You already know how much I love me some Golden Girls, and yesterday's passing of Estelle Getty is bittersweet. She was the youngest of the four, certainly ironic as she was playing Dorothy's mother, but in one of those Alannis Morissette ways, like the character she is remembered for, she has spent the last several years suffering from an age-related brain condition. Sundry recently tweeted that she was having a hard time feeling bad about Estelle's death and I have to say, I agree. I don't feel sad at all. Having gone through the pain of watching as my grandmother disappeared, bit by bit, over the process of a decade, Estelle has gone through enough confusion and misery. I would feel selfish to do anything but celebrate her life and the million times she made me laugh.

So let's take a minute and enjoy her comedic stylings once more and if you feel like applauding (or crying), you go right ahead.

When the hullaballoo over the new Jennifer Hudson album cover came out, I reserved judgment. After all, I don't know what's going on with J.Hud recently. Maybe she's been losing weight and succumbing to Hollywood pressure after all. I haven't actually looked at her or anything. Maybe she wasn't airbrushed out of oblivion on the one thing that was supposed to be celebrating who she is, without worrying about selling clothes or making magazine editors happy, nothing. An album intended for fans who already understand that the girl played Effie not Twiggy. Surely RCA Records wouldn't slap her head on someone else's body, would they? Would they?

Want to see a beautiful woman? Here she is, looking normal and casual and awesome. And it doesn't matter that she's got an Academy Award. It doesn't matter that she can sing like an angel. It just doesn't matter because she needs to keep her awesome rack but somehow have her waist whittled down until her ribs seem to no longer exist. That's what matters.

To quote the Wicked Witch of the West, oh what a world, what a world.

My husband has had a mild crush on Kim Cattrall ever since she played Lieutenant Valeris in one of the Star Trek movies. I think she was a Vulcan, maybe? Of course, it probably didn't hurt that she's gorgeous and seems more than willing to take off her clothes in front of the camera. And who can't love the fact that she's 51 glorious years old and has pointedly stated that she has no intention of going under the knife. Her face? It looks older than most 51-year-old actors in Hollywood, but that's because it's actually aging, rather than being stretched and pulled and puffed and 'Toxed out of recognition. Seriously, in 1985, if someone had told you that Meg Ryan was going to do this to herself, would you even have believed it? Not my Sally!

Let's talk about stretch marks for a second, okay? I've got lots of 'em. On my boobs, on my butt, on my gut and on my upper arms. Most women start getting them in their fourth month of pregnancy, but lucky me, I got my first one at the age of ten on what would become my least-favorite body part, my upper arms. Thanks, genetics! Now, my stretch marks are completely faded and I'm so pale that you can't really see them. I figure that I'll worry about them once I've helped achieve world peace and the destruction of the ozone layer, but at the same time, I know that a lot of my friends are very self-conscious of their evidence of stretching and I don't want to trivialize a very real body insecurity.

Assuming that you already figured out the whole pesky genetic issue, guess how much it would cost you to look like Jennifer Aniston? Try about $21,000 per month, according to the National Enquirer (who are totally reliable, yup, sure are) for cellulite treatments, high end exclusive training sessions and a celebrity yoga instructor, and also, of course, her own personal chef. And that's just all for stuff happening below the neck, because you only have to watch the first season of Friends to realize that she doesn't achieve that perfect blonde coiffure naturally.

I hate to be judgey (okay, I love it, whatevs) but wow, that's a lot of money. If those figures are accurate, each year Miss Thang is spending what basically amounts to four years of tuition at Harvard on yoga, salads and thigh scrubbing. Let's talk morality for a second: would it be worse if she were spending the money on fancy gowns and shoes? Does the fact that she's doing it for her health absolve her of any responsibility to use her money reasonably and perhaps--dare I ask--use it to do good? What do you think? How much money is a reasonable amount to spend in the quest for being healthy and fit? And at what point do you say, "Oh my God, please stop it!"

Maybe she just hasn't read Divine Caroline's suggestion for getting fit on five bucks.

Oh, I know that Us Weekly is not exactly the bastion of stellar journalism, but someone's got to call them on their BS, right? Check out this weird slideshow: The blurbage uses the generic term stars, but 15 of the 15 celebrities are female (go figure) and apparently they have won some kind of approval from Us Weekly for managing their weight. Or dropping some weight, maybe, even though I can't really tell on some of the photos selected. For instance, in Lauren Conrad's case, her big achievement was losing a mind-blowing six pounds. Most women in real life would probably give their eye teeth to look like most of the Before pictures.

Actually, setting aside the entire approval for looking better, the Before pictures are my biggest problem.

Photo via Splash

Remember back when MSN Men ranked the Sexiest Women over the age of 35 (and under the age of 45, but the neglected to mention that in the headline) and I was all up in arms because they had forgotten some amazingly sexy women in their totally shortsighted list? Women like Sophia Loren, Kim Cattrall, and Sela Ward were missing, and you guys piped up in the comments to remind us all that Emma Thompson, Vanessa Williams, and Meryl Streep also got the short end of the stick, too.

Well, Helen Mirren has had the last laugh at the dweebs over at MSN Men. In fact, just look what Dame Mirren has been hiding under her sensible tweeds and demure red carpet gowns. I think I speak for all of us when I say "Hellooooooo Nurse!" Elle MacPherson aspires to look that good in 19 years.

Now THAT'S a Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Edition I'd actually read, right there.

Photo via Splash

Eva Longoria Parker, who is a wee hummingbird of a woman, is currently fighting back against speculations that's she's oven + bun by wearing a T-shirt that begged "I want more privacy" and by stating that she gained weight to more accurately reflect her character on Desperate Housewives.

You know, I don't blame her for telling everyone to shove it and get their noses out of her uterus, but what is more disturbing is the wildly speculative blurb in People:

Longoria Parker was pictured on a European vacation--notably on a yacht off the coast of Italy--looking minutely larger than normal, prompting the usual rounds of pregnancy rumors. Anderson chalked this slight gain to Gabrielle's woes. "And even that was not enough. She's also wearing butt pads and a stomach pad to play the part." And did Longoria Parker enjoy the method-eating? "This is a lot of fun," says Anderson, "but as an actress."

People, I have so many questions now! 

Photo via Splash

Way back when Elastic Waist was a fetal blog, nary a week old, I proclaimed my profound love of Mindy Kaling from NBC's amazing show The Office. Once again, I must laud her brilliance on the intertubes and also, why hasn't she called me? Why, Mindy Kaling, why? Why do you deny what we both are feeling, that we are destined to be the very bestest of best friends? But I digress. Recently, Mindy's quest for proper hydration totally backfired. Via Oh No:

Here's a true story about me: I keep a plastic bottle of water near my bed at night so I can stay hydrated. Hydration is the key to great skin and being thin and lots of life's other happinesses, according to the many, many women's health magazines I subscribe to. So, one night, I drank a big gulp of water from my water bottle, turned off the light, and went to sleep, very pleased with myself. In the middle of the night, I heard a gunshot and immediately peed my pants. Well, to be accurate, I peed my pajamas. For those of you who haven't had the experience of peeing yourself, it's not just for children and the elderly. It can happen to anyone who is terrified and thinks that they will be murdered shortly. Well, it wasn't a gunshot. It was an indentation in my plastic water bottle un-indenting itself, loudly. It made a loud, plastic-y crack!, which I mistook for a gunshot. When I realized this, I felt relief...then a deep foolishness.

Photo via Splash

I usually feel mild pity for Katie Holmes, if I feel anything for her at all, but after reading this comment in last week's Hello interview, my sympathy is amped up after this little sound bite. Via Celebitchy:

"I try to embrace my imperfections. But I will forever wage the battle of the thighs! So I prefer not to show them off. I am pretty tall. Usually most actresses are tiny and I'm not - I'm a big one."

Unless "imperfections" is the nickname she gives to her Scientology handlers, you can basically ignore the first sentence, because she totally contradicts herself in the very next breath. "I'm free to be me except for the parts of me I really hate." "I'm learning to love myself unconditionally but with one condition." She probably looks at pictures like this, a moment that is happy and priceless with her adorable daughter Suri, and she only sees one thing, the same thing we tend to zoom in on when we see pictures of ourselves--our self-selected biggest physical flaw. Maybe that's why not a single person was willing to show me their cellulite.