by Carrie Brownstein

This morning I woke up and took my performance enhancing drugs — didn't you? It's hard to get through our hectic days without a little help, and the ante keeps getting raised for what constitutes healthy, beautiful, young, male, female, talented, smart, and environmentally conscious. I used to drink orange juice that was not from concentrate to get me started in the mornings. But then OJ plus calcium seemed like the better way to go. Yet now calcium is not enough. I might have to try an orange juice that contains plant sterols, which will supposedly lower my cholesterol. My organic cereal, featuring a grain I can't pronounce so that I can avoid the easily pronounceable but much maligned grain called "wheat," is enriched with 18 vitamins and minerals. By 9 am I am already on my way to another day of peak performance.

Next stop is my computer where I check email on my Mac iBook G4 circa 2005. Both the computer and my Internet connection are too slow. I know that if I want to keep up with everyone else, I better hurry up and escalate the speed of both devices, maybe by shelling out $1800 for the so-hyped-it-will-feel-dated-by-the-time-it-comes-out MacBook Air.

Technology and the media have made us addicts of achievement and enhanced performance. And we need to be. How else can we process the hyperbole, the onslaught of information and gadgets, and the 24-hour news cycle? We've adapted by becoming supercharged.

What are MySpace and Facebook if not virtual enhancements of us and of our social sphere? Music downloads, live streaming, YouTube, TiVo, those are sped up, more powerful versions of media consumption. Whether it is the pressure to get a car that understands via voice command what music to play, or to feed our animals not just treats, but ones loaded with lavender to help their anxiety and glucosamine to aid in their sore hips — there is an emphasis on doing the newest, bestest, fastest thing. So why should we leave our bodies out of the equation? Otherwise, not only are we lagging behind our friends, our competitors, our pets, and some version of who we think society wants us to be, but we are also lagging behind our own devices. The rules of performance and success have changed, not just in sports, but also in every day life. Each facet of our day is measured up against a norm that keeps moving to extremities just beyond our reach.

So, I am not surprised by the latest news alleging that 50 Cent, Mary J. Blige and others used or received performance-enhancing drugs. And even if they didn't, there is likely someone else in music who did, or who is. Three encores? 20-minute guitar solos? Double kick drum? Madonna's arms? Come on! And it's not going to stop with musicians. Just wait until we find out that author Joyce Carol Oates has been on the juice as well. How else does she put out two books a year? And I suppose James Frey's style of non-fiction is its own version of performance enhancement.

Maybe the reason for our ambivalence on the subject of performance enhancing substances, illegal or not, is because our own lives and our own bodies are seeking, if not needing, a boost all the time. Though the alchemy of staying ahead or merely keeping up might vary from person to person, very few of us aren't juiced these days. Yet it's one thing to be doing it for yourself and another to be buying in to external pressure. In other words, just because we are striving for improvement doesn't mean we have to drink the Kool-Aid.