August 2008

Sorry

the lesbrarian — Wed, 27 Aug 2008 14:29:41 +0000

Something's come up. I won't be blogging for a bit. My apologies; I think it's tacky to let a blog sit stagnant, but for reasons I'm not going to describe, I will be on hiatus for a while. Try back in October; I may have my act together then.

Thanks for your patience.

Cups runneth over in size

the lesbrarian — Sat, 23 Aug 2008 12:58:05 +0000

Like I said previously, I’m not reading an awful lot these days. I’m trying to wrap up a book chapter that’s due at the end of the month, so my personal reading time is suffering. Fortunately, I caught a small cold—not enough to really knock me out, but enough to justify calling in sick to work for a few hours, and enough to cause me to skip yoga twice the past week. Definitely sick, but not dying: It’s a nice way to get some time off, though it does come at the cost of coughing a lot, and sleeping in really strange intervals, and feeling funny in the head.

Most days I’m pretty well content to live alone. (Alone, unless you count the cats. They’re difficult to ignore. More precisely, the cat fur everywhere is difficult to ignore.) I am a big fan of solitude. But the other night I was wishing I had someone around to nurse me. Seriously: I can’t be expected to kiss my own forehead, can I?

But anyway, I found myself awake yesterday morning—awake, but feeling too funny in the head to trust myself to write anything. Naturally, I jumped upon the chance to read a book. Incognegro was recommended over at Citizen Reader and, since I’m a sucker for graphic novels, I decided to read it—though first I had to make the library buy it. Which I did. I am powerful like that.

(Okay, pretty much anybody can ask the library to buy a book, and usually the library will, so really I’m not anything special. But let’s ignore that.)

Incognegro has a great premise. It takes place during the Jim Crow years, and the star is Zane, an African-American gent who can pass for white. He goes undercover to attend lynchings, and then reports back in a newspaper column. The unsolved murder underpinning the story was kind of weak—veteran fans of mysteries will have no trouble figuring out whodunit—but otherwise it was a very enjoyable read, though you’ll need a strong stomach to bear the many different depictions of violence. This particular book puts the “graphic” in graphic novel.

In other news, none of my clothes fit.

Do note carefully that I am not, per se, complaining. I am not foolish enough to kvetch about having lost thirteen pounds. The gods of fate know that there’s a real easy way to make those clothes fit again. I think I’d rather blow fifty bucks at the thrift store on new purchases than gain the weight back, thanks for asking.

But then there’s the matter of my bras. Long-term fans of this blog (Hi, Mom!) know about my ordeal with bra sizes. As a 36F, the only way to get a bra that fits is to go online and fork over $86. Since determining my correct size (and remember, I was twenty-six years old before I finally figured out the proper measurement), I have slowly accumulated four bras.

I now own $344 worth of bra that doesn’t fit.

Went to put the bra on the other day, realized I needed to notch it tighter, and… and there were no more notches. And also the cups were feeling roomy. Very roomy.

Did some fancy tricks with the tape measure this morning. I’m now at a 32DD or 32DDD, depending on how you interpret the chart.

On the bright side, I can’t rush out and spend a ton of money on new bras. I have neither A) a ton of money nor B) anyplace nearby to buy bras. This is a good thing, and do you see why? I may well continue to lose weight. I don’t want to spend money on weird-sized bras till I’m done shrinking.

I’m going to a wedding in a foreign country next month, you may recall. (Thirty-two days from now, actually.) The bride has already offered to take me bra shopping. That should ameliorate things. Nevermind that I have not actually met the bride. The point here is that destination city has a store where women of unusual proportions may purchase bras that fit.

In the meantime, I shall content myself with buying clothes that are guaranteed not to fall down. Made the mistake of going to work the other day in a skirt that was just itching to create a scene of hilarious situational comedy. I do not need that sort of hilarity in my life. It’s time for a serious raid on the thrift stores.

Webcameraderie

the lesbrarian — Sat, 16 Aug 2008 14:12:16 +0000

Mom and Dad have joined my webcam bandwagon. Tried it last night. Our conversation was still as dull as ever (no technology in the world’s gonna change that), but we could see each other while having our dull conversation. Kinda cool.

And kinda not cool. Before, when I communicated with someone far away, I would be in standard Jessica-around-the-house mode. This is a glorious state of affairs, typically featuring disheveled hair, bleary eyes, and a clothing ensemble consisting of ratty old undies and not much else.

This webcam thing has changed all that. While speaking with my parents, I felt obligated to throw on a ratty old tshirt and ratty old jeans. Really cramps my style, ya know?

So. In the not-too-distant future (thirty-nine days from now, for those of you following along at home) I will be traveling to a foreign country of undisclosed location. Well—it’s been all kinds of disclosed to folks I know in person, but anyway. While there, I will be attending a wedding, and I need to know what to wear.

Any ideas? We’re working within these restraints:

I want to look stunning
It’s going to be a very laid-back type of thing, very casual
I want to look stunning
The weather will be cool but not cold
I want to look stunning
I’ll have been camping the night before.
I want to look stunning
I only have a finite amount of space to pack
I want to look stunning
It might be all kinds of rainy and muddy
I want to look stunning

Plus, I’d like to look stunning. Casual, laid-back, prepared for the elements, and stunning.

Here’s the deal: You, dear readers, can tell me what to wear, and in return, I will meet you halfway by becoming svelte.

For nearly a month now I have been eating an obscenely healthy diet. Words that had never before been in my vocabulary, such as “grapefruit” and “cottage cheese” and “flax” now figure prominently, usually like so:

“Oh no, not ____[obscenely healthy food]____ again!”

I am, however, ten pounds lighter for my efforts, and I fully intend to continue these efforts for the next thirty-nine days (at which point I shall feast like a pig and regain my prodigal pounds).

Okay! I’m all ears! What do I wear?

French Pressionism

the lesbrarian — Wed, 06 Aug 2008 16:19:32 +0000

When I first started maintaining this blog, I didn’t have a specific purpose for what I’d be writing. Now, more than two years later, I…. still don’t have a specific purpose.

My humble little site continues to be exactly what it was when I first started blogging: It’s a place for me to blather away about things, a place where friends far and near can keep up with my goings-on. It is a purely selfish enterprise, with no particular theme. It’s more or less an online diary.

Except it’s not. Several times in the past I’ve tried to maintain a diary, to absolutely no avail. I can’t bring myself to write unless I think I’ll have an audience.

So here I am, writing regularly for a smallish but dedicated audience, but trust me here: this blog is not a substitute for a diary. I’m not foolish enough to record my private thoughts where the whole stinking internet can see them.

This may come as a surprise, considering the frequency (and glee!) with which I discuss things of a seemingly personal nature. Even a casual perusal of this site will reveal racy bits; it doesn’t take much searching to find talk about the nature of orgasms, or my bra size.

That’d be 36F, for those of you not paying attention.

Thing is, I don’t consider my bra size to be personal. I mean it’s kind of… bleeding obvious that I’m of a chesty persuasion. It’s not much of a secret, y’know?

Now it is true that my generation is comfortable publicly discussing topics that our predecessors would have balked at:

“Dear Whole Stinking Internet: I’m a bisexual! Yep! Bi-sex-u-al! That means I’ll sleep with men or women! Here, let’s put in bold face so there’s no way you can miss it—I am a bisexual! Tra la la la la!”

Again, though, that’s not what I’d call a secret. My sexual orientation reveals nothing about my personal hopes, dreams, fears, or passions. It’s a simple observation, akin to “Goblin vomited in my shoe yesterday” (she did) or “my French press broke this morning, so I had to rush out and buy another” (thirty bucks at Target, aargh).

My own personal thoughts and feelings and emotions, though? I’m not so keen on sharing that sort of stuff with everyone. Normally this is not a problem. I can talk about library patrons, or yoga, or whatever book I’m reading.

But the patrons haven’t done anything remarkable recently. (This is a blessing: No news is good news, ja?). In yoga I did recently manage, after ten months of struggling, to stand on my head without using the wall for support—and not only that, I lowered my feet down to 90 degrees and back up again. But there’s really not much to elaborate on, there.

As for books I’m reading, well, actually I’m on another reading hiatus. I’ve got a chapter due at the end of the month, so once again I am limiting my reading exclusively to my lunch breaks. Except for the past two days I haven’t even been reading; instead, I’ve been starting dreamily off into space.

Which brings us to my present dilemma: I have a delightful piece of news—hence the staring into the ether—but I’m not really keen on detailing it here.

Just a handful of clues, then, to give you a few tantalizing hints:

I have just plonked down the money for a plane ticket
I’ll be gone for a week in September
I’ll be attending a wedding
Not my own wedding—seriously, if I were getting married, I’d go ahead and say so
I’ll be needing my passport
I am certain that it was not Colonel Mustard, and that the candlestick was not the instrument of death

First person to correctly interpret the clues wins a broken French press!