Fun but not Fun-Fun.

Last night I hung out with my friends.  They are engaged and just bought a house.  Her sister was over.  He has an 8 old little girl.  We watched UFC then played wii.

Hmmm... on wii... Maybe...
a.)  May.Be.  They let me win.
b.)  May.Be.  I rock.
c.)  May.Be.  I have beginners luck.

But any which way you spin it, I walked outta there a champ!


Who the champ?


Me the champ.

Good times.


(Also, there MAY or may not have been alcohol involved.)


WARNING: Rant! I'm not even sure it will make sense.

(...oh wait-not making sense really isn't anything new and different to this blog now, is it?)

Whatevs.  I shall rant on.


In other (uninteresting) news:  I've accomplished nothing today unless you count catching up on this latest craze of Jersey Shore that has been sweeping the nation.  Wow.  Maybe I'm just getting old but what a waste of time the show was... actually, what is it with this TrainWreck Television?  It use to be just Jerry Springer but now it's everywhere.  All these reality shows that show people at their absolute worst, really America?  That's what the demand is?  This is what you want to watch?  And the people on these shows, I can't understand why one would subject themselves to these reality shows that are pretty much aimed at hoping to capture people at their worst moments.  Are you really that starved for attention?

They keep making these shows because obvy, there is a high demand for them.  Why?  Does watching these people make us feel better about ourself?  Justify our own embarrassing moments and making them seem so little and obscure?  Probably.  But at the same time isn't that making it seem sort of okay?  We can laugh about and say,  "oh yeah, it was terrible--remember the [insert trashy reality show here] when [insert crazy/embarrassing/dramatic moment here]--yeah, that was totally me! Hahaha!" Or something.  It's changing the standards of our behavior and social norms.  We now have a standard for what fun is, fun is wild, crazy nights getting drunk and making Bad Decisions.

I know these things happen in real life.  There are stories-correction, there were stories, reminiscing on the highlights of a night from the storytellers perspective and like all stories, we use what imagination we have to compile the stories and fill in the blanks-but now, now we have filmed footage.  Replay after replay of the episodes, commercial after commercial, in magazines, on the news, talked about on tv/radio shows and with our friends...it's everywhere and now, we are basically numb to it.  Some of us are even bored with, we've seen it all and networks are fighting, feigning to get that next clip to be even more shocking!  Let's see the good girl go bad!  Let's put her in an environment with party people being outrageous and hope to watch her conform!

We think we had a fun night, a crazy night, a [insert superlative here] night and then we reference our oh-so-loved reality shows and compare.  Well, it wasn't that crazy.  Tonight we'll take it further, like the reality show and then look back and say I was wild and crazy because, well, I'm pretty tamed when I compare myself to the "real" people on TV.

Each of us has standards for ourselves.  So we may stick our fingers down our throats but why?  Because we want Perfection, the perfection like the women on TV, Movies, Magazines...etc. and we are desperate for it, so desperate we will go to extremes.  But we don't tell anybody we stick our fingers down our throats now do we?  No, because we have standards for what the world perceives of us.  If they had reality show after reality show of actual footage of people sticking their fingers down their throats do you think our perception of it would change?  Don't you think society would become numb to it?  Even consider it themselves.  The girls on TV do it, all of them are still functioning, it's gross but it washes off and she still goes through her life looking good, she went to the movie awards and is in magazines looking so glamourous and... hell, why not give it a try?

And then there will be more and more shocking footage as more and more people on more and more reality shows have more and more shocking footage and more and more people will be doing, to be edgy, to get that attention.

I will be the wildest party girl.
I will be the most bulimic bulimic.

Or whatever.

Our society that loves competition and being the best of the best or the worst of the worst and let's face it, it's easier to be the best at being the worst-the most contraversial.

And the "regular" people continually compare themselves with the black (that's getting blacker) and the white (that's getting whiter), the high and lows-the standard.

How about all the talk of Louie Vuitton?  Jimmy Choos? Vera Wang wedding gown?  All over the media and we want one just like it.  Suddenly 100 dollars on a purse or on shoes really isn't that expensive because we know somebody is spending 1,000, despite the gap in salary.  (Charge it!!)

(And we wonder why our economy is flailing about?  People want to live like what they see on TV! Standards are no longer Leave it to Beaver and The Brady Bunch...MTV Cribs! The Real World! Whatever is stratigically promoted in music/music videos!)

(Live for today! Be Fabulous! Charge it! Worry about the bills....later, they only ask for $50 of that $2,000 this month, don't they?)

Does seeing the 650 pound++ PEOPLE (as in more than one or a few...) on TV not raise the standard of what we think is humongous? Obese?  The 170 or 350 pounder feels much better about themselves once they see that they can go up and down the stairs-they aren't that bad, they are a "healthy" 350 pounds.  Lie.  Keep watching.  Keep feeling better about yourself Mr or Mrs Obese, if you ever get that bad you can just get Gastric Bypass!

Does seeing the skinny (and getting skinnier) actressES on TV are normal, right?  That's the majority, ALL these stars are "normal" and "healthy," they are not like Lindsey Lohan or Nichole Richie or any of those other anorexic and emaciated looking celebrities that are plaster all over the magazines COVERS EVERY TIME you go to the store or turn on the tv--they look normal, all the actresses are like that--but those ones have gone too far.  The others just "diet," right?  Normal.

Many people don't suspect us to be eating disordered, to be bulimic or anorexic unless we resemble what they've seen labelled on the cover of Star Magazine.  We are just dieting.  Normal, right?  Nobody worries until they see the bones in our cheeks and sunken in eyes.  WE don't even consider ourselves "normal" until we've reached what the actresses look like.  Normal is not our friends/peers but what the media shows us, hell, our friends sometimes think that's normal too.


Some people accept and others strive.  Some of us yearn to be what we see in the media and others use it as a tool of justification to make ourselves feel better.  The difference?  Standards.


My mom has a damn radar for flaws, she's a problem solvers so this is what she seeks.  She sees me and says I'm "skinny," "all bony" and I "look great!" but if I point out, these shorts don't look right because my legs are too fat...she'd probably agree that I need to try on some different shorts.  I take this as, "I'm fat!" because I've seen these shorts look amazing on girls on tv/mags and if I lose weight they will look better.  My mom will say, that's just your body, "you look great, you have such a cute, tiny figure and the shorts are just wrong."

A mothers eyes.  Her daughter is beautiful.  She has seen her daughter at a high and now (again) at her low.  Her daughter is thinner than her cousins and nobody would describe her daughter fat.  She is normal, skinny compared to the high and family.

A daughter looks in the mirror.  She sees the fat that her mother basically agreed with when suggesting a different pair of shorts.  She wants to be perfect, in her mothers eyes, in her own.  She hears her mother words describing the other girls (her boyfriends daughters and their friends), the are so skinny and slim-they look great in anything! Running around in their bikini's with not an ounce of fat on them! So cute and sweet. I didn't even take my cover-up off the hole time! Ugh, I know I need to lose weight. She sits in a way that will make her seem less fat.  She tugs at her shirt uncomfortably when she's around smaller people.  She compares herself to others.  These girls are not on TV but they sure do look like the ones who are.  But they are normal girls, right?  I am bigger, fatter.  I am not normal.  I need to lose weight.

But when she see her daughter-her dieting daughter, her daughter who throws up her food when she eats too much and thinks that she is fat and ugly when she "looks great"- she doesn't realize that she is not only looking at a version of herself mirrored but also of society.


I am a product of society, it's true, but just because "this is our culture" and this is what is "normal" doesn't necessarily mean that it is right or that I agree with it.  The media is doing so much more harm than good.

From what I see, my mother provided the hunger for this perfection that I seek but society provided the standard.

I am the product of my environment ~ my mother, society, the media, everything that I see, I hear....I come into contact with and take in ~ this is where I set my standards, where I see my black and white, justifying my grey.

(My mom did teach me about money & debt though-thank gawd! ...well, the hard way for her, but in the end, she led by example, I learned, I followed and that's what matters!)


(did not proof read.  I added pictures instead...)