I have this theory that God lets your eyesight wane as you get older so you don't get depressed.  Every now and then, however, something will happen that reminds me that the bloom is off the rose.  Today's revelation was courtesy of the fluorescent lighting in the ladies' room at work.  There I was, washing my hands in the sink like the good girl that I am, and I realized that I suddenly had the chest of my first grade teacher.  With my shoulders back, my skin is smooth and pretty much wrinkle free, but if I'm wearing a V-neck, when I rub my hands together this puckered bottom of a riverbed in August appears, and honest to Betsy, it looks as though there is a staple in the middle of it holding it to my breast bone. What IS that?

The photographs don't help much, either.  I'm usually OK with the mirror (although I'll be doing the Katharine Hepburn scarves and turtlenecks as soon as the weather permits), but the photographs are a quick trip down the Humility Highway.  How is it that everyone else photographs normally, but the camera always distorts the half of the frame where I'm standing?  I've heard that the camera adds pounds, but what snarky twist of malice makes it only add them to me? 

One of these days (coming soon) I will be so disgusted at the pictures that I will get around to exercising and maybe succeed in changing the situation.  But when I stop to think about it I know that if my friends gain five or fifty I don't care.  I usually don't even notice.  I only see them.  I am glad to see them.  I accept them as they are, and who they are is so much more important to me than what they weigh.  It's so difficult to cut ourselves the same slack.  

Today I will thank my chubby little legs for carrying me back and forth to the subway in this brain- numbing heat.  My bones, even with their ever-fashionable osteoporosis, still manage to support me and move me to where I need to be.  I need glasses, but I can still see the smiles on the faces of the people that I love.  And my hands, which have not been "ring free" since my last kid was born, can reach out to pat a shoulder, or to type, or work in the garden (but hardly ever to dust).   So today is "Wonderful Me" day.  It should be "Wonderful You" day, too.  And tomorrow we'll go back to counting points on Weight Watchers.

It has been a very, very long time since I've sat down to write.  There has been so much going on.  Graduations and deaths and the accumulation of twenty pounds or so as the world becomes only palatable with the taste of chocolate or Chinese food have come between me and my  willingness to face the daily news.  One has to sit quietly and just let it all sink in sometimes.

There is so much hatred around every corner these days.  Is there another Civil War brewing in the USA?  Please don't laugh.  It could happen.  I've never seen so many people so angry about so much.  Everyone has a loud and unshakable opinion on the upcoming elections.  The language is bitter and not very becoming.  I don't like it.  We are all citizens of the Big Blue Marble.  There is no room for isolationism any more.  We must all learn to take care of one another.  To care about one another.  Different doesn't mean wrong, or threatening either.   Unfortunately, no one can hear anyone else's voice above the shouting, and memories seem depressingly short.  What happened to "Never again!"?

The internet has made experts and bullies out of the insecure and ill-informed.  Fact checking seems to be a quaint notion.  The bravery born of anonymity is a dangerous illusion.  Mob mentality is ruling on both sides.  

I can't find it in me to be funny right now.  I am tired and worried and more than a little sad.  Tomorrow I will try harder to rise above the confusion and the anger and the noise.  But right now I am going to sit here quietly and watch the clouds gather. And pray.