I hope this isn't considered blasphemy...

I, like most people yesterday, was very saddened to hear about the passing of Dame Elizabeth Taylor. As so many media outlets have said, she truly was a real Hollywood star and a legend. I don't mean to tarnish her image nor insult her in any way, shape, or form. In fact, I have nothing but respect for her. Her marriages, her charitable work, and her talent and beauty are things that no one, especially me, can shake a stick at.

Of course, in the days after the passing of such a well loved talent there are going to be numerous tributes and articles printed in her honor. I don't know what I can say, that hasn't already been said, to pay tribute to such an extraordinary person, so I'm not.

However, in browsing through some of the online tributes to Dame Elizabeth, I came across a photo of her. I have no idea when it was taken. And I am in no way diminishing her talent or beauty, but I couldn't help but think of one thing when I saw this particular picture...

SNOOKI!

Listen, is Snooki the next Dame Elizabeth? No. Do they look alike? No. But, BUT, in this picture? Yes. There definitely some similarities. Picture Snooki with her signature pouf (instead of the ball cap) and I think you would find it hard to disagree with me.

Snooki, like Ms. Taylor, is always looking (Snookin') for love. Both are famous (Ok, maybe one is more infamous). And, both have a fan in me.

I hope you don't think less of me for this. But come on, look at the pics! You have to admit, it's sort of uncanny, and very funny. Ms. Taylor was Jersey Shore Chic before Snooki was even alive to cruise the boardwalk looking for the perfect gorilla (or cocktail).

And really, from far away, with your eyes squinted, that picture of Elizabeth Taylor could easily be Snooki.

R.I.P. Dame Elizabeth Taylor. I hope one day I will be so lucky as to be compared to you.

The Times They Are A'Changin'

Or so says Bob Dylan...

While I don't like to point out the obvious - that being how absent I've been - I do want to address why that is and some invaluable lessons I've learned.

First of all, if you could see the admin page of this blog you would there are about five entries I started and never completed. Some of them are straight up rants, and a few are totally irreverent things I was thinking about (like why Burger King decided to stuff a burger with other things like cheese and peppers. What? It's no longer good enough to put these items ON the burger? They need to IN the burger? Also, if you're serving a stuffed burger then I highly doubt you are making it fresh, which leads me to believe your burgers are frozen. But I digress).

If you've checked the blog out in the past few months, you might've seen some posts that are no longer here. That's what I want to address, sort of.

In this day and age of living our lives within keystrokes and clicks of each other I am fully aware of what is and what is not acceptable and what can you get in trouble, and all the gray areas that we try to navigate every day. I've read articles about people not getting hired because of something they innocently (or not) blogged about. I've seen the stories on the news about the teachers that have been fired for posting pics on Facebook. My favorite example of that is the poor teacher that had a picture on her Facebook page of her in Germany (I think) holding a beer. This, according to her supervisors, was a fireable offense even though she was clearly on vacation and showed no signs of being drunk or inappropriate. She had all her clothes on.

So, basically, it's a slippery slope.

I also know my constitutional rights and freedom of speech is one of those.

So let me give you the condensed version of what happened and what I learned.

A while ago I posted an entry about something that annoyed me. I never, ever mentioned any identifying details, like who I was talking about, where the incident took place, etc. I understand slander and libel and want no part of either. However, someone saw the blog post, assumed a few things and it led to some very uncomfortable conversations that I had to have. My name was cleared and apologies were made (to me), but still. I took the post down. I didn't want to and I certainly didn't want anyone to assume that my removing the post was any sort of admission of guilt, but I did it anyway. I never want to hurt someone's feelings.

Then I posted something about taking down the post (kinda like what I'm doing now) and I slammed people for insinuating things and causing unnecessary drama in my life. Then I took that down too. I'm not sure why, except that this blog is about me. Call me selfish, but it is my blog. I write it for me. In the world of iThings and YouThings there is a reason why we have gone from Generation X and Y to Generation Me. So I took the post down because I wasn't so much talking about what was going on in my head, but instead I was bitching and sort of in hopes that the person I was talking about (again, I'll never tell who and you'll never be able to figure it out) would see it.

Then I realized it didn't matter.

Then I realized that people might be reading my blog and I didn't want to come across as a psycho.

So, I learned a great lesson. We have to be more careful than ever these days. We're always being "posted" or taped or observed. While personal freedoms and freedom of speech will always be very important to me, it's still uncool to be mean and unkind.

I will do my best to continue to learn and grow, and hopefully the next time my blog becomes fodder for people it will be in a positive light.

Or at least they won't assume things.