Beauty and the Beast of Burden

Mia works out daily at the Gym @ 10th St.

Beauty/byu-te 1. The quality or aggregate of qualities in a person or thing that gives pleasure to the senses or pleasurably exalts the mind or spirit.”

That’s beauty according to Webster and his dictionary. I’d love to agree with him, but sad to say, it realistically doesn’t even begin to scratch the surface. To be a beautiful woman today, you have to dig much deeper, and you’d better have a really big shovel.

The reality is that being a beautiful woman takes an extraordinary amount of time and work. It’s not our fault, it’s what society has put on the end of its fishing line, and boy do we bite. I consider myself to be an attractive woman, giving pleasure to the senses, mind, and spirit (okay Mr. Webster.) That all comes to a crashing halt when we are paging through the latest issue of Vogue, and halfway in have convinced ourselves that we’re totally unfit to ever venture outside again. I know that a Vogue model’s beauty comes by way of creams, pencils, tubes, and professionals who know how to apply them. Well, luckily for the rest of us it’s all within our reach, right there at the cosmetic counter.

We happily throw our money at the beautiful ladies in their beautiful white coats for the latest products such as mascara, which for a reasonable forty dollars, promises to lengthen and thicken our lashes a hundred percent more than the last forty dollar tube we bought. We slop on wrinkle cream (who has wrinkles at eighteen?) because the white coat ladies ooh and ah at how our skin has magically become translucent and radiant. We paint our faces until we look like a Picasso extravaganza, yet we’re sure we finally mastered that “cover girl” look (To be honest, who really wears neon green and gold eye shadows during the day, or at anytime, for that matter). So we buy it, we buy it all. Our lives will improve; we will not only look better, but feel better as well. Society has reeled in the line. We are caught.

Clothes shopping, another treat for women everywhere! The store mannequin is attired in a very peculiar outfit in very unforgiving shades of pink and orange. However, the mannequin is beautiful! So we try on the exact same outfit right down to the accessories, for we know that this mannequin is a true fashionista. (We only wish she could talk so we could ask her if the crotch of the pants is really supposed to hang so low, or if we really must wear the hat pulled down over our eyes.) She can’t, and we don’t, and we buy it, and we look beautiful, crotch and all. This could be a side effect of our lack of blood circulation; our six inch stilettos have now made our feet swell into watermelons, and the pants that we lay on the floor six hours ago to zip have not relented one inch. We are beautiful.

The gym is the bane of every woman’s existence. The experience goes something like this; you buy a membership, then you buy 900 very cute outfits so you’ll look good when you work out. Then your membership expires. Or, you do all of the above except this time you actually go, and after the first day you can’t even bend over and tie your own shoes. You decide to wait until you feel better. Then your membership expires.

A hearty workout can awaken a hearty appetite; anyone knows that a good, solid fifteen minutes on the treadmill will make you ravenous! What to eat....so many choices. Quarter- pounder (skip the cheese, unhealthy), small Italian hoagie (large is much too big, and surely all of that lettuce and tomato must be good for you), personal pan pizza (they are so cute and tiny), or a Lean Cuisine? That’s a smart choice right there, four bites of something extremely inedible, and only four hundred measly calories (not to mention 9,000 grams of sodium)!

What I’ve just written is generally satirical, although I have seen it firsthand. I find it just a touch scary. I don’t obsess over my looks; I am a fairly attractive girl with my own sense of style. I do love buying makeup, and get excited when a new product comes on the market. I enjoy experimenting with different colors to compliment my complexion. I probably spend a little too much time and money on clothes shopping, but then again it’s my time and my money. Even though it is said that “ beauty is in the eye of the beholder”, I know an attractive and well kept appearance does make a difference. “Beauty is only skin deep” rings more true in our society, unfortunately. I do have an obsession with fitness, but in a healthy way. I love going to the gym; a good long workout five times a week really pumps me up and gives me the stamina and vitality I need to get things done. I am very careful about the foods that I eat, again in a healthy way. I don’t follow fad diets or take supplements of any kind, as I don’t believe in a quick fix. I consistently watch my daily intake of trans-fats, sodium, cholesterol, etc. When I eat healthy I feel healthy. It’s never too soon to start taking care of yourself.. The results are most rewarding.

With that being said, women everywhere, listen up! That Vogue model that makes you feel like crap; when the makeup is off and the cameras stop flashing, you’d never ever recognize her. Mannequins usually tend to look ridiculous, and those white coat ladies are probably laughing at you as they eagerly ring up your purchases. To society from me; put your rods away because this fish swims in her own pond.