They know zip...

I don’t watch a lot of TV but I do watch, when I remember, America’s Next Top Model. Why? It fascinates me what is considered beautiful. If you have never seen it – click here - http://www.ctv.ca/AmericasNextTopModel.aspx. 

Yep, in many ways it’s pretty superficial and that interests me because that world is so far removed from my own that it has the train wreck quality to it that’s interesting. The current season on TV in Oz has a plus-size model called Whitney on it.  I checked – she goes on to win. I also read the back page of books.  Ah - it’s what I do. Anyway I look at this supposed plus sized woman and think are you mad? There is no way she is and if she’s plus sized what does that make women who are bigger than her? What are they called? Super sized? Gigantic?  If their self esteem is low, how are they made to feel?

No wonder there are so many women beaten down by how society views their look or body type if someone like Whitney is considered plus sized and designers agonize over how to dress her.

Funny old world with some crazy arsed thoughts out there…

Beauty – form your own opinion. The “experts” know zip.

  

Give me strength over beauty any day...

I went for a long Sunday morning amble through the Cairns Botanical Gardens. They have massive trees that are undoubtedly a gazillion years old or maybe not. Maybe half a gazillion. This one, in the pic above, while not one of the prettier ones, impressed me the most by its sheer girth and strength.  It had a look that said ‘I’ve been standing here longer than any of your buggers have been alive and I’m not about to move or change for you or anyone.’  Yeah. I like that. Strength and determination kicks pretty’s arse.    

Note to self...

I was doing my usual Sunday morning run along the Cairns Esplanade, nodding and hello-ing the usual people and I passed this woman. I always make a point of saying hello to her. She never says hello back. She looks straight ahead like she is totally focused on something. She’s painfully, to my mind unhealthily, stick thin. I’m guessing she’s anorexic. I don’t know. As she runs past, she worries me. A lot. When I see her, I think about how we do a lot of crazy, questionable and hurtful stuff to ourselves in the supposed name of beauty and wanting to fit in and how our mind is our best weapon but also our worst enemy. How do you control that? Fix it? Is self belief enough? Do you stop reading about who and what is perceived as supposedly beautiful so you don’t measure yourself by that?  Too fat? Too thin? Seriously, when you think about it, who made up the rules that have been driving women crazily obsessing for centuries?  When will we allow ourselves to make our own rules and stick by them?

As for the woman? I’ll still keep saying hello to her. Maybe one day she’ll say it back. Maybe she won’t. Maybe she’ll want to chat to the crazy haired, sweaty woman who drives her mad every Sunday morning by saying hello. I’m always up for a chat about stuff. 

Thought for today...

So, I was at the Docs waiting to get a flu shot and test results and I was skimming through a magazine as you do.  I came across this article about how easy it now was to have fat sucked out of your arse and put into your face to plump it up and get rid of wrinkles. I don’t know that I would put butt fat in my face because I cover my arse for a reason. I don’t want to look at my arse and frankly, it’s not often I have to contemplate it so having it literally in my face would be extremely confronting. And have parts of your arse on your face? Does that make you a butt head?  I believe that’s a no to being arsed-face.

Plus sized? Oh piss off...

http://www.news.com.au/entertainment/fashion/plus-size-model-robyn-lawley-the-first-plus-size-model-to-feature-in-vogue-australia/story-e6frfn7i-1226107470974

Um, no, while she is a stunning woman she is not 'plus sized'. She is size 12-14. This tells women that size they are fat and it makes women who are 16 - 36 in size range feel like crap. Vogue? Get real.

A large percentage of the world is not thin. They are overweight. Plus sized is politically correct bullshit designed to segregate and undermine women. If Marilyn Monroe was alive today she would be called fat. Go figure that out.

Plus sized? Oh piss off.

Size me not…

CURVY women have no place on the catwalk, iconic German fashion designer Karl Lagerfeld was quoted as saying, after a magazine said it was banning skinny models in favour of "real women".

"No one wants to see curvy women," Lagerfeld was quoted as saying on the website of news magazine Focus yesterday.
http://www.news.com.au/story/0,27574,26197025-23109,00.html

I heard this on the radio this morning as I was driving to work and my first thought was ‘what a wanker’ and why are we even listening to a nong like this? Why are we allowing him to dictate fashion when clearly he appears to have no idea what a woman looks like.

I don’t know about you but practically every woman I know has curves – some in abundance. We have arses and boobs and hips. It’s what makes us women. I don’t think fashion designers quite understand that. No woman I know is a stick figure. To say ‘No one wants to see curvy women’ is a wild overstatement with no basis in fact. I’m happy he has an opinion however men like this perpetuate anorexia, bulimia and depression. They pick at a woman’s self esteem until she believes she is ugly. No woman could measure up to the ideal of perpetually thin and beautiful. It’s not possible.

The comment I get most from my books? Readers like that the heroines are not small, waif like creatures. They’re not size 2 – what a ridiculous measurement – and while the heroines would maybe like to lose some pounds, they’re not going to fall apart if that doesn’t happen. They’re fit, strong and healthy. They’re smart and their independent regardless of what size they are.

Size is what you make it – do not allow someone to dictate your happiness or slap at your pride. If you feel good, you look good regardless what the label says. Beauty is all about confidence.

So I say to men like this, get into the 21st century, sunshine. Look at the women in the street. They ain’t stick figures.

www.amarindajones.com
www.amarindajones.blogspot.com
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About time…

"It's about representing people of all different sizes and all different looks and ensuring people know that it's OK not to (be skinny)," she said.
Under the code, magazines and advertisements would be forced to disclose whether a model's image had been digitally enhanced.
"We know so often that when we see images that people are aspiring to look like, they have been altered and enhanced," she said.
"We need to have a transparent system where people realise the models in those pictures don't look like that themselves and disclosing when there's been altered or enhanced images."

Click here for more.

Australia is looking at introducing a code of conduct when it comes to the portrayal of women in magazines. What does that mean? Basically they are trying to rid the perception that to be thin is to be beautiful. I think we all know that is a load of crap. We also know that most magazine photographs are air brushed to make someone look thinner or less wrinkled or in some cases endow them with was more cleavage. I have never understood this. Yes, I suppose you could say that these magazines are selling dreams of what people aspire to be. You could say that and I would have to vehemently disagree with you. They are selling false reality to the insecure and making money from it. Wankers. I have always believed that no one should measure themselves against another let alone the media’s perception of beauty. That is just wrong and in some cases tragic. If thats the dream then I would rather snore my way through it.

I refuse to be bullied into thinking that I may be so flawed that I must use the new wonder cream – Tibetan Yak Spit – or that to look beautiful in the eyes of the man I love that I must be impossibly thin. Am I flawed? You betcha I am and everyone else on the planet is as well – hence the air brushing of pictures. I hope this code of conduct works. I hope the next generation of women grow up not to worry about having to fit some insane, unrealistic perception of beauty. Do I think this code will work? No. Because there will always be some influential dickhead out there willing to work around the code and trade on weakness. How do we stop people like this other than using a cattle prod? By refusing to fall for the crap they espouse, by judging someone by the look in their eye and the strength of their words and by telling these dipsticks that their thoughts are ugly and there is not enough cream or air brushing in the work to fix that.

www.amarindajones.com
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/AmarindaJonesNewsletter/
Go ahead: Live with abandon. Be outrageous at any age. What are you saving your best self for?

Beauty versus self-belief

I know that I've got big ears and a big forehead and that my hair sticks up. But I'm happy with myself. I'm not necessarily trying to win a beauty pageant here-- Clay Aiken

Beauty can't amuse you, but brainwork - reading, writing, thinking - can -- Helen Gurley Brown

The beauty that addresses itself to the eyes is only the spell of the moment; the eye of the body is not always that of the soul-- George Sand

I was reading an article about what is considered beauty. They were trying to make people believe that if they looked like this or that celebrity then they would be beautiful. In my less than humble opinion - what a load of crap. I subscribe to the corny but very true ‘beauty is in the eye of the beholder.’

When I was a kid – and surprisingly I was a child – probably for a couple of years – I asked my mother would I be pretty when I grew up. She said no. Now she wasn’t being harsh or horrible – she was just being realistic and I am thankful for being brought up being realistic. It has saved my arse many a time. I am not beautiful and never have been and that’s okay with me. Now, before you think – My, Amarinda is down on herself today – I’m not. I still believe in myself 110% and I know I am fantastic. No change in the status quo there. But I have never had pretensions to beauty so I am not upset at people’s opinions of how I look. I am who I am – that’s the Popeye theory of life and he loved Olive Oyl even though some may have considered Olive plain. She was beautiful to him and that’s all that mattered. I love me as I am and that’s all that matters.

My oldest brother used to continuously tell me as I was growing up that I was ugly. He was an idiot child. As a teenager that upset me but as an adult I can look at him and think there is much ugliness within him that I cannot and will never find attractive in any person. So what is attraction? To me, I like to hear what people’s thoughts are. I like someone that can look me in the eye as they speak because they make me believe in them as a person. I love a good sense of humour and confidence is wildly appealing. I find that’s attractive and sexy. The outside appearance of a man has never meant anything to me. Oh sure it may be the thing you look at first but it’s just the outside packaging and don’t we always discard that to get to the heart of a thing?

So why should people care about being beautiful? I personally don’t see the need to care. Be yourself. If people like or love you – great – if they don’t – well they don’t and you move on in your life without them. And yes, while some celebrities appear outwardly attractive, who are they really? We don’t know anything about them other than what is written in a magazine etc. How can you base what’s beautiful on someone else’s opinion? So, I say lets all be realistic and have the strength to accept who you are and what you look like and avoid so called beauty tips. You are an original so why try to look like someone else?

Changing subject as I do…I know absolutely nothing about football – Rugby league – other than the players wear short shorts and have very nice, powerful looking thighs. Actually sport in general is a foreign world to me. Apart from playing netball when I was a kid – I was in a team unfortunately called the ‘snowflakes’ and didn’t we pay for that name when we played the ‘highly spirited’ (vicious) Catholic school team called the ‘Cherokees’ – I don’t get the attraction of sport. Anyway, last night they had the Centenary Test on television. It was a football game that was between Australia and New Zealand celebrating 100 years of football. Why do I mention it if I have no idea of what football or sport is about? I always watch the start of any game when a Kiwi team is involved as I love watching them do the Haka before the game. It’s very tribal, masculine and powerful. What is the Haka?

Haka - a cultural ceremony display with a chant performed by many Southern Pacific teams as a challenge before a match at the center of the pitch.http://www.scrum.com/954_957.php.

There are of course many different forms of a Haka. Check one of them out here. I believe it’s the best part of Rugby League. I turn the TV off after that.

Quel controversy. Did they pelvic thrust or not? There has been a lot of hoo-ha over whether a bunch of models doing a scripted dance routine did the pelvic thrust or not to God Bless The USA at the 2008 RT convention or not. Don’t some people get their knickers in a knot over the smallest things? Anyway I saw the video on You Tube morning. I saw nothing offensive about it. In fact it looked about as sexy as a cheese sandwich. But I suppose it gave people something to get ‘outraged’ over and I feel people need to have a hobby and outrage is just as good as any other past time to have. I personally have always found scripted male strippers quite funny. Call me crazy but men gyrating to music and trying to look sexy while remembering to step, step, unbutton shirt, smile and turn, wiggle arse and focus attention on a crowd of tipsy women just does nothing for me but make me laugh and I guess that’s not a bad thing. Now sexy to me is an unscripted, private, consensual strip tease by your man. That is a completely different. Don’t you agree?

De-Promptelized today. Hallelujah. A bit of a wasted day waiting for connection, men clumping around the house etc yet despite that I feel lighter already knowing I deal with no more crap from the other mob. And yes Barbara, you can also use this as part of your creative weight loss routine. I also organized to change my mobile (cell phone) over as well as the landline/internet. I feel kind of bad about this as the mobile I have now is one I have had for 3 years. It has been through a lot with me. I have dropped it that many times and yet it has never stopped working, It is battered and chipped and the silver casing is nicked and scratched yet it still works albeit with a pissed off attitude at times. A bit like myself really…except I’m not silver…though I do wear only silver rings on my left hand and gold on my right. Why? I just do. Anyway back to the mobile. It’s a tough little Motorola. I’ll keep it in case the new whipper snapper version can’t hack the being dropped on its head pace. Hopefully the new mobile phone company can handle the trees that surround my house – it’s a bit like a fortress. The current company can’t. If someone calls me on the mobile I have to go out into the middle of the road and speak. That’s not really conducive to private conversations is it?

www.freewebs.com/amarindajones/
Go ahead: Live with abandon. Be outrageous at any age. What are you saving your best self for?