I woke up with a headache again The weather's doing all kind of crazy stuff well I guess it's not really that crazy it's just changing from cold hot to cold to hot and something's blowing and it was very very windy
So I suppose it could actually be blowing in allergens from somewhere or it could just be a front I don't know My headache got better and it didn't take anything for it so I assume that whatever it was was not as intense
My bras came and I'm very excited because they both fit one of them is super comfortable and it's plenty supportive as far as the need to be supported goes but it's more of a comfort bra and it it isn't youthifying I'll say
The other one is not quite as comfortable but it's still pretty comfortable I've got more range of motion in my shoulder blades and arms than sometimes I have with bras and the straps don't seem likely to fall down which is another problem that I have with bras but it is a little more youthifying than I would like
It doesn't make them appear bigger but it does make them perkier in a more overt kind of way so I would be tempted to send it back but it was $7 and it's a comfortable effective bra so it's getting pressed into service
But the one that's super comfortable I mean it is super comfortable like I could easily sleep in it if I wanted to sleep in a bra which I usually don't but I did at one point in my life
So I checked to see if there were any more of those and then I checked to see if they were any that weren't as is that were just like you know available to buy and there are no more currently at all so the ones that were so inexpensive were basically clearance bras that had been sent back and so they're being sold as is so it apparently sold all the way out
But I found another couple that were $7 and they're actually the same bra but one is unlined and one has sewn in cups in a microfiber and I'm a little leery the sewn in cups because I don't want something that's going to make me look bigger but they had a model on a video that I found and she models all their bras I've seen her in bunches of their bras and she was obviously wearing that model and it didn't make her look bigger to me she's a double d and she already looks you know pretty large and very round so it might be that she's just the right shape for it to not really show
So I almost didn't order it I can send it back if it doesn't work I almost didn't order it but it's a weird bra that sized rather than being sized like you know 40 double d 42D whatever they're sized like small medium large extra large 1x2x3x so I don't think they can really have the cups be a particular cup size because in theory they're supposed to fit a range based on your measurement around and your cup size so if it was actually like the whole cup that wouldn't work so I think it's just like kind of sewn in the way if you got a bathing suit and it had cups sewn in just you know a thing to keep your nipples from being visible basically give you a unnatural roundness
And I ordered the 2x which when I have done that with another bra it was too tight but that was a thin cotton material and it fit it was just tight enough that I was concerned that it might rip this fabric shouldn't do that they didn't have any 3x's left in the as is if they had any maybe all the 3x people were super happy until I send any back I don't know but it's blue it comes in blue like it's called eclipse or something it's a dark blue it's a really pretty
And they also had one in just like a pinke or beige or something that didn't have the cups and I ordered that one too
But I am like all about a blue bra so I hope it works and then the unlined one I also got into x cuz that was all they had so I mean we'll see which one works better
And then they had another one that was as is but it was not $7 it was like $15 which is what I've seen as is once for before I've ordered as is bras before it's a newer model it's not on clearance so that as isn't quite as cheap and I may have to send it back I may be sorry I went back and forth and back and forth because I've bought their bras for I don't know years now
However long I've been buying things from QVC that was one of the first things I bought from them and that may actually be how I started shopping there I come to think of it I think it is because I had bought bras and underwear for ever from the avenue which was there on Richmond close to the galleria it was more or less in my travel path for years and they had really good prices on bras and underwears comparatively and I did buy some clothes from them and although I would have thought the avenue was a kind of poorly made clothing store I still have a skirt I got from them a couple of skirts I got from them One of them has seen better days but one of them is a color blocking skirt that I think I may be need to repair now I think it's got like a little place where the seam on the split seam has started to come apart but I mean you know I got that 20 years ago and it was in reasonably heavy rotation for a while not as heavy as some of the black clothing because I couldn't wear a color block gray and black skirt at Starbucks but I really like it I need to mend that so I can wear it some more anyway I'm sure that's fascinating
But that was where I bought my bras and my underwear and then when I needed more bras and they were not there I mean they're still our avenue stores but they're not convenient to me they're like out somewhere and it wasn't worth it to me to figure out where they were exactly and drive to the store just to get more bras and I probably could have gotten bras at Lane Bryant but I hate Lane Bryant I've hated Lane Bryant for a long time I used to shop there a lot because they're used to not be very many places you could buy large size women's clothing as the whole country got fatter a lot of brands realized that they could make some money selling larger size clothing and so then they started doing it but you know it used to be that they were only a very few places you could get larger size clothing and all the regular stores just had regular size clothing that only went up to sometimes 12 sometimes 14 once in a great while there'd be something that would be a 16 and you should be just really glad they had anything it was not going to be something good also the assumption was that if you were fat you were old and you probably didn't care much about being stylish so the clothes were not very attractive generally
So Lane Bryant was a place that I went a lot and initially I kind of liked them but then they decided that they were going to have I don't know I think they may have been bought out by someone and they changed
And I continued to shop there periodically but I didn't really buy much I think probably I stopped buying things there in the early 90s
I started shopping at Chico's
But mostly Macy's
Macy's had a pretty large plus size women's department and when they would have sales they were good sales so I would buy clothes on sale mostly mostly the things that were like already on the sale or clearance rack and then they'd go on bigger sale but sometimes if something was really amazing I would buy it when it was just on you know regular sale for 25 or 30% off
So I would buy my clothes at Macy's
And then later I discovered Ross
And Ros s Ross is kind of like thrifting
They can't really thrift as a plus-size gal
Because there isn't much I mean there were some like resale shops that have some plus size stuff but it's mostly pretty lame
But thrifting
There didn't used to be fat people remember
And the clothes were all like matronly and whatnot so thrift stores aren't bothering with that stuff I mean maybe they are now but I pretty much have never seen and I've been to thrift stores but I pretty much have never seen anything really worthwhile plus size it's depressing
If I was a size 6
I could have the most amazing thrifted wardrobe the world has ever seen because I've seen so many things in a size 6 at thrift stores that are just like amazing
No it didn't dictate me correctly what I said was
A-MAZE-ING
Anyway so Ross is mostly crap but if there's a Ross on your travel path and you're willing to stop by multiple times a week and just walk through well when you find something it's like amazing and really cheap and like the greatest find you know I have some clothes that I wore for years and years and years that I paid like $5.99 some of my favorite clothes and it's easier if you wear all black anyway which I used to because everything matches with everything else you just have to get something that's you know a good shape doesn't even really matter what the fabric is all that much because you know black goes with black and it's hard to really see the finer details of a fabric when it's black
And once I found Ross and I had a pretty good core collection from Macy's then I would just you know pick up the odd piece at the Chico's outlet and the odd piece at Ross and then every once in awhile I would get something really nice from Nordstrom and that seemed to round things out nicely
But I mostly didn't buy things at full price
No I guess I got a few things I really liked from Target that black shirt I'm not positive about the brand I think it's like Massimo or something but it was black and it was long sleeve and it was this really nice fabric and then I fell and tore it open and my district manager wouldn't let me wear it to work anymore even though I tore it because I tripped on their floor and I really loved that shirt I wonder what happened to that shirt I must have gotten rid of it at some point
Anyway I needed a new place to get bras and I was looking and I don't know what search on the internet turned up breezy's bras but I'm pretty sure that's how I got started shopping on there although oh I forgot when I was talking about where I shopped before in between Macy's and Ross there was a whole period of home shopping network I got some really good clothes from home shopping Network Diane von furstenberg had a line on there I had some clothes I really liked and more for years from that but they were all pretty large and then I lost some weight and I said I'm not going to regain this weight and to ensure that I don't regain this weight I'm going to get rid of all of my clothes now maybe I didn't maybe there's something packed somewhere but I don't think so there's this one tank top that I just cannot tell you how much I miss it that if I turn out to have packed it somewhere which again I don't see how that's possible but I just keep hoping that maybe it'll turn up somewhere but if I ever find it I will squee so hard
It's kind of long and it's like a mat it's not like Matt Jersey but it might be that it was called Matt Jersey it might have been an earlier incarnation of Matt Jersey I don't know but it was Matt and it was like this burgundy wine kind of color with all these little bitty textural marks somehow so that it was sort of like a print but not really a print you know Man I loved that shirt I'm trying to remember exactly when all this stuff was
I had this one outfit and it must have been like 94 95 I'm just not even sure maybe it was earlier than that I don't know maybe it was when I was still in college no couldn't have been I don't know it wasn't black it was a skirt that was this beautiful like kind of hot coral I don't think it was silk cuz I don't think it had to be dry clean maybe did have to be dry cleaned maybe that's what happened to it is that I just decided I didn't want dry clean only clothes I don't remember but yeah it probably was but it was like this sueded silk or maybe it just felt like sweeted silk and it came below the knee but not a lot below the knee it was like you know a regular person length skirt and the top that I wore with it because it was an outfit it was this like kind of turquoise egg blue and had like a little kind of peplumy flounce and I don't remember what the sleeves were like I think they were above the elbow they might have tied maybe and it had flowers on it but they were kind of painterly artful flowers not like little ditzy floral or something I can't remember what kind of flowers I'm not even sure they were actually a kind of flower they might have just been kind of like an abstracted flower but they were white I think and there might have been a little bit of yellow I don't know but I felt like I looked so good in that outfit and that was you know where did I go in that outfit I don't remember this is like a treasure chest of information that I am just discovering I forgot
I remember the Diane Gilman silk knit skirt cuz I wore that that was like ankle length black skirt I wear that for years oh that skirt and that shirt I didn't get those from the home shopping I got that from Macy's I'm pretty confident I got that at Macy's
I remember I went to a job interview and this was like I don't remember what year it was it was right after I graduated from college but it might have been right after I graduated from college the first time before I went back
And it was a job interview for like a bank teller or something right and I got all dressed up in what I thought was you know appropriate work attire
And I'm actually laughing cuz I'm remembering
So cuz remember I had worked for years before I graduated for college and I had been like you know assistant manager at a bookstore and whatever right You know
So it's not like I was you know a teenager who had never worked but I clearly had no sense of what one would wear for certain different types of jobs I just had a sense of what I thought was good right so I had I don't remember what kind of skirt I had on I don't remember the skirt or the blouse but the jacket I had on it was linen it was kind of an ecru natural color and I had this cut out work on the back it had to design that was cut out and I had I want to say navy blue hose but like you know thick hoes like not quite tight but opaque navy blue opaque hose and maybe the skirt was navy I don't know and the shoes were they were heels but they were like chunky heels and they were I want to say they were like a suede chunky round-toed like kind of match the jacket ecru
And I did terrible I did terrible at that interview there was one point where she asked me a question that I thought was not appropriate for her to be asking me like how much money was I used to making at my previous job or something right cuz I had just graduated from college so you know how was how much I had been making at my previous job pertinent you know
So I got slightly adversarial just you know in tone and I'm sure facial expression but I've been known to frighten large men with my facial expressions
And I didn't know what avocation meant
Now you know I had gone to high school and college and studied all kind of you know creative things and philosophical things but I guess the concept of avocation just never came up
And you know
I wasn't really raised with the concept of hobby
There were things that you did because you enjoyed them and there were things that you did to make money and there was a lot of overlap between those things hopefully
And I'm not a person who is used to hearing words that they don't know but that was apparently somehow important to being a bank teller and the fact that I didn't know it was you know a test I had failed
But the reason why I told you so much about the outfit I was wearing is I thought I'm laughing again I thought what I was wearing was appropriate not only to a job interview but for you know working at the bank I was specifically trying to dress in a way I thought would be helpful to me it wasn't that I was trying to be a freak I thought that was a good way to dress for that
Oh my God I had forgotten all about this
So she looks at me
And she says you're obviously a very creative and stylish person but are you able to dress conservatively you know for a bank environment
And instead of saying what I should have said which I of course know now that I should have said was like you know yes if you provide me with a dress code I'm perfectly capable of following it
What I did and I'm laughing again I did was to just kind of lift my arms up in a very dramatic shrug and kind of pass them down my body like I have demonstrated to you that I am capable of dressing in a conservative manner as appropriate for a bank teller
I did not get a call back
It had to have been after I graduated the first time so like or maybe even before I graduated so like late 91 early 92 something like that
I think that might have been the first like no it couldn't have been I was going to say that was my first like legit job interview but I had had jobs before I must have interviewed for them oh oh
I'm laughing again
I'm really bad at job interviews
I mean maybe I'm not now I don't know I've done a lot of them so I kind of have a better idea what people are looking for
But I remember when I interviewed at the bookstop I was like 17 I had just graduated from high school and the idea of working in a bookstore seemed like a really good thing I mean I had worked at a display company maybe I haven't worked there yet I am uncertain I must have I have some uncertainty in the provenance of my employment history
But anyway I applied at the book stop and it was before they opened they were doing interviews like outside and
I don't remember I don't remember much of what they asked me really the only thing I remember is they asked me what kind of work do you not enjoy to do and I was like boring repetitive work
I did not initially get a call back
They hired their whole first crew of people
And I went on to gain full employment at Miller's Outpost
Do not recommend
I mean it doesn't matter because I don't think they exist anymore but
There are better ways to earn $3.35 an hour
And do not let them know that you are competent or you will be folding jeans all day long because they had big sales on jeans all the time and so everybody would go in and just start pulling the folded jeans out of the wall and then just throwing them all over the place
I work there for like maybe 3 months
Which seemed like forever
And then I guess the book stopped had worked through building out the inside of their store and setting everything up and I don't know whether they had lost some people or they just needed more people or whatever so they called me and offered me the job and I was like yes
And gave them notice at the Miller's Outpost
Where they said they were very sorry to lose me because I was such a good worker
And where I had first discovered that women could wear men's shoes the sizes were different differently numbered anyway and the men's shoes were a lot wider and more comfortable mens shoe sizes are like one and a half sizes smaller so if you wear a woman's size 10 for example you'd wear a men's eight and a half or if you wear a size nine you would wear a size seven and a half
I got some shoes there I don't really remember if Miller's outpost had women's clothes I think they did I think they did and maybe they didn't have women's shoes maybe I just liked the men's shoes I don't remember
But I got these shoes they were like lace up gr ay I mean they weren't really dress shoes they were they had rubberized soles on the bottom of them but they were kind of they weren't casual shoes either they were maybe dressy casual like something that if you were going to wear dress clothes and you were a man but you wanted to be a little more comfortable cuz I don't think that men's dress shoes are very comfortable that you could get away with wearing these they were maybe you call them oxfords I'm uncertain in my mind when I see the word Oxford I see a two-tone shoe and these were not two-toned they were just like a leather and kind of not pointy but narrowing at the front ovally-shaped and they were gray like not super dark gray but not light gray kind of a medium gray I guess but the rubberized soul was kind of a that brown color that looks like artist erasers and has a little bit of a texture to it You don't see it very much anymore I think Clark still makes some shoes with soles like that and they were laces but they were like nice kind of dressy laces that match the shoe I thought they were super comfortable and I was kind of toying with ties
Kind of trying to figure out if I could look Butch if that was a thing
Of course not that long later I was into dresses
Not because I was trying to be film but because I found some really cool dresses that I liked they had these big full circle skirts and they were like fluorescent colors again not black
Man this is going to be really long
I think I've been talking for like 2 hours or something
And thinking about me in my early twenties just really makes me wonder how I live to be this old cuz I feel like there's a way in which I was kind of clueless about everything I mean I didn't think I was clueless I thought I knew what the f*** was going on but I did not I most emphatically did not and I guess that's pretty much true of all people in their early twenties I just guess I haven't really spent a lot of time thinking about that I mean I've thought about little isolated bits and pieces of it but not but whatever you know
This morning after I woke up the first time and took aspirin and decided I wanted to go back to bed and see if I can make my headache go away I had this dream
That you had somebody I'm not clear on who it was exactly play me something on French horns it was like a whole section of French horns or maybe it was French horns with a brass section maybe it wasn't all French horns but they were playing me something
I'm not 100% sure what it was
It might have been part of 714-715
But it might have been something else I'm just not sure I've had a lot of stuff running through my head
and in fact the night I didn't sleep at all I had a piece of classical music stuck in my head just stuck playing again and again and again and again and again and I couldn't remember what it was and it was driving me crazy and I knew that I knew it that it was something that I should know the name of
But then later that day I tried to remember the piece of music and bunches of classical music that I've known at various times came to mind but I could not remember I'm sure it wasn't the same one and I don't know what all that's about
Anyway now it's even later All right I got to go to bed
I love you very much sweetheart 💋
