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Soapy Soapy Soap
2005-08-17 - 2:37 p.m.

In my dreams my journal is as interesting as Chad Fox�s. He manages to make my lovely city sound so fun and lively, and takes great pictures too. I have blog envy� well admiration, I guess. I love to read what he has to say and about his adventures through the nightlife and daylife of San Francisco. He has far more exciting experiences than me. I mean, hello, driving Jane Russell to Santa Maria totally beats out, well, not faux drag queens, but definitely your average night at Zeitgeist. Though the Tamale Lady definitely never disappoints, so I do have that.

Anyway, I am going to go to yoga tonight. I find when I put things in here with deadlines I am more likely to get them done, so I am trying with the gym as well. So, yes, I am going to yoga. Then I am going to draft and draw until bed time, with food in there somewhere.

Ok, so there is something that I just learned about that is bothering me a bit. I just found out that the Center for Disease Control has been lying to us. (look at me all linky linky) Anyway, when the government wanted to put out this whole anti obesity thing a couple years ago, the CDC put out a study with FALSE INFORMATION making everything sound so much worse than it actually is just to support the government�s campaign. Obesity is NOT the 2nd biggest killer in the US. It is somewhere around 6th or 7th. They claimed obesity causes more than 400,000 deaths a year. The real number is less than 26,000. Wha�Wha�WHAT?! That is a little more than just a dropped decimal, people. Add to this, all of the symptoms they were talking about which cause all these deaths tend to occur only in the top 2% of the most obese and to top it all off, many of the folk who fall into the �overweight� category are actually healthier than many people who are at their �Healthy� weight. Also, diabetes is rising at the same rate in all weight groups, not just among overweight people. The worst part? The CDC is planning to NOT change these facts in their campaign. They are going to knowingly keep people in the dark.

Now, I am all for promoting healthy living and getting rid of excess weight and all of that good stuff, and I think the spirit of getting folks off the couch and eating apples is great, but how can the CDC knowingly lie to people about their health when their job is to HELP KEEP THEM HEALTHY AND INFORMED. I can�t tell you how many people I know who are convinced they are going to drop dead at any minute because they have been carrying an extra ten pounds for the last few years. These are healthy, normal people who eat reasonably well and get out and move about and probably fit into that �healthier than some goal weight people� category, but because the CDC and all the �experts� have been saying it is so bad they really think they are bad people who are going to have serious medical problems if they don�t spend 12 hours a day at the gym. This is not good or right or, say it with me folks, healthy. I am also not even going to get started about the social ramifications that this has caused, for both heavy and skinny folks, that is a whole other rant you really don�t want to get me going on (trust me, really, or I will tell the story of the only time I have ever come close to starting a fist fight. OK, fine, I�ll tell. It really is rather boring. Basically, we�ll just say I am not a small girl. Never have been, even when I am at fighting weight. Anyway, one day some jackass seems to think it is appropriate to call me a name because I had the audacity to, I don�t know, walk down the street? In public? God forbid. Yeah. Now, again, I am not of any kind of unusual size, I�m a bloody size 16! (see? Even I�m justifying here) I was having a crappy day and just didn�t feel like taking shit from some punk ass dick so I called him on it. People don�t like this. They want to be able to make their snotty ass comments without the victim ever reacting, at least not anything past cringing or looking away. Because these people are bullies. Anyway, long story short, I called him on it, he freaked out, I happened to have him cornered, being the huge amazon that I am (heh) and he being the weakling emo punk he was, and told him to shut it before I did it for him (and I was ready to. It was one of those �give me a reason� days.) He called me a bitch and walked away�quickly. The quickly was what made me happy. Anyway, I wasn�t nearly as threatening as it sounds, I didn�t yell or shove him or anything and it always sounds much more bad ass than it actually was, so I don�t really tell the story very much. And this is the longest parenthesis ever.). OK, tangent, sorry. Basically, I am pissed that the government can now, on top of everything else, blatantly lie about our health risks and strengths. Though, to be honest, I am not surprised when you pile it on top of everything else. I think that what also bugs me is, chances are, the outside media is probably only going to pay cursory attention to this as well, because it isn�t �glamorous� to tell folks they might just be ok the way they are; eat an apple, run around the block, but hey, don�t worry too much because you are probably fine. There is no need to panic. Gah. Oh, and don�t try to tell me that the news doesn�t prefer glamorous news, either. The phrase �If it bleeds it leads� exists for a reason. But we all knew that already, right?

OK, well, that was quite a rant, wasn�t it? Well, I�ll just stick my little soap box back in the closet for next time, get it out of the way. It�s all sudsy and gets spots on the floor.

So, back to the mundanities of life. I�m trying to get my room and the rest of my house a bit more organized, as I have mentioned before. I have new, pretty baskets for all of the magazines in the living room, now I need one for all the blankets, et al., that seem to get everywhere when we don�t need them. I also need to clean up my drafting area. I�ve managed to find myself a three drawer flat- file to put all of my drawings in (yay!) but now I need a place to put that. I really need to cull the herd in that little corner of the apartment and see if it can squeeze in over there. I�m not sure if it will, since ideally I would rather it be up off the floor a little, but that may not be able to happen just yet. I think I should just be happy to find space for it Well, if I do bring this in, I can lose the enormous box I�ve been keeping everything rolled up and standing upright in getting their little ends all scrunched up.

Well, anyway, I think that�s all for now. We are steadily heading into ridiculously boring territory. I�m boring myself at this point.

when we last left our heros� - in our next exciting installment�