plus, you would be typing not telling.

Ooh! Spoilers Thread!

Tell us in code!

ooay eahyay, atwhay Istenkray aidsay!

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Vibing back~ma to Sean and quick-recovery-and-home-soon~ma to S. And if the universe would try to play nice with them for a bit after this, we'd all be very grateful.

ION, gah. I just frivoled away an hour watching a rerun of What Not To Wear, and it was really kind of heartbreaking. The latest in a series of drop-dead gorgeous stone foxes in their twenties who dress like crap and can't bear to look in a mirror. Proof, I suppose, that no woman in this culture is ever allowed a free pass from the Body Image Demons: I just had a completely wrecked and woeful mom-reaction to this beautiful young woman--big dark eyes, cheekbones for miles, curvealicious, shrift-worthy thick shiny hair--cringe away from her own reflection, rate herself at a 4 out of 10, and say on camera that, given the chance to change something about herself, she'd choose "Everything."

I just want to lock up all these girls, young and strong and lovely and utterly, sincerely despising everything about themselves, in a tiny room with a DVD player and the My So-Called Life episode "The Zit" and make them watch it until they crack.

I just frivoled away an hour watching a rerun of What Not To Wear, and it was really kind of heartbreaking.

But did she like herself in the mirror at the end???

Oh I just do not want to call people about their job applications today

In the end, yes. But it took a lot of work; she was just so utterly convinced of her own awfulness. And all her friends and family were saying they'd been telling her for years how beautiful she was, and every time one of them said that within earshot of her, she got this cringey "Please don't make me listen to the terrible words" look on her face.

In the end, though, yes, she loved herself. Ugly knees, weird arms, twenty post-marriage extra pounds and all. And it was totally fabulous to see her being so happy in her own skin; it's just depressing to think that practically every single woman under thirty they've had on the show has started out reciting exactly the same litany of BID self-loathing, and to think how many millions of under-thirty women there are reciting the same litany who'll never get the BID exorcism.

That is sad. If her friends and family haven't been responsible for her BID, did it all come from internal and societal influences? Scary to think about.

I don't remember friends or parents telling me I was pretty or anything like that, and my BID are blessedly small. The only thing I really dislike on me is my belly and I've even kind of made peace with that. As a kid, I hated my freckles/moles but I grew out of that in high school, I think.

Ugly knees, weird arms, twenty post-marriage extra pounds and all.

See, what I got out of this sentence is "great...even she's got a husband."

The funniest was, remember that lady who was stuck to her toilet seat? Both my (also, tragically single) best friend and I had a split second of "HEY, even stuck to toilet lady has a boyfriend!" when hearing that story.