Shirtless in the Metromess

It’s been hot here in my little corner of the DFW Metromess. By hot, I mean both actual and “feels like” temperatures are in the triple digits. Add to that a lingering drought and one can see why I took the liberty of shedding my shirt when I decided to pose with the sunflowers in my back yard to make a profile picture for my social media addictions.

My posting of the photo on Facebook led to a number of reactions ranging from “Thumbs-up” to “Wow” to the floating, laughing head. There were comments a plenty, too, from the expected “Oh, my eyes!” to several from friends who complimented me on being brave enough to post my semi-nude body.

Okay. Let’s get something straight. I am not a model by any stretch of the imagination. I’m just a typical guy approaching 70 (way too fast in my opinion) with a bit of a gut and a couple of scars here and there from where a surgeon or two went into my gut to better my health. Except for the occasional glitch here and there, my body has served me well for all these years – hopefully allowing me to die at the age of 102 from a gunshot wound from a jealous lover.

That’s the goal, anyway.

Part of my “body positivity” has to do with the quarrel I had with cancer last year.

I won.

At least that’s what the doctors have been telling me.

The quarrel has taught me that my body is pretty darn good at taking care of that part of me just under my hairline (and behind my glasses). So, I have been taking steps to better take care of my body and have developed a positive attitude about it. Sometimes it means exposing a little more of me than what many people would expect on a platform like Facebook.

And the reactions have been pretty much what I’ve expected.

Brave? Perhaps, but not really. I do have an advantage my female friends don’t have, which is to be able to display a shirtless photgraph of myself on a supposedly “family friendly” platform. Part of that has to do with comedian Terry Thomas’ monologue about the American preoccupation with “Bosums” in the movie It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World. Preoccupation, indeed!

I’m just proud of who I am and happy that I’m still able to walk upright with a minimum of fuss in the latter part of my sixties.

Be Seeing You!