Jellyfish, Teeth Whitening Strips, and My Ass

I watched Globe Trekker on PBS last night. The host went to Micronesia for this episode and got to swim in a place called Jellyfish Lake in Palau.

A Video from inside Jellyfish Lake (click)

It's this amazing lake closed off from the ocean where the different kinds of jellyfish don't encounter any predators so their population just flourishes and there are millions of them in there! Because they have no predators, they don't develop really strong stings so humans can swim in there and be OK, which, in the program, was just so beautiful. I put swimming in Jellyfish Lake on my list of things to do before I die.

I bought Listerine Teeth Whitening strips because I saw a cool commercial for them and wanted to try them out. They're fun and work well and dissolve in my mouth, which is technologically amazing to me. They're like little minty rice papers.

My ass seems considerably larger than it was at the beginning of summer, which I attribute to my fried food intake at work. Honestly...I've never been more excited. I mentally put Venus Hottentot type bodies on a pedestal, perhaps because my mother constantly pushes food on me because she grew up in a developing country where fat still is a symbol of wealth, luxury, and happiness. It led me to respect the whole "put-some-meat-on-your-bones" concept, even in backwards Western culture where fat suggests excess, lack of self-control, and arguably poverty. That, combined with two serious past boyfriends being "ass men" and the song "Baby Got Back," put this recent development in happy light.

The Feminist in me raises the red flag at that thought...do I actually determine my happiness and self-worth at least partly by what other people value, specifically males? How disturbing. The Vulcan in me refutes that disturbance, determining the previous boyfriends' affinity to The Ass as positive reinforcement from potential breeding mates, whose opinion matters on simple grounds of survival by biological reproduction and happiness by sheer attraction. How logical. The Zen Muffin in me finds both arguments enough of an acceptable balance of Yin and Yang to continue eating the food that contributes to my factually larger derriere. How delicious. The Journalist in me finds the fact that I just blogged about my butt quite shameful, because apparently I can't comment intelligently on anything else in the world. How embarrassing.

The Couch on which I sit thinks my butt is big. Sweet.

In an attempt to sound apologetic and less pleased with my body, because that is the unfortunate paradigm of the female figure set by historic precedent and reinforced by popular culture, the upper half of my body is still waiting on puberty. You got this far so you officially care...I'll keep you posted.