Ch-Ch-Changes

I hate that song. Even worse than "Turn Turn Turn".

I won't dwell too much on it here, but a very good friend passed away last week and I was unable to attend the funeral due to a back injury the week before THAT. I started another blog about it, mabrook if you find it and read it, but I disabled the comments.

Yeeerugh. Yes, Man Thing is gone. He went his way but not quite, and we still see each other at gatherings with mutual friends.

Sunglasses. You can't be in Kuwait without sunglasses. I had been putting away for a pair of prescription sunglasses because I wear glasses. Duh. Meanwhile I had been...squinting and bearing it. When I mentioned this to Man Thing casually, he looked at me and said, "Why don't you just get contact lenses and buy a pair of sunglasses?"

Duh.

(I was still nursing a joke from another friend, who I made the mistake of showing pictures of my extended family. He pointed at my Uncle sporting wide windowpane plaid and a bow tie in his engagement picture c. 1972 "Look! The glasses are hereditary!")

Now I wear contacts. These have their own problems, as I have an Astigmatism and the damn things just don't mesh with air conditioning.

One thing leads to another, feeling particularly down and out after Man Thing and I parted ways, I went to a friend's salon and got my hair cut. Beautifully. In a way that suits me completely. "And the crowd went wild..."

To backtrack a little, there are two unresolved fitting crises within every woman's life, no matter what her shape or size. One is a bra. The other is jeans. I have very long legs and clothes that don't "Feel Right" just don't get worn, so this problem is compounded for me (I cried on the day I discovered Abercrombie- I hate sweatshops but their clothes are supersoft).

Yeah, a good pair of jeans is hard to come by, and since I came to Kuwait I was wearing one pair to death while searching for a substitute without frigging rhinestones and bows and God knows whatelse. I was in and out of Massimo Dutti for their clearance sales (more supersoft clothes in the line of silk/cashmere sweaters for supercheap). And then I saw...a leg...peeping out from a rack...

Ooooooo.

It is bluuuuuuuuuue.

And approaching carefully it feels rubbing between two fingers like potential.

Going to the dressing room. Could it be? Could it BE?! Jeans that fit?

Ahhhh.

And no you perves, I don't sleep in them. Though I sometimes get seperation anxiety during the night.

By the numbers, over 4 months: 1. Contacts. 2. New hairstyle. 3. New jeans. H'ohkay...

I slipped my L-5 disc during the last week in January. My friend T died on the 11th of Feb.

In a spree of Distract Me combined with Posture Improvement, I had to make good on getting a new bra.

This. Is. Hard.

If you think trying to get them OFF a woman is a challenge, it is nothing to the time investment and footpower that piece of equipment requires to be on that woman to begin with. My Bra Oddessy was now some 24 months in the making with no results. Part of it is cultural (what is available in Kuwait) and part of it is intimidation, and part of it is that boobies never formed a critical part in my self identity until I was finding my lunch on them instead of my lap. I was 28.

Good news is that Debenhams in the Avenues was actually carrying a line that I'd considered buying (a line without airplane propellers on the nipples). I took a random sampling of sizes and reenacted Goldilocks and The Three Bras. This one too hard, this one too Madonna, this one too Waah! (are they supposed to be ...there?)

I knew I struck gold when I removed one, and wanted to put it back on immediately. The weird part was, it was a size smaller and cup larger than what I had been wearing previously. Whaaa?

(Expensive, but the rule is to buy it immediately. Especially in Kuwait. It won't be there when you come back.)

It went home with me, and I tried it on again. Looked in the mirror. Freeeeeeeeaky. My own casual assessment equated me with a pool float. Where did...these...come from? Had they been there all along, lurking? What about everything going on below?

I took it off and put it on the dresser. Bra looked at me. I looked at bra.

No. Way.

I put it back on. Comfy. Shirt over it. Not bad. And aside from getting used to having them in the way when I reach for something, we have 1. contacts 2. new hairstyle 3. new jeans that fit 4. posture.

Last of all, we have sunglasses.