The Beginning.

Hello. And welcome.

The title of my blog is, obviously, a riff on the über-liberal blog of (almost) the same name. However, unlike that blog, there won't be any über-liberal political claptrap. In fact, this blog is meant not to uplift the media, but to skewer it for its injustices.

This won't be a very pretty blog; the more uncomfortable and/or angry it makes you, all the better. In my opinion, it is only through pushing through this that real change can ever be affected. Hopefully, in time, you'll want to unplug from the torture machine as I have.

What, specifically, is it that the media does in this case? you might wonder.

THE MEDIA AND ITS ADJUNCTS HAVE BEEN DIRECTLY RESPONSIBLE FOR THE UNATTAINABLE IDEAL OF FEMININE BEAUTY THAT IS SHOVED DOWN THE THROATS OF FIRST-WORLD SOCIETY ON A DAILY BASIS. And, sadly enough, it has begun to afflict Second- and Third-World civilizations, as well.

Many books have taken this idea and expanded upon it. I'm not here to do that. Rather, I'm here to document my personal struggle against their backdrops. Before, only those who knew me very well were privy to how I felt inside; even fewer knew the awful details. However, it's 2013 and shit needs to shift away from the current, unsustainable model. Hence, here I am.

1988.

My story begins in the fall of 1988. I had just started my freshman year of high school, and my absentee grandmother had returned home for a brief period before jetting off again for more exotic locales. Up until that point, I had not really understood the word 'fat'; well, at least, not in a ridiculous sense. I ate loads like every other teenaged girl without care as to what might land on my thighs. Exercise wasn't a chore back then; I skateboarded, ran around the block, rode my bike with my friends, and took jazz dance three times a week. It was FUN---a concept that is now alien to me and indescribably remote. Up until the day my grandmother arrived back in town, I never considered myself even 'curvy'. However, biology was soon catching up to my boyish physique. It seemed like overnight, I developed breasts, a butt, and thighs which seemed to not behave. Clothes didn't fit right; in fact, my jeans felt suspiciously like sausage casings. I was uncomfortable with my new figure---I didn't like it at all. Upon seeing my grandmother for the first time in nearly a year, she exclaimed: "Wow!! Jennifer, you've really filled out!" It was all I could do to stop myself from either socking her in the face or running away. She knew her comment had gone over like a lead balloon. Quickly, she changed the subject, and nothing more was said. Suddenly, however, I became fixated on those sausage casings and the two bulbous objects underneath my shirt which threatened to make themselves known. Even the monthly, innocuous trips to the all-you-can-eat breakfast bar at Shoney's with the crew following my dad's Astronomical Society meetings became suspect: had it been the ice cream? Should I have ordered the sherbet instead? Naturally a high-strung, perfectionist personality type, I began to wonder how I could get back to my old, rangy, prepubescent size---the size depicted by the teenaged models in 'Teen' magazine, 'Seventeen' magazine, and even 'YM' magazine.

Now, before that time, of course, I had seen loads of magazine covers advertising weight loss and exercise; even my own mother had complained about her "big bunda", working out to Jane Fonda's exercise tapes and books and practicing Jazzercise moves on the floor of our family room, though she was a slender size 8. It wasn't a foreign concept to me, but it wasn't one which I applied to myself until my body began 'betraying' me. It was only then that the pieces came together and I bought into the myth.