Paris, as we know is currently channeling some of the greatest spiritual leaders of our time as she prepares to enter her Good Works Period by wearing a brunette wig. Britney, also wearing a brunette wig (there are no coincidences), is busy writing sphinx-like messages on her website while personally serving her mother with some sort of legal restraining letter keeping her away from the Federspawn. Lindsay turned 21 just in time to finish a rousing round of rehab replete with fieldtrips for outdoor squats. I have seen all of these young ladies' naughty bits. (Only in Britney's case does the carpet match the drapes, people. Bald. You feel me?) But this is not about that.
It's about Nicole Richie. I have to be honest with you. I think Nicole Richie might be some kind of genius performance artist. How else do you explain the fact that she manages to use her single teensy body to contain the entire pop-culture zeitgeist? Look at her and what she's got goin' on all up in there: youth, severe skinniness, stardom-without significant-talent, the corrupt California legal system, a drug riddled and rehabbed past, race relations (word, she's like black, yo!) plus the new ultimate Hollywood status symbol: a Baby Bump. Please be advised, it doesn't matter if there's a baby in there, only the possibility that there maybe possibly could be. This season's fashions are no accident, my friends. Designers want their clothes in magazines. Magazines want their stars possibly preggers so we will not be able to resist the screaming IS SHE OR ISN'T SHE???? headlines. You do the math.
I mean....honest to God, if Nicole Richie is pregnant (and I will grant you that more and more her bump looks less like a casualty of Rachel Zoe inspired--o! I shudder to recall that tragic parting of the ways--boho poofy peasant tops and more like the makings of a real live celebutot) well...how the hell is that possible? The Richster denies she's anorexic and that's fine--perhaps it's a steady diet of Starbucks and crack, or perhaps she's just really stressed out but however she got this way she's still unbelievably skinny. Like bones trying to crawl out of her skin skinny. And, the two simply don't go together. Fertility and emaciation weren't bffs last time I checked. Although...okay, I just googled it: turns out it's quite possible for an underweight person to become impregnato. But, that's not the point. The point is, Nicole Richie, you riddle wrapped in a mystery sautéed in an enigma!! Arrrrrrrghhh!!! I swore I would never write about any of you people. You pop-culture axis of evil. But as Paris Hilton might say, (picture her, won't you, clasping her hands together in prayer as she blesses you with an audience after your Mecca-like journey to Hyde) what you resist persists. How much do you want to make a bet Paris gets one of those bindis for her third eye before the year is out? What I'm trying to tell you is this: Nicole Richie is on to us.
In her last interview with Nylon Magazine she says something about how it's our fault she's famous. And also, that excuse her, but she does have a job! (I am not sure if she is referring to her ground-breaking reality work on the Simple Life (where, on the few brief occasions I've glimpsed it, for research you understand, she is actually rather funny), or her forty-some-odd appearances as herself elsewhere on TV, or her searingly persuasive literary contributions as a roman a clef writing authoress....shit. She does work. But, the point is why does she have to pretend she doesn't want to be famous? Walking around with bags over her head and pillows over her stomach. Is there a pillow in her stomach? Why must she toy with me?
Seriously now, just for a moment, the truth is I want Nicole Richie to be okay. I want her not to be as terribly sick as her body suggests she must be and to not be pregnant with that strange looking rocker boy's child. I want them, all these young women we make fun of and roll our eyes at, to grow up and stop making girls my niece's age idolize them while they live inside a camera's hollow flash and ram their incredibly expensive cars into trees, drunk out of their minds, high on vicodin, and seemingly empty as can be. Not because I think I was so much wiser or any less lost at their age, but because unlike me, a whole generation of girls is watching every move they make, whether they want them to or not. And let's be honest, ladies, at least about this: you may not want us to watch you quite as much as we do, but you don't want us to stop either, we all know; the picture takers, fakers and makers, at least this much is true.