When you think about it, all this blog really is is Smart Talk. And Real Talk. And Hot Talk. And maybe Fun Talk, when I feel like it.

Let me tell you a secret...a long time ago, I had really bad hair. So bad, in fact, that it was kind of a nightmare. You know those little girls with long, silky hair? The ones that are in Gap Kids ads and in Easter candy commercials and in painted portraits in museums? Yeah. Me, too. You know which girls are not in Gap Kids ad or Easter candy commericials or in painted portraits in musuems? White girls with short, thick, curly hair that looks like a rat's nest on a bad day and a wind-blown 'fro on a good one.

It was the bane of my existence that, when all I ever wanted was long straight hair, what I really had was naturally thick, curly hair that my mom insisted on keeping short. Seriously, I still get a little heated and upset towards my mom when I think about it...how could you keep cutting my hair short when it looked so ugly that way? Why would you keep doing that to me when you knew that all I wanted was to have long flowing princess hair?

I guess, though - when I'm feeling super mature and well-adjusted and in tune with the tides of the moon - I should thank my mom for it. After all, if I had gotten the hair that I had wanted, I probably wouldn't have been so unfortunate-looking, and then I would have had friends, and then my childhood would have been happy and easy and fun, and then I wouldn't have developed such a keen sense of feeling that people are going to automatically think I'm ugly and so I better have a sparkling personality and winning sense of humor tucked in my back pocket to help ensure that I don't have to sit by myself like a 3rd grade pariah all the time. So, thanks, Mom. If it wasn't for the alienation that your personal grooming choices caused me in elementary school, I may not have turned out to be such an amazing, independent, smart, deeply-insecure-but-masked-by-hilarity young woman.

But anyway.

So in the 6th grade, I had to get another one of these haircuts. In those days, the bob was in. In case you don't remember it, the bob is another word for "Let's make your hair as poufy and curly and round as possible so that your face looks really, really fat." Also, one thing that you learn when you have naturally curly hair is that other people love it a lot more than you do. A lot a lot. I've grown into it - I've learned to embrace it, to like it, to revel in it as something that's perfect for when I'm on the beach, or making love in the rain, or...yeah, that's pretty much all that it's perfect for - Bbut when you're young and certain that everything you don't have is everything you should in order to be really happy, you don't want your naturally curly hair. You want straight hair, or at least hair that's not quite so...poufy. But no one else wants this for you. In fact, you'll have stylists tell you that they flat-out refuse to give you the straight perm you so desperately want because it would ruin your curl. The curl that they love. And then they will rat out and fluff out and spray out that curl so much that you have a hard time walking through narrow doorways.

So after another one of these haircuts, I came to school the next day, cringing over the new bob that I had gotten the night before, hoping that my classmates wouldn't make cracks about sticking my finger in a light socket or loving Michael Jackson too much. But on this day...my 6th grade homeroom homies were actually nice to me. "I like your haircut," Chad said to me, as he swung himself in between two desks. "Yeah," my one and only friend Annie said. "It makes you look like Sigourney Weaver."

Sigourney Weaver. It was the only time I had ever been compared to someone who was actually attractive, much less a kickass actress. If this bob makes me look like her, then maybe it's not so bad...I thought to myself, as I patted the hardened-by-hair-spray helmet hair I was now sporting. It was the first time that I actually remember somewhat maybe liking my hair, and my hair cut. And it was all because of Sigourney Weaver.

Which is why you should go see her, when she comes to Minneapolis for a SmartTalk Connected Conversation event. In case you don't know what SmartTalk is, it's this cool series where empowered and entertaining women (Bette Midler, Ann Bancroft) tell their life stories and speak on what it is to be a woman in their particular sphere.

In the words of Miley Cyrus, it's pretty kewl.

And your old pal Amber is such a big deal that she gets to hook you up with a 15% discount on tickets. Just use the code "RIPLEY" when you order your tickets (the word on the street is that there's a limited number of seats still available, but I'd snatch yours up asap, especially since it's a pretty great Mother's Day gift) and you'll be good to go. And you should go. If only to pay homage to one of the people who made me who I am today, and thus, who made you who you are today.

And while this is an event that's marketed as something great for women to do... Men, let's face it. This Weaver chick? Hot. In terms of being a sci-fi babe, she's one of the originals, and one of the most badass. So you should probably go, too. Also, if you brought a date to this? It would be basically like buying tickets to Make-Out City.

Sigourney really likes Make-Out City, too, I bet. Less aliens and stuff there.