Your Body Your Own Damn Self

Meaning:

What is this insane "cultural" entertainment obsession with WOMEN'S BODIES?!?!?!?!?! PERFECT BODIES! Bodies that are of course, merely a surgeon's Candyland. Listen up, shy people: no one's body is perfect and there is never any shame in a good, healing spa environment to accept yourself at the door.

It's bad enough that one of my vices is trawling the celeb websites (there, I said it!), but I have finally reached my limit.

And as some of you may know, my limit is pretty extensive. However....

I don't give a flying crap about how much weight Kirstie Alley, Rosie O'Donnell, English actresses we don't even know, and all those cellulite-ridden "celebrities," weigh.

I don't care about Amy Winehouse's insanity and drug abuse. I'm more outraged that she was allowed to play with baby mice with filthy drug-coated fingernails! And kissing them! They could catch The Plague! Where's the ASPCA when you need it!

Sad part is, I'm not even kidding--It's on You Tube! She can't even wear a complete outfit, how's she gonna raise mice and/or feed one of her drive-through cats?

But I digress. Back to spa-truth-telling.


I have seen REAL bodies of women. And no one--I'm talking NO ONE has ever looked like those stick-thin breatharians who eat no solids, who are constantly snapped on those stupid websites and television shows. (And I'm even more ashamed that I know all that junk.)

And I have never ever never ever seen woman who doesn't look like the real US--a little thick around the middle, maybe an under-the-bra roll or two, swingable upper arms, some extra backage in the rear and plenty of (dare I say it? ) CELLULITE!

Omigod, the world didn't fall apart!

EVERYONE ladies, EVERYONE has it. From the skinniest Type-A undressing haughtily in the center under the bright lights, to the afraid-to-be-totally-naked-in-front-of-people-because-of-shame, young woman in the corner.

I've see two-breasted honkers, one-breasted skinny minnie-and-a horizontal-scar, and two different times, no-breasters. Flat. Once, one emerged from the Jacuzzi like a Sea Goddess. She looked beautiful. We smiled. No one else noticed because we've all been touched.

In some spas, that's more therepeutic than an actual massage. Just to know we're all the same, and different. It's not the "Hollywood" impossible-to-achieve-body we need to accept as ours.

We need to accept the beauty in all of us. Flaws and all.

In beauty.

Immersion--Spa Style

Yes, it's been a week or so, and for that I am truly sorry. A series of events had taken away my honest spa reportage, so forgive me, all my fans out there.

Family obligations, a wonderful birthday party for a daughter and a send-off to Australia to a son. Wow. Imagine my stress level! So high I need a spa visit, of which I have been terribly, terribly deprived of late.

I'm just sayin'.


So get me to a spa. Stat.

Unfortunately, I haven't been of late exfoliated or de-stressed through massage, but I have been taking notes of places I "need" to visit in order to report on the new, the wonderful and the amazing. So please, let me know if you have been to any stunning places I should experience and write about, and I will dutifully get myself there, any means possible.

That said, I have been informed of a remarkable spa in a state known more for its toxic waste dumps and Tony Soprano, than it being a bearer of relaxation and loveliness. Yes, of course I'm talking about New Jersey and I can get away with saying that because yesterday, yesterday, yesterday, I used to live there. (A long time ago).

I remember when Atlantic City was glam, where I saw Diana Ross perform at Steel Pier (I was 4 years old) and they tortured a poor horse into diving into a bucket (I shudder now to think of that and had nightmares for ten years) and Mr. Peanut gave out samples.

And the taffy! And junk food! Before we knew it was junk! When parents put baby oil on our skin for "protection"!

And while AC slowly descended into a city to avoid, the water was a constant allure. Then of course, developers and gambling proponents saw dollar signs in the waves, and the rest is history.

Assorted hotels and casinos came (and some went), and Miss America waved her last on the boardwalk. Then The Borgata came along, spiffing up the place, and now, under the same auspices comes The Water Club http://www.thewaterclubhotel.com/spa/ which, just by visiting the website, makes me long for the salt water taffy days of yore.

The Immersion Spa, in the sophistiated Water Club, rising high above the hoi polloi, is the latest in the city's rebound, and the hotel offers big-name concert draws like Chris Rock and John Mayer along with...get this...no gambling! How cool is that? Well, for people like me, it is. Meaning, I have a poker face that blushes when I get dealt a hand...before I even look at my cards.

In other words. This is my kind of place. That I've yet to visit.

Check out the spa menu and give me one reason why I shouldn't be reporting on the newest spa to grace the Brigatine/Atlantic City environs. Hopefully, this will happen sometime before winter sets in and you, dear reader, will be given a full report. Sooner than later, fingers crossed.
And then I might also inform you of the latest magazines in which you may discover some of my observations related to the spa trade.

These magazines, due out in early fall, should be rich in details abot products, trends and written in a casual, conversational way. Not press release-y, but honestly. For, as you might have guessed, I am paid bubkus for these verbal blog wanderings and if it pleases a few, then my job is done.

And now on to my tell-all novel. Stay on my good side, and you'll have nothing to fear.

If that horse could only have dived in the Immersion Spa......