SHINY

I have today off. OMG. Whoa.
I know, I know, I'm a little wuss. I only worked like 30 hours this week. But still.

Z left me the car so I could go grocery shopping, as we have very little food in the house. I dropped him off at work, because it was more fun than taking the bus, and also because there's a Hyatt's All Things Creative right next to where he works. Hyatt's is a small chain of art stores, and there was a location right near my house in Rochester that I used to frequent all the damn time. I loved that place. They pwned my soul. I had a frequent-buyer card with them that they'd stamp every time I spent over $20. I still have it somewhere, stamped six of the seven times I needed it stamped before I could get my, I dunno, $5 off coupon or whatever.
So it was a bit dangerous to turn me loose in this art store with $150 in cash in my pocket and the heavy knowledge that it's been like five or six years since I bought any art supplies.
But I restrained myself, and actually only spent a little under $20.
That doesn't mean I won't be back, though. I have to take stock of what materials I have left.
I have a kind of a fond dream that I'm going to manage to get wiring in the attic, and then miraculously am going to manage to get it insulated somehow in a way that isn't incorrect, and then maybe I might make it into a studio. But then, that's probably crazy talk, and I haven't done any art at all since I graduated college, so...

Anyhow. Got my new woodless graphite pen and new sketch tablet and have established that i can't draw. So there's that.

Am trying to muster strength to go to the grocery store. Thusfar, no dice. I can't make myself care. Which is pretty damn sad.


Just discovered, via a friend of a friend mentioning it in her journal, this site: Bravissimo: "Lingerie, swimwear, and clothing for big boobed women".
Which is precisely what i've been looking for all this time, and yet...
They're British. And British bra sizes are different than American ones.
And they have a size chart for their clothing, but not for their bras.
So I've no idea where to even start looking to find out what my bra size would be. The site? Their contact info is invariably their phone number or "come in to one of our shops", which isn't helpful in the slightest for me.
I'm trepidatiously trying Google, as I'd be interested to know-- in my experience, British lingerie is better-made and has a far higher likelihood of actually fitting a real live woman, so maybe, if I can ever find out what my size is, I'll buy something from there...

help: the Internet has no definitive answer!

Sites by and for women are, disgustingly often, extremely amateurish, done in ridiculous colors, and featuring terrible grammar and spelling, incorrect word usage, and, most irritating of all, inconsistent information.
After searching awhile to discover what my bra size would be in UK sizing, I am forced to conclude that I don't know what fuckin' size my bra is in US sizing to begin with. Each site had a different sizing guide as to how one ought to measure, and of all the comparison charts, no two had the same answer. (One site had two charts on the same page and they differed.)
For example: In US sizing, are DDD and F the same? Or are they distinct sizes? Extensive research on my part has proved inconclusive; apparently, it varies by manufacturer.
Without knowing whether DD, E, DDD, or F are indeed separate sizes (they are all a confused jumble), I can't find out my size.

So. Please. Anyone. Anyone who knows anything about this, please help me.
My measurements are:
around the chest under the bust: 34" (86.5 cm)
around fullest part of bust (in reasonably well-fitting, unpadded bra*): 44" (112 cm)

So WHAT SIZE AM I?
I've no fucking clue. There was one calculator online, and I entered the measurements and it blithely assured me I was a 38F, but then I realized it was an international site and it didn't specify whether that was American, British, or European sizing. So I still have no idea.

*it has always amused the crap out of me, in a thoroughly unfunny way, that in order to determine your bra size, you have to already have a bra that fits, and yet they still assume that if you have a bra that fits, you're going to go to the trouble of measuring rather than just looking at the tag and buying another one. Except that the tags of the bras that more or less fit me all say different things, or are so worn that they say nothing at all. Which is, I suppose, why this ludicrous method of fittings is still the standard way of doing things.

I would abandon all attempts at buying lingerie online, except that I have already established that of the shops in the mall, I can only find my size at Fredericks' of Hollywood, and their 36F (the saleslady explained that DDD=F, which I have found is not universally the case) fits me okay except that I really ought to go one cup size larger, as they tend to need drastic readjustment every time I bend over. And they don't make any larger ones, so it's not an option.
And nobody else in the mall carries even that size, except sometimes at JC Penney you can find the Old Lady Specials in up to size GG, but those aren't bras so much as lifestyle systems for a lifestyle I don't plan to get into for another 30 years or so.
And yes, this is after losing 15 pounds.


Conclusively, bras are designed, manufactured, and sized exclusively by men who don't know and women who don't care. I suppose this is all inconsequential if you're a carefree B or so, but for me, the support undergarment is the most crucial bit of my wardrobe, and it requires not only consideration but also engineering. I do not own one single solitary bra that is actually satisfactory, and it's bumming me way the hell out.