Overthinking Underthings

Or, more precisely, the lack of underthings.

Because I've had to give up on slinky lingerie...

       not enough money and far too great an increase of flesh.

Now, the flesh part can be worked around, I realize. You just have to know your (revised) size and find a good vendor. But restocking the drawers takes money, and I just don't have any of that to spare.

It's a disheartening situation, however, because despite being about as far from the stereotypical frippery type as it's possible to get, I do have a deeply ingrained weakness for the darned stuff. (I think I just like knowing like there's something pretty to look at on the way to stark naked.) So, I do rather mourn the lack…

BG, on the other hand, really could not care less.

          "I want you naked…"

          "Naked and kneeling…"

          "naked, beer in hand…"

          "Naked would be appropriate…"

          "wearing nothing but a smile…"

          "naked…"

Which I suppose doesn't make any of you think twice, really.

          "Man wants his woman nekkid, what's so unnatur'l about that?"

But what I see is a change.

During those five years before our "little break", I was always to greet him wearing some sexy undies -- which he would have off within moments of arrival, I grant you -- but they were to be there to rip off.

Not anymore, however.

And while that makes my wallet grateful, the rest of me is… suspicious.

I find myself indulging in an assortment of unhelpful speculations as to the reason (which I cannot detail here because they would cause SP to hop in his car, drive cross-country, and whack me with a stick) and though I try to push them aside, they circle back sneakily when I'm not paying attention.

Eighty-six million better things to worry about (vehicle, appliances, plumbing, employment) 

       and this is what my brain fixates on… lingerie.

I take back that "with age comes wisdom" comment.

In Which I Sigh Audibly

I broke my bra today.

  just sittin' there…

   doin' nothin'...

      *SNAP!*

  underwire -- Gone.

You know it's bad when even your lingerie turns on you…

Further Brushes With Somatoparaphrenia

A while back, I made a mistake. 

I ordered a "T-shirt" bra without really paying attention to the description.
Turns out, this bra has "lightly molded cups"…

Now, it is a very pretty bra… but women of my size generally don't need or want "lightly molded cups." I myself had always avoided them on general principles because, "who needs more padding?" (Not to mention not having nearly enough room in my undies drawer for freestanding lingerie…)

But it had been on deep discount and it wasn't worth spending money on the return shipping… so I kept the bra 'for emergencies."

This week, the emergency occurred. 

A disruption in laundry scheduling left me without a light-colored bra to wear beneath the snug white T-shirt of that day's outfit. There was momentary panic until my brain kicked in… "oh, wait!"

T-shirt bra to the rescue!  Ta-Da!!!!

It wasn't long before my relief was being overshadowed by a different emotion, however. Because that day, I realized another drawback to this style of brassiere… "lightly molded cups" is actually code for "completely obfuscates the natural contours of your bosom."

My boobs are round.

I'm used to my boobs being round.

I LIKE my boobs being round.

This bra? Prefers a soft point.

And implies a nipple direction that is approximately 10º off of true.

Not a huge difference, to be sure, but enough to be thoroughly off-putting when seen peripherally. I kept catching glimpses and thinking, "wha'…?"

Which means I spent the day alternating between being disoriented and suppressing urges to rush to the ladies room to "adjust"…

Not a distraction I needed this week.

On the other hand, I have to admit that there are some advantages to the design.

One certainly need not fear getting caught in the rain -- because nothing untoward will ever show through this puppy. (This could be important some day, if he ever does convince me to pierce…)

Bounce and jiggle are also completely contained -- this bra forces you to present a united front.

In fact, the girls could practically watusi inside this thing and the world would never know...

Unfortunately, however, I just don't feel like ME in it.

It's going stay "emergencies only", I'm afraid.

What's that saying about "round pegs"…?

Who Says...

...they don't make attractive lingerie for larger-sized women?

I think this double-T cup is very pretty!

Is it just me...?

While I absolutely love LoveFifi.com...

Does anyone besides me consider this to be a very silly bra design?

(*shades eyes and peers into the audience*)

The cut, I grant you, IS the sort of thing one wishes for on occasion. But realistically?

How on earth is that actually going to contain a danged thing -- much less two? (Unless maybe it ships with it's own can of aerosol adhesive?) 

Certainly, it looks lovely and alluring on this particular model. (Who, btw, is completely immobile and probably awash in said adhesive…)

But in MY life, the girls would be making a bolt for freedom every time I inhaled, much less actually moved. And don't even think about sneezing...

Maybe the issue is that this fits all the way up to DD, and they should probably stop at C.

Or have a recommended age range. 

"Mature Boob" disclaimers?

*sigh*

(I swear -- in my next life, I'm coming back flat-chested.)

I Wanna Complain...

Dear Victoria's Secret,

We go back a long way, you and I -- which means you already know quite a lot about me...
That I am 53 years old, fairly tall, excessively fleshed, and with boobs that are sufficiently ample that even you don't offer a lot of bras that will contain them.

Now, you have earned my undying gratitude for carrying pants with 36" inseams.
Much, much love to you for that.
However, could you please stop with the swimsuit spam?!?

Alluringly presented or not, I'm NOT going to be buying one of these puppies. Women of my age and build have no business wearing bikinis. In fact, I'm pretty sure it's expressly forbidden in my beach's Rules of Membership.

You have 20 years of purchasing history on me -- NONE of which contains swimwear.
May I please request that you reevaluate the algorithms for analyzing your market demographics?

Thank you.
An Otherwise Satisfied and Loyal Customer

p.s. The UPS guy thanks you, too.  :-)

In Which I Demoralize The UPS Man

In my defense, it was purely unintentional.

Victoria's Secret happens to be one of the very few places that sells slacks with 36" inseams. And they were having a sale. So, naturally, I struck while the iron was hot -- then promptly forgot all about it.

Days later, I was working outside, looking just about as dreadful as it's possible for me to look. As I rarely bathe *before* doing heavy yard work, I was unwashed, lank-haired, wearing ancient, oversized men's clothing and smeared with mud, grass, and mulch.
But, you know, you tend to forget about details like that when you're losing yourself in satisfying labor. So I greeted the approaching UPS man with an unselfconsciously cheery, "Ooo! Something for ME?!?"

We both looked down at the package in his hand.
I knew it was a pair of slacks.
He just saw a Victoria's Secret envelope...

He looked at me. He looked at the package.
Me. The package.
Me....

His cheeks flushed, his jaw worked, his lips struggled to form words.
I heard the distant shattering of a hundred thousand fantasies as they crashed about his youthful head.

Finally, he found his voice.
"Here."

He stuck out his arm and waited for me to take my package.
He turned and trudged back to his truck, morose and looking, well, smaller, somehow.

He's going to be a mess by the time I finish my Christmas shopping...

ISO Slutwear

True Confessions Time.
I used to be a lingerie slut. I had the figure, I had the money, Victoria's Secret was my best friend. It was a golden time of fun, frolic, and frilly things.

Then I dated a guy who could not care less about lingerie. Although when the kink was on him, he did like pantyhose. Not stockings, nothing pretty or lacy or sexy. Just garden-variety L'eggs. I'm not even entirely convinced I needed to be in them. I think I could probably just have handed him a wadded-up handful of nylon and gone off to clean the refrigerator and both of us would have been just as satisfied. (Or possibly more so.)

As a result, lingeretic apathy set in.
Then economic straits were encountered.
Between the two, I drifted waaaay off the frippery highway.

The good news is that I have been edging my way into traffic again since dating BG - but I'm still not quite back in the swing of things. The intervening years wrought changes and I haven't yet regained the keen sense of what flatters that I once had. Victoria's Secret is no longer a sure thing for me, nor is it quite the right price point anymore, either.

But that's OK. I have located other resources and my Sexy Undies drawer is filling a-pace. My troubles come with the, um, less elegant requirements, shall we say?

"Think fetish wear," he grins.
"OK. Type? Kind? Fabric? Pictures of examples...?"
"I like it all. Surprise me. Just wear it with heels."

Now, the shoe shopping, I'm all over.
Really. Trust me on that.

But I'm really having trouble locating Budget Fetishwear For The Tall, Zaftig-But-Not-Womens-Sized, No-Longer-20-Years-Old Gal Who Doesn't Know What She Wants Except That She Isn't Keen On Polyester Or Any Fabric That Melts In Heat.

Even cutting and pasting that into Google didn't help.

So I turn to you, dear readers. Any good pointers to be had out there?