I don't like her.

If you know me at all, you know that I do not like Jessica Simpson. She bugs me to no end. I couldn't eat Pizza Hut for awhile, because her commercials made me fume. I couldn't really articulate why I don't like her - except I will say she just butchered the song "Take My Breath Away" when she sang it on her show (I watched it with my husband so I could mock her); she didn't know the words! When you have a song that is "our song" and decide to sing it on TV, please learn all the words - don't slur them together! Anyways, I digress. I couldn't REALLY articulate why I don't like her until I read this great article in the paper Monday. Actually, it wasn't great because the author ended up liking Ms. Simpson (because "she's pretty" ) but he had a great line: "And I loathe what the leggy starlet represents: the further dilution of youthful intellectual pursuit through brainier pop, to say nothing of her contribution to the tarting-up of today's female role models." That's it. I don't want my kids, or anyone's kids, for that matter, to think that it is ok to be seriously lacking in intelligence just because you are "pretty" or can sing. (I use pretty in quotes there because I do not think she is pretty. Maybe pretty annoying, but not pretty.) Ironically, on the next page of the paper, there was an article about Gretchen Wilson, the country artist who sings "Redneck Woman". I like her. Listen to her advice: "Don't worry about what people want to label you, as long as you're happy with yourself." And this lyric is great: "I keep my Christmas lights up on my front porch all year long." We recently met some neighborhood kids, and the little boy (six years old) was clearly upset that we had Christmas lights strung up in our backyard. They are white, festive, and I like them. They'll stay up all year. He did not approve. "Those kind of lights are only for Christmas, you know," he told me. I know. I don't care. So the rest of the world can like Jessica Simpson. Can buy lots of pizza hut pizza and listen to her songs and think she's "so pretty". I'll just sit in the back and mutter "Whatever".