What embarrasses you? I have a theory.

I've been thinking a lot about embarrassment lately, not really for its own sake but as part of a huge swirl of thoughts about intimacy, privacy (what's that for?), secrecy, sharing, etc. Huge and nearly uncrackable swirl, I should mention, like a cryptic crossword that I can't get those critical first answers on. Embarrassment is maybe one of the first clues to start cracking -- and I'm also going to use this as an exercise for myself, wait for it. So I think, I think maybe, the things a person is embarrassed about are things that are both negative (in that person's eyes, or in the world's) and also perceived to be unusual. At least unusual enough to draw attention.

Attention is part of it, because a person can be embarrassed about something positive when it's brought to the attention of people ("aw shucks, stop it, you're making me blush"). But I'm just going to lump that in with "unusual", because experiments where a psychology professor tells the whole class to simply look at one student for no reason are rare.

And to continue with the "unusual" theme, in my experience, everything gets WAY less embarrassing/shameful when a person finds out that their weird condition/experience/whatever is shared by others... and this, btw, is one reason I'm in favor of talking about everything. Talk, and you might get a "me too" along with the "eww" or "wtf?" responses; or someone might read it and feel better even if they don't say "me too".

I'm not embarrassed about much, and it might be because I think I'm mostly standard-issue. Just a classic homo sapiens sapiens, female, owner of a body, owner of a brain, subject to the usual buffeting of life.

I know I'm still missing a big piece, probably something about privacy. Maybe something has to be negative, unusual enough to draw attention and/or considered "private".

I'd have to say the thing that embarrasses me most during the average month is my skin, when it intermittently breaks out. It's very possible I have borderline BDD about this, because ugh, when I have really visible blemishes I don't see the rest of my face at all. This is despite the fact that I make dermatologists and aestheticians yawn, so I'm trying to figure out if this fits with my pattern. I think it does, because something in my brain believes my skin is unusual even if it's not.

( In which I embarrass myself on purpose by giving detail, and then analyze that. If you get TMI-based embarrassment on other people's behalf, or dislike dumb little medical things, there's no particular need to click. )

I admire people who aren't embarrassed about things. On a bus a few days ago, a woman fell down when the bus started; right after "is she okay?" I thought "poor thing, how embarrassing", but she laughed merrily and got up, not bothered a bit. Funny thing about that; the attention shifted right off her, because her "no big deal" attitude made it not-so-negative. And also, anyone who takes public transit a lot knows it happens sometimes. Scrap the negative and the unusual, and what do you have left? Nothing. Standard "homo sapiens on unstable surface" conditions, with the expected outcome of an occasional stumble.

It remembers!

My body totally remembers how to do the straddle press off the stacked crash mats! We didn't actually do that in Bender's class today, but the stack was set up for the sake of another student and I kept sneaking over there to do my precious new thing.

Eight times. Basically never failed, in finding that first float off the mat. Never stuck it at the top, never minded that. So happy. I'm already thinking how to drill myself on Sunday, to slow down, to get the float and stick it right there in a straddle pike, to try to raise my legs carefully; but for tonight that doesn't matter. All that matters is that last Sunday wasn't a fluke.

I didn't get my press in 2013, but I did find my way onto the path.