REALLY?

"Do you know what you want? I do. What I really want is my foundation to match my skin."

Really?

Not world peace?

An end to poverty, homelessness and hunger?

A truly inspiring president and honest political leaders?

A health care system that works?

Education reform?

Freedom from tyranny, opression and penis enlargement spam?


Admittedly, I love a good foundation as much as the next girl. I'm fair skinned but strangley sallow and blotchy, and you wouldn't believe how difficult it can be to find a good match. I'm fully stocked should Kabuki ever emerge as a trend.

And listen, if I had a face like that, I might be tempted by the opportunity to pander to the insecurities of women everywhere and collect a squillion dollar paycheck in the process.

So...perhaps I'm being unfair. The life of a celebrity draws few parallels to my own. I can't pretend to know what it's like to be breathtakingly beautiful, or to live with the knowledge that my face is my fortune. I can't understand what it's like to fear the ravages of time more than the folly of man. So I honestly can't speak from experience.

And yet?

I think I might have gone a different direction with that.

Because even as an average Jane, in an anonymous American neighborhood, I'm aware of the fact that everything I do, every belief I espouse, and every word I utter as a woman, speaks with an eloquence that is far reaching. We are mother’s, daughters, sisters, cousins, friends. Our influence and example are closely scrutinized whether we actively seek out the attention or not.


I know, I know...lighten up Holley, it's just a commercial, and she's just an actress. It's not like the Pope is suddenly endorsing S&M.

But it still bugs me.

Because in a very powerful way, the manner in which we, as a nation, a people, and a gender are represented in the media, becomes a snapshot for the world to hold up, examine, and judge.

This year more than any other time in my life, I find myself tired and appalled at the amount of ink and air time that is given to the likes of Miley Cyrus or Britney Spears. I don’t care if the “STARS” boycott the Academy Awards Red Carpet.

In a time where there are so many families facing their worst fears, losing jobs, homes and even their lives… how can we continue to pedal vanity and gloom and doom.

Tuesday I read this week’s Newsweek that featured article after article about how horrible everything is and how it’s not going to get any better and how the entire global economy is collapsing on itself and how we’ve zigged when we should have zagged and, no kidding, I really thought I was going to have to take some sort of nerve pill when I finally closed that magazine. So I’ve made the very mature decision to stop reading and watching the news. It freaks me out. And I really do think that if the news media would report positive stuff about “REAL” people, not the Brad Pitts or Jennifer Anistons of the world, for a solid month instead of focusing so much on the gloom and doom that things really would get better. Because we’d all feel better. And when you feel better, you act better. I know that’s simplistic. But it couldn’t hurt.

However, I won’t know if they decide to report positive stuff or not because I’M DONE WITH THE READING AND THE WATCHING.

Sandy, I think you’re right… I DO NEED A VACATION!