And you, my dear woman, are no Marilyn Monroe....

Having been there and done that, I can tell you honestly that there is no practice in this world that will ruin your health as quickly as self-starvation. I for one, at the ripe old age of 30-something, nearly starved myself to death, and having just barely failed at that, did manage to push myself into early menopause, set my digestive, endocrine, and circulatory systems on their ears, and completely siphon the joy out of any and every eating-related social occasion (and that pretty well covers 'em all) for the foreseeable future. Quitting my 100-600 calorie/day diet and its related binge-purge episodes was the only way I could guarantee myself life beyond 40, and so I reluctantly did it. I am not 'in recovery'....I don't believe there's actually such a thing....but I am eating well over 1000 calories daily now, albeit purging them in a totally different way.....exercise.

This is not to say I'm after turning into one of those body acceptance freaks, either. That's something I've also tried and failed miserably at and wouldn't recommend to anyone. What I'm getting at here is pretty simple, actually, and looking at it clearly as I am now, I wonder why the hell I didn't see it years ago. Let's see if you pick it up quicker.....what do self-starving, half-dead, Auschwitz-reminiscent waifs and giant, fat, laboured-breathing sows who can't stuff themselves fast enough have in common? Give up? They're all self-hating maniacs who believe that they'll someday, with the help of their miserably unhealthy lifestyle and miserably unrealistic goals and dreams, wake up and be hopelessly in love with their disgusting, genetically-damned carcass. They'll one day see perfection in themselves, they believe, and then and only then will they be happy.

Fucking hell. I'm here to tell you all the only way you'll ever be happy....or satisfied, even....is if you wake the hell up and realise you'll never bloody well be happy.

See, some of us are just naturally miserable and know full well we're reaching toward unattainable goals. I, for one, am ugly as all hell and fat or skinny as I've ever been, the only way I'm ever going to be perceived as attractive is if I pretend I am, and then go on to tell everyone else I am....because the public is so fucking stupid they believe everything they're told. Unfortunately, the vast majority of young ladies, whether they go so far as to resort to an eating disorder or simply sit around and sulk, don't seem to get how hopeless this dream of being gorgeous really is. 'If I starve myself long enough', they tell themselves, 'I will one day be a supermodel like Cindy Crawford'. 'I can eat whatever I want, whenever I want', others think, 'Because big can be beautiful....I will be another Emme or maybe even another Marilyn Monroe'.

Do these chicks understand what they're missing? Obviously not. Perhaps I should clue them in.

What do Cindy Crawford, Emme, and Marilyn Monroe have in common (besides bleached hair)? Clearly, they're all built drastically differently, so it sure ain't their figures. Could it maybe be that they're all really, really pretty? And how about some other sources of 'thinspiration', as the pro-ana sites are so fond of calling them? Courteney Cox? Christina Ricci? Halle Berry? And more plus-size beauties? Catherine Zeta-Jones? Queen Latifah? Beyoncé Knowles? Yep....all very, very attractive women. Not a one of them whose appearance would send folks running in the other direction if they were to gain or lose 20 or 40lbs. Not a one of them as butt-ugly as your sorry ass.

I hate to break it to you all, but if you're already over 15 and you aren't a supermodel, it very simply is never going to happen. You can wither away to 75lb or balloon to 375, but it isn't going to make a lick of difference, because until they invent a scale that measures ugly, those numbers will be virtually useless to you (though they'll tell volumes to your cardiologist).

So you want to look like a model or a screen legend? Fuck the diet. Work from the neck up. My advice to most comes in two words....plastic surgery.

Seriously. Think about it.

"Black & White" Means Something Different Here

Not only is it the name of my husband's favorite kind of cookie, but there is a lesson to be learned about tolerance, as well. What the hell am I talking about? Well, this morning we had a theater group come in and do a show ("Cinderella") for an auditorium full of first and second graders. The show was good, not the calibur of a true Broadway spectacle, but a helluva lot higher quality than you'd find in places that aren't within a stone's throw of the mecca for musical theater. The kids certainly enjoyed it and were riveted from start to finish... enthusiastically leaning forward, eager for the Prince to put that slipper on the right gal's foot. What I found striking, however, was the fact that no one blinked an eye over the fact that the dashing Prince was a black man and the sweet Cinderella was as pale as Snow White. What a wonderful thing!

As the interracial couple kissed (and the kids shrieked "EEEEWWWWW!"... funny how two people kissing is more gross to them than two people shooting one another) I couldn't help but wonder how this one would play back home in Illinois. The scandal that would've resulted in Hampton Elementary if such a production had gone down in my day... or maybe even this day. I wonder how far the middle of this country (or at least those places outside of major metropolitan areas) has come with regard to racial issues? I suspect not as far as one might hope. I guess the presidential bid of Barack Obama is a vote toward the more positive answer to that question, but who knows.

After the show, I was chatting with the pianist and he got on the subject of Iraq and made a comment about how sad a future the students had ahead of them... what a terrible path we've left for them to traverse... and this cynical old rat bastard (meaning me) actually had an optimistic response (shock!). I pointed out the diversity of the student body and said that by being exposed to so many different cultures and ethnicities as children, hopefully these young people will be far more tolerant of those who are different from themselves, and therefore not be as narrow-minded as those in power today.

One can only hope.

Chivalry Is Nearly Dead - Or On Its Last Legs, Anyway

Chivalry (Born: whenever the first guy treated a woman kindly, regardless of whether or not she was boinking him or was his Mother; the word itself originated in 1250 or so Died: 2007, but many women will tell you it was much, much earlier than that - and they're probably right)

Does anyone recognize this asshole, seated on the L train at about 10:40am today?:



Probably not, since it's blurry as hell and I couldn't get a good shot of him on the train this morning without looking like the total stalker psychopath that I am.

This spoon-fed hipster ignoramus was on the bus from Greenpoint with me today, going into Willyburg to catch the L train. He was sitting in one of the seats at the front of the bus, I was in the middle, closer to the door. An elderly woman with a cane who obviously had trouble walking got on the bus and not only did she have to ask him for his seat (instead of him immediately getting up and offering it to her like someone should do), but he rolled his eyes and sighed and made a deal about it; and all he had to do was move over one seat! She looked at him with disgust after she sat down, but he was oblivious; I watched the whole thing from my seat and was just seething. I later saw this asshole on the train coming in and snapped his pic.



Have you ever noticed that on buses or trains, about 8 times out of 10 if a pregnant or elderly woman gets on, the only people who get up to offer her a seat are women? Either women or men who are so old that the poor sweethearts should just stay seated themselves, lest they fall. You'll see young, healthy men of all different ages keeping their seat - the idea of helping a pregnant or elderly woman and having any sense of chivalry as far from their mind as possible.
Or women who have a baby, and maybe another child as well, and are fumbling with trying to hold onto the both of them while not falling...again, if you see a man get up to offer his seat, it's anything just short of a miracle. I'm always offering my seat, and I'll look at these men, whose lack of chivalry, kindness, empathy and consideration knows no boundaries: all races and almost all ages. Like I said, the only ones you see really showing any chivalry are the old, old men - and even then, I notice that if they are from certain countries (I'm assuming where women are not highly regarded) then that theory goes out the window.

What happened? What the hell is wrong with men today? I mean, really: has anyone noticed (besides me and my girlfriends who sit and drink and bitch about this) that Chivalry has almost gone the way of the dinosaurs? I would like to blame the "latest generation" or whatever...but I notice it in men over 30,40 and 50, as well. Why is this?

Is it cultural, like I mentioned above, where some men are brought up in cultures where chivalry never really existed and women are just considered to be walking birth canals and private chefs - and we are holding them to the standards that we would...oh, I dunno...normal, nice fucking people? Are parents to be blamed for raising boys that are narcissistic and lack simple human empathy and a desire to be a gentleman?



Or could it also be us? Have we done something along the way to allow...to open the door, if you will, for this to happen?

I am as much of an advocate for women's rights as most self-respecting women; I wouldn't have started a site like this if I wasn't. I believe we should be treated as equally as the Boys in every way and deserve each and every right and should be treated with all the respect that men receive. I am an advocate for women when other women look the other way.
However, and I know I will get flack for this: I think that some feminists took it a wee bit too far.

I see women who get pissed off if a guy holds a door open for them. Or tries to pull back their chair at the dinner table. Uh, excuse me, but I think that's just a man showing respect. How is that any representation of disrespecting us as women?
Women today, since the struggles of the Feminist Movement of the 60's, have tried so hard to make us equal that I think they went above and beyond the call of duty; I think some radical feminists have seriously fucked the rest of us out of being treated with any kind of chivalry from many a man...or, at least, given men the path of least resistance.

I mean, hey - if a chick is going to yell at him possibly for trying to be chivalrous, then why should he bother? Let her go dutch on the bill, let her get her own damn door, and let the pregnant lady hang onto the hand rail like the rest of the guys, right? And while they're at it, if they happen to be 85 and a women, to hell with 'em if they fall down.

Well, whatever it is, it needs to stop - now. Men need to start stepping up to the plate. Quit shoving women aside in lines in the grocery store. Give a lady a seat. Just quit being assholes.

But, let's not forget the few men out there who do open doors; who do get up and let the elderly or pregnant women have a seat; who do act with all the utmost kindness and chivalry. Let's not forget them - and thank them.

Bryony Gordon 's Golden Arches

I read a post at the U.K.'s Telegraph today that had me in stitches. Bryony Gordon wrote a post about Prince Charles attacking the McDonald's food chain and how ridiculous it is that people blame McDonald's for the rise in unhealthy overweight people in the world - not the people themselves for walking in and asking for a Supersize, or for parents who teach their children that eating fries with every meal is a norm - not an occasional treat.

I didn't agree with everything in her post - for example, I think it's cool that Mickey D's has added a few healthy things to the menu, but I can understand her point of view when she says:

"...It shouldn't even be encouraged to sell healthy food. Who goes to the golden arches to eat salad? You go there to eat fat when you're feeling a bit indulgent, but I don't know anybody who eats there more than once a month, and if they did, would it be the fault of McDonald's?..."

Hell, I suppose I can even agree with that a little... It IS the kingdom of indulgence...

What is really a hoot are the comments from angry people who complain that she "has the audacity" to write something like that about Prince Charles...or that she is condoning unhealthy eating (she starts off talking about how yummy Mickey D's is).

I think that her point is simply this: that by simply suggesting that we remove fast-food restaurants we won't get rid of the problem. We'll simply be removing people's right to indulge when they want to. People have to take responsibility for their own actions and quit blaming others for the reasons why they are 400 pounds...

Sure, I'd like to blame the awesome Polish bakery around the corner from my crib in Greenpoint as the reason why I recently put in 30 pounds, but I know it's because I sat on my fat ass watching Stargate SG-1 and shoveled in about two of their fabulous pasteries a day in my mouth while stuck to my futon. That, among many other foods...

So They Finally Fired the Astronaut Lisa Nowak

I've said it before, and I'll say it again: Hell Hath No Motherfucking Fury Like a Woman Scorned.

Now, I'm not saying that Lisa Nowak isn't a nutjob. She obviously is. The woman wore a diaper to drive 900 miles to pepper spray a woman that she thought was involved with a guy that she was in love with. Never mind the fact that she was already married with kids, yada yada...

This fall from grace, though, merits questions. They canned her ass from working in space - and sent her back to work in the military. Gee, that makes all of us feel protected... But what I want to know is what part did the guy play in all of this? Sure, maybe he banged her and dumped her, figured that since she was married, nothing would come of it; or did he lead her on? What really happened?

Could he not see that he was playing with fire already? Some of us, when we start a love/sex affair (affair in any context) can see the handwriting on the wall from the very beginning; can see if the person is emotionally unstable, clingy, needy...willing to travel 900 miles in a fucking diaper and possibly kill a rival in a lover's triangle.

He didn't get fired. Or written up...or anything. I'm not necessarily saying he should...but I think that the possibility is there that he had a relationship with her that set this off, which is supposed to be a no-no. If that's the case, he should be punished as well. I mean, hell: fair's fair.

Whatever happens, I hope that this dramatic episode in space history doesn't cast a negative light on women astronauts for the future...we have enough trouble trying to maintain the right to do what we want alongside the boys as it is. We don't need them to label us a bunch of bunny-boiling psychopaths on the rag to boot.

Sure I like to show my boobies off for free stuff and attention, but this is ridiculous....

Welcome to the 21st century, an age of open mindedness, gender equality, and rampant political correctness that's sometimes so over-the-top it makes me want to vomit.

I am not a politically-correct person by any stretch of the imagination, nor am I a crazed femi-Nazi. But as an anatomical female with an IQ 49 points higher than my weight (at last weigh-in and last testing), I really, really, really have a problem with Wonderbra's new ad campaign.

Behold, the ad I saw the other day on a phone booth at the Eastern corner of Madison and 35th Street -





So let me get this straight....a businesswoman (which judging from her attire aside from the bra, this bimbo is obviously supposed to be) should want to buy a product that's going to make people stare so hard at her chest that they totally ignore her eyes? As if most men don't do that already? Jeez louise. I mean, there's a time (midlife crisis) and a place (MySpace) to elicit chest-ogling, but it sure as hell shouldn't be such a huge lifetime goal of the average american female that a company would be able to advertise like this and actually increase business.

I've got more to say about this, about being objectified and valued only for appearance, about being torn between letting my looks go in order to be taken seriously and doing all I can to preserve them so as not to be completely ignored, but I'm just going to leave that for another time, since I need to get my ass to the gym to make myself prettier for the menfolk. I'd say I'm going to boycott these fuckers till they develop some respect for their market, but seeing as they have yet to make a Wonderbra in a 30DD, that would be a rather pointless threat.

Typical whiney, hormonal female I am....

So...Spring Is Just Around the Corner...And I Look Like the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man

...and with Spring almost here, that means that summer is right around the lil' corner right after that one. I'm not prepared for either, you see, because this winter I have put on more weight than I thought possible.



You know you're in trouble when it's winter and you are self-conscious about the coat you're wearing being too bulky anyway...but now you are worried that you might take people out accidently as you try to navigate your way through small intimate restaurants, crowded department stores, and even on city streets.

A mere walk through the park can turn into a possible unintentional homicide if you turn and accidently bump into someone, your hips making contact with them with enough force to crush an oncoming vehicle. You turn again to apologize and take out three asian tourists, your arm so massive it crushes their cameras right into their chests, which later the NY CSI crew are unable to remove without a crowbar. You bend over to try to help someone up and your left butt cheek, billowing in the wind like jello on a plate at a tired cafeteria, almost decapitates an elderly woman's Yorkshire Terrier, Maltese, and West Highland Terrier. What saves them is that because your ass is so fat, the right butt cheek compensated, and due to the fact that your heels are worn down on your right side, you fall, crushing a stoner on a skateboard.

His dying words are: "Dude."

Obviously I used the 2nd person in this hopefully fictional account, but really know that it's my fat ass that I'm talking about. So, in light of that, I think I'm getting myself to the gym this week and ordering Nutrisystem.

Wish me luck; for the sake of myself and all of New York City.

Is Prozac A Pre-Requisite For Television Today?

I was just wondering...if one needs to be medicated before watching most tv nowadays, being able to stomach what is being dished out and considered worth watching.

I just watched two episodes of the Twilight Zone, which, unless you are completely deranged, a fanatical evangelical weirdo, or so pseudo-intellectual that you've talked yourself into a coma, you must know is probably one of the best shows that was ever on tv.
The acting, although often over the top (hey, that's what they did in those days) even at its WORST was still by far leaps and bounds far better and beyond the crap that is being shown on the tube nowadays. Rod Serling was a genius with an imagination that set new boundaries of exploration for what we now call the medium of television and motion picture industry. I saw an episode the other night with Robert Duvall - and the genius you see in Duvall's work throughout his life is evident even then as a young man.

However, I can guarantee that if Rod were to have just come out of the woodwork now, and was trying to get that show off the ground, it would get stuck only on the Scifi channel, and wouldn't get hardly any ratings; certainly not anything near what these reality shows seem to get on regular network programming.

Yeah - gee, eat a few worms and bungie jump into a lake and that's entertainment. Get fired by Donald and it's primetime. Show some silicon breasts about to burst from a bikini on a barely-legal chick with scuff marks on her knees from one-too-many times at a casting director blowjob party -- and that's emmy material.

But god forbid somebody have some real soul, real plot, real anything...they get the shit end of the stick. Its a system that almost rewards bad actors, bad writing, and retarded plots.

But what do I know...I've just been around the block one too many times.