Death by Spanx

I read recently that Oprah has an entire closet filled with shapewear. I own a few pieces that I rely on heavily to keep everything sucked in, at least between the hours of 9 and 5.

For the past couple of weeks, my back has really been bothering me. I think it's partly due to stress, partly due to lifting Daisy our new puppy, and now, I'm beginning to think, it is in part due to Spanx.

I mean if you think about it, wearing Spanx is no different than foot binding or corsets. Sure there's no whale bone involved in today's version. But you're applying pressure for long periods of time, a practice that could almost certainly lead to back pain. Or front pain. Name your poison.

Of course the alternative is unthinkable. A life without Spanx simply isn't worth living....

Top 10 Signs We're Living in Bizarro-world

1. Levi Johnston, appeared at the 2009 Fleshbot Awards, celebrating amateur and professional porn. There he told a reporter Sarah Palin was smart not to dish about him on Oprah saying, "She knows what I got on her." Yes she done did know, Levi.
2. Balloon Boy's parents, Richard and Mayumi Heene, will be charged with a felony and misdemeanor respectively, but will only serve probationary sentences. Thankfully, they will continue to be parents to their three young boys.
3. In the current issue of O Magazine, Oprah writes about using her voice as a force for good and a revelation she had while hiking in the Colorado woods. She asked of the universe, "What would you have me do?" and the aspens whispered back, "Take the high road." In this spirit she graciously offered to be the person who unveiled the chimp mauling victim's face for the first time on TV.
4. Mike Tyson was arrested and charged with battery for punching a photographer at LAX. He did not, however, bite the man's ear off so it's considered a win-win for both.
5. Kenneth Feinberg, Obama's executive compensation czar, is concerned a 50% cut in pay to Citigroup's top executives will drive talent away from all companies receiving a US taxpayer bailout. Andrew Hall, a Citigroup trader, may earn as much as $100 million this year because his contract precedes the bailout. I don't know how he'll get by on that kind of chump change.
6. The Filipino extremist group responsible for kidnapping then releasing an Irish priest is called MILF. I'm not going to be the one to tell them.
7. Carrie Prejean, former Miss California USA, was outraged by interview questions regarding a sex tape she made with a boyfriend claiming, "Christians aren't perfect." She went on to say, "Homosexuals aren't perfect either but they're more not perfect than Christians so they deserve to be smote."
8. Michael Jackson's funeral cost more than $1 million including $600,000 for his crypt, $35,000 for his clothes, $12,000 for invitations and $5,000 for extra special dirt.
9. Britney Spears twitter account was hacked but the account has since been reverted. Now the real Britney is tweeting about lip-synching her way through Australia.
10. Modern Warfare 2, a first-person killing game, sold 4.7 million copies on the first day of release in the US and UK. Msnbc columnist, Winda Benedetti, describes the rush she felt when in hand-to-hand combat with a (fake) human being bad guy, she plunges her (virtual) knife into his (pretend) belly and he takes his last breath in her (imaginary) arms.

NB: This note was hanging in the bathroom at Macy's Herald Square. Perhaps most alarming is the manager's inability to correctly spell maneger.