08.15.04

Woke this morning with a renewed sense of purpose. It crawled back into its hidey-hole after a swift bludgeoning with coffee and the Sunday Boregonian.

In my quest to attempt a serial romance, I picked up at few at the bookstore yesterday. Three of the Harlequin Intrigue line, one from their humour line, and a couple about time-travelling Scots. (Okay. So I've got a terrible weakness for alpha-male, kilt-wearing, trashy romance novel, Scotsmen. I'd smack the crap out of a real one...but in fantasy land...whoo-hoo.)

They're quick reads. Zipped through three of them in about two hours. Well, two hours including breaks for emergency reading of Mikhail Bulgakov. They're fun in a strange, slack-jawed, I-married-my-own-grandpa, sort of way. There are times when only brain-bubblegum will do.

Next step, writing an outline.

I'm still traumatized after my trip to the mall yesterday afternoon. After meeting with the public access guy, I wandered for a bit. Tried on a couple of things. A dreadful mistake, as it turns out.

I'm convinced that I have the weirdest body in the western hemisphere. Look at me! I'm a freak! Boobs, small-ish waist, hips, ass and thighs! AGH! If I could afford to buy European clothing, I would. At least they acknowledge a woman's shape.

American clothing is tailored to either the teenybopper, or the matron. I am neither. How can I find clothing that's nice but fun? Feminine, but not slutty. Trendy, but don't force me to show off parts that are better covered? Most important, crap that I can afford?

One question; where did everyone's asses go? I don't know if it's the breeding or the feeding, but women in Oregon have no asses. No curves, no booty, no rounded haunches. No. Merely stark concavities on the back, compensated on the frontside by overwhelming bellies that drape over too-tight jeans and highlighted by cropped, sausage skin-tight, t-shirts.

I wanted a stun-gun and a full-length mirror.

"Look at yourself." *ZAP* "Not a good clothing choice." *ZAP* "Sweetie-darling, sheer pink t-shirts in extra-small do not belong on 44-DDs." *ZAP* *ZAP**ZAP*

Don't go thinking that I'm one of those body-Nazis. Y'know, the ones that think that only barely pubescent, blonde, size 0 people are pretty. NO! NO! and NO! I think that anyone can dress well, in a style that highlights who they are--not what someone else thinks they should look like. The drive for conformity is overwhelming and scary.

Oh my great googly-moogly. I saw little handbags and baseball caps with "Mrs. Timberlake", "Mrs. Pitt", and "Mrs. Kutchner" on them. WHAT THE FUCK?! Heaven forbid a woman forge her own identity. Nope. A woman, on her own, isn't worth anything at all. Nope, gotta glom onto a man. Even a make-believe, fake, fantasy man is better than no man at all.

AAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHH! Dodging perfume-spraying clerks, leaping across laser hair removal displays, and weaving through the crowds of Cin-A-Bun gobbling consumers, I made my escape.

Dang. That was close.

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