I guess why you look so tired?” I ask. “Were you up all night talking your overly dramatic boyfriend out of throwing himself off the porch?”

She nods. “Our first-floor porch, five feet from the grass.”“Riiight... you have four more years of that to look forward to.”Young Me is alarmed. “Four? But we’re soulmates! What happens in

four years?”“In four years you spend all the money you have buying him a ticket to grad

school in Hawaii.”“I do? By himself? Why?”“Distance makes it a lot easier to break up with him. After missing your

chance to do a semester abroad and all sorts of other fun college things, you realize that taking care of him is making you lose yourself. This epiphany arrives right after you catch your “soulmate” flirting with another girl on the phone. I wish I knew who she was so I could send her a thank you card now...”

“Seriously?”“Yep. It’s the breaking point. When the opportunity arises, you pay for his

ticket, buy him a laptop and send him on his way. When he calls to ask for more money a couple of weeks later, you end it.”

Young Me’s jaw falls. “I buy him a laptop, too? I’m an idiot!”I nod. “I know. That doesn’t really change.”She spots my wedding ring.“So who do I marry?” she asks, motioning towards it.I look at the ring and smile. “First or second time?”“What?!”Young Me is getting agitated. I would buy her a drink, but I know she only

likes sticky sweet margaritas and thanks to her passion for them, I can’t bear the smell of them.

“Well, you’re so traumatized by the first guy, you end up marrying the exact opposite person. He dotes on you.”

“Dotes? Then why do we get divorced?”“One night, after you have a minor knee operation and are recuperating,

this boy scout of a husband doesn’t show up for dinner. He doesn’t show up to dinner with your parents after you had an operation. When he finally does come home, he explains he lost track of time showing a young, male tennis partner around downtown.”

Young Me scowls. “Okay, weird... but hardly a reason to leave him.”“It seems less weird after he gets more distant and mean and you look through

his computer and find photos and... Well, let’s just say it seems less weird later.”Young Me falls silent.“You get the house,” I say, trying to cheer her up.“So who’s this guy?” she asks, pointing at my ring.“Oh, he’s great! Third time’s the charm. You meet him at a bar about a year

after your divorce.”Young Me perks up. “Whew! I was really starting to worry!”I smile. “You don’t do everything wrong,” I say, my eyes drifting to her frizzy

hair. “For instance, I think you’re only a year away from losing that perm.Yikes.”She touches her head self-consciously. “Okay, well... good! This is amazing

finding out what I do wrong!”“I have so many things I want to tell you!” I say, mentally listing examples of

zigs where I should have zagged. “So many things to avoid, so many...”My eyes fall on my wedding ring. I stop in mid-sentence.Young Me is alert and ready to hear the secrets of her future life revealed,

but I’ve stopped thinking about all my wrong turns. I’m thinking about how happy I am now. If I tell her what to avoid, even the smallest thing, it will change my path forever and everything will be different. If I tell her the things she should have done differently in her career, her love life, with family, with friends; where will I be now? If she breaks up with the boyfriend she has at 20 too soon, she’ll change my path and I’ll probably never meet husband two, whom I love very much.

I release a deep sigh.“I can’t tell you anything,” I say. “And I need you to forget everything I told

you so far.”Young Me starts to fade. Soon, she’ll be gone, destined to make all the mis-

takes I made and me powerless to stop her.“WAIT!” I scream, trying to grasp her now transparent arm.I am about to lose a once in a lifetime opportunity. A million facts are

clamoring to be revealed: the rise of the Internet, what stocks to buy, the real estate bubble; how can I help her without disturbing my timeline? There must be some way…

“One night you’ll eat Mexican food with Husband Two and his mother!” I yelp.Young Me nods, lingering long enough for me to share my final words.“Don’t eat the guacamole!”

Amy Vansant is a freelance writer and blogger at kidfreeliving.com, and just release her latest book: Kid-Free Living: Humor Essays and Fiction, available in paperback and Kindle format at Amazon.com

Amy Vansant

“Do I have things I want to tell you!”



f-word[ Feminism Free-For-All ]

High school can be cool.

TheFrisky.com reports that

Patrick Henry High

School in San Diego

crowned lesbian student

Rebeca Arellano as its

first homecoming king

during the school pep

rally, and days later, Re-

beca’s girlfriend of two

years, Haileigh Adams,

was crowned home-

coming queen.

Social media guidelines released by the Academy of

Pediatrics warn that there are unique aspects of

Facebook that can make it a potential minefield to

navigate for kids already dealing with poor self-esteem.

Public friend tallies, status updates and photos of happy

party people might make some kids feel worse if they

feel they’re losing the online popularity contest.

Kudos to Prime Minis-

ter David Cameron for

championing the right of

a firstborn royal daugh-

ter to assume the British

throne rather than any

sons born after her. “We

espouse gender equality

in all other aspects of life,

and it is an anomaly that

in the rules relating to

the highest public office

we continue to enshrine

male superiority,” wrote

Cameron.

The Girl Scouts are updat-ing some of their badges. New badges include Computer Expert, Website Designer, Financial Literacy and The Science of Happiness. Some old badges are also getting a makeover. For instance, what used to be a Fashion, Fitness and Makeup badge has mor-phed into The Science of Style. Go Girl Scouts!

OffTheSidelines.org was started by Senator

Kirsten Gillibrand of New York in an effort to get

more women involved in the issues they care

about. Gillibrand knows that women must get off

the sidelines if they’re to make a difference in

their community. offthesidelines.org

Rape

Firstborn

Facebook Depression

Frontlines

Fresh

Firsts


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When that coffee and book helps someone in your community.

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Nikki Hardin is the founder and publisher of skirt! magazine. She blogs at fridaville.com. Nikki Hardin is the founder and publisher of skirt! magazine. She blogs at fridaville.com.

planetnikki[ a v i s u a l j o u r n a l ]

Someone recommended The Art of Living by Epictetus (interpreted by Sharon Lebell) to me during lunch recently and said he reads a snippet from it every morning. I love the idea of being inspired by an ancient Greek instead of Gawker.

someone who forged a path

please-like-me Nikki versus the-hell-with-it Nikki.Housewife and hippie, flouting rules and fearful of

rather than followed a well-worn highway.

I grew up wanting to be

a rebel,

Is everyone such a smorgasbord

of selves?

Instead, I’ve veered wildly between the twin poles of

my personality—

breaking them, middle-of-the-road and off the charts.

I finally watched James Dean: Forever Young, the documentary that I’ve had out from Netflix forever, and was mesmerized all over again by his achingly beautiful talent. Rebel Without a Cause, East of Eden and Giant—all in my top 100 movies of all time.

On constant replay: I can’t listen to Patti Smith (my favorite rebel), Bono and Bruce Springsteen belt out “Because the Night” on my way to work and be in a bad mood.

I’m not a breakfast person, but I’m addicted to starting most every day with plain Greek-style yogurt.

Can't wait to try AtlantaFresh, handmade in the southeast.

Add some sacred

pomengranate seeds, which represent life

and regeneration, when in season.

Let us know what inspires you every morning Email us at [email protected]


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skirt! Magazine Decembmer 2011

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