In honour of Body Image and Eating Disorders Awareness Week (2-8 September 2012), I am writing this blog about what the hell body image even is, anyway.
When people say “body image”, heaps of mental pictures spring to mind. Men sucking their guts in when pretty women walk past, women fretting over the numbers on the scales, men measuring their biceps and women measuring their waists. What the hell is “body image” and when isn’t it normal? Continue reading
Last Saturday night, I had two parties to attend. They were birthday functions for two awesome ladies who I love a whole lot (HI TESS AND HANNAH!) and I wanted to look nice for them. Making an effort to dress appropriately and maintain adequate hygiene is an easy, common way to show respect for a host or guest of honour* (*QR17(A)’s Guide To Humans And Their Strange Customs, Vol. 6 (3rd Ed), translated from the original binary).
I wore a dress. It was cold, so I wore a dress with long sleeves and put on heaps of layers underneath it. I also knew I’d be eating dumplings (yum!), so the dress was all baggy.
At the second party, a couple of men that nobody knew struck up a conversation with me and some other girls. That was fun! Leaving the house means you meet new people. Yay!
After a little while, one of the men bluntly asked me: “Are you naked under that dress?”
A lot of people* have asked me, “What’s it like inside your brain?” Well I will tell you! I will tell you by way of a break-down (not really a pun) of a typical mental event in the life of me.
Let’s take a fairly banal example. Let’s say my friend wants to order takeout and I also wish to parTAKEOUT. This is how that goes. I will show you in super-slow-mo via the magic of written description both what is said out-loud and the glorious mental processes that are happening behind the scenes.
Things what are written in quotation marks are actual spoken words. Things what are in italics are my noodle thoughts.
So, we’re ordering takeout. And ACTION:
Friend: “Let’s order some food.”
Me: I LOVE FOOD!
“AWESOME!”
Shit, that was too eager. Now they’re gonna think I’m a big fat pig man. And SHIT they’re gonna think I want to order it RIGHT NOW and what even time is it, it’s not eating time yet! Oh my god big fat pig man who is always eating. I don’t want them to feel pressured to order now just because I am horrifyingly obese. Tone down the enthusiasm, Fathead!
“Yeah, that sounds good.”
Hello!
I would like to start this review by disclaiming that I am not a comedian. I do not want to be a comedian. I do not study, create, or analyse things that are funny in any constructive way. I judge funny things by how much my stomach and cheeks hurt from laughing afterwards: Comedy is a visceral thing to me. Dissecting it too much destroys it and, in my opinion, often misses the point of the whole experience. This review is going to be based on my opinions as an audience member, not a connoisseur of the comedic arts, and will be appropriately subjective.
That said:
On a scale of bellyhurts, zero being “I didn’t smile once and I started daydreaming about ‘What if I was Batman?’ halfway through the show” and ten being “I am fairly certain I have ruptured my bowel and I can’t stop laughing long enough to call an ambulance”, The Big Hoo-Haa consistently rates a thirty-five for me. (Luckily I started wearing my rubber knickers after the first time I went.) The Birthday Olympic Spectacular was no different.
