The Hunger Artist

The weekend was far too epic for words. So I'm doing an interpretive dance at my desk to try to illustrate it.



Did you like it? Did you get it?

Issues, Reconcilations, Reunions, Relapse, Revelations, Good Ideas, Bad Ideas, Tears, Laughter, My Stupid Heart, My Wiser Mind, The New Year, and everything in between. I even worked. I even bellydanced. I didn't however, sleep. Not so much at least. Not the best way to recover from strep, but just because I'm getting used to staying away from some Bad Ideas, doesn't mean they've all been exorcised from my being.

This shit's just getting started, kids. Keep all hands and feet inside the blog.

I was sharing with Blythe on IM my sadistic little facination with America's Next Top Model. Because they're pretty? Naw. Because they're idiots? A bit. Because they are skinny and obviously not eating well and this makes them cry and act like crazy bitches? Ding! We have a winner.

I'm a pretty small girl myself, so it's not jealousy. And I grew up in a world where starving yourself was par for the course. And as much as I'm actually pretty happy with how my body looks these days, it was a long time coming and I think I still harbor a little resentment for these chicks that make us want to starve ourselves still. Half of them I don't even find all that pretty. They are skinny and tall. The make-up artists and photographers do the rest. Models get paid for being skinny and tall. I love all the half-assed attempts in their "challenges" to make it seem like modeling is more than that. Yes, a certain amount of it needs to be about personality and you have to look alive on camera, but once again, these things can't be taught. They just are. One of their challenges on the reruns playing on VH1 yesterday had them being judged on how they learned a traditional Japanese Tea Ceremony. They're right. If you're a model and in another country, you SHOULD be respectful and try to learn about the culture that you're in.

But once again, that's not a requirement. I don't think a single model in the History of Modeltasticness ever didn't land a job because they held their tea cup wrong in Tokyo. In fact, I'm pretty sure Naomi Campbell booked ten more jobs by walking in and very reverantly dumping a pot of tea on some Japanese Icon's head. If she hasn't, can we start that rumor here? I would love to see that in The Superficial tomorrow.

Some other challenge had them learning African Dance. There is absolutely nothing like watching gangly starving bitches try to do this. I had an African Dance class while I was at NTI and absolutely loved it. It also was the first time I ever felt really freakin white. I'm surprised I didn't just clap my hands awkwardly while shuffling my feet. It was the first time I felt like anything BUT a dancer. And I've had training. So you can imagine all these dumb, hungry bitches trying to do this stuff with even less qualifications than I do. And if it ever becomes necessary for them to know African Dance in their subsequent "careers," I'll eat my own face off. I have a feeling that the writers for this show just sit around and think, "How else can we make these skinny bitches cry? Make them look like idiots in Africa while dancing." At least their bodies types fit that whole famine-chic thing going on.

My favorite thing to do whilst devouring these hours of TV that are eating my brain and my soul away is to...well, devour anything else in sight. I mean, I put on America's Next Top Model and pretend I'm at the Golden Corale's All-You-Can-Eat-Fried-Chicken Night or something. It could be because I'm trying to fill the void of what the show steals from you. But more likely, I just like to think to myself, "Cry, CRY, you skinny bitch! I'm going to order pizza! Ha! Like that? How's African Dance and Purging working out for you?!"

I even got the brilliant idea (when my bodega didn't have chocolate ice cream, all I was looking for last night) to make my own ice cream by getting vanilla and Oreos and making my own cookies-n-cream. I'm sure every single person on the planet has done this at some point, but even so, I felt like the Smartest Girl in the World for doing so.

Someone cried over not doing their Kimono right, or stealing a Red Bull, or because Tyra Banks is sometimes really scary, or whatever. And I scooped Haagen Daas and Oreos into my mouth like it was my job. And I rollie-pollied around in my bed, feeling stuffed and sadistic and that the five pounds I gained in one evening was worth it.

Because I'm not starving myself. Not anymore. And I hate this culture that perpetuates the need for young girls to do that to themselves. I suppose that some of these girls are doing it to themselves, too, and I guess I actually feel sorry for the ones that fight it as well. I think we must be the only species on the planet that can fuck itself up enough to where the ONE BASIC SURVIVAL TACTIC--aka, FUCKING EATING TO STAY ALIVE--gets tossed aside in order to...what? Wear clothes? Are you serious? And we're the dominant species on the planet?! The dolphins are fucking laughing their asses off as they chomp on some tuna or whatever the fuck it is that dolphins eat. Holding the standard of beauty to be something that happens only freakishly in nature is idiotic. So even the skinny-ass models who are hurting themselves to be that way are victims, too. As for the rest of the skinny bitches? Well, they can just take their goddamn rice cakes and shove it.

But I'll totally watch the next episode that comes on.