truth in advertising, part whatever

The esteemed Ms. Crabby said in comments that she wouldn't actually mind seeing some of my flexing pictures, and it got me to thinking why I really haven't been posting "progress" pics on the blog anymore. Oh, I showed you my abzzzz when they started peeking out again in December, but other than that, recent pictures have been scant.

There's a bunch of reasons for that.  One of them is that I've been toying with whether I should associate this blog with my real name. (Contrary to what you might think, "malevolent" is not found on any of my legal documentation, no matter how badass a passport that would in fact be.) It's been a good ten years since I've done anything serious with my writing, i.e. anything that would generate income from it or expose it to a wider audience, and I'm at a point where I think maybe it's time to change that back.  The few people who do read my crap these days often tell me they enjoy it, tell me I'm talented, blah blah, and when I see the number of non-entertaining talent-lacking people who have actual readerships, I sometimes think, damn, girl, you ought to get serious about this writing shit again. And I'm not sure that getting serious includes linking your name and your writing to pictures of yourself in your underwear. I could be wrong though. Anyone who wants to link to Pulitzer prize winners in their bikinis, please feel free.

Another reason is that I'm not sure self-indulgent pictures of me are really what you guise reading this come here for.  I don't delude myself that anyone visiting this blog does so because they're inspired by my awesome fitness example or because I have anything to teach anyone. I'm pretty sure anyone reading this is here because we share a general interest in the topic of fitness and I manage to write about it in a way that amuses you. Or because you googled "serena williams boobs." Tomato, tomahto. I don't judge. But I'm not sure bathroom selfies of me in a sports bra satisfy either of those needs.

A third reason pictures on here are more scant than they used to be is that I take a lot fewer. As I'm pretty sure I've posted before, prior to being forced to take from-every-angle scantily-dressed pics for that transformation contest, I'd pretty much sworn off that activity because in general, it just makes me feel bad. Progress pictures often feel like non-progress pictures, especially when using the camera self-timer, and taking twenty shots in order to get three or four half-decent ones is just exhausting and demoralizing. So much about whether you look good, mediocre, or horrid in a picture is about lighting and angles that it's hard to determine what's even objectively true.  All my favorite muscle definition pictures have been taken in my bathroom mirror. Something about the lighting in that room either captures how jacked I am or makes me look more jacked than I am.  WHO CAN SAY?

Which leads to reason 3b, as it were.  Even pictures in which I think I look good, I am so super well aware that I only look good "for my age."  I'm an average middle aged woman who's just a little more in shape than most middle aged women.  If you wanna look at people for their aesthetic value, there are plenty of DLBs, Klokovs, or 20 year old college students on the interwebs. Plus Serena Williams' boobs, of course. You certainly don't need me and I'm not quite self-absorbed or delusional enough to think you do.

But, since I was asked, and since now it feels like it would be lying to perhaps let you all imagine me in your heads as far more ripped and lean and muscular and whatever than I really am, here's some show n tell.

My all-time favorite bathroom mirror selfie. Vascular like a motherfucker, I am.

During the recent Neverending Diet of Sadness.

Faux tanned, oiled up, 111 lbs, and still the Bulgy Polish Catcher's Thighs are with us always.

But Eddies a handsome devil, isn't he?

xoxo