2009 has been a bittersweet year for a lot of people. Not only did our economy take a dive, but also some very famous people left this world. As life goes on, we continue to fight and win and lose our battles. It’s pretty well known that October has been deemed Breast Cancer Awareness Month. And I am happy to celebrate those women who have fought the battle and won. Statistically, if detected early, breast cancer has a very high cure rate. And those women who’ve fought the fight and won are told if they are cancer-free for five years, their chances of recurrence are slim.

More than a million people are victims of work-at-home scams each year. Some, I’m sorry to say, had it coming. They went in with their hearts instead of their heads. Others, however, couldn’t have dodged the bullet even if they tried. The work-at-home scam was just too sophisticated for the average searcher.

You may question how the way your parents loved you as a child could dictate your love life today. After all, most of us have a hard time remembering what we did last month, including the name of that guy we found on http://Match.com, then met for coffee . . . once. But, your first step in making sense of the nonsense of 21st Century dating is to understand that your earliest family relationships programmed your brain for grown-up intimacy.

For generations, Peter Solomon, a 33 degree Mason, and his male ancestors—all of whom were Masons of the highest degree—have been entrusted with a secret that could literally change the world. Some years ago when this secret was threatened, he gave his friend and mentee Robert Langdon, the famous Harvard symbologist of past Dan Brown novels, a package for safekeeping. Now, Langdon has been tricked into bringing this package into the open.

I’ve recently moved to the desert, Palm Springs, that is. Before I moved but after I found a place, I was looking forward to taking massage therapy classes in September and maybe meeting a few friends along the way. Sadly, things didn’t work out as planned. The funding for the school fell through and I found myself scrambling to make my own ends meet.

How does fashion relate to Breast Cancer Awareness Month? As I was trying to conjure thoughts for this column, I was so stumped. I felt that talking about fashion was trivial compared to a cause that is so big. Breast cancer has devastated so many lives. But then I sat back, took my fingers off the keyboard, rested my chin in my hands, and took a sip of coffee.

“The Other Me” editorial was photographed by Ash Gupta Studio 838.

For Ash Gupta and Studio 838, November was a month full of international flair. Ash continued his Venetian mask project with models Heather Burton and Jeri, the new face of Bebe Fragrance.

Arise: African Fashion Collective was filled with an array of flowing fabrics, iridescent colors and deep corals reminiscent of traditional dress from the region, and a tribute to soft elegance and feminity.

Vivienne Tam’s 70s-inspired collection features both figurative and abstract butterflies in print, with an array of suede and chiffon thrown in for contrast. Color palettes consist of purples, acid tones, and warm, muted colors for spring. See the collection.