OK, let's see if DS lets me post.

THey are notified of the Gateway timeout 504 error. No idea if they care, but I did notify a CL, and DS, so here's hoping site maintenance means they'll fix it. Sad truth: This platform isn't customized *enough* and every tweak they make to this format/template? Yep. Another issue arises.

Also, I just realized I spelled it "ther-pay". Well, it's their pay....

***

Today I did it.

I woke up, looked at my profile in th emirror and said, "I like my body."

Now, I've worked to lose the last couple kilos (5 pounds) and tone up more without hurting myself, so finding a place I'm  happy to maintain? Huge. Fireworks. Dancing in the street. That kind of thing.

So... Try it.

No, your body ain't perfect.

Big secret: Nobody's body *IS* perfect. Or ever has been. Within the realm of culturally formed standards of "yeah, baby, hot hot hot" or "damn yeah" or "absolutely fit and healthy, yes, quite"... but no, not perfect. B/c perfect is a dream of the fevered oversexed imaginations of those who draw cartoons, adverts, and clothing designs. It's never been real, and can't be.

Great beauties of history would, in fact, today be scorned. Eleanor of Aquitaine, so famed for her beauty in her day that men wrote songs? Today, derided for her nose (I'm guessing, as all accounts agree her cheekbones, lips and eyes were wowza by early medieval European standards).

This week? Marilyn Monroe? Too fat.

The original Gibson Girl, married to eponymous artist Charles Dana Gibson? "pudgy cheeked". I've seen photos of her, versus his illustrations. Illustration here: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/ef/Gibson_Girl_by_Charles_Dana_Gibson.jpg

However, we owe Gibson some serious smackdowns, b/c to quote Wikipedia... Grrr... "The Gibson Girl image that appeared in the 1890s combined elements of older American images of Caucasian female beauty, such as the "fragile lady" and the "voluptuous woman". From the "fragile lady" she took the basic slender lines, and a sense of respectability. From the "voluptuous woman" she took a large bust and hips, but was not vulgar or lewd,^[2] as previous images of women with large busts and hips had been depicted. From this combination emerged the Gibson Girl, who was tall and slender, yet with ample bosom, hips and buttocks. She had an exaggerated S-curve torso shape achieved by wearing a swan-bill corset. Images of her epitomized the late 19th- and early 20th-century Western preoccupation with youthful features and ephemeral beauty. Her neck was thin and her hair piled high upon her head in the contemporary bouffant, pompadour, and chignon ("waterfall of curls") fashions. The statuesque, narrow-waisted ideal feminine figure was portrayed as being at ease and stylish."

In other words? Skinny with big boobs and butts. The infantilized features of tiny button noses and pouty mouths? Also GIbson era. Here's the kicker.... His wife Irene didn't have that nose. Or that much hair. Or that much bosom. He basically dreamed up his perfect image of *her*, and inflicted it on America. Oh, and if you need a corset to look like an hourglass? Walk. Away. The Gibson era gave us the Guiness world record for tiniest adult woman waist (known) at 11 inches around. The holder of aforesaid record died before age 25. Imagine that. *eyeroll*  BTW, for a whole-body version of Gibson, a very very young Angela Lansbury (US/Brit actress) had the Gibson-beauty features of big eyes, tiny nose, etc. (Well, she did later, too, but everyone remembers her better in her golden years as the only survivor of the small town of murderous psychos in Maine, AKA Cabot Cove. I'm not the only one who wonders if she was a serial killer, since she's the only one to get out of that town alive... )

Other icons of ageless beauty such as anyone painted by Rubens... too fat. Mona Lisa? Lips too thin.

See, you can find nothing but flaws if you *look*... Or you can take the whole and say, "OK!"

And it took me 47 years to get to that point, so.... Easier said than done.

***

So look at *all* of you. Yep, the dreaded head-to-toe. OK, the tummy puffs out. So what? I do ab work. Yeah, the boobs ain't what they used to be. They're still up there. I ain't getting rid of genetically bony knees and elbows, but my muscle tone's improved with the home low-impact aerobics no-weights already, sooo... Yeah. And if I can't wear sexy stuff b/c my pain won't let me, then I'm gonna carry my Pain-Friendly clothing with panache. My sneakers  have tie-dyed laces. (True, btw. I found tie-dyed multi-colored laces. Had to do it.)

***

Oh, and male standards? Never been as strict, but the guy who epitomized male wowza in the 1920-30 era of the US was either "rugged to point of ugly-cute" or what we'd now call "effeminate". Male figures changed, too, varying from slender to "built out" to both-at-once (?!), so the icon of male beauty Richard the Lionheart would today be okay (his mom was Eleanor of Aquitaine, btw, good genes) but a Napoleonic-era guy with a gut would be derided today. So there ya go.

***

Now, on to the day. And if DS eats this --- or my report about the error --- I'm gonna lose my freaking mind.