(no subject)
And now, a cold day. This is how the seasons change in my little part of the world- you never can tell from day to day if you're going to be leaving the house in sandals or in woolies. Today, definitely more the latter.
At least it's not quite chilly enough yet to necessitate the new!improved!furnace's maiden cruise, but we're not far off.
I was chatting to a woman in the locker room at the gym yesterday- a nice middleaged woman who was telling me about her children and their school. As she talked, she got all her streetclothes out of her locker and... went into a toilet stall to change. Wha...? Being around such excessive modesty takes me right back to high school. What is it that she doesn't want anyone to see?
I bet if the gym had a shower room instead of shower stalls, she might not have joined at all.
I have no false modesty. (Some real, genuine modesty exists in the Land o' Cameron, but none of the false stuff.)
I spent years at art school looking at nude bodies almost every day in drawing classes. And in my last year there, I modeled part time myself. I've skinny-dipped at Pennsic, hot-tubbed with other couples, changed in communal fitting rooms, bathed in communal shower rooms. One thing I've learned- and this was at Pennsic, come to think of it- "no matter when you visit the Classic swimming hole, there's always someone who looks better than you, and always someone who looks worse."
At the gym, one of the desk clerks is frowning as she turns the pages of yet another celeb-obsessed "lifestyle" mag. The models make her feel bad about herself, she says. Of course, she reasons, that means the ads are doing their job: creating an unhappiness which is meant to be soothed by buying something.
She points at a wide-eyed gamine with a face like a lily, her body a long, long stem. Because of my regrettably trivia-enhanced brain, I know the name of the model, and the fact that she's legally a child still- not even out of high school. A genetically-blessed individual who has been dressed up an outfit costing more than my car, slaved over for four hours by a team of fashion stylists, hair gods, and makeup artists. Photographed by the most talented and expensive photographer in all the land. And the resulting photographs have been rendered perfect by digital artists, working pixel by pixel if required.
"I'll never look like that," the clerk sighs.
"Don't worry," I said. "Neither does she."
At least it's not quite chilly enough yet to necessitate the new!improved!furnace's maiden cruise, but we're not far off.
I was chatting to a woman in the locker room at the gym yesterday- a nice middleaged woman who was telling me about her children and their school. As she talked, she got all her streetclothes out of her locker and... went into a toilet stall to change. Wha...? Being around such excessive modesty takes me right back to high school. What is it that she doesn't want anyone to see?
I bet if the gym had a shower room instead of shower stalls, she might not have joined at all.
I have no false modesty. (Some real, genuine modesty exists in the Land o' Cameron, but none of the false stuff.)
I spent years at art school looking at nude bodies almost every day in drawing classes. And in my last year there, I modeled part time myself. I've skinny-dipped at Pennsic, hot-tubbed with other couples, changed in communal fitting rooms, bathed in communal shower rooms. One thing I've learned- and this was at Pennsic, come to think of it- "no matter when you visit the Classic swimming hole, there's always someone who looks better than you, and always someone who looks worse."
At the gym, one of the desk clerks is frowning as she turns the pages of yet another celeb-obsessed "lifestyle" mag. The models make her feel bad about herself, she says. Of course, she reasons, that means the ads are doing their job: creating an unhappiness which is meant to be soothed by buying something.
She points at a wide-eyed gamine with a face like a lily, her body a long, long stem. Because of my regrettably trivia-enhanced brain, I know the name of the model, and the fact that she's legally a child still- not even out of high school. A genetically-blessed individual who has been dressed up an outfit costing more than my car, slaved over for four hours by a team of fashion stylists, hair gods, and makeup artists. Photographed by the most talented and expensive photographer in all the land. And the resulting photographs have been rendered perfect by digital artists, working pixel by pixel if required.
"I'll never look like that," the clerk sighs.
"Don't worry," I said. "Neither does she."