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O! for my bruised and aching ego!
Jul. 6th, 2006 07:45 pmI have just had the most gruellingly depressing day; when I say that I spent it shopping for a swimsuit, many of you will probably sympathize, and some of you will think I'm exaggerating when I say that I think I was actually a little less traumatized when I was laid off. But I assure you that it's true.
See, I've got all this time on my hands now. And a friend (who was laid off at the same time as I was) with a pool. And I love to swim! I spent all summer every summer from the ages of 1 to 16 in a pool or a lake or a river or a sea of some sort. I swam competitively, and then I went home and swam some more, and I swam on vacations, and it was one of the few sports I could particpate in that didn't make me feel like a total, graceless asshole.
And it's been so long, since that time, that my swimsuit when I moved from New Orleans was two sizes too small but fit me anyway because the elastic was out, and I threw it out then. And then I didn't even know anyone with a pool. And so I never replaced it and went three years without a suit, and I didn't miss it until D issued an open invitation and I realized I'd have to borrow a suit from somewhere because I didn't have one any more. And so I borrowed one from her, but I couldn't keep borrowing them if I were going to go twice a week, and I want to go twice a week because I think I may have mentioned that I like to swim, and also her, and also her tree-year-old daughter (with whom I spent a delightful hour grinding imaginary pepper-and-peanut-butter sandwiches into the eyes of an imaginary sea monster and going to imaginary doctors to have our imaginary injuries treated).
Thus a swimsuit shopping spree today. It was an eye-opener, I tell you. First of all: when did swimsuits get so goddamned expensive? A hundred dollars for a yard of spandex seems ludicrous to me, and I have no idea how long the swimsuit market has been in this condition, but I distinctly remember my mother buying our nylon Speedo swim-team racing suits and being appalled that they were forty! dollars! So much more expensive than ordinary suits! And the only forty-dollar suits I saw today were separates. Forty dollars for a tank top with a shelf bra! Ridiculous!
And this brings me to the more depressing part, which is this: I am of a size, and, for that matter, an age, where I cannot get away with anything Very Revealing or Very Young. Which means that the suits which are left are mostly apparently made for people twice my age, as I discovered today. I was looking for something a little conservative, and what I found instead was racks and racks of expensive dowdy. And God knows I'm no fashion plate, but it was disappointing (to put it mildly) to look at myself in the changing-room mirror, bra and underpants ruining the line of the suit, and realize that from here on out I am relegated to the granny suits. (Now, I admit did see a few that I liked very much, but it's late enough in the season that the clearances have started, and the racks were pretty picked over.)
I did find something--a hundred-dollar suit marked to half-price--and it's fine, plain black, square-backed, fitted and straight-skirted, the only ornamentation a white ribbon threaded through grommets around the suit just under the breasts. And I'm tempted to go online and look for more, on ebay, on torrid.com, wherever I can think of, so as to prove to myself that I can get a decent suit for a reasonable price if only I look hard enough. But frankly, after today, I need a little recovery time. Holy shit, dudes.
Although. I do wish I could sew a little better, because I'd make myself a vintage bathing costume, and be dowdy in an infinitely more eccentric and interesting way.
See, I've got all this time on my hands now. And a friend (who was laid off at the same time as I was) with a pool. And I love to swim! I spent all summer every summer from the ages of 1 to 16 in a pool or a lake or a river or a sea of some sort. I swam competitively, and then I went home and swam some more, and I swam on vacations, and it was one of the few sports I could particpate in that didn't make me feel like a total, graceless asshole.
And it's been so long, since that time, that my swimsuit when I moved from New Orleans was two sizes too small but fit me anyway because the elastic was out, and I threw it out then. And then I didn't even know anyone with a pool. And so I never replaced it and went three years without a suit, and I didn't miss it until D issued an open invitation and I realized I'd have to borrow a suit from somewhere because I didn't have one any more. And so I borrowed one from her, but I couldn't keep borrowing them if I were going to go twice a week, and I want to go twice a week because I think I may have mentioned that I like to swim, and also her, and also her tree-year-old daughter (with whom I spent a delightful hour grinding imaginary pepper-and-peanut-butter sandwiches into the eyes of an imaginary sea monster and going to imaginary doctors to have our imaginary injuries treated).
Thus a swimsuit shopping spree today. It was an eye-opener, I tell you. First of all: when did swimsuits get so goddamned expensive? A hundred dollars for a yard of spandex seems ludicrous to me, and I have no idea how long the swimsuit market has been in this condition, but I distinctly remember my mother buying our nylon Speedo swim-team racing suits and being appalled that they were forty! dollars! So much more expensive than ordinary suits! And the only forty-dollar suits I saw today were separates. Forty dollars for a tank top with a shelf bra! Ridiculous!
And this brings me to the more depressing part, which is this: I am of a size, and, for that matter, an age, where I cannot get away with anything Very Revealing or Very Young. Which means that the suits which are left are mostly apparently made for people twice my age, as I discovered today. I was looking for something a little conservative, and what I found instead was racks and racks of expensive dowdy. And God knows I'm no fashion plate, but it was disappointing (to put it mildly) to look at myself in the changing-room mirror, bra and underpants ruining the line of the suit, and realize that from here on out I am relegated to the granny suits. (Now, I admit did see a few that I liked very much, but it's late enough in the season that the clearances have started, and the racks were pretty picked over.)
I did find something--a hundred-dollar suit marked to half-price--and it's fine, plain black, square-backed, fitted and straight-skirted, the only ornamentation a white ribbon threaded through grommets around the suit just under the breasts. And I'm tempted to go online and look for more, on ebay, on torrid.com, wherever I can think of, so as to prove to myself that I can get a decent suit for a reasonable price if only I look hard enough. But frankly, after today, I need a little recovery time. Holy shit, dudes.
Although. I do wish I could sew a little better, because I'd make myself a vintage bathing costume, and be dowdy in an infinitely more eccentric and interesting way.
