Why I Can’t/Won’t/Don’t Read Celebrity Crap Anymore

On November 30, I swore off junk food publications like People, Us Weekly, InTouch, and all the other celebrity gossip rags. I don’t put junk food in my body, and I’m no longer putting junk food in my mind.

Instead of filling my head with nonsense that takes up valuable space, I thought I might be able to use all that prime real estate to think my own thoughts, make up stories for my future best-selling novels, generate kick-ass peptalks for weak moments, and create new recipes.

So, how am I doing with that?

Our free 6-week subscription to Us Weekly is over and all the back issues have been donated to the corporate overlords’ office. Just like when I purged the cabinets to eat clean, the poison is out of the house.

I deleted all my online bookmarks for the above-referenced rags, unsubscribed from their evil mailing lists, and today, killed my last hold-out: the RSS feed for my favorite online celebrity blogger at Pink is the New Blog. That one hurt…. but that crap no longer haunts my inbox nor taunts me while I’m reading quality blogs like this and this and this and this.

I continue to visit GoFugYourself because the Fug Girls mostly talk about the clothes and pop culture, and they have such a great writing style and voice, sometimes I get ideas about my own writing. I consider that a legitimate rationalization; feel free to disagree with me.

I made the momentous decision NOT to watch American Idol this year. I love that silly the show: the faux drama, the kids from nowhere who sing like rockstars, the snarky comments from Simon… But how has watching that show improved my life? Yes, it’s a nice chillaxed release after a busy work day, but so is reading Jane Eyre, playing the piano, watching an old episode of Julia Child’s cooking show – and those entertainment pursuits don’t poison my brain.

Dave and I did tune into the Golden Globes on Sunday night, but only because 1) I really wanted to see the dresses (and there were lots of lovely ones this year!); 2) I wanted to watch the Globes and eat paleo pizza (Oh! See how I’m teasing you?! I finally made dino-chow pizza and haven’t shared the photos yet. Soon!); and 3) I had to see Meryl Streep because I love her, and I will be like her when I’m 60. I will! Confident, lovely, aging gracefully and gorgeously, taking important stuff, but not herself, seriously.

We don’t have cable, so I was only able to see the standard network coverage of the Globes, which spared me from the ugliness of Guiliana Rancic taking everyone to an ugly body image place, over and over again. Seriously, this video at that link will make you aggro.

While we’re chatting about body image and celebrities – and Good Heavens to Betsy Ross, I’m glad I stopped reading and watching that crap! – take a look at this blog post (very good) and photo (very bad) about Heidi Montag’s horrendously terrible body image and subsequent plastic surgery. It breaks my heart… almost. Then I’m filled with rage and frustration and, frankly, feel a little out of patience with the whole thing.

Enough with the celebrities doing wacky shit and magazines promoting their habits like we mere mortals should try them.

Enough with the stick-skinny ones saying they’re fat.

Enough with the fit ones saying they never exercise and like to smoke… or have been vegetarian “forever”… or “workout SO HARD” to look like this then hold 2-lb. dumbbells.

And for the love of Sunbutter, enough already with dogging Jessica Simpson for being “fat” when she’s, like, a size six.

Enough.

(And how do I still know all this crap when I don’t read that celebrity garbage anymore?! I blame the magazine racks in the grocery store check-out aisle. I guess I’ll need to avert my eyes from now on.)

Anyway… coming down from the rant…

I said a few weeks ago, I’m going easy on the bod. And I’m trying to keep the focus on what my body can do and how it feels on the inside, rather than how it looks – or, more importantly, how I think it looks – on the outside. THIS IS HARD WORK. But it’s way worth it.