So what would a young gay man down in Texas and a middle-aged straight woman in Quebec have in common?

Well, for one thing we've both considered using socks to augment our um, er, ah, assets. And while Chris has debated the pros and cons of using socks below his waist, for me the area in question was above my waist.

Yes, I am among the chestally challenged.

As you can see from my high school yearbook picture there wasn't much to disturb the smooth line of my sweater. Two words describe me during my high school years--carpenter's dream--because I was flat as a board and had never been nailed.

Now I considered kleenex, but frankly, we'd be talking major destruction of our forests to create enough kleenex to give me what used to be politely called bazooms.

I did contemplate socks, but there just wasn't enough room to get a sock in my training bra (which was woefully underemployed because there just wasn't much to train). I didn't have the nerve to ask my stepmother to buy me a padded bra, so I was stuck with truth in advertising.

Oh woe is me.

Then I hit university, grew up enough to actually start to accept myself, and to my amazement found that I was attractive to a certain kind of guy. No, not the guys who are drawn to bookish, klutzy, socially inept, self-loathing women (where oh where were THOSE men when I needed them?)

I'm talking about leg men. Yes indeedie, there are men who love long legs. Who knew?

For the year I was breastfeeding my daughter I actually had what we shall ever so politely call a rack. It was the oddest experience of my life. Men who had always talked to me looking at my face would, after a few beer, begin to direct the conversation below my neck.

I felt like naming my jugs (and truly they were jugs because they were milk containers for a baby, doing what nature intended). For some guys they were what mattered, I was just the frame holding up these lovely round mounds of fat.

Then I weaned my daughter and I went back to being just a person. Men met my eyes when we were talking.

It was an interesting experience.

One of the things about on-line diaries is that most of the time the journal keeper decides to remain anonymous, to not post their picture. We have no packaging to go by, all we have are words.

All our lives we're told not to judge a book by its cover, but we do. We look at someone and like it or not we make a judgement about them based solely on how they look. Tall, short, fat, thin, hair colour, piercings, tattoos, race, style of clothing ... we make judgements.

We may amend them after we get to know someone, but sometimes the decision about whether or not to get to know someone is made at the first moment when we see them.

Except here, in the wonderful world of on-line journals, we can't see them.

Almost always, all we have here is the book, the cover's been torn off.

It's also an interesting experience, don't you think?