NYT.

Has every one seen the cover of the New York times today????
Normally the cover of the NYT is kind of depressing.....but today....try hilarious!! The picture details Barack Obama and Joseph Biden in what appears to be a 'chest bump'. Its also appears that Biden is in the act of giving 'snaps.' Best cover I've ever seen. Hands down.

Mans best friend.

I am a cat person. I love my cat. He is handsome, charming, soft, and sweet. This categorizes me as a crazy cat lady, but I'm okay with that. However, even though I love my little man this does not make my love secular. I love all animals. And even though I love cats I do like dogs as well. Cats just so happen to have more redeeming qualities, ie. they clean themselves, they are independent, and they defecate in a box (and even bury it). Dogs just happen to be too high maintenance for me. This does not mean that I don't respect the joy that dogs bring to peoples lives. The gentlemen pictured above are volunteers for an animal rescue project out of NY. And if that isn't the cutest little puppy I've ever seen I don't know what it. This picture is absolutly adorable. I want to find that puppy and make him my own. I just wanted to share this heartwarming image in hope to brighten everyones day as much as it brightened mine.

There are two sides to any perspective just as there are two sides to any argument. Sandra Cisnero once said that she wrote for other writers. Whereas Annie Dillard said to always write for readers. It seems obvious to write for the reader and writing for other writers seems borderline conceited. Don't get me wrong, I love Sandra Cisnero, she is one of my favorites, and I don't think her statement was made with conceited intentions. This being because most readers read filth like The Da Vinci Code. Half of the population doesn't read and then poor literature is produced to satisfy their mush brains when they actually feel like picking up a book once in a blue moon. Its sad really. It makes me wonder if the trend of simplistic sentences that I've been noticing in younger writers is related to this dumbing down.
I like the short, clear sentences, I've just been noticing that style in fiction that has been published in the past two years so much that it has stood out to me immensely. Maybe its not our stupid society.....maybe its the change in fashion. Much has happened since the descriptive sentences of Charles Dickens and even more recent, Gabriel Garcia Marquez. Is it more difficult to offer someone a single word rather than a bouquet of them? Does their mind focus on absence rather than what is present? I suppose that writing for anyone is sufficient. We do not write for ourselves, we write for whoever will take the time to read it. All a piece of writing needs is an audience.

I am not one to attack the media as the sole instigator for our societies negative body images, however I do find it exhausting to see the emaciated models day after day. I recognize a designers need to have a model that will complement their line as much as possible; to act as a hanger for their goods thus presenting their art in the most complementary way possible. However.....I am sick of my healthy friends complaining about being fat. I am sickened that I, myself, complain about being fat. I am repulsed when I am working out at the gym and I think to myself of how great it would be to be as skinny as the girl in front of me and on closer inspection I realize that she is extremely anorexic. For I have no desire to be anorexic. And in reality I always find a thicker woman more pleasant on the eyes, however for a fleeting moment I was sucked into the illusion of how I feel I should look. How atrocious is that? A person who is relatively happy with themselves suddenly becomes doubtful for no apparent reason? It is sick and wrong.

Not only do we strive to be trim, we also strive to maintain our health by eating well and by exercising. But what exactly is eating healthy? With a plethora of new health studies, articles are written everyday that make me question the foods I love. Now lets remember that health is not only psychical but also mental. We are told that carbohydrates will make us fat. People who consume soy products are sixty percent more likely to have dementia. Red meat is bad for the heart. The thing is that I love breads. I dislike milk so I use soy milk as an alternative. And as an anemic female, red meat is a great iron rich option for me. At times we are told that it unsafe to consume certain fruits or vegetables however our body needs the vitamins and nutrients from these foods. A quick fix would be to take a daily vitamin, but then aren't we succumbing to the pharmaceutical companies? Replacing our foods with a pill. Taking away one of the pleasures of our lives. We should enjoy eating. We should enjoy our lives to the fullest and we should not be dissuaded by such fear tactics that our media is presenting before us.