Puberty at 36

[avram]

A typical feature of puberty is supposed to be noticing of and wondering at bodily changes. I don’t remember going through any of that. I suppose I must have, ’cause I wasn’t born with all this body hair (Even with my head shaved, I still shed!), but it didn’t stick in my mind.

Two decades and change later, the notice-and-wonder fairy’s come. Ever since I started Hot Point (two and a half weeks ago) I find I’m constantly looking at and touching myself, wondering if some crease or ridge or curve is really something new, or something I’ve had for years and never noticed. Are my calf muscles really more defined? My trapezii just a little more trapeezy? That muscular ridge I noticed last night along the outer edge of my thigh — just my imagination, or all those presses and curls and extensions paying off?

Hard to tell. I do know my belly’s gotten a bit smaller, and my face a little less full. The face is an old development, though I didn’t notice it till I saw an old photo of me at my parents’ place.

(“So what’s he writing about this time?” “Oh, puberty and touching himself.”)

I did 40 minutes on the treadmill at the gym today; no weights. Finished off the last of Ted Chiang’s Stories of Your Life and Others. A first-rate collection, every story brilliant. Go read it, now.