The topic of weight and adoption came up in Nancy Ashe's Editor's blog and started me thinking about all things image.

Like Billy Crystal's character on SNL years ago, there's a segment of the population convinced "It's not how you feel, it's how you look..."
that's important. The "how you look" industry generates billions of dollars a year, and buying the image of the moment on offer is the most vital step on to the I'll-suffer-all-and-pay-anything-to-be-_________ (fill in the blank: thin, chesty, hipless, pug-nosed, hairy, less hairy, full-lipped, tanner, whiter, curlier, blonder, and on and on) treadmill. And as you'd expect, the belt just keeps going round and round; there is no destination, just step after step after step.

Down to fighting weight, thanks to whatever diet aids (Remember those little weight loss candies marketed in magazines before HIV? Well, not those.), slimming programs, books, gadgets, etc., you're happy with what the scales say. BUT, there's the butt: a bit of a sag or a saddlebag, shaped like your mother, and hers before, and you're not liking that at all. A personal trainer can spot-work that to manageable proportions, then oh! my! god! your hair's going mousy and lines are appearing around your eyes. Could be due to all the weight you've dropped and the fact that those three-hour workouts are taking a toll. Could also have something to do with that pesky little phenomenon called the passing of time.

To relax a bit, you take an afternoon off and go to a movie. Bad idea. Very bad idea. Everyone on the screen is so beautiful, so thin, yet amazingly strong and able to do the most incredible stuff, seemingly without effort. Even first thing in the movie-morning, they have flawless skin, lush and lovely hair, and you can be darned sure that their breath is minty fresh because that hunk of a bed mate they're pretending to wake up next to wouldn't be there if skanky breath was a remote possibility.

Being that you paid good money to see this film, and have been well trained over years to passively absorb marketing messages, you're compelled to compare yourself to the waker-upper and your spouse to the waker-up-next-toer; after all, isn't that what movies are all about? Empathy and all? Seeing the 'you' in the 'them'?

Come up a bit short, do we? Someone has done his or her job well. (One of the things I like about British television and film is that the people aren't nearly as pretty as those cast in the States. Normal looks, even frighteningly so, don't keep an actor from starring roles. Extra poundage, bad teeth, dirty and stringy hair, appear to be called for often. Of course, should they want to get work in Hollywood...)

So, if no matter what you do you'll never look like Angelina Jolie (and I'm fairly certain Angelina Jolie doesn't even look like Angelina Jolie to Angelina Jolie, as there's certain to be a zit or a wrinkle or a pucker somewhere that she wishes away), how does one feel good about oneself?

I have an idea! Why not pull yourself out of yourself and look from another angle!

Here's me clearing my throat in a school-marmish sort of way ...

My theory is ...

You can be more than how you look. All you have to do is stuff that's important.

You can also get yourself a different mirror. I like the one Sam and Cj use. My reflection there is warm and loving ... a "pretty mommy with happy face" ... a "good worker and good ironer and a good helper" ... a steady hand, a calm voice, a comforting touch ... preparer of favorite foods ... cleaner-upper of messes great and small ... a lap, arms, kisses and hugs ... beautiful in all the ways that count.

Wonder which mirror Angelina prefers? I'll bet on the mommy-mirror for her, too.