It’s summer.

Translation: I’m not doing sh*t.

Actually, that’s a huge lie. Instead of lounging like I would like to be, I’m working my ass off at a menial job making minimum wage. Hours upon hours of filing, sitting in front of a super-slow, super-irritating computer and returning home to do the same (with the addition of the roommates watching endless Friends re-runs as background noise) has turned me into a bit of a mindless drone. I have felt myself becoming lazier, smellier, dumber and well, wider.

My gym shoes have collected dust by the front door, right next to at least three garbage bags full of Keystone cans, Bud Light bottles and the occasional box of Carlo. My once-amazing gym habits (3x a week, alternating between running and the elliptical) have become practically non-existent. I even have a sweet new workout mix created on my iPod, but this has still not motivated me to actually go exercise.

But, I figure that there is always a bright side to every situation. Since I can’t actually find the energy to drag myself halfway across town to the gym, I decided that I can bring the exercise to me. But, with little cash and little-to-no motivation, what can a girl do to stay in shape? Read More »

In 1993, Lisa Simpson assessed the female role models of her time, and came up with a grim prognosis.

“Millions of girls will grow up thinking that this is the right way to act,” she said, “that they can never be more than vacuous ninnies whose only goal is to look pretty, land a rich husband, and spend all day on the phone with their equally vacuous friends talking about how damn terrific it is to look pretty and have a rich husband.”

In 1998, “Sex & the City” aired for the first time, and Lisa Simpson’s fears came to life.

“Sex & the City” was (does anyone not know this?) a TV series that followed the lives of four women as they navigated the perilously sexful world of life in New York City. These women were meant to stand in for their entire gender, in spite of the fact that they were uniformly white, straight, and rich enough that they could have afforded to feed third-world villages with the money that they spent on shoes. They spent their (apparently endless) free time engaging in all life’s most vital pursuits: boys, gossip, clothes, and parties.

In spite of its patently unrealistic set-up, its exaggerated characters and neatly ridiculous plotting, many viewers were convinced that “Sex & the City” was a masterpiece of realism. People moved to New York because of the show. If they lived here, they tried to live like its characters; if they didn’t live here, they imagined our lives on its terms. These people, mostly women, who Gawker aptly christened Scary Sadshaws, elevated “Sex & the City” out of its proper place in the universe - light entertainment, with sex and terrifying costumes - and treated it as a lifestyle guide. Read More »