Why is broken beautiful?

So in my "research" into the effects of reality TV on our society I have been watching past cycles of America's Next Top Model and I have come across a phrase that has me really worried about the future for my little girl in society.

You look fantastic, like a broken doll.

There's that amazing broken babydoll look.

You've got that fierce broken look, amazing!

Broken. Their word. The bodies twisted and contorted to appear as though they have dropped down a flight of stairs and reassembled by a blind amputee. Broken as if thrown from the roof of a building and collapsed onto the pavement below. Broken as if beaten within an inch of their lives. Broken.

Perhaps I should, in the words of one Project Runway judge "lighten up, it's just fashion!" but I find it utterly terrifying to think that this is the new trend in modeling. Because I've BEEN a fifteen year old girl, and I KNOW that even a level-headed young lady with a brain full of IQ points and two feminist maternal figures in her life looks up to the fashion magazine editors to tell them what boys want in terms of beauty "today". They rely on the expert opinions of fashion stylists to tell them what looks good. And they will do their best to replicate those ideals in their own life. So it's hardly surprising that numbers for self mutilation and eating disorders are climbing to new and terrifying heights while fashion mags continue to push emaciated and "broken" paper dolls on the pages of the teenaged girls' guides to life. When did we lose sight of the healthy, powerful image of the superwoman and revert back to the imagery of the battered, atrophied, clothes hangers? How can I protect my little girl from the passive and active violence of society that is visited upon each and every woman in some form or fashion (of form of fashion as it so happens) when this is the industry standard for beauty?

Broken, awkward, collapsed, weak, exposed = fierce and sexy?

They tell them not to have opinions, not to over think it, to not be so intellectual or controlled. They praise the girls who hang like limp marionettes, but "smile with the eyes".

Let's hope my generation of mothers can say to their daughters, you are better than this. You are beautiful in your strength. Your voice and your health and your mind are the things that make you beautiful, not your angles, or your eyes, or your nose. Not your "smize". Is it your laughter. Love. Opinions. Ideas. Innnovation. Communication. Eloquence and Passion. A healthy body fed on real foods; a healthy mind fed on curiosity and insight; and a soul that is nurtured and fed the food of intellectual thought, philosophical and spiritual intrigue and creative expression. Let mothers says to their daughters: Fashion may define beauty as broken, but don't let them have the final word. Let your beauty be one of strength and power and on your terms. And let us all pray that our voices will resonnate more loudly than theirs.

What does reality TV have to do with reality anyway?

Okay, so I have a confession to make.

I am addicted to Reality TV. It all started off innocently enough as a research project for my Media and Culture unit for my English A2 classes. I thought I'd examine what these shows say about our society and in fact how they contribute to the degradation of our society.

Then I started looking at the media PACKAGE that goes along with these shows, the websites, the blogs the fansites, the books, there is a virtual empire of press that goes along and with the increase of interactive media being what it is today, not only can you examine the shows and the effect thay have on YOU, you actually get an insight into how it affects the auidence. You can see the anger, the vitrol of the viewers, and the undying loyalty the give, and the human connection these shows obviously provide to what one can only assume is a desperately socially deprived viewership.

Hello, Kettle? This is pot. I'm writing this note to let you know in the kindest way possible, that you are black.

Yes, I am aware of the irony of my statement as I post this on my blog.

Well here comes the worst part. I have been sucked into the vortex that is Bravo TV. I read the blogs. I post comments to them and find myslf feeling egregiously outraged that Bravo fails to post my shamefully frequent and verbose responses to the blogs time and time again. I post comments like "Bravo won't publish this anyway, so I don't even know whay I am writing this but..." I read other people's posts and I shake my head as though to say to myself, channelling my cantankerous grandfather in his battered plaid upholstered armchair, "now that right there is everything that's wrong with these kids today!"

I want to be a part of the great greek chorus, to chime in from the peanut gallery with my two cents, which I am convinced is worth much much more. I am certain that MY comment, if only Bravo would see fit post it, will break through the blogosphere and connect with the person in question and give them something to mull over at night and it will change their lives.

I have lost my bleeding mind. I do know that.

But since I've gone there...do any of you (and by you I mostly mean my two sisters and sometimes my mom, who I am fairly certainly are my only "readership") watch The Real Housewives of New York City, and if you do, do you know what I have been trying/DYING to say to model/writer/fashionista/walking-mannequin Kelly? (Damn Andy Cohen for not choosing my questions for the reunion, BTW!)

This is what happens when people spend their formative years of ages 15-25 surrounded by people that couldn't care less about real issues and who just glaze over everything you say with "OMG you're so gorgeous. I like LOVE those shoes!" This is what happens when you are allowed to go through life never being forced to defend the crap we all spoke as teenagers.

At one point in every intelligent woman's life there comes a time when someone, a teacher, a parent, a boss, a mentor, has pulled her aside and said "You sound like an eff-ing moron. Either start listening and start making sense or marry rich and get a good pre-nup. Because no matter how pretty you are, it's not going to last long enough for you to get away with being that dumb forver." Am I right? That obviously never happened to Kelly. She still thinks she is cute enough to not need to make sense. And her skin looks like bacon. Am I the only one who sees that?!

And if she could at least LAUGH about it. If she could say "Heh, yeah I know I speak a lot of rubbish, I'm just not good at being on the spot. LOL" I could respect her. If she could say "Yeah, I am really shallow and I do not give a toss about real issues or values or principles...at all. It's who I am." At least she would be smart enough to know she's a vapid airhead, but she's so far gone she tries to DEFEND her idiocy. She tries to rationalize the irrational. And what's worse still is she thinks she does a pretty good job of making herself understood, and if she can't make you understand, she shouts "why do we have to keep rehashing this, feelings are so 1979, just celebrate who I am."

What the ever living what?!?

Sorry, but I cannot, and will not celebrate stupidity, no matter how cute it looks in satin bunny ears. It is a cancer in our society; it breeds like mould in a bread drawer slowly disintegrating perfectly healthy cells in a matter of...like...moments or whatever...ya know, like...totally...KWIM? OMG! RU 4 REELZ? It's like...

Whatevs.

I hate dealing with Embassies

Fill in this!

Jerks.

What an idiot I am

So I have recently been introduced to Regretsy and in my searches through Ms. Winchell's archives and subsequent searches through the halls of esty I have discovered an awful truth.

I have been throwing out loads of crap that people will actually pay good money for. I thought my Scotish husband with his ingrained frugality would have spotted this. What gives?

Here is a tiny sampling:



And here I was chucking left over birthday cake in the bin. This lady pops it in tubs, tops it with some candy and sells it to people as FOOD. I'm an idiot. I could have gotten five dollars, for each portion! I shudder to think of all the money I could have put into my son's college fund that I just blithely scraped into the rubbish.



Oh my god, I just threw this exact same thing out last week. three dollars?! I'm an idiot!

This shop has several listings for spare game pieces from a game that was clearly a big hit with the kids, Smath (Like adding up the points and bonus squares in scrabble wasn't hard enough math for a sunday evening? Math fun -- world's best example of an oxymoron) And now when it's clear this game is of no other use, does the owner chuck it out like stupid ol' me would? No, They sell off the pieces in number sets for $1 a bag...Collage/mixed media supplies, indeed.

This store sells boxes of junk...BOXES of it, for: FORTY NINE DOLLARS!

When I think of all times I have dumped drawers full of valuable "art supplies" in a black garbage bin bag...I get sick, actually.

FORTY NINE DOLLARS? I am a dumbass.

My hat goes off to these people. They can sell bottle caps, and stained clothes, rusty old screws and nails, and here I am the big jerk, actually working for a living. The mind reels.

A baby's first laugh

The cutest sound in the world, hands down.

That is all.

Just when you thought PB&J couldn't get any more convenient

The original fast food for moms on the go just got easier:


http://smuckers.com/products/group.aspx?groupId=3

Are you serious? Have we become so rushed for time that we cannot even make ourselves peanut butter and jelly sandwiches? And I used to scoff at Goober. This is the epitome of lazy.

I'm all for the "future" and making lives easier, but what's next? IV bags at the grocery store that you can attach to your Bluetooth, or garment hooks in the car?

No time to chew? Too busy for the hassles of digestion? IV bags distribute the nutrition you need directly to your bloodstream. No muss, no fuss.

What ever happened to enjoying one's food?

Five going on fifteen

Benjamin has been driving me insane as of late and driving his father to fury. It's been screaming match central and I'm telling you I was not prepared for this to come until he was fifteen at least. I have been desperate and longing to find an answer that didn't include beating my child into submission, grounding him for life, or taping his mouth shut until he was twenty.

I must say the ladies at my parenting board have really come through for me. I got some sage advice, and some really helpful TOOLS for adjusting my perspective and redirecting his frustration into positive empowerment. It's early days but so far, so good.

I have successfully managed to reign in and diffuse a total of five tantrum potential incidents in the last 48 hours, and here are a just a few of the tales:

Yesterday I picked Benjamin up from school and everything was fine, he was happy, smiley, chatty then quite suddenly he snapped "arrrrrrg Stop talking to me!" And I thought; ooooh there is that teenager 'tude the ladies were talking about! And so I thought WWAGMD (what would a good mama do)? And I said calmly "Mommy, I need a little bit of quiet time now, if that's okay." And he repeated calmly and sincerely. I nodded (inwardly shocked that tis had not resulted in much eye rolling and lip smacking). And a few steps later he growled; "I just wish I could walk to school and home by myself!"

My instinct was to guffaw at the absurdity of the request and say "no way! Not safe!" but I thought about the no...was this really a good time to use the almighty irretractable no? Maybe I was only saying no because it was inconvenient to say yes and make those accomodations, maybe I am only saying no because I am not being creative enough to say yes. So I thought of a compromise that I could live with, and I said "Can I talk?" And he laughed and said with a tsk; "Yes, mommy!" So I said, "How about tomorrow you get a head a start and I'll walk with Emily about ten steps behind you? That way you can feel alone, but if you need me, I'm not that far."

He liked it. Then he asked, quite nicely, for some more quiet time.

So today he started walking and I let him go ahead of me and we got about three blocks and he started slowing down, so I walked to him and put out my hand and he grabbed it and he said quietly "It's just, I started feeling lonely." So I gave his hand a squeeze and said "I'm glad I wasn't far away." and he leaned his cheek on my hand and said, "Me, too."

Then I said, "How about when we get to the edge of the school building you can walk to the door alone?" (it's about six meters) and he lit up "That's a great idea, Mommy!"

And he gave me a big hug and a kiss and kissed his sister, and off he went as I stood at the corner.

Tonight was another success tale. I aksed him if he wanted to learn to tie his shoes and he stomped and threw himself backwards onto the floor in a heap and began to shout "Noooo, I'll never ever know how to do that. I'm not ever going to be able to do that, stop asking me that!" At first I would have been so shocked and so angry that he was being so resistant. I would have escalated.

But instead I took a deep breath and imagined myself at the age of 15 my mom asking me questions I didn't know the answer to "Do you like this boy? Whose religion will you practice if you marry him? What do you want to study at University? What will you be when you grow up? Why do you like those people?" I remembered the frustration and angst in my heart at those times and how I wished I could crawl in a hole and die from embarassment at my lack of self-awareness and life knowledge and my total inability to control anything, even basic decisions in my life. I became filled with empathy for Benjamin and instead of jerking him up and taking him to his room, I held him and whispered close; "You didn't used to be able to draw a face and now you can, can't you?"

"yes" he answered apprehensively.

"And last year you didn't know how to write words, but now you do. And you used to color outside of the lines all the time and now you almost never do, right?"

"yes"

"So don't you think you'll learn to tie your shoes some day, too?"

"maybe"

"well," I said, "If you don't want to today, that's okay. I'll ask again another time."

"okay"

And that was it. No flailing, no yelling...NO ESCALATION!

And two night in a row he has gone to bed happy and cuddly and without tears and without gimmicks.


Jamie is cautiously optimistic, and worries he is the most patient father on the face of the earth. He is unsure, but he has to admit these are tangible results.

Benjamin is really growing up and he really is turning out to be a fantastic kid.