Admit it. Deep in your heart, you look forward to this.
By the way? Before we move on from that Game of Thrones meme, how awesome/disgusting/awesome are these? If I had any baking talent whatsoever, I'd make some.
Where was I? Oh yeah.
First order of business, only very very loosely related to this blog's topic: the royal OB/GYNs. Read a little blurb this morning that the two gentlemen who delivered the heir to the throne of Great Britain yesterday consisted of a.) the Queen's gynecologist and b.) the doc who did Camilla's hysterectomy. How weird would it be to be the Queen's gynecologist? Does she have to change into a drafty paper gown like the rest of us? Do you think she is still holding onto her little purse when she's in the stirrups? (Did I just make you picture the Queen in stirrups? Did it then make you imagine your own little old grandmother in stirrups? I've got some brain bleach I can sell you...***) Secondly, I dunno, but the knowledge that Camilla had her lady parts yanked out makes me feel a weird sense of solidarity with her I never thought I'd have.
Secondly, this post was linked to on Already Pretty yesterday. I hadn't particularly heard of the Fuck Flattering movement/project/whatever before, but I will say that being 5'2, I have always had a fairly jaundiced attitude towards fashion articles suggesting I wear x to look taller and avoid y so as not to appear stumpy. Who says I want to look taller? I have never had any problem with being, like a candy bar, "fun size." (Well, okay, I do bitch about not being able to reach the top cabinet shelves and, before the T was uniformly air conditioned, having my nose at other people's pit level during summer rush hours was fairly unpleasant, but those are practical, not aesthetic, concerns.) Furthermore, ain't none of those styling tricks fooling anyone anyways. Put me in 4 inch heels and I don't look 5'6, I look like a short woman in big shoes. Sometimes I wanna look like a short woman in big shoes, but that doesn't mean I think I look tall. So I'm pretty simpatico with the "fuck flattery" thing. Wear what you like because dressing to camouflage what your body actually looks like is fruitless and silly.
However. That linked post made me sad. Those of you who are regular readers will know this, but let me restate it to be plain: unlike a lot of "fitness" people, I do not demonize overweight people. I don't think being fat is a sin. I don't think being fat equates, necessarily, to being unhealthy. I think there are some extremely attractive fat people, just as there are some extremely attractive muscular people, and extremely attractive skinny people, and extremely attractive average-sized people. I push back hard against the idea that there's such a thing as a bikini body, that anyone should have to look a certain way in order to be entitled to wear a bathing suit at the pool, a shmexy dress at the club, or a pair of tight yoga pants in the gym. Fuck all that. Nevertheless that post made me sad, because it was plain as day to me that that young woman, despite her bravado, really does not feel positive about her body and appearance. For god's sake, she calls herself ugly. Now maybe she's reacting to other people having called her ugly at some point in her life. Maybe she's taking back the word. I dunno. I do know that the whole tone of that blog post reeks of deep insecurity. The subtext is not that she's wearing a crop top because, shit, she thinks crop tops are so cute and fun and she thinks she looks adorable in it. She's wearing it to say "I know you think I'm ugly, so I'ma wear what's gonna accentuate that *to you*, to look even uglier in your eyes, just to prove I don't give a fuck." Which proves she does give a fuck. I can't see it as truly holding up a positive body image. And I say that with great empathy as someone who's struggled with her own body image at many points in her life.
Finally, and we won't even pretend this is on topic (except that it is for people who like to run, walk, or bike outdoors!) meet my latest favorite thing: wundermap. OMG, you guys, I can look at real time radar down to the street level. This just saved me from heading out for a walk to the CVS an hour ago when, though it wasn't raining and it actually looked like the sun was poking through, there was a huge patch of heavy rain heading right for me. I do this all the time now. If the weather says scattered thunderstorms or 50% chance of rain or whatever and I want to take a walk, I pull up wundermaps and see if there is in fact any rain coming towards me and how far away it is. Brilliant! Stops me from inadvertently getting soaked and/or deciding to stay home when in fact it *isn't* gonna rain in my vicinity any time soon.
That's all I got!
xoxo
***actually, I saw my own grandmother's hooha quite a bit during her last year of life. Didn't really require brain bleach, 'cause face it, without it, I wouldn't be here, capice?
I mostly use wunderground on the iPod touch, and I just discovered that on the laptop I can actually see enough detail on the map to matter. Thanks for that. :)
ReplyDeleteMary Anne in Kentucky
You're welcome! :-)
ReplyDeleteohhhh Andrea, this blog post is perfect for me and here is why: I've been reading your blog in chronological order but while I was walking today, I thought I'd HAVE to apologize for being off topic with my comment, whatever the most recent topic was going to be, to thank you for something.
ReplyDeleteI wanted to make sure you'd see this right away (because how else could you go on with your day if you didn't...am I egocentric much? ). I don't know how it works with old comments and when or if you might see them. OMG, OMG, OMG, the stomach vacuuming WORKS!!!! (that IS what it's called right? if not, you know what i mean). I've reached that post last week and started doing the exercise while walking. I gained a couple of pounds this summer but when I put on a pair of shorts that were slightly tight last week, the waistband GAPPED! So, yeah, THANK YOU!!!!! Now what about upper arm vacuuming? How about we vacuum my upper arms and pump that stuff into my flat ass?
BTW, those "pops" made me laugh. A couple of generations back, my family had settled into a part of the world where that "practice" was routine. So yeah, desensitized to the "disgusting" part of your description.
I wear horizontal stripes regularly, I think tiny women are adorable, but I do not envy the men who are in the same situation, as for the lady bits, if parts of the world were not so puritanical, we'd think of them the same way that we do all the others. Will have to check out the app, since the one on my iPhone sucks out loud and always leaves me carrying my umbrella at the wrong time and getting drenched when it shows 0% chance of precipitation, god damn it! OK, back to where I left off, your "OFF TOPIC" post; how perfect is that?
Dlamb, so happy the stomach vacuums are a winner for you! I gotta ask, though...where did your family live that the heads-on-a-stick thing was still a thing? Eek!
ReplyDeleteUnfortunately the head lolly pops were not uncommon in Europe in several countries, in the 14-16th century. Quite a matter of pride too, in some Central European countries! Eeeek indeed!
ReplyDeleteAs for my ancestors, invaders all, I fear, with a tiny exception (maternal grandmother was Swiss). The rest, Austrians and Germans all... As you know, those European borders were, shall we say "flexible"?