You Are Beautiful

Photo: Maria Peterson Photography

An elderly woman approached me in the store. "You have a cute nose," she said. "Is it yours?"

"She asked because you live in Hollywood," a friend said. Maybe. Or have we become so used to images of injected, tucked, implanted women that the real thing surprises us?

Friends said my feelings about cosmetic surgery would change as I got older. They haven't. I still think women often look less attractive after their procedures.

One friend's lips are so plump she reminds me of the Joker. I'm not being mean; I just thought her mouth was the right size and shape for her thin face before the fillers.

I used to dread representing my station at public events; viewers often slammed my natural hair, full lips, curvy (size six) hips. 

So my TV bosses would hire a stylist, hair and makeup artists to mold me into the perfect talking head. 

"I don't care if you make me a blonde," I told them, "It's your money."

I've learned to accept the ugly side of show business but I still don't want to try to look like Beyoncé. Of course, she's gorgeous but no amount of nipping, Botoxing or augmenting will make me Beyoncé.

Thankfully the mirror doesn't have to remain our enemy. Accepting our natural beauty is worth far more than any perpetually perky boobs or flawlessly sculpted abs will ever be.

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Going Back

Sometimes a writer starts a story with no idea how it'll end. Like a painter, you start mixing colors - words, images - with no idea what they'll look like on the canvas.

Such is the case with this blog. I started blogging after meeting a TV producer who wants to do a show about journalists. I thought this blog would be a good way to archive some of the stories I've covered in case she might want to use them in a TV series.

Then an earthquake hit 3,000 miles from Hollywood. No red carpets. No stylists. No paparazzi.  A make-believe TV show would have to wait. 

Instead of a newsroom, the base of a mango tree became my office. Armed security for escorts. Broken, dry ground for a bed. 

I was afraid to go but I had to. I get why CBS reporter Lara Logan vows to return to reporting despite being gang-raped in Egypt; sometimes nothing can keep you from doing what you're meant to do...

I was a grad student the first time we were attacked on a story. A deranged man tried to smash our gear to the ground. We weren't hurt but we learned the camera is a magnet for nuts - and to keep an eye out for a rock if you need to defend yourself.

I thought about getting a gun permit as my assignments got more dangerous (growing up on Army bases, we were taught how early how to use weapons), especially while covering the murder of a young mother.

Two masked gunmen had burst into the offices of a gang prevention program yelling, "Give us your purses! Give us the money!"  

They shot mom of three, Christina Clegg, as she sat at her desk.

The crime was made to look like a botched payday robbery but who pumps five rounds into a mom at work?

"Get off the story," neighbors warned me, "They'll kill you, too."

I eventually got enough facts to air exclusives about a suspect police refused to name. He threatened to kill me after we ambushed him, cameras rolling, at his lawyer's office. 

I looked over my shoulder for months until police had enough evidence to arrest him.

Bastard husband. 

Grover Clegg is serving life in prison for hiring his own brother to kill his wife.  For insurance money.

And so I go back. to disaster areas. and war zones. and inner cities. Because sometimes all it takes to see justice prevail is a mic and a camera. 

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