I spilled a bottle of water...

A while ago, I posted about a website called "fmylife.com" and about how funny it is.  

Here, my friends, is its less funny, but still amusing, almost dry, little sister, mylifeisaverage.com.

Happy Monday, everyone.

The Picture of Dorian Gray Hair Cover-up

Hello all.  I know it has been too long since I last posted. By way of excuse, I am taking two summer classes, working and have recently started dating someone.  Like actually dating them.  Like I have a boyfriend.  But I digress.  

Last month, I was reading the June issue of Vogue, and was enjoying the issue as I usually do.  Then I came across the article "Fat Chances", an article that has the sub-headline of "will body perfection one day be possible...a new world way beyond lipo".  The article goes on to detail how women these days along with wanting to look thin, also want to look young: "Ten years ago, the women who came to see me just wanted to look thinner...now they want their body to look younger, too".  (May I add here that this is coming from the magazine that at some point last year had what they called the Body Issue, which celebrated many different types of bodies.  yeah.  seriously.)  The article has sections titled "The Fat Blasters: Lipo Plus", "Fat-Dissolving Injections", "The Tighteners" (which in my opinion sounds like the title of a horror film), and "Cellulite: The Eternal Scourge".  

I think at this point, I put the magazine down and thought about never opening another issue of Vogue again. 

As a young woman, with virtually no gray hair or wrinkles or other "age" markers, I haven't really thought about what it will be like to look older.  I have thought about what it will be like for my hair to go gray, and have pretty well decided that I will never dye my hair and just let it age naturally.  I read a quote by Ann Curry a few years ago that I tried to find, but could not, so I will paraphrase, but it was something like "I hope that one day my wrinkles will show how much I laughed and lived".  It was something much more poetic than that.  My point is that I am going to live a full life and laugh a lot and probably cry a lot and yeah, my face is going to show that.  Yes, I use moisturizer and eye cream and wear huge sunglasses until dusk, but I'm not that worried about getting wrinkles. 

Now, apparently, I need to start worrying about what age my BODY looks.  

If you've read any of my previous writing, you know that I get a little worked up over body image issues.  However, I've only focused on the problems that YOUNG women face, children, teenagers and women my age.  I guess I sort of assumed that women matured out of the whole "caring about what the world thinks of you" thing.  I assumed wrong.  It is not enough anymore to think that you aren't thin or pretty enough, now you need to think that you're not young enough. That maybe your stomach isn't that flat anymore or your hips are a little bit wider (the author of the article mentions the "curve of her lower back".  I had no idea that was a problem area.  oops).  

What in the hell is so wrong with looking your age?  

When we are younger, we want to look older.  When we are older, we want to look younger.  I get that.  But going to extreme measures, using something called "the tighteners" to look 25 again?  

In the same issue of Vogue, there is an interview with Cameron Diaz, in which she says, "I'm not 25 years old anymore, nor do I want to be.  I wouldn't even want to go back to being 30.  That journey-I've done it already".  HOW CAN YOU HAVE THAT IN THE SAME ISSUE AS SOMETHING ABOUT HATING YOUR AGING BODY?!  Nice work, editing.  

There is a lot that is screwed up about the way Americans treat women, the way this culture expects women to look like, so my next statement is most likely unnecessary, but what happened to age=wisdom?  What happened to the respect that comes with living, with experience, with knowing more about the world through LIFE?  Or is that still there, we just expect our women to live always in the shadow of impending liposuction?  We can only respect an elderly woman if she appears to be 30?  

I really hate that this new way of self-loathing has been brought to my attention.  Now I know that for ever long I live, there will always be a new way to hate my body. 

 I better go wrap myself in sea kelp now and age away in an infrared sauna.  

HOTlanta

I have often wondered why Southerners tend to be more creative than people from other parts of the country.  I honestly believe it is because they are so hot for so much of their life.  Maybe the heat makes your brain more imaginative, or maybe it just melts down your inhibitions, allowing creativity to flow as freely as the sweet tea.  Or maybe this whole time I've been mistaking insanity for imagination.  

It is interesting to me how it appears that we in the south don't deal well with weather.  If it rains, we freak out.  If it snows, just stay in your home, leaving will only result in confusion. It seems we are only content when it is 73 degrees and sunny.  

But the heat, the heat is a completely different animal.  From April until October, the south puts on us a great big snuggie and doesn't take it off until Thanksgiving.  You can't sit still without sweating.  People say that life in the south is so slow, we do everything so slow.  Let them live in Georgia in July and see how fast they do things.  This heat makes me want to lie completely still on a giant block of ice.  This heat makes me want to chop off all my hair and throw away anything with sleeves.  And it's not even the hottest it will get yet.  It is only the beginning of June.  Soon, the only refuge we will get is the hours after the earth has finally cooled from the hot afternoon, right before the sun comes up.  Those few hours are the coolest, when most of us should be asleep, before the south has a chance to heat up again.  

When people say "the south will rise again", maybe they just mean the temperature.  

batons and self loathing

I guess it's never too early to start hating your body.

get in shape, girl

Camp Lesbian

On Monday, Chelsea and I drove 5.5 hours to visit the glamorous  Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, for a few reasons: 

#1  We both wanted to go to the beach.

#2  It is relatively close.

#3  My aunt Jill and her partner, Mischelle live there.

#4  Please see reason #1. 

The drive was very easy and we arrived Monday afternoon to my aunt's house, greeted by Jill and her fifteen dogs.  I mean, four dogs, including one pug puppy with a name that I cannot remember that sounds like a Middle Eastern country.  We ate a quick lunch and asked where the nearest beach would be with the least amount of people.  Jill directed us to Lichfield or something like that, which appeared to be a sort of haven for rich white people who lack creativity in their need to name their beach houses.  We walked out on the sand, breathed in the sea air and found a spot to lay in the overcast sun.  I immediately went in the water, feeling the waves crash around me.  It felt so good.  I went to lay in the sun, shamed into keeping on my shorts by the buff old ladies running on the beach and ogled the one young man on the beach instead.  After a few hours, we went back to Jill's to change and go eat dinner, being led to the most expensive Chinese buffet ever by my "adopted" "cousin" (apparently my aunt's penchant for taking in stray dogs is only rivaled by her need to rescue teens in distress).  Chelsea and I drank $12 worth of water, found some kick ass koozies and went back to the house, exhausted.  The rest of the evening is mostly a blur, something about Miller High Life, a woman named Annette who wants to be like me when she grows up, and Trivial Pursuit.  Bed.

We got up at some point and went to the beach before it could rain.  We agreed to apply sunscreen once an hour, on the hour.  We thought we succeeded, but soon found that we did not, and that we were both burned.  That aside, it was one of the most enjoyable days at the beach I have ever experienced.  The sun was shining, it was not too hot, the ocean was blue and lovely.  Those damn old ladies and their hot legs did make an appearance, but other than that, it was a great day at the beach.  Until we left and realized how burned we were.  We went back to the house and showered and went in search of food.  We wanted a local pizza place, so Mischelle directed us to Mama Bella's, which we were told was next to The Hot Dog Queen.  She was not joking, there is a place called The Hot Dog Queen.  We went to Mama Bella's and met the nicest woman ever, who gave us free drinks as she hand made our pizza.  Quella pizza era migliore pizza.  It was so good.  We all watched Hotel for Dogs and soon went to bed.  

We got up early on Wednesday, as we were leaving that afternoon and wanted to have a full day.  We did, however, wish to remain fully clothed to avoid any further sun damage.  Mischelle suggested we go to a pier in Garden City.  Piers always make me think of the 1940s for some reason, despite the number of people in ill fitting swim suits.  We took pictures of a pelican and then stared at the ocean for close to an hour (and when I say "ocean", I mean people in the water and when I say "people" I mean boys and when I say "boys" I mean males who look much older from far away but once you get close to them you realize they are probably still in highschool).  We bought more kick ass koozies and I finally got a hot dog.  We made our way back to the house, packed, kissed all the dogs good-bye, posed for party boat pictures and started home.  

I'm pretty sure if there is something you can think of that could go wrong while you're on a long drive, that thing happened to us on the way home.  First, we were caught in a scene from Twister which resulted in us pulled off on the side of the road cramming kit-kats down our throats to distract from the monsoon.  THEN, we were happened upon Columbia, South Carolina at 5pm which is apparently South Carolina time for "let's all get into pretty bad wrecks".  We saw at least three wrecks + what had to have been rush hour traffic.  It took us half an hour to go like two miles.  THEN, we started hearing this weird flapping sound.  We pulled off the road and saw that a piece of Chelsea's car had come unhinged.  We deemed the piece unimportant and kept driving.  It took us over SIX HOURS to get back to Athens, and when we did, it was a relief.  

Overall, it was a great time.  It was very chill, very relaxing, which is exactly what we both wanted.  I had a pretty brutal spring semester and am taking two summer classes that start next week, so this was a very welcome break from school, work and Athens.  But I am glad to be home, glad my sunburn is healing, glad that I have the knowledge that Camp Lesbian is only 5.5-6 hours away.  

fml

Summer is here and I have been surprised to find how much time it takes to do absoultely close to nothing. One of my many distractions, besides craigslist and library books, is this absolutely hliarious website. I mean, it probably isn't as funny as if I had just composed some brilliant blog about how I had dinner with/taught English (and maybe a little French too hehe) to a Czech guy last night, but close.

fml

all of my beeswax

I am not very trendy.  I am usually one of the last people to know or try something.

I'll give you a moment to silently disagree with that.

I STILL don't have a digital camera and I think was the last person on earth to play guitar hero.  

HOWEVER

If there is one thing I'm hip to, it is lip product.  

When I was in the second grade, my family moved to Conyers, Georgia where my dad worked as the operations manager at Underground Atlanta.  At the mall, there was a store The Nature Store or something like that.  There, they sold a little known product called Burt's Bees.  

Even at a young age, I was a lip balm connoisseur.  I had tried them all, Chaptstick, Lip Smackers, SoftLips.  They all paled in comparison to this minty balm that came in the yellow tin.  My father brought some home one day to me and I have never looked back.  I very rarely strayed, always having a little tin of minty delight in my pocket.  

Then, we moved back to Danielsville.  And I lost my beloved Nature Store or whatever it was called, along with my lip balm.  

BUT ALAS, my mother, being the herbalist that she is, discovered my sweet nectar at Phoenix, a store that used to be downtown on Pulaski but has since moved to Epps Bridge.  There, they sold my beloved balm.  My friends began trying it, complaining that it would sting their lips, but eventually loving the way it made their lips feel.  I soon had half of Danielsville using my beloved product.  

You all know how the rest of this story goes.  Burt's Bees is now a booming business, selling not just the lip balm, but glosses, lipsticks, and all kinds of bath products.  They also have a variety of lip balms, the original, honey and pomegranate, all of which I enjoy (warning: DO NOT try the LifeGuard kind OR the clove.  grossgrossgross).  Now, when I see Burt's Bees selling at Target and WalMart, I sigh, and think about how I singlehandedly made that company flourish.  

Ok, not really.  But I have purchased goodness knows how many dollars worth of Burt's products, and will continue to do so.  Thanks, Burt!  And thanks, bees!