Friday, July 24, 2009

Looking For A Firm Foundation


Yesterday afternoon (warm and muggy) hubby and I headed to Target (Tar-JJAY, as we like to say...along the same lines as the thrift boutique we like to call Valoo Vill-AHJJ) on a quest. 'Tis a quest almost every woman can attest to...and roll their eyes at...the quest for a new bra...foundation garment...boob socks...breastage hammocks...I don't care what you want to call them...I just know that the experience is, for me, somewhat akin to the Spanish Inquisition's Basement Sale of Iron Maidens! There is torture and madness in retail, rather than therapy. A thrift store is a treasure-hunt, while department stores offer mind-numbing sameness...with prices and sizing that make me feel abnormal and hostile.

The day before I had officiated at a wedding. It's polite to wear a bra for a dressy ceremony...but when I went to put one on, there was a SNAFU. You see, I've lost a lot of weight in the last couple of months but was happily at home, wearing the same big t-shirts and floppy big pants...or cotton caftans in the heat, without a bra. It's been a while since I needed to heft the puppies up to an unnatural place, decreed by fifteen year-old models. Now I was suddenly the picture of a nine year-old girlie...putting on her mummy's bra and pretending! Only difference was...I had parts that were escaping out the bottom, at the same time as not filling the tops...top parts of the cups falling into creases.

This is where I'm so glad to have a sick-crazy-stoopid humour...it was cracking me up, rather than freaking me out. The world's falling apart and I should have a breakdown about a wardrobe malfunction? I think not. I put on the smallest sports-bra I had...only 3 inches and four holster sizes bigger than the homogenized-heat I was packin'...and draped a dupata (one of those long lovely scarves that Pakistani women wear with their pants and long tunics, called a Saalwar-Kameez) around my neck to hang loosely down the front. No one but me knew about the under-tunic comedy verite and all was well. Obviously though, it was time to find out the two-scoop size.

Cue dramatic orchestral break!

Okay...first off...I'm allergic to man-made fibres...especially lycra, spandex, elastic etc. That's all part of my 'being part of a bastard offshoot of the Royal Family' theorumrectal, which we can save for another time. I am the Pea Princess of any underwear department...I mean, we're talking hives and welts here!

Secondly...I'm an ol' hippie woman who only puts these things on to save the tender feelings of those who find it just too damn National Geo-graphic when they bounce upon my knees!!! Well...that and needing not to knock meself out during a musical performance, I suppose. I do need to keep a couple of bras, behind the in-case-of-emergency glass door, in my foundation drawer.

Cue the mindless muzac and numbing haze of a Tar-JJAY....

Warm, small, sickly-lit dressing rooms...and six bras at a time to try on. I really do believe I can do this when I start...I really do believe I can find THE right-fitting bra (with the gentle holding of breastages that no male I've close-encountered has known the technique of) the right-fitting bra which will reverse-telescope old dawgs back into puppies! JUST a little high on the expectations...all past experience ignored in my reaching for support-bliss...SILLY SILLY WOOOOMAAAAN...sing it with me now!!!

First one...made underarm growths instead of puppies...second...Cheshire Cat smile slipping below the elastic...third one...seemed full of spiky sea-urchins...and I begin to sweat and my back begins to bi-atch about the canterlevering exercises...leaning with an ess-bend from pelvis to shoulders. I take a look in the mirror at this point...jaundiced from the light and blotchy...with a sweat-shine...oh yum! Change tactics...and try for this stretchy bra/camisole thingie...guarandamnteed to smooth you into the best shape of your life. Says so right on the label.

Only now...someone has turned my pores to fully open...and this thing has to be pulled over the head...and now my ponytail (down to buttage) begins to reach for things like a grasping herd(?) of octopi at a free fish handout! Reeblefrazzinrattafrat thing rolls itself into a hair spliff, mon...just above the puppies...puppies looking as forlorn and left-out as a cocker-spaniel in the rain. Me, a fully-grown, sensible woman...beginning to panic, dancing around tiny room (prolly in front of security cameras!) trying to unroll this little bastewd...down...up...any bloody way that would release my hair and let me breathe again...AAAIIIIIEEEEEE!!! CLEAN-UP IN DRESSING ROOM TWELVE PLEASE!!

Three hunnert and forty-twelve fargin' bras later...I grab the two fer one cotton sports bras...ten bucks...and manage to wrestle into one. Then my dear husband, who knows me soooooooo well, brings me a long dress he has found on the Clearance Rack...a dress that is soft, like an old beloved t-shirt...so soft I immediately have to grab it, caress it, bring it to my face...with a draping neckline that hides the somewhat ski-jump look of the sports bra...and ties around my waist...deep plum coloured...and...did I mention...soft? I looked in the mirror (ignoring easily the blotching, jaundiced-caucasia, sheen, and humidity-frazzled hair because by now, my glasses were all fogged-up!) and felt like a soft, soft Goddess with an hourglass figure. Okay...a little more sands of time in the bottom...but as good ol' Senator Al Franken would say...it's okay...and I like me...I really do.

Who else could I tease like this and have know I still love and desire them?

4 comments:

  1. Ah, a place for my comments, how fortuitous, but, alas, no font choices as of now. So, yeah, swimsuits are even worse to shop for than bras (in fact i just bought a bra that looks swimsuit, good enuf for me.) because, now you can look at your entire body under that not so ambient lighting. I have found that Marshall's is my best bet for bras, and just a somewhat less stressful place than Tarjae can be. Once when i went padded bras were the only selection, women used to bind their breasts. Equally odd. And we're all supposed to have fake ones anyway. Slaves to fashion and buying into bullshit.
    I am looking for a mother of the groom dress. That's fun. Everyone tells me that it's so good that I'm small but, really girls it still is not so good. ( if i seem to be running on a bit much, Mars is in Gemini so vociferous is currently the vogue for me...and i eschew full responsibility! )
    All the mog dresses either try to imply that you've never had sex in your life and that your son was obviously immaculately conceived or be made of 100% polyester and cost way too much money. I will succeed, but so far, the manifestation process stresses me out!!
    :) I saw a nice $1000 one but that's not going to happen.
    It's an adventure. Life is so RPG; find the special dress, or buy it at the Armor supply shop, slay some monsters for some gild and hopefully move up to the next level.
    My day at work yesterday became very RPGish, I got back early, presumably so I could go home and take a nap (full life here) but instead, I had to deliver 2 Express mails 15 miles out to the booneys and back, and then go out to bring a truck to another mail carrier who had broken down in town. "Deliver the special items to their rightful owners and rescue the princess. Collect your gild. Earn bonus experience points. Done."

    I got a ridiculous dress for the rehearsal dinner that I can imagine my friend Anne saying, "Well, that kind of dress looks nice on you!" and I still haven't figured out if that's an insult or not. It is kind of a Hansel and Gretal's old hippie aunt looking dress, but that kind of dress does look good on me, whether it looks good as a dress remains uncertain. It is sad that all my time spent in NY never gave me that NY fashion savvy that most NYers have.
    Your husband, by the way, could be a fashion stylist or something. He was real nice about going in with me to check out this bridal shop in SF, and the skirts he got you guys looked pretty. On to the next blog...:) Lv ya

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  2. LOL...so GOOD to get a comment from one of my long time hippies sistahs!!!

    Yeah...looking at dresses makes me wish I could sew! Good luck on finding one...many congrats to your son and his bride!

    Do NOT get me started on bathing suits! This is why we all used to go to the nude beaches!

    I loved your letter...am working on one...getting slow in me old age! Love you too....Lox

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  3. Wonderful post and wonderful new blog, Lorraine! I think this is something most women understand.

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  4. This could become quite the 'women's room'...nasty paws? LOL xo Thanks for popping over...hope folks will jump from here to Stephanie's blog..."The View From My Broom"

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