TMI

I am not the sort of woman who goes clothes shopping just to browse.  When I need something, I go and buy it, and then I generally don't darken the doors of a clothing store again until I need something else.  Very guy-like of me, in fact.  Yes, my personal style could undoubtedly use some work (I'm a jeans or khakis and nice sweater kinda gal) but keeping up with trends is too much work and one advantage of being north of 40 is that I care a lot less about what people think of me than I used to. 

This is a good thing, too, because on the rare occasions when I do go shopping for myself, I almost invariably end up frustrated.  I've ranted about shoe shopping here before--this is one of my pet peeves.  When you're close to six feet tall, you will have big feet.  It's the way of the world and also simple physics.  Add to that the inevitable increase in shoe size post-pregnancy (thank you VERY much, kids) and what was big enough before (10) has now become bigger (10.5-11.)  Ha.  Good luck finding anything that isn't geriatric-styled or butt-ugly in a size bigger than 10.  (Or, paradoxically, something without a four-inch heel--have these fool designers not figured out that most women who wear larger sizes are tall already???) 

As it happens, today's rant is not related to shoe shopping, but the related (yes, strangely!) subject of bra shopping.  This is the reason for the title, and Dad, you probably ought to stop reading here.  

Every so often, I decide that I need to go less utilitarian and more pretty in bras.  And then I go shopping, get pissed off, and end up staying with the basics.  Why?  Because, along with my well-above-average stature, the genepool also tendered me no freaking chest at all despite the fact that most of the women in the family are stacked.  (God only knows how I successfully managed to nurse three big, thriving kids, but at least that part of it worked out for me.)  As a tall and well-endowed friend of mine pointed out to me yesterday, nobody knows her eye color because her endowments are right at eye level for the average guy: I guarantee everyone knows that my eyes are brown!  Anyway, I also have my kids (specifically, the eldest and his perpetual internal head-butting) to thank for what was without question a pregnancy-related expansion of my rib cage, and the combination of small cup size and large band size is absolutely IMPOSSIBLE to find in any kind of pretty style at a store and even difficult online.  It has not been a good couple of days of looking around...so much for the resolutions to fuss over myself a little more this year. 

In a nutshell, I come out of either shoe or bra shopping feeling like some kind of freak and that gets very, very old.  Hope any of you who are normal-sized people appreciate being normal-sized!