I suffer from Awkward Body Image.

I want to go on record as saying that I love warm weather. I love, love, love it. Especially in Chicago, because it makes me forget about the four months of torture that I have to go through during the winter.

But, I'll admit, I hate warm weather clothes.

I've found that I have been able to deal with wearing pants all summer long, mostly because I don't go outside that often and I've also been lucky to find lightweight pants that aren't too hot. I don't wear shorts. It just doesn't happen. My legs are so very white that I'm afraid that the glare off my calves will cause automobile accidents.

Also, I have a arm issues. Everybody who knows me knows this. I would wear a sweater in August if I could get away with it. I hate my arms because they are too skinny, and I can't figure out how to make them bigger. (Meaning: I can't figure out how I can make them bigger while laying on my couch watching episodes of Soap on DVD.) My awkward clothes don't make this any easier, since even my long-sleeved shirts look too big for my arms. I'm wearing an ill-fitting linen shirt right now and I'm uncomfortable.

The thing about my own emotional problems it that I'm self-aware of how stupid they are. I can spot my craziness about seventy percent of the time, and I know that my no one else is really looking at my arms constantly and saying, "Wow, his arms are so skinny." It's not that I think people are going to be worried or anything; I'm more expecting people to JUDGE me for my arms. (I blame this fear on my own judgmental personality, which, as always, I blame on my mother.)

Anyway, what issues I have that I don't blame on genetics I blame on my high school years, so I'll return to the old, faithful picture of me as a sixteen-year-old, standing in front of my house on the first day of eleventh grade.

(Click to view my annotations.)

As you can see, I had a lot of issues back then, too, and I think that I've gotten over at least the wardrobe problem. And I've made some progress with the hair. And I've put on a lot of weight, although you can't really tell that I do do weigh about twenty pounds more than I did seven years ago. But I've still got some things to work on, as seen in this MS Paint rendering of how I see myself. (Sorry, I tend to not take full-body shots anymore.)