She *was* lovely, wasn't she?

I'm not saying she won't get back to where she was just six weeks ago at the Producer's Guild Awards in Los Angeles, but I am predicting - based on these photos - that Salma won't be donning this figure-hugging vintage silk crepe Fendi gown with cutout sleeves and plunge back anytime soon.

Such a shame, too, because now that I look at this close-up of her face, I've come to realize my steadfast desire for Ms. Hayek has had nothing to do with her personality (boring), her acting skills (minimal), or her even her face (wide and square-ish) but rather was borne purely out of admiration for her thick-and-thin-in-the-right-places figure.

Oh, and then there's that whole "we're just friends" Penny Cruz situation...that's pretty hot, too.

I'm crossing my fingers not for you, Bandida, but for your curves. May they return swiftly and ten-fold.

Now that we can FINALLY bear arms

In case you didn't hear, Friday was a big day for gun lovers in DC.

The US Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit struck down the District's strict gun control law on Second Amendment grounds, and as a result, I'm now allowed to not only liberate my Israeli-made holster from a fire-proof safety deposit box in Michigan but my best-graduation-present-ever Walther PPK as well.

I wasn't going to muse about this legislation, but well, Goldfinger is on right now on the Encore-Action channel, and I just can't help myself.

Before all of you clipboard-toting Obama-ites get on my case for mingling politics with fashion critique, I'll have you know there are no two-legged, opposably-thumbed children in my place of residence, nor will there be any live ammunition. My old-school James Bond gun may be, as a crusty old Marine with whom I work told me, "a fu**in' good piece to kill a motherfu**er with at close range," but were I to actually bring my handed-down darling to the District, it would solely be for those Sunday afternoons when I piled myself into an SUV stacked with fresh-off-the-Iraq reservation contractors itching for a few hours in rural Virginia with a briefcase full of (licensed) semi-automatics and a stack of $.20 Bin Laden targets.

The obvious question that begs to be asked and answered, then, is this: "what does a fashionable girl wear when she's off to the range?"

Do I break my iron-clad no-jeans-and-sneakers rule?

Do I go for the Angie a-la Tombraider look?

Do I opt for the extended clip even though loading the extra bullets almost always ruins my cuticles?

In my view, the shooting range, whether indoor or outdoor, is a venue that falls outside my urban fashion guidelines. In other words, when I'm spending upwards of $50 on ammunition alone, my time better be spent getting better, not looking better.

I recommend jeans, of course, but not skinny jeans, not straight-leg jeans, and not anything nicer or pricier than your sole pair of wouldn't-mind-getting-'em-irreparably-soiled jeans.

As for footwear, it's a coin-toss between sneakers and boots, though I tend to favor the former because I find my taking-it-from-the-hip timing to be considerably faster when I have a less restrictive, more cushioned foundation.

Up top, depending on the weather (remember, the deeper into Virginia red country you go, the colder it gets), I'd either wear my thinnest, faded-to-gray purple MTV tee on its own or coupled with my children's size alma mater sweatshirt. More so than below the belt, a shooter's upper body needs to be agile and unrestricted, a tougher-than-you'd-think equilibrium achieved only through a not-too-tight and not-too-loose upper body garment.

As for how to wear your hair, if you're serious about hitting Bin Laden in the larynx at 10 meters with a body pistol, you'd better ponytail it like a Marine: high and tight.

And just because you're in the sticks doesn't excuse you from the makeup basics of mascara, concealer and bronzer. There's no need for foundation, cream-based shadow or eyeliner, but just because you're packing a PPK and not a briefcase doesn't change the fact that you're still a woman and you're still leaving your front door.

Once you've got the gun, the ammo, the look, and your own bevy of private mercenary instructors at your disposal, you're almost there.

The last steps are getting that NRA membership card and a custom pair of Lara Croft thigh-holsters or Bandidas-esque high-waisted ass-less chaps.

Or both.

Thank goodness

Because Salma is in that small core of lovely women I just can't bring myself to criticize, I chose to ignore these highly unflattering photos that surfaced a few days ago of the normally hotter half of the va-va-voom-licious Latin duo that is Hayek-Cruz, Incorporated.

Now that the entire world has been let in on her pregnancy secret, however, I suppose it's okay to share these with the few of you who haven't already seen them. And by the way, not only is Salma knocked up with this French dude's baby, she's apparently planning on marrying him, too.

Oh, poor, poor Salma, hasn't anyone told her that even when a fresh baguette, a room-temperature square of Camembert, and a four-hour workday is at stake, a Frenchman just isn't capable of keeping his word long-term?

Since I'm not allowed to criticize a pregnant woman's appearance, here are two pictures of Salma looking...um, uh, purple, white and dumpy all over.

I tried.

Equilibrium

I'm not saying the young woman deserved what she got.

Not really.

But I certainly wasn't going to slacken my pace and offer my Tide-to-go stick to someone who just moments prior to spilling the better part of her vanilla Slim Fast all over herself had given me an unreasonably, undeservedly cool glare at the intersection of 15th and M.

It was the kind of glare a suit-and-sneakers girl - a wide-pinstriped-suit-and-crosstrainers girl - makes a habit of throwing at women in 4-inch, round-toed, brown croc, Mary Jane stilettos with deconstructed sidebows simply because they remind her of how proletariat she looks carrying her half-inch, block-heeled, square-toed (I'm assuming) slides in the front flap of her black-floral quilted fempack.

I'm not saying you should refuse the free bag with your three-greeting-card purchase, I'm just saying there does exist an implicit understanding you're not actually supposed to take it outside of the subdivision -- even if it's in the backseat of your sensibly-priced, character-free Japanese four-door.

Bag aside, this woman immediately struck me as the type who would proudly wear the smell of ineffective liquid meal replacement as a badge of anti-vanity rather than duck into the nearby Ann Taylor to swap her soiled top for a crisp, final-clearance button-up, and so I thought better about donating to her the 20% off coupon I'd tucked into my hardcover on my way out the door this morning.

I have to remind myself sometimes that the end-goal of this blog is not to transform everyone in DC but rather to reach as close a model of dynamic equilibrium, fashion-wise, as possible.

For every Scarlett Johanssen there must be a Beyoncé, for every Cate Blanchett a Jessica Simpson, and for every Penelope Cruz/Salma Hayek, yes, even a crawfish-faced Kirsten Dunst.

It's science. Le Chatelier proved it: