Dear Catty Girls,
I hear Catty Girls is ending. Is this true? Where should I turn for advice?

Lindsey: It is true; this will be our last advice column. (Cara chiming in here: It’s my fault Catty Girls is ending, btw, as I am leaving the exciting world of journalism, and by default the exciting world of dispensing advice each Tuesday).

If you’re looking for fashion tips, I suggest getting online. Comb the fashion blogs for something that catches your eye. Some of my favorite Web sites for inspiration are www.firstview.com, where you can view runway photos of entire collections from hundreds of designers, and www.thesartorialist.blogspot.com, a photo-blog of street fashion from New York City and around the world.

If you’re in need of relationship advice, consider taking your concerns to a couple of close friends. While it may be more difficult to get answers face to face from your bffs than to ask anonymously for help, I guarantee you won’t get a generic reply. Friends have the benefit of background knowledge and are likely to give more specific and pertinent advice than strangers.

Cara: I know our advice has been VERY helpful for people wondering if they should give in to the urge to wear sweatpants that say “HUSKERS” across the butt or a skimpy swimsuit on vacation with the boyfriend’s family, but, as Lindsey said, the Internet (and friends) are here to the rescue!

It is very possible that this has been more fun for us than it has been for you, and we appreciate your reading and your questions.

Lindsey: I agree. Though my stint as a Catty Girl was brief, I’ve enjoyed hearing and answering your questions. I’m going to miss this distraction from my statistics and fish-focused day job!

Cara: All of the advice we’ve given over the past two years can be summed up as such: If it seems like a bad idea to wear it, don’t. Asking a stranger if you should break up with someone is generally a sign you should. Wear sunscreen.

And, truly, thanks for reading.

As long as I’ve worked here, the Lincoln Journal Star has had the same mailman.

I don’t think he looks like a mailman so much as he looks like an actor who might play a mailman on a show like “Friends.” He seems too young to be a mailman. He’s good looking, in a wiry, angular sort of way.

And also in a ‘90s sort of way.

His hair sticks up a little bit in the front. He wears a wallet chain (which I guess may be part of the standard mailman uniform. But also maybe not.)

Anyway, the “Friends” mailman was one of the people I’ve become accustomed to seeing every day, and last week, when I saw him ambling up to the Journal Star building, I realized with a bit of a pang that I won’t see him anymore.

And the reason I won’t see him anymore is because I am starting another job soon. My last day here is tomorrow.

Which means....wait for it....the end of Catty Girls is upon us.

I imagine this announcement will fill some of you with relief. Others, perhaps, will wonder where they can find another blog with so many references to both handbags and the tame squirrels of the Near South (I’ve been meaning to write that I saw one of them eating a full-sized Three Musketeers bar the other day).

I don’t know the answer to that question, but I do know that I’ve liked contributing to this blog over the past few years, and that I’ll miss having a forum to write about whatever I want.

I’ve enjoyed getting to know the commentors, too, even if just in an online capacity (even you, haters).

Anyway, this seems like a natural time to end this blog. I’m edging up on 30, and my extended girlhood typical of members of generations X and Y is drawing to a close. Plus I don’t know that I was ever very catty:)

Cara and I have been planning since early spring to run the Living History Farms cross country race, which took place this morning in Des Moines. But instead of running 7 miles across Iowa countryside, we took our usual route through the Near South and onto the Rock Island trail. The race filled up early this year, and registration was closed when we tried to sign up on Monday.

So, this morning's run began with disappointment and got ridiculously worse as it progressed. The following series of events contributed to a run that will perhaps go down as the worst one ever.

1) The entire pitcher of beer I drank last night paired with my failure to drink water this morning led to mid-run dehydration.

2) Said dehydration led us to get creative with a water source as we came back into town. We ended up at the capital building where...

3) I drank rusty water from an old fountain. Seriously. I turned on the fountain and the water looked fine, though it was kind of dribbling out and it wasn't an easy task to drink it without putting my lips on the faucet. So Cara took the handle for me and I assumed an awkward position hoping the water would just dribble its way down into my mouth. It was at that time that the rust decided to make its entrance. Straight down my throat. Horrifying.

4) Back at the gym, I dropped my padlock on my little toe. Painful. Very.

5) Seven miles made us hungry so we grabbed some soup afterwards at Grateful Bread. Nausea immediately set in and I lost my lunch. Even more horrifying. I don't know if it was the rust or the dehydration or both.

So I got dehydrated, drank rusty water and threw up, but the thing that irks me most about this morning's run is:

6) The fire and brimstone doomsday threats written in pastel chalk all over the Rock Island Trail. While running this morning I learned that "the Devil wants my soul" and that I must "repent of my sins or burn forever" because the "wrath of God is upon us". Which left me thinking 'Leave me alone. Its not even Sunday (or Friday night in front of the Grand) and sidewalk chalk is for hopscotch!'

...and that includes Victoria's Secret models.

Apparently, Victoria's Secret Angel Karolina Kurkova has no belly button. At least, it's not a button that looks like the rest of the world's buttons. It's not an inney, not an outey, not even filled with lint. It's just not there. In fact, photos of her midsection look as though they've been badly doctored with a smudge tool in Photoshop.

Don't go running for the nearest VS catalog to prove I'm making this up (and you know we all have them). Her catalog photos come with a bellybutton, neatly Photoshopped over the smudge.

What I love most about these photos of Karolina is that she doesn't appear to be missing her belly button at all, even though she's flanked by beautiful inneys. (I also love that she's got a little bit of a round stomach, some might call it a pooch, just like me.)

So I was perusing on of my high school friend’s Facebook profiles yesterday. My friend, let’s call him Zach, and his wife are about to have a baby boy, and he had posted a bunch of photographs from her baby shower. Anyway, at her baby shower, Zach’s wife wore a T-shirt that said “May Contain Nuts” across the belly.

Because, you know, little boys contain nuts. Or, according to her shirt, they MAY contain nuts? I don’t get it.

Anyway, I am putting that shirt on my list of THINGS I WILL NEVER EVER WEAR WHILST KNOCKED UP. Also on this list are a whole bunch of tank tops that a woman at my gym wore when she was expecting her daughter. These shirts said things like “princess in progress” and “diva in training” across the belly and contained lots of rhinestones. Ick.

In other news, I’m going to take a moment to explain how the comment deletion works, since some of you seem to be concerned about that topic this morning.

Generally, Lindsey and I only delete comments that are either extremely offensive (blatantly sexist, libelous, threatening, etc.) We probably only receive one comment like that every couple of weeks, so good job commentors! However, every once in a while one of the web higher ups reads through the Catty comments and, horrified by the bickering his eyes are assaulted with, deletes entire strings of comments.

So that’s how that works. Don’t take it personally. Except for you, Mike the Realist.

Just kidding. Kind of.