Weight loss adverts follow me everywhere....

There's been a trend lately, one we all see in the run up to summer of magazines declaring their tips on how to get your body bikini ready, lose 5 lbs in one week, cheat yourself slim, detox diets, etc etc which are frankly bad enough and the reason I rarely buy women's magazines.

The only times I do is before a long train ride and I usually regret it quickly when I feel my IQ points dropping alongside my self esteem. 

Why can't I have perfect skin like them? Why do I have bits that wobble when they don't? Oh wait photoshop, of course we don't all walk around with a magical filter that makes us look like these fake emanciated designer dress wearing coat hangers. 

All my photos are photoshopped, big reveal there, no one has perfect skin, bagless eyes, lack of stretch marks even after three/ four kids. Even I have stretch marks despite having no kids, my arse has sagged slightly now I'm reaching my 30's, I do have wrinkles under that make up somewhere. 

But why do I bring all this up? The worrying fact that even scrolling your Facebook feed and twitter feed will show you pictures of grinning celebrities who have millions of pounds, personal trainers, and access to plastic surgeons without blowing a lifetime of savings but somehow lost weight with this cheap easily accessible diet tip! You sit on the Internet and are a girl, your esteem must be low, just click this link and we will make your skinny dreams come true. 

Well, guess what Internet, I am skinny and what's more, I don't like it. 

I've lost weight lately due to stress, working a lot, travelling and not being able to eat as much as I do when I'm at home. This has taken a toll on my stomach meaning its in pain after I eat, I seem to get none of the nutritional value of the rather healthy food I do eat due to it and it has lead to loss of weight, more worry, more stress and a fair amount of pain. Well, that's a diet tip for you...

So I did what we all do secretly, I googled the problem and the only information google had to offer on my rather worrying situation? More diet tips. 

Since when do we take our choices and personal well being from Internet adverts placed before our eyes in a not even discreet manner? The adverts have grown larger and their content more worrying.

Does my 14 year old sister get the same adverts placed on her feed? Does my mother? How about my other friends, family, and fellow performers? 

Burlesque has always been about loving the body beautiful, and I think it does on the most part. It would be nice if that extended out into society some more rather than having ideal shapes.

How about an ideal happiness, an ideal level of just being healthy, there's such a thing as too skinny, there's such a thing as too fat but these are the extremes. Anything in between should be embraced.

Women bitch about each others weights, I'm sure I've done it myself at some point in my life, we all do and know why? Because we are conditioned to do so.

We are shown from a young age that this one certain look, weight and shape is how we should be, eating disorders are a serious problem that more people would care to admit to. I did at a young age starve myself because of my weight, but the puppy fat stayed until it was good and ready but this is all part of growing up. We change, we grow curves, we lose bumps, even our faces may change shape but this is during the age where eating disorders affect girls the worst, when really we need the food, the iron and minerals and vitamins so please let's have a change of pace here. 

Instead of diets, advertising junk food then advertising weight loss techniques lets have some positive messages that you are all fine, just as you are. Nobody's perfect, and that's what makes life perfect. 

Tattoo Generalizations....

I've written about tattoos before, even had an article published on the subject of performers with tattoos but this time it's about something that really pisses me off....stereotyping people with tattoos.
People are sadly infiltrated by idiots with opinions, these idiots do their best to shout the loudest despite the offence they may cause or that they don't really know what they are talking about at all in fact.
I find women who have tattoos to be strong women with minds of their own and although we all know the looks we may receive, the comments which actually are rather offensive, the club wanker who will use them as an excuse to paw all over us we still feel that we have the right to express ourselves in whatever way we have chosen. With beautiful works that vary completely from person to person.
I'm not saying all women or people with tattoos are like this or feel that way as I do not generalise people based on how they look, the decisions they have made in their lives yet others do.

For example, this post made by someone I do not know, who also doesn't know me yet would probably throw me into the category that he has decided upon.
Tattoos and other easy way to ruin your body

In it he has labelled every woman with tattoos as an easy slut, and one who has allowed other men to mark us. My usual tattooist is the very lovely talented mother of two and a long time friend, Julie McCay of Sacred Fortune Tattoos who has worked hard and now owns her own studio in Liverpool. I've allowed her to "mark" me as I love her work, and her as a person. While in her studio her kids came in while I was laid out getting my beautiful thigh piece and they are well mannered adorable children so if anyone has made their mark upon me it has mostly been by a wonderful independent business woman who has raised two amazing children with her husband. And yes, she has tattoos too.

My mother even has a tattoo now, one I paid for at a convention which is a small heart with the words "Tom Forever", Tom being my father and they have been married for 32 years. So my mother who is well known as an advocate for the arts, a strong christian with three children is now branded a slut because of one small piece of body modification? No I think not.

There are so many examples I could use to make my point, but as so many people I know have some manner of body modification or knows many people who do they know themselves why this is absolute tripe. Generalising in any form is wrong and ignorant which anyone who was bought up in a correct manner knows, whatever you stereotype it will still just be your opinion that no one wants to hear.

The commute, an outsiders view...

The morning commute is a routine task, one us London based people do regularly even daily but as a routine for a city full of people who don’t connect, who like their personal space, and hate those who get in their way it is one of little sense.

I start with the usual cigarette to calm my nerves before boarding my train, full of dread for the inevitable. I find a perch not a chair, a perch behind a man with a rather large backpack and spend the first train ride having my right breast crushed by his lack of spacial awareness of the object he has used to extend his own body mass. I worry during this as my right boob is my favourite of the two, being only slightly bigger than the other it’s safety is of upmost importance to me.

Once at the underground I literally wrestle my way onto the smaller metal cylinder so I can be hurtled towards my destination, and try to make sure I have enough room to actually put both feet onto the floor and not spend the time balancing like a flamingo grasping an oyster card and metro.
Standing very close to me, very near to my face is a slightly shorter girl who had obviously used a very powerful mouthwash that she is breathing directly up my nostrils throughout the journey. I often make accidental eye contact with strangers but look away quickly as the mistake I made the day before of smiling led to a glaring death stare.

Occasionally the announcer takes the time to tell off a mystery commuter, with the singsongy voice of a primary school teacher to keep all items out of the way of the doors and to not lean on them, at every stop, leading to accusing looks from fellow passengers at anyone remotely near to the door.
When not glaring at the shamed near the door we glare at the people victorious in their seats, sitting smugly with a distinct lack of armpits near to their face.

Eventually I emerge, like a broken stressed phoenix into the outside world, only to see previous commuters walking by with their pathetic cardboard coffee cups like trophies to show they too survived.
And so I walk, realising that I missed the ability to move my feet and also that my sinuses have been strangely cleared by the mouthwash, maybe too clear. That was some damn strong mouthwash.