Wednesday 2 May 2007

More of 'Am I normal?'

I'm not normally so introspective, but whilst on the verge of creating a post about my body - I'll not tell you too much about it, don't want to spoil a future plot - I shared a thought, a perfectly innocent thought, with my colleagues. Their reaction was both instructive and fascinating.

I have some weight to lose, roughly a stone, I feel fat and my clothes are uncomfortable.
"Well buy new clothes" I hear some of you shout; but I am made of sterner stuff than that. In order to judge my progressive weight loss I have a method of viewing myself with an objective eye. Rather than rely on the Avery bathroom scales, I consider my appearance by standing naked in front of a mirror, tensing whatever muscles can be tensed and well, jiggling up and down. It is quite obvious - barring obvious exceptions - which are the wobbly bits to lose.

This is the thought I shared with my colleagues and I am ashamed to say that, after listening, one or two of those with a better visual imagination were looking a bit queasy. You can see why I am rather reticent to make future posts about my body. I put it down to Val's and my shared background in nursing, we have shared many a romantic dinner where the dinner table talk has centred on topics that any decent horror movie critic would describe as gore: it is our normal. It is also the shared normal that our two sons have grown up with. When they were younger some of their friends found our normal dinner table chat rather rich for their tastes; we had to learn to be more sensitive to the needs of their more sensitive friends or risk rejections to our tea time invitations.

So we are back round to this idea of normality again. I think I will do the post about my body, then, in the great democracy that is the blogosphere, people can choose the normal they prefer.

4 comments:

Rodney Olsen said...

I'm convinced that we all think of ourselves as normal and everyone else as somehow left or right of normal.

Anonymous said...

I think a quick visit to The Gimcrack Hospital would re-assure you as to your normality, Crofty!

Curiously enough, I too am going through a period of organised weight loss at the moment. I had the supreme pleasure of being able to buy a new belt today, as all my others are just a tad too big now.

However, I would hesitate standing naked in front of mirrors and 'tensing whatever muscles can be tensed' if you were in The Gimcrack at the time. Nursmyra would be onto you like a shot, from what I've read.

Crofty said...

You're right Bill, mirror jiggling is OK to share on the blogosphere but the real thing is only ever to be tried in private.

Anonymous said...

nursemyra is au fait with handling jiggly bits.

she is also au fait with round the table conversations about nursing

thanks for dropping by :-)