Our bodies, ourselves...I don't think we'll ever learn

I am now, and have been for many years, intensely fascinated with the concept of body image, most particularly as it relates to woman, and most specifically (though not exclusively) to American women.
A review of the body image of the American woman reveals a number of interesting characteristics. The roaring twenties brought with it the flapper, a fashion style that played on the roundness of a woman's figure, while also disguising it's more ample areas. As the decades passed, the prepubescent "boy body" has become prevalent in the American standard of beauty. We strive to be thinner; the figure that Twiggy debuted to us in the sixties, of lean, angular limbs, boyish angles and no breasts, took hold. Already, American women had begun to worry about their figures, worry about the roundness of their hips and the curve of their stomachs. Where once the Rubenesque figure spoke of money and breeding, it quickly lost ground in a country over run with prosperity and good fortune. So, time flows by, and women try more and more to repress those things that make them female. The caloric intake recommended by modern diets is the equivalent of the caloric intake maintained at Nazi prison camps as "starvation rations"; what can this say about us, except that we as females are only as good as the number of bones that can be glimpsed beneath our skin, the flatness of our breast, the lack of hip or butt, the very features that once identified us as female and beautiful?
I mention all this because we have become a culture of repression. Yet by the same standard, I really wonder what the next generations of women will strive to achieve. For years now, science has been reporting that girls are entering puberty earlier and earlier. They are showing first and secondary sex characteristics at much earlier ages that even my generation. As a result, their baby fat spills almost immediately into more mature lines and curves. An article in Double X ezine (http://www.doublex.com/section/health-science/younger-girls-bigger-breasts-are-chemicals-blame) makes me wonder if nature is not having a laugh on all of us. That which we are struggling so hard against is now happening beyond our control. For our own bodies, we can botox, stretch, and remold almost anything we want, but not so for our daughters. What's frightening to me is to wonder if this won't mean that the plastic surgery that is becoming so common place will just start at an earlier age, or will this earlier entrance into womanhood make us step back and embrace the bodies we are meant to have? It's disturbing to think that this earlier puberty may be caused by the hormones and chemicals that are everpresent in our food supply, but maybe it will force our hand. Perhaps, instead of lip service to healthier bodies, we will once again see curves as beautiful.

Lazy days...

I'm still trying to decide on a focus for this blog. In the meantime, this will wind up becoming a place where I let random thoughts accumulate. So far today, I have:
-had a healthy breakfast
-had an unhealthy lunch
-gotten fried at the beach
-annoyed my boyfriend (I think) with my (definitely) childish behavior
-taken a nap
Overall, not much of anything truly necessary or productive. Meeting the bff for drinks later on.
Is this what most people do on weekends? A random assortment of activities, errands, food? I feel very anxious still, but much more relaxed than before. It's such an awful feeling, this anxiety. It's like your skin won't stop crawling. But perhaps anxiety will encourage the creative flow?
On more interesting topics. Amazon.com earlier this week remotely removed from it's customer's Kindles Orwell's 1984. To an extent, I find the irony in this amazing. A novel entrenched in the idea that we are being watched, the novel that birthed the phrase and idea of "Big Brother", where the main character makes a living by deleting items from newspapers to help destroy the past?? That's crazy! In the single moment that Amazon made their decision, which they explained only as there being something wrong with the particular version, I believe going so far as to say it's an unlicensed copy of the novel, they've determined the future of the banned book. I'm paraphrasing to an extent here what I read in several articles that were posted immediately after this fall out. As a Slate.com article pointed out, we now lose our true ownership of novels, when we are essentially leasing them. Think of the future of the personal library. No more walking into someone's home, perusing their shelves and seeing their tastes, able to make a comment on a title on their shelf. What about those of us who are collectors? I cherish my leatherbound copies of The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit. In accepting the Kindle and other e-book readers of the same ilk, we are taking away the very pleasure of a book.
What an awful thought! To no longer have the pleasure of pages underneath your fingers, to no longer be enveloped in the scent of a room filled with books. I want to dog ear the pages of my mass markets, I want to underline sentences that speak to me, I want to write in the margins of my reference books. I want to read a book so often that my love for it is written in the wear of the corners and the creases in the spine. I want to pass that same copy onto someone else, to share in that singular piece of creative love. In bringing the written word, the novel, down to electronic form, in many ways we are violating the heart and soul of the novel. I think many authors past would cringe to think that their words would be relegated to the digital form, and that no one would ever truly own a book again.

New Beginnings

I recently visited San Francisco, and while there, found my way to a lot of locals spots and most of the tourist traps available. One our last day there, before heading back to the hotel to prepare for our 3:30 a.m. wake-up call in preparation of our EARLY flight, we made our way to China Town. In general, I am not a hard and fast believer of horoscopes, zodiacs, and that ilk. But...I'm a Cancer, and I'm a LOT like my sign. And in the Chinese Zodiac, I was born in the Year of the Rat.

Now, I mention all this as an explanation for why I'm starting this blog. While giggling over various knick knacks meant to sell hapless tourists a piece of the Orient, by way of the city on the bay, I happened upon little scrolls that talk about your Chinese zodiac. For mine, the Rat (how am I both a rat and a cancer?) it opined that for the first part of my life, I had done little to distinguish myself. At first, affronted, the more I pondered the more I came to the realization that I really haven't done much to make myself stand out. And I want to be a copywriter. I want to take over the world. I want to travel to corners of the world and see things that blow my mind. I desire greatness, I always have. So perhaps this is the time to grasp it. To "achieve my potential", or, as a teacher I had in high school told me upon graduation, she couldn't wait to see what I did "with all that talent you've been sitting on for four years". I remember being really offended by that. Though perhaps with my recent birthday, I have also gained knowledge, or at least the benefit of hindsight.

So, despite my ramblings, I am going to attempt this blog. Hopefully, I will hone some skills. I will improve my writing. And maybe, just maybe, find some people who actually care about what I have to say.