Readers Imbibing Peril Challenge: The Dark Side of the Pussycat Dolls

As an ugly, bullied teenager, I envied entertainers and tried to model myself after them. I was in my mid-thirties when I first heard of the Pussycat Dolls. While I was beyond the stage of trying to model myself after entertainers, I was extremely envious of them. Nicole Scherzinger is one of those women who makes a plump, plain-faced schlub like me have mental breakdowns because I know I can never possess a fraction of her beauty and charisma.

It turns out that things were not as glamorous for these gals as they appeared. Nicole secretly suffered from low self-esteem and had issues with self-harm. None of the ladies were making bank. Like many entertainers, they had to foot the bill for their own tours, and they were expected to keep up appearances even if they could hardly afford to feed themselves. 

Over time, I’ve come to have sympathy for entertainers like the Pussycat Dolls. They had very little control over their lives. They had to stick to a grueling tour and appearance schedule and were expected to look and act a certain way at all times. The music industry is notorious for chewing up and spitting out its performers. If one of them falls, it’s on to the next shiny new thing. 

The entertainment industry is filled with stranger than fiction truths and fraught with real-life peril. It’s erroneous to envy someone for being conventionally attractive. A pretty face can hide an ugly reality.

~Ornery Owl Has Spoken~

Shameless Self-Promotion + Inspiration: Who The Hell Said You Could Write?

 

Image by Chen from Pixabay

I also publishing the cleaned-up version of this essay on the Crazy Creatives Cheerleading Camp blog. 

http://crazycreativescheerleadingcamp.blogspot.com

I'm publishing both the first draft and the cleaned-up version here to illustrate my editing prowess. 

Challenge Prompt: Who was the first person you told about your decision to pursue paid writing, and what was their reaction?

The First Draft

I can’t recall anyone ever telling me I should pursue a paid writing career. If anything, my family pushed me to avoid pursuing any kind of creative occupation, despite my father being a professor of literature and social sciences. I ended up following my parents’ chosen path for me and went into health care, a choice which ended up destroying my own health. I later learned that my father hoped I would become a professor of middle English since I displayed a love for it at a young age. I was a precocious learner when it came to language. I could read the Dr. Seuss books by the time I was four years old, and by the time I was six, I was reading Edgar Allan Poe.

Scarier still, I found myself relating to Edgar Allan Poe. I was never a particularly happy child. I never felt like I belonged in the world. I realized at a young age that the world was a scary place filled with awful possibilities. Perhaps childhood should be carefree and idyllic, but it’s naive to think it actually is.

These days I find myself wishing I could go back in time and tell my parents, “I know you’re doing what you think is best because of what you learned from your own families, but you need to stop and rethink things. You are really fucking up this child, who, in the future, will become the horrifying swamp witch you see before you. You are fracturing her fragile eggshell mind before she even has a chance to learn how to critique a concept and see if it holds up. You are contributing to the creation of a neurotic, traumatized soul who has no self-confidence or belief in herself.”

I can’t do that, though. I don’t have any sort of time machine or portal spell that will allow me to travel to the past and talk sense to my parents or push my bullies into a mud puddle if I’m feeling benevolent or a fire ant hill if I’m feeling less so. I grew up in New Mexico. I learned to hate fire ants early on. I’m surprised I haven’t written a horror story about fire ants yet. Or maybe I’m not. I really don’t care for stories about creepy crawlies.

Right now, I’m not entirely sure what my intention is with this blog. I keep trying to re-invent my blogging presence. There are certain things I’ve learned along the way, but I’d feel like a bullshit artist if I tried to present myself as any kind of know-it-all expert. I do know I’m done screaming into the void hoping someone will sympathize with my pain and validate my existence. I can only speak from my own experiences. I can’t tell anyone else what to do. If I manage to help someone else by exposing my own foibles or relating my misadventures, it’s a win.

The Edited Version

I can’t recall anyone telling me to pursue a paid writing career. My family discouraged me from entering any creative occupation, despite my father's background as a professor of literature and social sciences. I ultimately followed my parents' wishes and entered the healthcare field. Ironically, working in this field destroyed my health.

I later learned that my father hoped I would become a professor of Middle English because of my early interest in the subject. I was a precocious language learner. By the time I was four years old, I was reading Dr. Seuss' books. By six, I was reading Edgar Allan Poe.

Scarier still, I related to Edgar Allan Poe. I was not a particularly happy child. I never felt like I belonged. I realized at a young age that the world was a frightening place filled with awful possibilities. Perhaps childhood should be carefree and idyllic, but it’s naïve to believe it actually is.

These days I find myself wishing I could travel back in time and tell my parents, “I know you’re doing what you think is right because of what you learned from your own families, but you need to stop and rethink things. You are really fucking up this child, who, in the future, will become the horrifying swamp witch you see before you. You are fracturing her fragile eggshell mind before she even learns how to analyze a concept to see if it holds up. You are contributing to the creation of a neurotic, traumatized soul who has no self-confidence or belief in herself.”

I can’t do that, though. I don’t have any sort of time machine or portal spell that will allow me to journey to the past and talk sense to my parents or push my bullies into a mud puddle if I’m feeling benevolent or a fire ant hill if I’m feeling less so.

I grew up in New Mexico. I learned to hate fire ants early on. I’m surprised I haven’t written a horror story about fire ants yet. Or maybe I’m not. I really don’t care for stories about creepy crawlies.

I’m not sure what my intention is with this blog. I keep trying to reinvent my online presence. There are certain things I’ve learned along the way, but I’d feel like a bullshit artist if I tried to present myself as some kind of know-it-all expert.

I do know I’m done screaming into the void, hoping someone will sympathize with my pain and validate my existence. I can only speak from my own experiences. I can’t force others to care about me. If I help someone else by exposing my foibles or relating my misadventures, it’s a win.

Summary

I removed 50 filler words and restructured sentences and paragraphs to enhance clarity and readability. Both versions of the post convey the same message, but the second one does so more efficiently.

If you're interested in booking editing services, you can learn more here.

https://ornerybookemporium.blogspot.com/p/ornery-literary-services.html

Free use image from Open Clipart Vectors

Sly Speaks + Fat Friday + Friday Flashback: Diet Culture Rhetoric Is Not Poetry

This poignant gem was originally published on 17 January 2010 on my now-retired poetry blog.

life It would be far easier to diet if I didn't like food.

This, apparently, was the entire-ass poem.

A year later, I would finally take the long-needed step of ditching diet culture for good.

That is a terrible statement, let alone being a terrible poem. 

It isn't even a poem, it's a blurb. A very stupid and brainwashed blurb. It's a tweet that shouldn't have been tweeted. It is a lot of things, none of them good. A poem it is not. 

The Chili Bean Tanka is a better poem, and it is not a good poem. In fact, it is close to Vogon poetry in its poetic injustice.

It goes a little bit something like this.

I ate the chili

between the beans and the spice

digestive horror

beneath the cover of night

noxious eruptions take place

As I mentioned previously, I struggled over the holidays. My abusive partner ED (Eating Disorder) reared his ugly head and I relapsed into my old restrictive eating and self-loathing patterns. Which, by the way, never made me thin, they just fucked my metabolism over and made me hate myself even more. 

However, reading this micro-poem that should not be, I could see where I'd been myopic in my criticism of a poet whose book I reviewed recently. I gave the book overall high praise, but I stated that her "poem" which read as follows, and I quote:

love ends but calories are forever

was not so much a poem as unfortunate diet culture rhetoric, and I wouldn't want to read it as a tweet, let alone in a book of poetry.

Given the unseemly evidence above, that critique was hypocritical of me.

However, there is a lesson to be learned.

Next time you think publishing a pithy pearl of poignant perspicacity such as this...

Go to the kitchen and grab yourself a snack. Or at least have something to drink. Your blood sugar may be low because if you think that's worth publishing, you obviously haven't been thinking clearly. Step out for a breath of air and clear your head of the Diet Culture nonsense. You've obviously bitten off more of it than you can chew.

That being said, Words Written in the Dark is, overall, a thoughtful and thought-provoking volume of modern poetry, and I recommend it highly.

Fat and Ornery

Image copyright Open Clipart Vectors

Ornery Literary Services

Sly and Snarky

Image copyright juliahenze @123rf.com