- Atlanta Botanical Gardens
- walk through Piedmont Park
- High Museum of Art
- fancy lunch at the museum restaurant, where Livy was served iced tea in a real grownup glass without us having to ask, which made her whole lunch and (I think) got her to eat pickled beets because they are grown up too
- the library
- Greenville, SC to have dinner with an internet friend, now known in the flesh
- drove up the Blue Ridge parkway into Virginia (absolutely lovely!!)
- Monticello, Jefferson's home
- National Air and Space Museum
- Holocaust Museum (gruesome and graphic, but very wonderful museum, nonetheless)
- National Portrait Gallery
- American History Museum (for a minute only, we didn't like it)
- walking tour of the Mall and surrounding monuments (Jefferson, FDR, Lincoln, Korean War, World War II, Washington monument)
- party to welcome a friend who is visiting our Atlanta Objectivist group
- 6 hour float down the Chattahoochee River on blow up rafts
And here is my musing:
At the aforesaid party, a friend of mine, a lovely attractive woman who would be admired by any man with any sense, mentioned that she was upset by her boobs sagging. It got us talking about changing bodies. Here's my two cents: There is nothing wrong with wanting to look pretty and attractive, but there is something wrong when we don't accept the reality of being 30ish and 40ish. Our boobs are gonna sag. Our faces are gonna get wrinkles. We'll probably all gain a few pounds as we age and our metabolisms slow. I think that's okay. If a man wants to date a woman with maturity and experience, he's gonna have to accept that those women have wrinkles and boobs that sag a bit. If he wants perfect boobs and flawless skin, he's gonna have to choose a person who hasn't lived and loved and learned sex techniques and made progress on career goals and traveled and has lots to teach him. The thing is, I don't think most of the pressure really comes from men. I've spent most of my life on the heavier side of our society's ideal, and yet, I've never hurt for very wonderful men in my life. My boobs that sag a bit have been greeted by men with that stupid (yet lovable) smile that they always get when faced with breasts of any size or age. I think that men (in general) are much kinder to our bodies than we women are ourselves.
Earlier this year, I made the resolution that this year, I was going to stop resolving to be something other than I am and making myself miserable. I've kept that resolution by ending my obsessive and dangerous dieting cycle and by practicing talking nice to my body and the bodies of other women. I'm trying to think more about other things about me and the women I know and less about our looks. There is nothing wrong with noticing someone's looks, but I, and many other women, focus on looks way too much.
So, my final word on this is: I am not a mannequin, not a teenager, not a Barbie doll. I am real 30 year old woman who has had a baby. I can't be bothered about stretch marks, sagging, and my first wrinkle. I have way too much living to do for that. :)
