Tuesday, May 7, 2013

Body For LIFE!

Disclaimer: Any dude or dude-minded (such as myself) readers may find this post tedious and a little mushy at times. The only comfort I can give you to urge you to continue reading is that this post does contain many mentions of all sorts of body parts, mostly female, because that's the kind of body I have, so I feel like I know more about it.

This post is NOT about the book that shares it's title, which my Uncle bought my Mom (who was quite insulted) for Christmas one year. It's kind of a P90X lite. In other words; it's slightly less ridiculous than P90X, which is probably one of the most ridiculous things I've ever heard of. The only people who should dedicate their lives solely to working out three hours a day and planning meals down to a half a calorie are body builders, and maybe models, but I have a feeling their jobs have little to do with what the general population considers as "health".

The inspiration for this post came from a conversation I had with my parents after I may have had a little too much to drink: meaning the Mom sensor was turned off. My parents were kind enough to drive me to a Christmas party after I had a show one night (in truth, it was a pornament party- you know, a party where you bring a stack of porn and a bunch of ornaments and make pornaments, naturally). But I really didn't want to take a cab, so I kept my wits about me enough to not mention the true nature of the party to my parents.

In any case I was in the car and something like this ensued:

Mom: How's directing for Red Light Variety Show going?

Me: Great! I think. B (We'll just call her B for this purpose, because she has a bodacious booty) has a couple pieces in the show, which I'm stoked about because she's amazingly talented and has a booty for miles. It's amazing.

Dad chuckles, Mom is quiet for a moment

Mom: (In accusatory tone that only Moms can use without really realizing it) Do you think B would approve of how you're talking about her butt right now?


Me: Um. Yeah, she'd be flattered! She has an amazingly large and incredible butt, she should be proud, and is. She'd be more offended if I didn't talk about her butt.

Now, aside from this not really being typical Mom conversation (which, if you heard any given snippet of any of my Mother's other conversations, this is actually fairly tame) I was actually a little shocked. Mostly because I had clearly made my Mother slightly uncomfortable by blatantly discussing a body part, which never happens. My Mother likes to bring up the nature of erections at my Catholic-side-of-the-family reunions.

So I'm trying to figure out if this is a generational thing or if it's a demographic thing. I was simply discussing the nature of a particular booty. Fairly objectively (as you may know, this is not atypical for me).

For my research, I present to you: Life experience: This past summer I was teaching Jr. High School students (that may terrify you, if all you have to go on my personality is this blog, but take solace in the fact that it's theater summer camp). As we were warming up one day I was giving my usual, "Reach down to your toes, if you can touch them, great, if you can't, be grateful of your great long legs this morning and know that your body and what it's capable of will change every day. This is your report card. I have short little stubby legs so I can usually touch the floor." And a sweet, sweet (albeit, incredibly strange) young lady looked at me and said, "NO! Your legs are beautiful!" Very sweet, right? But I never said my legs weren't beautiful. And who ever told that little girl that short and stubby couldn't be beautiful? My legs kick ass. I can walk for miles and not get tired, I can get going fairly fast on my 70's cruiser, and the ESMP seems to like them just fine, never mind that short legs means I've got a torso for miles (again, some people may consider that "not beautiful" but they should check out my rib isolations. It's fascinating).

My problem is this: Talking about one's body objectively often brings in consoling and a soothing tone of voice that is something along the lines of, "No, no... you're a very pretty young woman." Well I FUCKING KNOW THAT! I never said otherwise! B was relating a story to me in which she was talking to a friend about how she couldn't wear a particular brand of pant because, "Well, I just have a lot more down there than you do." and her friend responded with, "Oh... no! B, you're beautiful." It's a non-sequitor. They were discussing pant brands NOT beauty.

All and all, I'm pretty sure this is a demographic thing. I'm fascinated by human bodies. It's absolutely amazing to me, that (generally speaking) you get to chose from two types of bodies: Lady part body or dude part body. So really, I have the same body as every other lady part body BUT I DON'T! Not even a little. I like it when you find "part twins". I know a couple girls who have matching noses, a couple dudes that have matching brow-bones, but everything else about them is entirely different.

In short: Biology is awesome. Bodies are awesome. But the real kicker for me lately has been figuring out what this body is capable of on a daily basis. Don't get me wrong, I won't be climbing Mt. Everest anytime soon (I like my body, why would I do that to it?), but I try to do one thing a day that I'm not entirely sure my body is capable of, just to see if I'm surprised. Like standing and going into a back bend. Sometimes I can, sometimes I can't, it hasn't looked graceful once yet, but it sure is fun to try. Call it six impossible things before breakfast, or whatever you want.