The Gurly Life

Double whammy garage sale

Garage sales, in and of themselves, are almost irresistible. For anyone who has ever pulled over, lured by all that stuff that can be had for pennies, this is not news. I am usually able to resist because, frankly, I have enough crap.

But today, the garage sale was being held by one of my very cool neighbors. His boyfriend is moving in, and they culled their stuff to make more room. Grrrr. The pull of the goodies plus the impulse to help my neighbors were too much: I bought two men's leather jackets. Excellent quality, designer leather jackets. Condition, almost new.

I think I will be able to wear one as a coat, but I might need to get the sleeves taken in. Who takes in leather? It seems like a high-skill type of job, am I going to have to travel half way across town to find someone who can do it? The other is for my dad. It's much too manly for me to use, really, and it has a warm lining that can be removed. Hopefully he'll like it and take it back to Italy with him, it gets much colder there in the winter.

Fear not, I only spent $55 on the two jackets. I think brand new they're worth several hundreds of dollars. How could anyone resist?

The trauma and the untrauma

As portended, I went bikini shopping today. I went to Old Navy, land of the cheap clothes - bless their hearts. I didn't quite leave it till the absolute last second, but close. I had to prepare myself psychologically for several weeks. I had to build a wall around my heart, strengthen my defenses, disconnect from my emotions, and accept once and for all that denial is a river in Egypt.

I figured I had, maybe, 30 minutes of shopping time before self-grossout would set in. So I went, I picked out some bikinis and ran into the fitting rooms to try them on. Which I did, without excessive freak-out. I was also a little mystified by the sizing of said bikinis: the tops I got were XL's. Which was the largest size. I tried smaller ones on, but my boobs looked all fried-eggy, or the edges of the bikini top didn't  align properly, I don't know, it was very strange. The XL's fit. But what's curious is that XL was their biggest size. Which means that they don't make bikinis for everyone. Or it means that I am under the mistaken impression that a bikini top is supposed to cover your boobs, and not just your nipples.

The bottom, I thought, would be at least an L. I started with an XL, and that was just too wet-nappy. L was better, but one real wave and off it comes. The M fit perfectly.

???

Usually, I need a smaller size for the top than for the bottom. And I can tell you with a high degree of certainty that my boobs have not gotten larger, and that my hips have not gotten correspondingly smaller.

I found myself with extra time (somehow I managed to get out of the house early), so I wandered into another store to check out cheap dresses. I love saying the name of the store, Ross Dress For Less, but the dresses were beyond hideous. Ack! Unfortunately, I was so grossed out by the patterns and the tacky fabrics that I decided I would stop browsing sit in the car waiting for my yoga class while listening to podcasts.

By then, I was not feeling great, and of course my wrist, hip, and lower back had decided to add injury to insult. Don't worry about it, I'm premenstrual, which among other silly symptoms, irritates my injuries for a few days before my lady days. But I went to my yoga class, 90 minutes of crazy high energy hatha flow. Lots of sweating, lots of vinyasas, lots of back bends and 5 minutes of headstand (getting there! still can't really balance on my own, but I'm upside down for a while, and my balance is improving) - all contributed to the untrauma of the bikini mission. Not to mention all my aches improved significantly, and the nap I wanted to take to recover from said mission turned into this blog post ... on second thought, perhaps I should have taken a nap. ;o)