Jun
27
I saw this call for entries too late to officially participate in their contest giveaway thing, but since they were promoting one of the websites that helps pay my bills AND they’ve got a list of links to some interesting blog posts, I’ll take on the subject anyway. The subject being SWIMSUITS.
A couple weeks ago, JB randomly asked me what swimsuit I was bringing to the cabin for our July 4 vacation, and when I answered (“The black one I always wear, dude”) he . . . well, there’s no other word for it, he winced.
Then I picked up the wooden mallet I keep handy for such occasions and I bludgeoned him to death. The End.
Oh, ha ha, of course I didn’t. I didn’t even file for divorce on the grounds of Being a Total Choad (despite the fact that I think we can all agree that men who wince at the memory of their wife in a swimsuit — even though it was admittedly a sort of frumpy design of the “Miracle Suit” persuasion, meant to give the illusion of being 10 pounds thinner by wrapping the torso in as much Lycra as possible until the midsection is essentially a solid, immovable mass, impervious to both sodium bloat and bullets — deserve to be forced to defend themselves to an all-female jury while wearing nothing but a Euro-style banana hammock. Let’s see who does the wincing then, Mister).
He quickly backtracked and informed me that he just thought since I’d been working out so much I deserved a fancier swimsuit, maybe something with, uh, less total square miles of fabric coverage?
I can think of few activities that I enjoy less than swimsuit shopping but I had to admit he maybe had a point. I bought that bathing suit after Riley was born, when I needed something like a body-wide support garment to rein in all my Akira-esque flesh-rolls. I tried it on to check the fit and it looked weird: still taut in the belly, thanks to all those Miracle panels, but loose in the butt and droopy in the arms. The size tag read 16. The neck dipped too low and revealed the embarrassing used-to-be-a-rose-now-mostly-resembles-a-long-dead-tulip homemade tattoo above my right boob (the one I’ve never had removed because 99.9% of my clothes keep it hidden).
So last weekend I visited a local swimwear store, the kind that has racks and racks of mix-and-match tops and bottoms. And after about two solid hours of trying on pretty much everything they had to offer, I ended up with . . . a two piece. Not even a tankini, but a bikini top and two different bottoms, one with a flouncy miniskirt thing.
I have never owned a bikini in my LIFE, I never thought I’d EVER wear a bikini, and I have no good explanation for why I have one now. My belly, while a lot stronger than it was, is still an area that makes me squirm, especially when I’m sitting down and all that post-baby loose skin just sort of folds over like a crushed origami swan. Like a Sharpei sitting in my lap. Like a semi-deflated personal-sized Goodyear blimp. Like a — okay, you get it.
I guess I ended up thinking that while my body certainly isn’t supermodel-perfect by any means, it’s been a hell of a lot of work getting to where I’m at now, and I feel confident enough to set the Miracle technology aside and bare the parts of me I’ve historically tried my best to cover up. It’s just a swimsuit, but for me it sure represents how far I’ve come in the whole weight loss effort. If you’d told me four months ago that I’d be buying a two piece anytime soon, I’d have thought you were drinking a tall cold glass of shithouse-rat-crazy.
JB, it should be said, did not wince when I modeled the suits for him. I believe his words were, “I’d hit that.” O, that sweet pillow-talking man of mine.
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In other news,
1) Go tell my aunt she needs to abandon this crazy idea of taking a blog hiatus because her email notification thingie stopped working, because 1) she’s such a great writer and it’s a damn shame to miss out on her posts for ANY reason and 2) I feel guilty as hell because I can’t figure out how to fix her plugin.
and 2) We are driving way the hell down to the Oregon coast tomorrow for a week of vacation. I’m looking forward to the change of scenery, but hoo boy, not so much the effort to get there. Someone needs to invent a Battlestar-esque jump technology for bypassing seven-hour roadtrips with small children, either that or we as a society need to cease and desist with this pesky business of declaring drugs “unhealthy” and “dangerous”. A couple tranquilizer darts for them, a pill or two for me . . . I can almost promise everyone would arrive in a much happier frame of mind. Wish us luck, and have a wonderful weekend!
Jun
24
I don’t know if I’m allergic to mosquitos or what but every time I get bitten the area of attack gets enormous and puffy and red and sort of . . . well, boil-y, if I’m going to be honest, all brain-searingly itchy (ohmigod) and throbbing and basically less of an insect bite and more of a TORTUOUS PUSTULE OF HORROR, and this would be why I flail around batting wildly at myself whenever there are flying bugs nearby, or even when I think there might be bugs, and did you just hear something? Just now? A tiny eeeeeeeeee sound? Goddamned bloodsuckers, I’ll . . . I’ll burn down your pupae. I’ll tear off your proboscis and crap down your thorax.
MUST. NOT. SCRATCH.
Anyway! How’s your week going? Mine is going swimmingly, aside from the Pustules of Horror (PoH) I acquired during an otherwise lovely walk through some gardens last weekend. Oh, and there’s the matter of Dylan having cut his first tooth and morphed into a drooling, hand-gnawing (and finger-gagging), snot-tacular mess as a result. Also, Dog has a lump on her side and it seems likely that it’s just a fatty benign tumor thing since she’s an Elderly Labradork but I’m worried the vet will tell us otherwise and now I feel guilty for yelling at her yesterday when she joyously dragged her ass along the carpet like hey, look at this great way I found to buff my rectum!
In happier news, my hardware budget at Workplace had accrued enough funds to buy a new computer, and I got myself a spanky-fast MacBook Pro. I love it very very much, especially since it doesn’t sear the flesh from my thighs like my old laptop. JB, after months of crabbing about how Macs are mold-covered pieces of wet shit compared to PCs — suitable only for creating cute little scrapbooky photo albums, not for legitimate business activities — has already started angling for ownership of my previous MacBook, and I’m thinking of letting him have it, as long as he promises to wear a special shirt whenever he’s using it which will read I NEED TO KEEP MY BIG FLAPPING IGNORAMUS SHUT.
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