I 've had a couple craptastical ass days. So today I left work early (whatever!) and I went to Kroger because I had a serious craving for lasagna. I'm all about comfort food, and lasagna for me (right along with macaroni & cheese, and ice cream, especially Loard's banana) are the definition of comfort. Putting something that I really love in my mouth (slightly sexually suggestive?) makes me relax. It doesn't make me happy (cause that would be weird!) but I'm content.
Whatever, maybe another day I'll blog about my problems with food or the hypocrisy in the fact that a curvy girl who likes to eat has food issues but a skinny girl who eats a lot (JEAN!) is a foodie. FUCK THAT...
Sorry I'm getting slightly off track...
Anyway, so since I've moved I live near a better class of Kroger, which completely puts my Short North Kroger to shame! And when I walked in today I spotted a nice, long, soft (again with the sexual innuendos) baguette. My last Kroger almost never had fresh baked bread and when they did it was of the "fresh" variety, if you know what I mean. So I completely picked one up and thought nothing of it.
Now that the lasagna is resting on my kitchen table I moved the bread to the side for when I'm ready to eat and I noticed a slogan on the packaging: "It's time to eat bread again!"
At first I thought, "well that's my last glass of merlot" because I must be reading that wrong" and then I thought, "when the fuck was I supposed to have stopped eating the grain!?"
mothafucka please...
So that all spawned this post, which isn't really a post so much as a rant.
If you don't like bread, don't eat bread. But if you're not eating bread or pasta because you believe carbs are evil, you're an idiot!
I'm not a nutritionist, I don't count calories and I have only the vaguest idea of what I should/shouldn't be eating. I'm more about a (semi) balanced diet and good food. I don't speak any other language.
But I hate, like really hate that women are made to feel that their bodies are never ending projects where perfection is the ultimate, but perpetually elusive, goal. I mean, there is really no other way to explain tummy tucks and face lifts. Who the hell would want to look like this:
So when my friends say they're going to start working out for valid reasons (like lowering their blood pressure or because they're having back problems, for instance) I support that. But when I see undergrads who are a size 1 and quite possibly malnourished/underweight talking about how big their thighs are I feel so disgusted.
Do you! Be happy being you, if that means you're a size 4 or 16 I don't give a shit and you shouldn't either... unless you like depression and a low self-esteem, in which case, hate yourself because you could always lose a couple pounds!
3 comments:
HELLO! Thank you for that! Sometimes it just makes you want to tear up pieces of bread and throw it at those size 1 undergrads who think their thighs are too fat, so that they can peck around like the pigeons in SF, they gotta get it somehow...
Thank you for the post Nicole. Here's my rather long sub-rant in response. I hope you enjoy it as much as I enjoy this blog. I'd love to hear your thoughts on it!
Of course we can all point to the media and Corporate America in general for brainwashing us into thinking skinny=beautiful. As a young adult male who's been subject to this brainwashing for his whole life I often find myself struggling/questioning/flat out disliking myself for being sexually attracted to women that fit that skinny/slim paradigm of beauty. I hate the fact that I seem to only like the Keira Knightleys, Grace Parks, Eva Longorias, and Beyonces of the world, while the Camryn Manheims, Sherri Shepherds, and Margaret Chos of the world I simply see as beautiful, talented people yes, but not someone that I want to get down and dirty with. Why does a guy's "little brain" have to have so much damn say over who might even be considered as a potential mate/partner?
I've even made what some might call the extremely naive move of answering a girl's question (who I deeply care about) "Would you find me attractive if I were 'fat'?" with, "To be honest, if you were 'fat' then initially, no I wouldn't find you attractive." I know, it's messed up to say that, but at the time I thought, well I care enough about this person that I want to be honest with them. Anybody know how to reprogram someone's libido without cutting them open? I wonder how many great relationships I might have missed out on because of stupid shit like this.
So that's my little sub-rant about the majority of male-dom in response to your rant about sub-groups of female-dom. I'd love to hear your thoughts on it.
P.S. Here are a couple random tangents to this post that popped in my head:
-I don't know what to think of a couple of reality dating shows that have popped up this summer. There's that FOX, 'Bachelor'-style one that features "normal-figured" women. Noticeably, most of the participants are Caucasian. Is this just a reflection of the racial population proportions of the country? Probably not. Are Caucasian women just that much more willing to put themselves out there/take dating risks/desperate? A sociologist might have a lot to say about that. Or is it something more sinister i.e. producers seeing more $$$ signs in featuring Caucasian women? There's also that ABC blind date on steroids show where participants have a "date" in pitch black darkness. Dunno what the participant demographics are of that one. Both shows are definitely intriguing concepts but I have low expectations for their execution. I probably won't be watching...
-A cultural sidenote. In old-school Chinese culture "fat" apparently was/is considered beautiful. This most likely comes from the times when there was a huge disparity between the peasant farmers' nutrition and that of the ruling, rich elite. To be skinny was to be malnourished, poor, and thus, undesirable, while "fat" meant rich, healthy and therefore, beautiful. So period pieces like Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon probably should have gone with a heroine with curves rather than waifish Zhang-Ziyi. Times are changing though. My mom works with Chinese-American seniors and instead of hearing worried comments of "you're so skinny!" from them like she may have in the past, she now gets compliments like, "You look healthy!"
-Of course there are many different sub-issues within the topic of what men find beautiful, and any one of us could go on and on about any one of them. Light skin/dark skin, racial preferences, straight hair/curly hair/afro-textured hair, the hour-glass figure, etc. Again, I'm sure a sociologist or anthropologist could go on for hours about this stuff.
Tim... I'm glad you like the post!
And I'm going to handle all of your comments because they're crazy interesting:
1. I think there are a lot of different ways to handle men's attractions (or lack thereof) for certain body types. A large part of me wants to say "whatever, like who you like. if it aint me... I'll live." But it's never just about who you find beautiful, because that's dependent upon who you don't right. So someone who likes keira knightly wouldn't like Margaret Cho.
Part of this is because having a "type" means that even if you can appreciate someone of another body type, you wouldn't wanna bang 'em (favorite phrase ever).
I think there's also a part of our society that sees someone who is attracted to curvier women (especially if they're not curvy themselves) as having a fetish. So a skinny guy who's attracted to a thick girls is called a "chubby chaser" (god I hate that phrase, can't we think of something better?).
And it isn't just men. Personally I like my guys on the thick side so I really just can't see myself with someone (especially sexually) who was the whole emo-rocker, skinny jeans type. It's just... not for me (to be diplomatic). And some guys who are into me don't do skinny chicks. (As an interesting side note, that I don't know why I'm sharing, I was once talking to this guy who dated the "healthier" chicks and everything he said to me made me realize that I was on the smaller side of the spectrum. I felt uncomfortable, but that could have just been because he was a loser!)
But I think the problem is that we're so exclusive. We have types. It's one or the other. So I always find myself wondering when a guy is checking me out: "is he into curvy girls" or "has he ever dated a thick girl before." And I think this works for race as well, definitely.
2. Reality shows are so problematic it hurts. I hadn't heard of the bachelor-type show, but there are probably a lot of reasons why most of the girls are white. From my standpoint I would point to a mainstream media that has really never been able to embrace a curvy Black girl as sexually attractive. So they can be funny (Mo'Nique), they can be strong/smart (The Big O) or they can be talented (Jennifer Hudson) but they can't be sexy/sexually appealing. The closest people re willing to get is Beyonce and she aint big!
And I think this is also absolutely true for other women of color and I can think of dozens of examples for Asians and latinas so... do with that what you will.
3. I know of some African societies who also equated weight with wealth and I think England was like that in the early nineteenth century (but don't quote me on that one). I think it would be interesting to read a book about different definitions of beauty in other societies, over time, because from what I've heard the skinny paris hilton type in this country is totally new and within the last 40-50 years...
We can continue this conversation but thanks so much for commenting. You've totally made Jean's day!! ;)
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