Our National Schizophrenia

I do wish people would decide what it is they want. I am basing this remark on the recent newspapers I've been reading - and it seems we are a nation of schizophrenics.

Item: The Daily News and the Post in the last couple of days. Pictures of poor old Jessica Simpson all over the place with stories about how much weight she's gained (which looks to be not much more than 10 pounds, given what cameras do - trust me on this one). Same papers, other days? Stories about the terrible rise of anorexia.

Items: Today's food section in the NYTimes. Front page of section - doom and gloom about high sodium content in our food and measures to solve the problem. Lower down on the page? A long article (more laudatory than otherwise) about the new Internet recipe sensation, which happens to be a roll of sausage with crumbled bacon on top wrapped in an interwoven mat of bacon. Um, can we say disconnect? (And an interesting steak recipe from Mark Bittman that seems as if it would taste almost medieval - I think I'll try it.)

But really, people - can't we make up our minds? Either we're against anorexia or we're not (and we certainly should be). So here we are saying that models should be tested for weight and eating disorders, and whatever happened to a nice healthy looking figure - and the minute a performer achieves that health, all the papers attack immediately on the subject of awful weight gains. Of course, one of the problems is that the camera adds weight. I'm sure you've all heard that one...the camera adds ten pounds. Hah. Make it twenty. The first time I ever saw myself on film I leaped up and ran to the ladies' room to get partially undressed to make sure the labels on my clothes still said Size 6, because I assure you what I was seeing on screen was size 16. It was AWFUL. Thank God for being a middle-aged character actress for whom this sort of thing doesn't matter. So remember that when you're saying, "My God, how much weight has she gained?", the poor performer has probably gotten all the way up to a size 4.

And who in their right mind puts an article about salt reduction on the same page as an article containing a recipe that calls for two pounds of thick cut bacon and a pound and a half of Italian sausage? By the way, it sounds wonderful...oh, Tiger Lily...maybe not. I wouldn't want Tiger Lily and The Boss to die of cholesterol poisoning before their first anniversary.

Actually, it looks easy enough for me to make - particularly because the bacon mat the sausage is wrapped in is made exactly the same way as the newspaper situpons we used to make in Girl Scout camp for rainy nights around the campfire.

Love, Wendy