Of Breasts and Beauty

Via Shapely Prose, I have to comment on this photo from the Uncovered photography project. (Photo from Jordan Matter Photography.)

If you can't read the text, it is as follows:

When you're forty, men stop looking at you. You sort of disappear and
become a non-sexual entity. It's a very strange thing to have been interesting
to strangers your whole life and then suddenly it stops overnight and you ...
disappear.

Now, I don't know about you, lovely readers, but I have never been interesting to strangers. Men have never looked at me. I find it fascinating to read things like this, stories of women who took such notice for granted, women who thought such notice was sure to continue indefinitely. What must it be like, to be considered a thing of beauty? What is it to know that you'll never have to pay for a drink or have an empty bed?

Random Roundup

Headless Torso has an excellent video up today.

Fat Bloggers made the New York Times!

And I have to talk about something that's been bugging me since it happened.

I have a Rack of Doom. My breasts are rather ridiculously large, and I have to buy bras roughly every six months. I usually try to get a fitting once a year, because they're not as young as they used to be, and they've started their southerly migration already. My band stays pretty steady, but I need bigger cups.

So I've recently moved to Colorado from Arizona. Being in a nicer climate has me out-of-doors more often, and in general, getting more exercise. I've lost about a dress size since moving over the summer, and I will probably lose more. It's not something I talk a lot about, because honestly? I find it irritating. I finally had a wardrobe full of lovely clothes that fit beautifully, and now I have to shop again, or take things in, and since I wasn't unhappy with myself, it's hard to see the changing of my body as anything more than an imposition on my time. Of course, no one I know will listen to my whining about "magical" weightloss, so I just keep mum and try crap on.

But the result of said loss is that I desperately needed new bras and a fitting. I had gone to an independent lingerie shop in AZ, but headed up to Nordstrom's this time after hearing wonderful things about them.

I get into the fitting room and tell the woman I'm currently wearing a 42H. The band fits okay, but not perfectly, so I don't know if I need to be down a band or not. The cups, on the other hand, are overflowing, and I'm not sure if I should look for I-cups or J-cups. She asks what prompted the fitting: I tell her I've lost some weight, and it's been a year or so since my last fitting, and my bras are falling apart.

She measures me and says my band measures right at a 42. Good - one question solved. She never measures my actual bust, but leaves the room to get things for me to try on. She comes back the first time with a 44D. She keeps coming back with various sizes, none of which are even close to my cup, and finally says, "I think you're a 44F. We don't have any in stock, so I'll email you when they come in."

And I hear you all: So what? It was a bad fitting. We've all had them.

And you're right - I've gotten them before, too. (For the record: I came home and had my husband measure me. I'm a 42J.) But what made this one particularly uncomfortable for me was that the fitter repeatedly made comments about how wonderful it was that I'd lost weight, how I was sure to lose more, and she looked forward to finding me even smaller bras. And won't it be wonderful when my breasts get smaller? And I was doing such a good job at sticking to it!

I didn't know what to say. I was a deer in the sizeist headlights. I just had absolutely no idea how to go about explaining that I was really annoyed to change sizes, that my breasts have done nothing but get bigger since I was 10 years old - no matter what my weight has done - and that I'd hate to be a size-whatever on the bottom and a size bazoomba-huge on the top because of these stupid boobs.

I had no idea how to say, "I'm perfectly happy with my size, and am not actively trying to lose weight." And that made me feel like a liar.

I came home and shared my thoughts with Bacon's Dad (while he measured me correctly.). His take? "Well, wouldn't it have made it more uncomfortable to say something?"

Sure it would have. But if I say I'm a Size Acceptance activist, if I tell other people every day the facts about fat and health and the beauty myth, aren't I obligated to do the same with strangers? Isn't my silence a tacit acceptance of the opinion that getting smaller is a good thing, no matter what I believe?

Looking back, I probably should have been prepared. I know how society views weightloss. I know how society views fat women, and I knew I was going to be shirtless in front of some random person literally taking my measure. I guess I didn't expect to be asked why I needed a fitting - it's pretty obvious, even when I'm clothed, that something isn't fitting properly.

It's just so difficult to boil everything down to something short, sweet and acceptable. "I like being fat; let's move on" seems abrupt and cold, but giving a ten-minute spiel on SA seems a little over-the-top. Surely there's something in between the extremes - and I have a feeling that I should try to find it, because I'm only going to run into more fitting rooms and more salesclerks trying to make conversation.

What would you have said?

What could you do with $5,002?

Sandy Szwarc has an excellent post over at Junkfood Science today.

Apparently, the average woman spends $5,002 per year on losing weight. For that spectacular outlay of dollars, she'll lose a whopping 3 pounds - and, of course, gain it all back. Over a lifetime, that works out to roughly $310,000.

$310,000. One house. Eleven cars. 88 diamond rings. 3100 fancy gourmet dinners.

Or three pounds.

You do the math.

Diet Season

The New Year starts on Tuesday, and most people - especially women - will be making that ever-popular resolution to lose weight. The diet ads have already started: Weight Watchers is, actually, a diet, so don't be fooled; and the Discovery Health Channel's particularly misleading exhortation to "Get Your Health On" is just the kinder, gentler, less scientifically valid way to say "Hey, Fatties, you're killing yourselves!"

My resolution? To love my body. I highly suggest you all do the same.

This handbasket is so cozy!

That Baby Jesus, he'll steal your birthday glory at the drop of a hat.

Happy Birthday to all the Christmas babies! (This one turns 30 on Tuesday!)

Grocery School

I should be able to give tickets in the grocery store. Seriously, people, it's just like traffic.

I had to make a Costco trip today. I knew it was going to be a horror - five days before Christmas, I'm sure people are rushing the place to get giant tubs o' cookie dough for the office swap tomorrow. But I ask you, how hard is it to keep to the right?

I almost wrote, "You manage to do it in your cars!" - but then I remembered I'm in Colorado now, and no, they don't manage to stay to the right in their cars, either. These people are all over the road - and always at 35 mph. Always. I suppose it shouldn't shock me that they're wandering all over the Costco with the carts taller than I am at bizarre angles in all the aisles, looking at things two rows over, standing three abreast and meandering around the displays.

Don't get me started on the sample ladies, either. Getting a free sample is not a pass to stick your cart anywhere you feel like it, or to stop suddenly, either. Those stupid things weigh at least 100 lbs. when they're empty - by the time I've gotten some dairy products and chicken in there, I have to rely on friction to help me stop it, and it ain't gonna be quick. Especially since the handles are practically at my chin - and no, that's not an exaggeration. Costco cart handles are higher than my breasts. You should see me trying to get things out of the bottom - I feel like my feet are flailing in midair as I dangle over the edge of the cart, grasping desperately at my blocks of cheese and giant bags of frozen veggies.

Back to the point: Tickets. There should be Grocery School, just like Traffic School. If you fail to yield to the main aisle (thanks, Random Old Guy who just kept walking at me and almost ran me over), if you can't stay on the right side of the aisle (um, all the rest of you), if you insist on having a conversation about the relative merits of a gallon of peanut oil versus a gallon of olive oil while your child is dancing through the aisle, and then you glare at me when I almost hit him - If you do any of the above, you need a ticket and a chance to go to Grocery School, where you'll learn such valuable skills as:

- Not blocking the aisles!
- Following a list so you don't lollygag and get in my way!
- Understanding the layout of your average grocery store!
- Optimal cart-filling!
- How to replace carts in the cart corral instead of in front of my back bumper!
- How to keep your bratty children from screaming when you won't buy them candy!
- And much much more! Enroll Now!

Do Not Want!

Oh, the joys of Christmas.

My mom has taken Bacon to see Santa and get her picture taken since birth - in other words, the last two years. Year one she sat on Santa's lap without a care in the world, smiled big for the photo, and had a grand time. Last year she was warier, but ultimately, we got the picture.

This year, however, she was having none of it.

We thought she'd be fine; we kept talking up Santa and she was all excited this morning to go see him. We made a few stops before heading to the mall, and every time I stopped the car, she said, "Where's Santa?" She waited patiently in line like a champ, and ran over to the sleigh in which Santa sat - only to stop dead and start crying. Poor kid.

We wandered around Cherry Creek's ritzy mall (with exactly one plus-sized shop, and that not suitable for anyone under age 60) and had some lunch, but Bacon stuck to her guns: No Santa.

Ah, well. Maybe next year.