Yesterday I had to leave work a little early to go to the doctor for my annual lady-parts check-up. I WILL NOT PROVIDE ANY DETAILS. I will tell you that I noticed something that I've been vaguely aware of in the past. I always think it's interesting how you show up clothed. Then they leave the room so you can get naked, and when they come back they see all of your parts. So why do they need to leave when you're getting undressed? Because getting undressed is weirdly vulnerable and personal.
I noticed the same thing a few years ago, when I did some nude modeling for an older artist in Newton. I would come to his house and he (an Armenian octogenarian) would let me in. We would go to his studio. Then I would leave, change into my robe in the bathroom and come back and take off the robe. You'd think I could have skipped that whole middle step, but no. It can be harder to get undressed in front of someone than to be naked in front of someone. I wonder why exactly. We probably all remove clothes in a similar manner.
Anyway.
UNRELATED TO NUDITY:
I wish that I had a magical map of the Davis Square, Somerville area because while I'm jogging there are so many other people doing the same that I think it would be cool to see them all on a map, like ants, moving all over the streets, intersecting and separating. Someone - make it so.
UNRELATED TO PEOPLE AS ANTS:
Yesterday in the doctor's waiting room I was looking at the Ladies' Home Journal. It had Michelle Obama on the cover (she is a damn beautiful woman, by the way). Anyway, there was an article about cleavage etiquette (because woman are morons who cannot dress themselves) and one "fact" that was stated in the article was that the average bra size in the US is 36DD. Now, I find this a dubious claim, made more so by the fact that there was no context and no source. It's like when people go around saying Marilyn Monroe was a size 14. In modern day clothes or vintage clothes? Because folks, I am a vintage 12 or 14 and a modern size 6, so I don't think it means what you think it means. People say all kinds of things that are partial facts and no one sites any sources and some people don't know any better and they use those "facts" as facts.
The other day on Facebook someone posted a graphic about the protein content of veggies vs meats. According to the graphic, beef had about 40% protein while spinach had 45%. Now, most people would think this was percent by mass which would mean that a person eating a quantity of spinach would get more protein that someone eating the same volume of beef. But! It was actually protein as a percent of calories, and a quantity of spinach has FAR FEWER calories than the same amount of beef. So: misleading.
I would just like an increase in the rigor of the "facts" that people present. We should all be mindful.
3 comments:
> We probably all remove clothes in a similar manner.
Not that I've done a systematic survey, but I haven't found this to be true.
I mean, I don't even find that I remove clothes the same way in different contexts... the way I remove clothes when I'm going to take a shower isn't the same as the way I remove clothes when I'm going to have sex isn't the same as the way I remove clothes in a green room.
I also find that unless it's done very mindfully, removing clothing is an act of getting naked as opposed to nude. (Which is perhaps more relevant for art than medicine or showers or sex.)
Ah, I see. This is where I'm one of those weird OCD people who has a protocol or script for an action and I do it the same way every time. Sometimes I'm faster or slower or less or more efficient, but the steps are pretty much always the same.
I appreciate being reminded that not everyone is like me. I do usually assume that...
> So why do they need to leave when you're getting undressed?
Whatever other reasons they might have, in the modern American medical system they can’t afford to spend 45 seconds watching you take your clothes off when they could be using those precious seconds to work on the notes for their previous appointment.
As for the magical map, if all the people you want to follow have Android phones, or other phones that support Google Latitude, this is possible. (Whether that’s a good thing or not is left as an exercise for the reader, or George Orwell.)
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