Thoughts on bathing-suit season

The pool opened last weekend. It's been too rainy and cold to go yet, but soon enough it'll be hot enough to fry an egg on the pavement and we'll be making evening treks to the Lincoln Park pool.

I love that we have a pool so close to our house.

But I hate that it means I've got to wear a bathing suit.

Bathing suits are stupid. We should either go naked or completely covered up. Wearing this lycra-infused torture devices is cruel and unusual. Unless you have completely void of body fat, these "suits" make indentions and dimples in places that I want neither.

Plus they just don't cover up the parts that I'd like covered.

Years ago I started wearing board shorts with some sort of modestly modest top. My ample ass-age was covered and I've been pretty happy. But still, there's the pulling and adjusting and the gut-sucking-in that must go on.

Then I saw a picture that made me think that perhaps it's not my thighs that are the problem, but my perception.

Take a look at this woman's thighs and hips:

Look. Her thighs actually touch together and her hips are round and full. Do you think she's fat? Too chunky to be flitting around the beach without a muumuu?

By today's standards, many will likely say yes. Just look at a recent magazine cover:

Just look at that tiny frame and the jumbo boobs. This is very likely not her natural state. She's probably been sculpted and augmented to the standards that we now find attractive.

How did we get to this point? And why? Really. What is wrong with a little curve to the hip, a little jiggle to the junk in the trunk and real boobs like that woman in the white bathing-suit.

Oh and just who was that woman in the white suit?

None other than Marilyn Monroe.

Perception is everything.