WhiteRabbit

Since perusing the copy of ‘You’, published 06/06/10 and following a particularly feverish sleepless night, I have found myself contemplating the following at length:

I am a 30yr old woman. Could it be that there is no glimmer of life left within me now to fill the bleak void of years between one needing a good meal and an STI test and being fitted with a colostomy bag and mobility aid?

‘You’ magazine has always been a bright oasis of spirit within the otherwise solemn reflection of your average Sunday, and yet this week as I took leave to the Ladies Powder Room, whilst flicking through ‘You’ I came over suddenly melancholy.
After 20 minutes alone with your publication, I found myself exiting the Powder Room feeling distinctly more burdened than when I entered, which is a most disturbing sensation.
The Summer Sun Issue! It proclaims on the contents page, but how so? Within that lost 20 minutes I seemed to have developed acute reverse Seasonal Affective Disorder.
Immediately bewildered as to who exactly would adorn themselves with an item of clothing such as the faded denim sweetheart crop bustier on pg16, the picture of this faceless woman built as I read. Could it be that this young Madonna-esque fashionista is the same woman who requires help with her corns, bunions and dry heel skin? And that the same woman is concerned about her partner’s night time incontinence, whilst twiddling with the straps on her 6in wedges and considering an Over 60s week in Cork?
To think of the tears running down her sensitive skin as she recalls the time she could step outside into the sun without her wheat, dairy, pollen, gluten, orthopaedic, cholesterol, weight, emotional, painful childhood, failing marriage, insomnia, near bankruptcy, disposal of spent chewing gum, unwanted hairs and heat allergy problems flaring up. Lucky for her all these things are nailed, at length, within the pages of ‘You’ magazine.

I’d hoped for vim and vigour from ‘You’ and was genuinely deflated. By the time i’d finished with Liz Jones’s Memoir of Misery I was what could only be described as Demented and wondered whether a change of title to Ne-You-rotic was on the cards.

Had your supplement’s complementary supplement ‘Clifford James Home & Garden Catalogue’ not fluttered to my feet as I was poised to dive from the bathroom balcony into the rhododendron below, promising such treasures as Diabetic Socks, Big Button Mobile Phones and an all wheel drive Zimmer (with brakes), I may not be here now.

Not one however to offer critique without help, I have re-written your article ‘How To Avoid Emotional Breakdown’.
Please excuse the writing within, as I was on the verge of an emotional breakdown myself last night when I wrote it.

Yours Faithfully
Ms Endeavour DuSwank.