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I didn’t start out in the world a hard-ass, I swear. I was the nice girl, Little Mary Sunshine—turning the other cheek and searching for the good in all people. But you know what finally pushed me over the edge? I’ll sum it up for you in one word: breasts. More specifically, my‑breasts. I am a woman with large breasts—an intelligent woman, horror of horrors. (I mean, brains and‑breasts?

Allure

Irony of the month: While the Editor’s Letter says, “Shut up and eat,” and bemoans the fact that women are always “self-surveilling” their caloric intake, the mag gives information about: “Aromatrim” products (you smell them and they make you eat less); a new diet pill; “liposhaving” (you can guess what that is).

“So now you can eat like one of the boys, but still look like one of the girls,” says the male voice-over touting Baked Lays potato chips while supermodels stuff their faces on screen... Oh, boys, did you know—Twix bars are the new way to get rid of those pesky, materialistic, shallow, shopping-obsessed females in your life... Eating is a masculine activity, part two: Wendy’s Big Eaters ads. Chunky men eat while the announcer talks about how big the meals are... On Caroline in the City, four men discuss post-break-up ettiquette. Dell, Caroline’s ex-boyfriend, is pissed because she has a date with another man... Eating is a masculine activity, part three: On Wings, Helen and Joe are babysitting for a little girl. Joe offers her ice cream...

My arm fell asleep, I got so engrossed. This issue of Harper’s Bazaar is about as big as a bible—and just as full of prophecy.

I fall in love with the models, their blackened eyes and plaster pigment, all pinched and compressed into vinyl and leather, looking hot hot hot and totally unfazed. They are the visions of me that I will never see.

How about that new Taco Bell ad featuring 11-year-old boys on the beach ogling a shapely lifeguard... Guess what? According to Cosmopolitan you'll never get a date without duct tape and a "No Trespassing" sign... When Camille Paglia addresses the defunct pedophilic Calvin Klein ads in the October 31 issue of The Advocate, she implies that pedophilia is somehow an essential part of gay life... Sometimes we feel like we hallucinated this one, because we only saw it once-and because it was so horrifying... We're all for home exercise equipment, but why do the ads always have to be so fucking smug?... Now we have Nike telling us that the revolution will not be televised. On tele-vision...

This magazine is about speaking up.

I’ve always been a media junkie. Magazines, movies, television—I love them all and tend to consume them voraciously. But indiscriminate media consumption, maybe more than any other binge, can make you sick.