Labor Day was last weekend, and all day yesterday, I wore white shoes. And then last night I wore white pants to dinner. Not winter white or any other of the thousands of “colors” of white that would have been acceptable, but middle of the summer white pants.

I went all over Los Angeles breaking one of the core rules of fashion – Wearing White After Labor Day. And I did so without any fear of repercussions. Why? Because Joan Rivers is dead. Without the police, who is going to enforce the rules?

For me though, breaking the rules was my way to grieve her loss because Joan Rivers spent her entire career breaking rules. Google “Joan Rivers” and “Rule Breaker” and you’ll get more hits than a good-looking guy working for John Travolta.

And while I’m on the subject of gays, I have to say how much I appreciated what Joan did for the gay community. She was an early fundraiser for AIDS and has always been close to her gay fans. Maybe that’s one reason her death has made me so sad.

Some people find it silly if someone says that a celebrity death affects them. My husband and I went out to dinner with some friends on Thursday night, and my friend “M” said that he’d been following all the Tweets after Joan Rivers died, and he thinks it’s a statement on our society to see what people say. Everyone feels the need to weigh in on a celebrity death, and in his view, it seems more about self-promotion than anything else. In particular, my friend railed against Kelly Osborne for tweeting “Joan, my life will never be the same without you.” My friend knows very little about pop culture so I don’t think he’s aware of the almost mother-daughter relationship between Joan and Kelly. Or that Kelly has worked with Joan on her shoe “Fashion Police” for the last four years.

Obviously, I didn’t have the same close relationship with Joan Rivers that Kelly had, but I’ll miss Joan, and she has changed my life because of her honesty.

She attributed her success to never being afraid to “say what everyone else is thinking.” And she never worried about offending someone. For me that was the greatest lesson she taught. Say what you feel and don’t worry about offending.

But how did she get away with saying horrible things about people one week and then getting them to come on her show the next week? I think it’s because as much as she made fun of other people, she made jokes about herself the most. My favorite quote from her – Never be afraid to laugh at yourself, after all, you could be missing out on the joke of the century.

RIP Joan Rivers, and I hope that you’re in heaven right now, in a Valentino gown with Alexander McQueen at a fitting for Mother Teresa. And I hope that Mother Teresa makes you wet yourself with catty comments about Gwyneth Paltrow.