oh noes!

what happened to Meg Ryan's face?

i saw her on the cover of a magazine... and i was kind of afraid. poor meg ryan, why would you do that?

... i don't have much else to say on the matter. well... that might be a lie.

so plastic surgery... hm. it's a tricky one. i mean, its good for people who get reconstructive surgery because their face was broken or something, but it's kind of ridiculous for others. but, the doctors make soooooooooo much money, it's never going to stop.
and i guess it all boils down to the extreme shallowness/ focus on appearance that plagues our society. i'm not going to lie, i'm affected as much as anyone else. and even though i try NOT to be... sometimes i just can't help myself. and its probably how we are all raised and all that. and oh my god the magazines don't help in the least. i remember the first issue of Teen magazine i ever got. i'm pretty sure Jennifer Love Hewitt was on the cover, and it was right around when Can't Hardly Wait was coming out. (brief interlude as i look up dates). so i'm guessing it was summer of 1998. that would have put me between 7th and 8th grade. this also happened to be the summer i started growing my hair out and decided AGAINST wearing wind suit pants all the time. strange coincidence? i think not.
i didn't want to look like a boy any more (not that i did want to in the first place, that's just sort of how it turned out) and the land of teen magazines was where i ended up in. i was steeped in teen culture for the next five years. and i kept most of my copies as well. i had three paper boxes under my bed full of magazines: Teen, Teen People, Cosmo!Girl, Twist, YM, Seventeen... eventually, Twist went under and went to TeenVogue, and then YM died and switched to ElleGirl. oh my, my my. it's no wonder that teenagers get distorted perceptions of what they should look like! sure, there were always stories about girls who hated their bodies and then after much trauma accepted themselves, by no means am i shunning their stories. i think they are important, and teens should read about the dangers of eating disorders and the like. BUT they are completely overwhelmed with what to wear this season, and pages upon pages of fashion spreads along with tons of advertisements, all of which were full of stick thin girls and gorgeous men.
way to put pressure on both of the sexes. girls have to be skinny and men have to be muscular and have chiseled features. oh dear me.
so there was that along with all of the celebrity gossip, who was with who, look at all the pretty boys, la de da. so like i said... i was steeped in this stuff. i had my fair share of celebrity crushes and i plastered my walls solid with pictures. (oh i have photo documentation for anyone interested). I think my favorite magazine was Twist, they had more stuff about pop culture instead of fashion. i think that's why i liked it and why it went under. three pages about books? no way! i'm getting off topic. so as i'm surrounded by the pictures of Popsicle-stick girls, you can bet i'm doubting myself. i in no way, shape, or form come CLOSE to them. and that was high school. until senior year. where i a) spent half of my summer in Washington actually DOING things and being active and such, b) got my eyebrow pierced, c) was no longer in the shadow of my big sister and d) didn't really care any more.
to hell with beauty magazines! i'm much to busy doing theatre and such to read such rubbish. and the the clouds parted, and sun shone down on me, and i was okay.

i digress... plastic surgery. i think it's silly for many people, but i also think that many of them feel they NEED it. just like they NEED to be beautiful. i wrote a whole paper on this (which, consequently got chosen for a symposium and published). i don't think i know anyone who has gotten PS, and i'm slightly intrigued by those that do. why do you feel you need to fit in so badly? has society put that much pressure on you? is life so bad the way you are?
maybe it is. there have been studies that prove that people mentally judge others by the way they look. i know i do. why lie? i can be incredibly superficial. look at how i started this entry.

i like to think that i am somewhat better that just judging by appearance. sure, when Incredibly Hot BECA Guy comes into the prop shop, i practically melt, and i about died yesterday when he shook my hand. BUT, i love the skinny geeky guys too (sometimes too much... le sigh).

damn our society and the freakish attention to appearance.


*if you actually made it through this whole post... you rock hardcore.