"Waiting, waiting, waiting.

Waiting for him to make a move.

Doesn't he know
He's gonna be my salvation?

It's lovely that he is caring, compassionate, and politically correct,
but I need him to kiss me right now."

- Elizabeth Wurtzel, Prozac Nation

Like everyone else, I find myself in moments of weakness, blaming popular culture. These days, it seems to be the source of all that is evil – that is, all that is heavily fabricated, photoshopped, edited and passed off as effortless. Nonetheless, it is a source we all guiltily indulge our fantasies in.

I was doing my daily blog-surfing when I came across an article where the author questions her “ethical problems” in her article aptly titled “A Healthy Love of Fashion?,” with her views on whether or not she should “play into the whole fashion machine”. Her ethical dilemma was whether or not she should be supporting the falsity of the fashion world within popular culture. A world of 6 feet tall, 101.2 pound, professionally made up, tanned, air-brushed goddesses parading their photoshopped perfection along with other forms of chiseled flawlessness under specific lighting conditions and fan machines, all over television, magazines, billboards, and sometimes, across the street. She wonders, with her blog, if she should be okay endorsing pictures with women “whose upper [arms are] thinner than [their lower arms], sunken cheeks, clothes hanging on for dear life”, and the subjecting of “regular” consumers to the unhealthy standards by which these models are portraying.

This dilemma of Health versus Fashion raises so many issues to tackle – the politics of Individualism, Consumerism, Capitalism, the “Mythical Norm”, Naomi Wolf's infamous concept of the Beauty Myth, Elitism, several points from Queer theory, and millions of other contemporary concerns that mass media has opened up to us. Today however, I will only tackle one issue – my opinion.

Despite my wretchedly ordinary middle-class childhood, I live in an imaginary world where God wears Prada. Jesus in Armani, and Mother Mary, naturally, in Chanel. Allah, and his angels then, will be rebels in Alexander McQueen and Balenciaga. As for Buddha and his disciples, definitely in Calvin Klein, or Alexander Wang, rocking that whole street, casual chic. I equate emaciation and luxury with glamour, and reject “earthiness”. The combination of beautiful, sculpted faces, protruding ribs and skin of velvet served on a plate of grandeur speak to me as a form of exclusiveness, control and discipline, which of course it is. It is a fantasy where “reality” should not be allowed in, just as how I loathe when “day-to-day” sexual attractiveness and “style” is used in the same context. I do admit that they are inexplicably linked , but it is only offensive to put them in the same realm.

That being said, I will not glamourize the difficulties. From as early as I can remember holding Barbie over the sink as I brutalized its blonde synthetic hair, I reckoned myself fat, asian, and hideous. I quit sports by the age of eight in primary school, no longer able to bear the thought of someone watching me hurl my pork chops across any field, or see my chunky rolls squeezed into an unfashionable navy one-piece swim suit, despite having learnt to swim probably the same time I learnt to walk. I stopped wearing skirts or dresses till I gave in to peer pressure at 16, everything I wore was at least 3 sizes bigger, I spent hours scrutinizing my face and body in a mirror, food was a huge battle of wills, and Shame, oh Shame, my very special BFF. Internalized shame that I was, and never have been, or will be, anything like what I passionately love and covet will probably never go away.

Yes I am a feminist, and yes, I am a “qualified” sociologist now, but my views about things, hadn't really changed that much. School just taught me how to articulate better. I am fully aware of the contradictions – where people “should” to just be happy to be “themselves”, and mass media is a powerful vehicle to sell middle-class consumers unnecessary products and services – but these shameful desires of mine haven't gone away one bit. I still look back at a time where I had multivitamins for meals followed by a total of 3 hours on the treadmill or elliptical each day with a sort of insane pride, and regret that I stopped. These days, in Fort McMurray, I just feel too tired and lazy. Struggles with food, body image, self esteem, and these very contradictions are but quiet hourly mental activities. Nonetheless, I suppose this is where I would insert a disclaimer that (of course) my reality doesn't follow the same rules. But please, more fashion editorials, controversial images, Gossip Girl, and Sex and the City, where fashion is taken seriously, and no means to any lame "real" sexual end. Reality is mostly just painful.

Unhealthy? Definitely.

More? Aye for me.

The only question is, will we let our children go through the same thing? Where would we draw the line?

And yet another familiar venture into modern day narcissism. I have never really been a facebook-twitter-online social network-kind of girl. I have no desire to prove i have 700 friends, ensure that they are aware of my every move, take a billion pictures of myself everyday and scrounge for flattering ones to plaster all over publically accessible pages, along with little non-witty blurbs. Don't get me wrong, i am in no way hating on these social butterflies. I observe them with vicarious excitement-which is probably worse.

Instead, like most old-fashioned bloggers, i intend to impose lengthy, random, pessimistic and mostly unnecessary opinions and observations about all that is wrong with the world, hair, untoned glutes, fashion, bildungsroman, and my shiteous life in Fort Mcmurray onto a minuscule community in cyberspace, comprising individuals who are now obligated to continually humor this insufferable hobby of mine upon reading this.

Like Don DeLillo, one of my favourite writers, says: "writing is a concentrated form of thinking...a young writer sees that with words he can place himself more clearly into the world. Words on a page, that's all it takes to help him separate himself from the forces around him, streets and people and pressures and feelings. He learns to think about these things, to ride his own sentences into new perceptions." I totally agree, but really though, i just want to talk about myself and pretend people look at the shit i create.

Welcome, and thanks for coming out.