I’m busy, and tired, and social, and haven’t been to the grocery store all week, and just started another Wednesday bellydance sharing session, and my friend Steven is in town and making me go out to dinner every night and have interesting conversations and I’m having a late birthday party on Saturday and I don’t know what to wear to it (black skirt? black top? black shoes? JUST LIKE EVERY OTHER PARTY?). There are CDs to burn and email to send and yogurt to mix up and a job to go to and crushes to consider having, as well as future staying-in-NZ-possibly-maybe plans to be made and freaking taxes to be done. I have a big pile of unread books by my bed and I don’t know where my laundry detergent is and also I cannot find a) a pair of cute plain black lace-up low-profile sneakers or b) a plain black underwire bra to fit me in all of Wellington. I have this long scratch on my inside right thigh that I have no idea how it got there. My hundred-dollar birthday tiramisu came out great, though, and my haircut came out pretty okay, and I have been washing my face every other night with honey and that’s been going pretty well, so I guess not all is lost.
Well, right. All is not lost, not in any sense of the word, the bra-situation notwithstanding…but you know, can I just say, while I’m thinking about it? A woman’s relationship with her breasts is a beautiful, sacred, special thing. A very delicate thing, a sensitive thing, a thing that can be ruined by the frustrated purchase and eye-rollingly resigned wearing of the wrong bra. Your (or, well, my) breasts will retaliate by disappearing into your armpits, or by serving up a delicious helping of The QuadraBoob That Ate Miami, or by merging indistinguishably with your belly rolls, if you don’t treat them to a nice yet reasonably priced bra that can go in the wash and doesn’t show under t-shirts. I know this. My breasts know this. We have come, over the long years that we’ve been together, to an understanding. I do my part by buying the right kind of bras and wearing them on a daily basis, and my breasts pull their weight by contributing to what is known, in more polite circles, as my “hourglass figure.”
So when my favorite black bra’s right underwire went mysteriously missing a couple of weeks ago I found myself in an emergency bra-shopping situation, and I hied me as quickly as I could to Farmer’s and got a truly terrible bra, a bra that was made entirely of that itchy cotton-candy stuff that you insulate your walls with and did not move with me at all, like I would turn to the left and my bra would still be facing front. I was constantly tugging and adjusting and just generally looking like a fool. I went back several other weekends to try to ameliorate the situation, at one point actually missing out on a fun excursion to the beach with my friends Michael and Turrina. “Come to the beach!” texted Michael. “I CAN’T,” I replied, my thumb clicking with pent-up rage. “I’m currently bra shopping, aka being in HELL.” After several tear-inducing hours I finally did find a perfectly serviceable black underwire bra that’s…sigh…fine, I guess, except it turns out that other awful bra gave me unstoppable cleavage and this new one, um, doesn’t. Much to my dismay.
Shopping is still really weird here, in that the sizes are just different enough that I have to take three of everything in with me to the dressing room because I don’t know if I’m a twelve or a fourteen or a fifteen or what. I’m getting better about the brands now but it’s still a struggle, and it’s always a weird time when I find myself devoutly wishing for a Victoria’s Secret, which is not a wish I’d ever really found myself having before. I miss cute undies from Target, which is the weirdest thing ever to miss, and I also miss being able to get shoes from Zappos, too. I keep telling myself that, hello, we have shoes and bras in New Zealand, I see people wearing them every day. I don’t need to import a seventy-dollar pair of Skechers for an extra seventy dollars in shipping, you know? What I do need is a pair of shoes that will look awesome and keep out the rain, though, while not costing $250 NZ, or a bra that will lift and separate the girls at the same time as it stays physically on my torso…and those are frustratingly thin on the ground around here, it seems.
But consumer trends aside, everything is fine with me, which I guess means there’s not a lot to write about at the moment. I’m in one of those “whither blogging?” moods that overtake me occasionally, like I want to write stuff but the stuff feels too personal, but then I can’t think of anything else to write, except about my first-world problem of how my underpinnings? Are slightly unsatisfactory! And then I wonder what the point of writing a personal site is if I can’t write about things that are…personal. And I haven’t been taking very many pictures lately, and also I think you all might be a little tired of pictures of the Wellington waterfront, and I think you also might be tired of my writing about how I want to stay here because I feel so different even though I am mostly the same but sometimes I still miss people at home. So I clam up a little—I don’t want to bore you!–and I go out to dinner, and I eat some yogurt, and that’s it. One thing that hasn’t changed since I started writing this thing five years ago is that I feel weird and tight and itchy (very much as though I am wearing that cleavage-enhancing-yet-in-all-other-ways-inferior bra, now that I think about it) if I don’t put an entry up a couple of times a week, no matter how ridiculous and lingerie-oriented.
Comments
11 responses to “Slightly Unsatisfactory”
Underpinnings! I love that word! I totally get the bra angst. I finally broke down a couple of years ago and now always buy my bras at a bra shop. They’re four times as expensive as the stuff at Target, but I think I actually save money in that the four I bought a year and a half ago are still lasting quite nicely, and I assuredly would have bought twenty inferior ones by now, trying to find *just* the right one. And I still would have been suffering through all the overflow and drift and pinchy pokey problems; who knows how much the avoidance of that has been worth? You know how it goes. One of my beloveds popped a wire last week, though, so I have to find the money to invest again. *sigh* Wow, I ramble when I’ve just finished a cup of over-sugared tea…anyway. I mostly wanted to say that I like when you write about everyday things. I always find myself grinning and nodding along at the same time; something that doesn’t happen often enough in this world.
Baby, tell me what you need and I will mail you a bra or two. You and the girls deserve to have flattering and well-fitting underpinnings. (I agree with Chelsea – I love that word.)
“I’m having a late birthday party on Saturday and I don’t know what to wear to it”
Nothing at all? That’d make a splash with the crowd.
I’m in Japan,about to come home,but I have to make a suggestion first… Black bra – you can’t go wrong with Bendon. Is there a Bendon store in Welly? If not, try Farmers. As for sneakers,it depends on how sneaker-ish you want them to be, but Converse do an all black Chuck Taylor in either high or low top. I live in mine. You’ll find them in streetwear stores,there’s a good one next to a music store on Cuba Mall.
this is the one I like (I think): http://www.zodee.com/womens/bendon-lingerie/body-technology/75-555/
they have it at Farmers, or at least they used to.
Also, the dragonfish.co.nz geometric bra top. Think you can’t ever ever ever ever wear a crop top bra? Think again. Does tend a bit toward the uni-boob look, but you can run! and jump!
I feel your bra angst – why? why? why? is it so difficult to find a bra that fits??? Maybe because I don’t like to shop for them… I wish I were more comfortable with my boobies, because I bet I could get away with not wearing a bra if I wasn’t so trained to wear one. Anyway, just a thought – I miss you!
I’m so happy you’re seriously considering staying in NZ. I’m not ready to not read about your fabulous life.
Also: The honey? Has been gopped all over my face lately in thanks to Sundry and her beebuzzzzz
My Dear Fellow Birthday Grrrrl,
Bitch PhD (and *all* her fluorspheric friends) says that the bra brand Warners is
Teh Shizznit.
Expensive, but durable, so not techincally expensive in the long run.
I don’t know if they are so great, because (a) I haven’t had to go bra-shopping since I learned this, and (b) most of the styles have the weird paired hooks in back, and I know I am not a real grownup yet because I *hate* those, and just want to pull my bras on over my head so I won’t have poky bumps on my spine, jabbing me and showing through my shirt, and I think proper bras ought to be engineered to be (1) comfortable (2) supportive (3) seamless and (4) not itchy, ever, even the teeniest bit, so seams and lace are right out. (Slightly overlapping criteria. Ooops.)
Plus which, I don’t know if Warners are available in NZ.
Although I am stoked that NZ washing machines are available in Seattle.
PS, Chelsea, find that wire! It can wreck your (vertical axis) washing machine, if that’s where it went missing.
I also have the bra problem! I don’t think I’ve EVER found one thats been perfect for me. And I also order most of my shoes from online. I recommend the Number One Shoe Warehouse here though…most of their shoes are quite shitty, but I once found a pair of blue wedges for $10 that are awesome and high yet comfortable and look awesome, and I found a pair of silver boots for $5 once that I wear ALL THE TIME.
I remember freaking out about bras when I was in Alexandra/Queenstown/Dunedin over Christmas/New Years and I went to Farmers and couldn’t find ANYTHING. I had no idea why but suddenly all my bras felt SO ridiculously uncomfortable for that two weeks it was all I could think about. I’m not even kidding, I was crying myself to sleep because NO BRAS FIT.
By the way, our sizes are one size bigger than US sizes. So a US 12 becomes a NZ 14.
Actually, scratch the Shoe Warehouse thing, I go with Jane and recommend Chucks…I also wear mine all the time! I bought them second hand in New York and I LURVE them. Plus I just wanted to say I got them in NY.
I forgot Criterion #5.
A properly engineered bra (for everyday wear) should also be utterly INVISIBLE.
A properly engineered dress-up bra should be visible only where it’s supposed to show, if that’s the kind it is, and otherwise, also completely invisible.
It’s OK for it to be obvious that some external support is being provided; it’s NOT OK for the structural components of that support to advertise their presence.
So adjustable straps -> bumps -> NO! not allowed.
Microfiber is the best material-science invention for bras yet.
We need to bring back the aerospace engineers to bra production.
Obviously, some of them should be grrrls.