Monday, December 28, 2009

Exercise...


...is good for the soul.

is good for the body.

keeps me sane (relatively).

is an essential part of a healthy life. The sooner I learn to remember this, the better.

is my comfort zone

is something I can control. When everything else is too much for me, I exercise. I can force one foot in front of the other. I can do one more rep. I can't control the unknown, but my physical body is something I can control.

makes me feel skinny.

helps control my anxiety and emotions.

lets me eat chocolate and not feel guilty.

isn't just about looking good, its about being able to live life.

makes me happy.



just some observations from a day improved by exercise.
that is all.

the end.

Wednesday, December 23, 2009

America...


has me absolutely disgusted right now. Well, not America itself, but commercialization and just random aspects about culture here. But, before I go on with my rant I should let you know that I had planned on getting on and updating on some more relevant life stuff, but that will just have to wait. This is what is on my mind.

I am disgusted by fast food. It is a motley of mediocre, malnourishing foods! I went to the mall yesterday and was disturbed by the food industry today. I have been trying to eat healthier recently and my awareness of healthy eating has made me hyper aware of unhealthy eating. I became so frustrated when I saw that everything around me was either unhealthy or healthy and gross. I'm not saying I want my carrot to taste like a Big Mac. When I say gross, I mean that either the healthy food wasn't fresh or the hygeine was poor enough that I didn't dare eat uncooked food at that facility. Now, I'm not saying all places are this gross. But, the one I was at appearently was. Everyone surrounding me didn't seem to care that they were eating vitamin deficient, artery clogging foods. What has our nation come to? We look at food as merely an entertainment. We need to be entertained. Like every other activity Americans take part in, the process of providing our bodies with nutritional fuel has become one of delighting our taste buds only. If you want to take a look at some healthy food solutions go to Linda's blog, she has some great ideas on healthy living.

My other qualm with America at the moment is perhaps actually more to do with myself. I went shopping for my Christmas clothes yesterday. While I was shopping I was bothered by the selection of clothes I was presented with. Everything was so commercialized. I felt like everything I would pick out would make me look like every other person walking down the street. Either I would look like an American Eagle poster ad or some wanna be individualist in bohemian garb. Nothing was completely original. It was all just the process of style movements. We, as a people are subject to those high end fashion executives that sit in their snooty outfits and debate over whether the vogue color for this season should be cream or ecru! It is like in A Devil Wears Pradaand Anne Hatheway is a bit amused by the ridiculous process of just picking a design. She says she is still getting used to all this fashion "stuff" when Meryl Streep's (genius!) character snaps back,

"This... 'stuff'? Oh... ok. I see, you think this has nothing to do with you. You go to your closet and you select out, oh I don't know, that lumpy blue sweater, for instance, because you're trying to tell the world that you take yourself too seriously to care about what you put on your back. But what you don't know is that that sweater is not just blue, it's not turquoise, it's not lapis, it's actually cerulean. You're also blithely unaware of the fact that in 2002, Oscar De La Renta did a collection of cerulean gowns. And then I think it was Yves St Laurent, wasn't it, who showed cerulean military jackets? I think we need a jacket here. And then cerulean quickly showed up in the collections of 8 different designers. Then it filtered down through the department stores and then trickled on down into some tragic casual corner where you, no doubt, fished it out of some clearance bin. However, that blue represents millions of dollars and countless jobs and so it's sort of comical how you think that you've made a choice that exempts you from the fashion industry when, in fact, you're wearing the sweater that was selected for you by the people in this room. From a pile of stuff."


That is what I mean! We are just a product of the industry. If some head honcho fashion designer just broke up with their boyfriend who was wearing teal at the time, no one will probably be wearing teal for a whole season! Not life changing, I know, but odd to think about, just how coddled we are by the fashion industry. They tell us something looks good by putting it in a magazine. We come to beleive that is fashionable and will make us happy. We go to the store and buy that, only to find a few months later that what is fashionable-and therefore will make us happy-has changed!

Now, there is also the situation where a person is trying to NOT follow the fashion industry. Such as what I attempted to believe I could do. I don't mind following trends, and I admittedly want to look good. However, I want to feel original. I want to look like me, not like 50 other girls walking down the street. But try as a I might to be original, I felt like everything I tried on was exactly like what everyone else was wearing in this conglomeration of commercialized society. So, I suppose this is where it comes back to me. I am the one who is obsessed with standing out, with being different. Perhaps if I didn't have any drive to associate my individuality with my clothing this wouldn't be a problem. Most people don't have this issue when they go shopping, but I can't help but feel like when I am picking out that blue sweater to make a statement, all that really is happening is me playing into the hands of "the man."

I realize this is not a huge problem. There are people starving in Africa, the rainforest is dissappearing, and someone really needs to save those whales. And, I will most likely feel differently tomorrow and decide to eat some fries and buy a new wardrobe, but for now, this is how I feel.

Man, I sound like a hippy.