books, fashion & life lessons

Ever since I was a little girl I wanted to be a ‘business woman’. I wanted to wear suits, heels, carry a brief case (It was the late 80’s…cut me some slack) sit in a big conference room and have a corner office with a view.

31 years later, after reading ‘Lean In’ a book that changed my professional life, I got it.

I AM that woman.

I come from very humble and often tragic beginnings. I never believed that you could be anything you wanted to be. I assumed that we were all dealt a specific hand and that was that. Sure, we have choices. Of course, we can make changes, but we’re still stuck in the bubble we were born into gripping tightly to the often shitty hand we were so abruptly dealt at birth.

I was a typical bubble-breaker. I never wanted the life I lived. I wanted MORE. However, my ‘more’ is far different than the ‘more’ of most people I know.

While I enjoy my Michael Kors bags and Marc Jacobs iPhone case, I could live without them. Easily. I want things that aren’t necessarily tangible in addition to things that are.

A home of my own. Happiness. A deep satisfaction with the life that I built with my own two hands and the head between my cute earrings.

There’s something very uniquely special about Sheryl Sandberg’s, ‘Lean In’. I read this book at the recommendation of a friend and couldn’t put it down.

I was in a job I loved but had grown out of intellectually. I was bored. I felt stuck. I had much much more to give and felt stifled. I quickly felt ridiculous for feeling these things and thinking these thoughts.

I sounded like a spoiled child! First world problems at their finest, I say.

I had talked myself down from my professional cliff when I read an email from our COO announcing that my dream job had become available.

I found myself immediately replying and asking for an interview before I had a chance to take a deep breath.

After weeks of nausea and one good ugly cry on my long drive home post-interview…

I got the job.

I was equally elated and terrified.

I took a couple of days to weigh the pro’s and cons and while I did, I heard Sheryl’s words in the back of my mind.

‘It’s time for girls and women to sit at the table’.

You’re damn right it is! I’m ready to sit at the table. I’m ready for a new challenge and a few corporate level perks I deserve (Hooray for a new car!!!).

While I’m sure I’ll be fit for a straight jacket in 6 months or less, I felt inspired by ‘Lean In’ and know that this feeling in the pit of my stomach is a feeling we, as women, feel 24-7.

We doubt ourselves, our abilities and our place in the business world because, well, this is what we do. We assume, thanks to eons of men before us, that we don’t belong in this world. We could have supportive male mentors, supportive boyfriends and husbands and STILL ask ourselves, ‘Do I belong here?’.

The answer, ladies, is ‘Fuck Yes!’

It’s time to sit at the table.

There’s a code you take as a child of an alcoholic, not to tell. Ever.

It’s understood that when a teacher, guidance counselor or friends parent asks you how things are ‘at home’ you put a smile on your face and say ‘What do you mean? We’re great!’

The truth is you’re desperate for someone, anyone really, to notice the darkness behind that smile. To notice the scars you bear every single day, but no one ever does. Not really.

We make sure of that.

They walk away after your rehearsed platitudes and move on with their lives. The lives we, the children of addicts, so desperately want.

It isn’t all bad. That’s part of the code but it’s also reality.

See, the best alcoholics are successful, charming and often highly motivated professionals. They overachieve in their careers and, more importantly, they raise extremely smart, gifted children.

I’m one of those children.

I had an excellent motivator behind my eventual personal and professional success’s.

A Mother who, for as long as I can remember, told me I was (and I quote) “A fucking little bitch who would never amount to anything”.

Has your Mother ever called you a ‘fucking bitch’? Not once, but consistently for the majority of your life?

Take a moment. Imagine it. Imagine your Mother’s voice calling you a ‘fucking bitch’ for no reason at all. At least not one you can wrap your head around no matter how hard you try.

I’ve spent 20-something years trying desperately to understand what I did. I’ll be 31 in one week and I still don’t know what I did and apparently continue to do that was/is so horribly wrong.

I’ll spend the rest of my life trying to figure it out.

I’d ease your mind and tell you it ends there if I could. I’d love to do just that, but this is only the beginning.

Alcoholism and addiction creates a Jekyl and Hyde syndrome that comes on without warning and fades just as quickly.

I’ll share a story that proves my assessment.

I don’t have a Father.

Well, I have a Father. Everyone has a Father. My Father was a Dad for approximately 4-5 years before he left. He left for reasons I’ll never, and will never, know.

That left my Mother to raise me without a husband by her side or child support (a fact she still throws in my face despite my being in my 30’s), but don’t pity her yet. She had help. We lived with my Grandparents for the majority of my childhood.

I wish I could say it was mostly sunshine and rainbows, but it wasn’t. When I was 9 my Mother fell off the proverbial wagon (a wagon I should mention I didn’t know existed at the time) and was kicked out of my Grandparents house.

I, of course, wanted to go with her.

We saw ‘Dennis the Mennis’ at the movies (she oddly enough slept through the entire movie, which at the time confused me quite a bit) then checked into The Welcome Inn. A name so laced in irony I can’t even begin to list the many reasons why that is.

I was 9. In the same clothes I had worn for a week to school and opened the bureau which had a mirror inside the door when I saw it for the first time.

A real live beer can. A can that I had seen plenty of times. A can I knew existed just never in my Mother’s hand.

I was confused. I sat there and watched in the mirror, my world, my light, the woman I adored, my best friend in the world…pour that beer into a Big Gulp cup and drink. And drink. And drink.

I didn’t understand. Beer was bad, right? I had to be seeing things so I innocently asked if I could have some of her ‘coke’.

I can’t say with certainty what words she said or what happened after that, but I’ll never, until the day I die, forget the look in my Mother’s eyes.

It was the moment she went from ‘Mommy’ to ‘Mother’. A look I’ve come to dread. A look I can feel all the way to the core of my heart.

My Mother’s a drunk.

For years I heard bits and pieces of truth. My Mother had a troubled childhood, an even more troubled adolescence and a difficult leap into her 20’s.

She battled with addiction, including what I can only hope was a ‘brief’ stint with heroin only to come out alive on the other side.

She found Jesus, or God or whoever the fuck saves addicts, met my Father, got married had me two years later and lived the dream until she had a headache when I was a small child and was given a painkiller that quickly thrust her back into the dark and twisty world of addiction.

I know this now. At 31.

At 9? I thought my Mother hated me. So I tried to be the best kid in the world.

We lived in a families basement for ten years. We moved there just before my 13th birthday. Those ten years were some of the best and worst of my life.

We lived in two rooms, without doors. I had no filter to her adult life.

There were many consecutive ‘good’ years. Years where alcohol was a distant memory. So distant in fact, that I thought that scene at The Welcome Inn was a story I invented or perhaps one I read in one of my books.

You see, books saved me. Books were my escape. They still are.

We were great. Truly! We went on trips, I excelled in school, I made every travel sports team, won MVP’s and academic awards. I was the perfect kid. I proved to everyone who doubted us that I didn’t need a Dad. That we were fine, just the two of us. We were best friends and together we could overcome anything life threw at us.

Those were and will forever be the absolute best years of my life. I’ll treasure those memories forever…because what comes next?

It broke me.

It started when I was in high school, but when she turned exactly is something I’ll never know.

Instead of supporting me and loving me during the most formative years for any young girl (especially a girl without a Father), she suddenly started to yell. All the time. For no apparent reason.

There were nights she didn’t come home until well after 11pm with no sign as to where she had been. I learned the hard way not to inquire.

When I was feeling brave and DID inquire? That’s when it started and it hasn’t stopped since.

‘Where have I been? I’ve been fucking working to pay for YOU, you little bitch. You hear me? I’ve been working to pay for that lacrosse stick you just haaaaaad to have. You fucking bitch…and you just take it too, don’t you?”

I was 14.

I spent 4 years of high school thinking my Mother hated me. Thinking if I could just get good grades, get into a good college and don’t date boys maybe she’ll be proud of me. Maybe she’ll see that I’m a good kid who tried to make her life easier.

I felt nothing but guilt that she had to raise me alone you see. So, I obviously did everything I could to be the greatest daughter ever.

Then came college.

I got into a great school that was, unfortunately, private and expensive. At this point in my Mother’s professional career she had worked her way up from being a secretary without a college degree to an Executive. Something I was so incredibly proud of.

The downfall? We didn’t qualify for financial aide. All those years of living in a two room basement without a door (I literally didn’t have a bedroom door until I was 19) and we were getting zero financial assistance.

I took out loans, I worked two jobs with a full course load, I lived at home (we now lived in a two bedroom apartment. Hooray for doors!) and my Mom?

She paid for it all.

And she never, ever, let me forget it. Not even to this day a full thirteen years later. And counting.

Things changed very quickly after college started.

I now had my own car (which she paid for until I graduated at which time I took over the payments in full) which gave her the freedom to do what she wanted to do.

Drink.

I spent four years of college driving through Baltimore County/City looking for my drunk driving mother.

I soon figured out her patterns. If her corporate boss was scheduled to be in her building that week, she would disappear.

I found her passed out behind the wheel (or at times still drinking and very much awake) in liquor store parking lots. Never the same one twice, which made this a difficult job.

I eventually figured out her routine well enough that I timed it around my class and work schedules. I hesitated to take too many evening courses because it gave her too much freedom to drink and drive.

She was both drunk and high on oxy at my college graduation.

A graduation where I graduated suma cum laude and a member of a national honor society for human services. Something I was quite proud of.

I already had a full-time job when I walked across the stage that day. I made sure of it.

I thought money would help, but it only made my life worse.

She used to tell me burger king wouldn’t hire me when I was in high school. She used to tell me that I was fucking stupid, that my father was right to leave me behind, that he had the right idea.

The next day? She’d leave a $20 in my purse and tell me I had to know she didn’t mean it.

When I would visit her at work? I was overwhelmed by stories of how PROUD my Mother was of me. How she spent her days bragging about her amazing daughter.

Those same nights she would hit me. Not often, but it happened.

This pattern exists to this day.

I was optimistic once. I thought I overcame what life threw at me with grace and poise and REFUSED to be one of those pathetic women who became a disgusting gutter whore because ‘daddy wasn’t there’ and ‘mommy was an addict’.

I CHOSE to rise above.

Then I fell. Hard.

My 20’s were the worst years of my life. I don’t know when the transition happened exactly. I don’t know when I became so hard, so…dark. But I did.

I started to hate her. The Jekyl and Hyde Mother I was dealt.

I did it all right. Didn’t I? I didn’t cause trouble, I was never IN trouble, I never did anything ‘wrong’ by societies standards and yet my Mother loved me one minute and was calling me a ‘fucking little bitch’ the next.

Then I did the unthinkable.

I broke the code.

I told my closest friends the truth. A truth they knew deep down and I was welcomed with open arms into loving families who stitched me back together.

I started to heal a bit about ten years ago and then the bottom of my world fell out from under me.

My Mother was caught passed out behind the wheel at work. I had to drag her into my car where she proceeded to piss all over it and check us into a hotel for two days.

You see, were were being evicted from our two bedroom apartment because in addition to being a drunk, she is also a hoarder. A hoarder to the point that I couldn’t keep up with the upkeep.

We literally had no where to go but back to my Grandmothers. These years are fuzzy. I’m sure there’s a legitimate emotional block there for a reason, however, that’s where I was.

We moved to a new place around the time I graduated college and three months later?

She was fired.

And sent to rehab.

The image of her being carted off in that nondescript van to a 30 day rehab is one I’ll never be able to shake.

I broke, because I was scared and hopeful.

She was sober for a brief time. She event went to AA. We had a great year…and then?

She did what most alcoholics do. She fell off the wagon. Again. She’s never gotten back in.

Now? 9 years later? I can’t date. I can’t let anyone in because how do you answer the first date questions?

‘My Family? Oh, my Dad left and my Moms an alcoholic and an addict, but I swear I’m a catch, really, I just get really dark and twisty sometimes because, you see, my mom STILL reminds me that she raised me alone and literally spouts off, to the penny, how much she spent on dinners, lacrosse sticks, camps, books, birthday gifts, christmas gifts and such so when she does that I tend to ugly cry and feel lost and alone so I drive around listening to music until I can pull myself together again.

But, seriously, I’m a great catch you should probably date me’

Yeah, that doesn’t generally work out very well.

That and the pity. There’s nothing worse than pity.

For all intents and purposes, I’m a highly successful adult. No one would know I DIDN’T grow up in a McMansion in the suburbs with sleepovers (Yea, I’ve never had one) and all the perks of suburbia (although, the ‘code’ in me feels the need to say I DID always have what I wanted. She just held it against me later).

The code is implanted so deep that it rears it’s ugly head often.

It’s telling me to delete this immediately. That this confession is a mistake. That I sound ungrateful, that life could be far far worse and I should count my blessings.

Then today happened.

I called my Mother because I woke up in a cold sweat after dreaming I found her dead. Children of addicts have this nightmare fairly often. For me? It’s nearly every night.

She answered and sounded sober-ish so I decided to have a conversation with her.

When she asked what my 31st birthday plans were she responded with this:

‘Well, aren’t you soooo cute. Making plans with your fucking friends. Where’s your boyfriend Trace? Huh? Where was Chris (my brief bf last year) this time last year, huh? Ohhhh that’s right….he didn’t get you annnnnnnything, did he? You know who did? Your mother. I bought you a steamed crab dinner and gave you a gift card. Liiiiiiiitle strange I spent $142 on youuuuu and here you are making plans with your fucking friends you just looooooove to bad mouth me to. You fucking bitch…how did you get this way? So abrubt and hard and abrasive? How does anyone stand to be around you? It’s a miracle you have friends at all you bitch. I know the real you.’

That was a few hours ago. I’m 30 years old, about to be 31.

My point is this.

I feel nothing but embarrassment over my Mother and myself. I think I’m weak and pathetic for writing this, for turning to friends when I cry and for not being as strong as I thought I was.

I especially feel embarrassed for breaking the code and telling the world my secret.

Things could be so much worse for me. I never lived on the street. Sure, I  moved a lot and went without here and there, but I HAVE family. I have cousins and Aunts and Uncles and a Grandmother who is still living. I have friends that are my heart and my life and a career that makes me feel fulfilled the majority of the time. I live on my own and don’t rely on anyone for financial assistance.

My life is NOT something to be pitied. Do not pity me and do not take this as a ‘waaa, woe is me’ piece of writing.

My point is this.

To everyone who suffers from alcoholism who may by some slim chance read this? For the love of everyone who loves you, GET HELP. Talk about your struggle and do NOT make your loved ones, especially your children abide by ‘the code’.

Do not make them dark and damaged and hard and cold like me.

Do not make them afraid to let love and good in and do not make asking for help a dirty word.

Alcoholism is a dirty word. One I still hesitate to say, but today broke me. Again.

I realized something today. That for a moment, I wanted all of this to be over. I wanted my Mother to die so I could be FREE of this.

I hate myself for even thinking it.

I hope I’m not the first person to think this and I certainly hope I’m not the last.

Lastly? I hope to God my Mother finds a way to be my Mom again before she goes.

My best friend was veracious in her repeated attempts to get me to read “gone girl” and now I know why.

The epitome of a page turner with endless twists and turns, “gone girl” is everything I hoped it would be and more. If you’re looking for a dark and twisty (yes, another ‘grey’s anatomy’ reference seemed appropriate) read to cleanse your book pallet, look no further for you have seen the light.

Due to said dark and twisty twists I shall keep this short and sweet so as not to ruin the dark and twisty ending, but I will leave you with this…

Make a massive pot of coffee and get ready for a bumpy ride.

Enjoy!

I’ve read a good amount of YA as an adult and with that said, ‘prep’ did not disappoint.

A jarringly realistic portrayal of the often paralyzing unrequited crush, will hit home to anyone who made it through their teen crushes in one piece.

Curtis Sittenfeld does an outstanding job creating characters that feel as realistic as the book itself. The details are so specific that the reader feels connected to each person (even the ‘mean girl’ Aspeth Montgomery, another character all women remember and hate with the fire of a thousand suns) and is terribly sad to see them go at the books end.

Lee Fiora, in all her awkward glory, will ring true to anyone who didn’t peak in high school. Anyone who struggled to ‘fit’, who constantly scrutinized their every thought and felt defeat at even the most insignificant slight by their more popular foes.

File this one under life lessons.

As I’ve alluded to previously, my 20’s were spent working, schooling and dealing with dramas courtesy of my Mother (that requires a blog in and of itself).

I dated like a teenager. All in, all out, elation, devastation and rarely anything that hits anywhere near the world of serious.

While my friends fell in love, got married and had babies I adore, I found myself climbing the corporate ladder, getting promoted, managing a staff and moving into a place of my own.

I blinked and was 30. I blinked again and saw 31 approaching…and fast.

I sat back during the holidays and realized that while I was putting my professional life and my train wreck of a Mother first, I had forgotten to put myself out there and meet someone. Anyone.

I was never ‘dating girl’. I’m too cynical to date. Too dark and twisty (any fan of Grey’s Anatomy gets the reference) inside to be perky and adorable across a table for two. I have too many secrets I’m ashamed to share and too many demons in my family that I’d rather not force onto an otherwise nice potential husband.

It took me 30 years to accept I can’t change a damn thing about my Mother and her choices or about my absentee Father and why (something I’ll never know) he chose to leave his 4 year old daughter.

Frankly, the thought of putting all of…THAT onto someone else to bear seems selfish and impossible. Who in their right mind would want to take that on when there are so many bright and shiny, perky women out there who would be perfectly content to stay at home and make a bright and shiny life for them?

Despite my obvious cynicism, I hit a wall in December and decided to at least try. Hell, maybe there’s an equally dark and twisty man out there to make a matched set.

After a massive push from friends and my need to try to put myself first and be selfish, I decided to date.

It’s awful.

Anyone whose been in my shoes knows the feeling. You may leave feeling fantastic then never hear from anonymous again. You may start to get picky about minor details in an effort to stay in control. You may get unintentionally drunk on a first date because you feel so comfortable and are so genuinely surprised by how sweet this man next to you is, only to feel rejected a few days later (true story. not my finest hour).

Or, the ones who fall head over heels for you make you want to throw up a little and say, ‘Really? This is whose left? Fuck.’

I’m no prize. I work too much, I sometimes enjoy being alone too much, I’m self-deprecating, I have a horrific self-image, but…I’m also other not-so-scary things, too.

I’d like to believe in the whole ‘there’s someone out for everyone’ crap, but is there any basis in that or is that just one of the many affirmations we single girls tell ourselves and our other single girlfriends to keep the hope alive?

I’m leaning towards keep the hope alive.

There’s a window of time that most women casually open and find what they’re looking for fairly quickly and/or serendipitously.

For the rest of us? That fucker is nailed shut. My window is not only nailed shut, but super-glued and branded with the words, ‘SINGLE’ in bold flashing neon letters.

My gut tells me the window of opportunity to ‘have it all’ has closed. Is it rational to believe this at 31?

Society tells us one of two things:

You can have it all at any age! (or) You’re old as crap. Let it go, all you have is your career and your title as ‘Spinster Aunt Tracy’, enjoy.

At this point, who knows where my chips will fall.

Dating is awful…I don’t see the 2.5 kids and white picket fence in my future, but maybe just maybe, I’ll find something better.

Be proud of that bright, perky conclusion.

If you’re too generous,
you’ll eventually end up
with nothing.

But if you’re too selfish,
You’ll eventually end up
with no one.

-Anonymous

After 30 years of people pleasing and over-achieving, I’ve managed to narrow down my tried and true rules of life to a mere two:

Be selfish.
Be thoughtful.
But mostly be selfish.

I spent most of my life putting others needs before my own (literally, everyone. I’m talking bosses, boyfriends, mother, even my employees!) and while that may be admirable, it’s pretty stupid. Why? Because people will mistake your kindness for weakness time and time again.

By 30, the average person knows who their ‘real’ friends are. They know who will bail them out of the drunk tank, wait with them for a tow, show up at the hospital to hold your hand, and (and this is by far THE most important gesture, ladies) buy pizza and wine for you after yet another bad break-up with Mr. Wrong. Enter rule #2: Be thoughtful.

I can count the number of people I’d take a bullet for on one manicured hand. These are the only ladies whose needs I put above my own. Why? Because (cue the violins) they will always do the same for me.

I recently spoke to a friend of mine who is a Mother and Wife and ridiculously stressed, exhausted and overwhelmed. Of course she puts the needs of her children and husband above her own. This is what makes her the amazing person she is, however, doesn’t she deserve to be selfish sometimes as well? You’re damn right she does. Probably moreso than the rest of us.

As a single non-mother, I have yet to experience what it’s like to be on-call 24 hours a day, to constantly be on duty, to always be ‘on’. However, I can imagine that it’s easy to lose ones mind, and possibly even identity, if you’re rarely given the chance to ‘do you’.

BE SELFISH! Schedule an entire day to sit at your best single gal-pals pad, order in, drink a bottle of wine and talk all night long while your husband is on daddy duty. Sit in a coffee shop and read your favorite gossip rag while mocking all the people around you silently in your mind (or to your BFF via text). Take a day trip to your favorite city with your husband (leave the kids at home!) and re-live the days when it was just the two of you. Read, uninterrupted, until your head hurts in sweatpants and your fav t-shirt.

I may be a single non-mother, but I have a job that eats up pretty much all of my free time and sanity as well as a mother who may as well still use a binky.

My point? Everyone deserves to be (and should be!) selfish on a consistent basis to give yourself time to reflect on your life, the choices you’ve made and where you want to go from here.

As great as sitting home alone and selfishly hogging the DVR can be, don’t become an asshole.

BE THOUGHTFUL! Send your stressed girlfriends cards (remember mail? me neither) for no reason. Surprise your best friend at work with a cup of her favorite iced coffee. Play with their kids so they get a break and you get some quality niece/nephew bonding time.

Do something, always, for no reason other than to see those few people you’d take a bullet for, remember that somewhere someone appreciates them.

While being selfish is my newly minted #1 rule in life, don’t evolve into a taker.

When I was a kid, my Mother and I used to go to this local chinese restaurant every weekend. I’ll never forget opening my fortune and reading aloud, ‘It’s better to give than to receive’. At the time, I didn’t understand the deep meaning of the phrase but as an adult it’s one of my personal golden rules.

It really is better to give than to receive. To see your nephew light up after giving him a new box of crayons and a coloring book, to see your best friend tear up at the thoughtful Christmas gift you bought for her MONTHS before the holidays.

THAT is the gravy. It’s what makes the world go round, folks.

In my 30’s, being selfish has become my #1 priority. What I want, who I want, where I want to be, and who I want by my side while I struggle to get there needs to remain at the forefront of my mind.

People pleasing and ‘go-for’ing’ for bosses that aren’t on ‘Team Tracy’ are no longer welcome.

Dropping everything to help a so-called ‘friend’ or loyal co-worker who would never return the favor is a blurred image in my review mirror.

One of my new favorite books of all-time is Sheryl Sandberg’s ‘Lean In’. This excerpt says it all:

‘We need more portrayals of women as competent professionals and happy mothers—or even happy professionals and competent mothers”

In my humble opinion, we can get there by supporting each other, taking the time to reflect on our own lives and choices and giving back to those who not only need ‘it’ but also appreciate the crap out of it.

http://www.today.com/style/real-women-mannequins-go-viral-1C8884904

I wasn’t anticipating writing about this heated topic again so quickly after my Christina Hendricks’s post, but I feel the urge to get this off my ample chest.

First and foremost, kudos to Sweden for creating store mannequins that appear both fit/healthy AND curvy/voluptuous. In short, a mannequin that represents a great deal of the world’s women (and from my experience, the body most men want to bang).

I was able to watch this segment in real time this morning while gulping my first cup of coffee (Which, by the way was decaf due to my lack of shopping this month. Gross) and found myself both excited and disappointed.

Again.

This particular quote, found in the above article, sparked my interest.

“The lingerie-clad mannequins, displayed in one of the stores in Sweden’s Ahlen’s department store chain, have fleshier stomachs and fuller thighs than are typically seen in stores. Both are far from overweight, as many people have noted in comments about the widely circulated photo.

“Those aren’t mannequins, they are real women, and they are gorgeous,” wrote one of more than 3,350 commenters on the Facebook photo posted March 11 by Women’s Rights News.”

While I didn’t fall head-over-heels after reading the descriptions of these plastic women (Obviously when whoring myself on match.com I can’t WAIT to type the word ‘fleshy’ when describing my own flat yet not rock hard stomach. Barf.) I appreciated the raw honesty very much.

This portion of the segment also caught my attention:

“The Swedish mannequins featured in the photo are size 8 and 12. The average American woman is a size 12 or 14, which is more than double the size of typical mannequins used in retail clothing stores.”

You mean to tell me a size 8, 10 or 12 is considered full-figured? Here we go again…it’s going to be a bumpy (jiggly) ride.

I said it in my previous blog and I’ll say it again; as long as you are HEALTHY, feel ENERGIZED and CONFIDENT does it matter what the label inside your favorite pair of Lucky Charlie Flares says?

NO, ladies…the answer is NO!

However, not everyone shares my biased point of view:

“In recent years, more realistic-looking mannequins have also raised criticism that the models reflect the nation’s obesity problem, or even add to it.”

To clarify, a model that reflects the average woman, is not obese yet has a ‘fleshier’ stomach and ‘fuller’ thighs and appears healthy to those of us not suffering from body dimorphic disorder or mean girls syndrome, is contributing to the ‘nations obesity problem’?

Give that girl a cupcake stat because clearly she’s suffering.

How sad that this nation is so backwards when it comes to body image, exercise and overall health. My dearest girlfriends and I spend so much of our time together criticizing our bodies while simultaneously reassuring one another that we’re beautiful and insane for thinking otherwise, weren’t born with this way of thinking. This has been ingrained in our DNA somehow, someway.

In closing, I’ll leave you with this:

“You go into stores and you see mannequins that are less than half your size, it’s really discouraging, it’s disheartening and it’s alienating,” said Lori Bergamotto, contributing style editor for Lucky magazine.

I couldn’t have said it better myself, Lori. Here’s to all the ‘average’ girls. May your average bodies find you healthy & happy!

Ps. I’m 99% sure ‘mean girls syndrome’ will be in the next issue of the DSM IV.