A Girl's Breast...er... Best Friend

If you've read the Playground blog for any length of time you'll know that (1) about this time each year we get into a frenzy over the upcoming Romance Writers of America national conference and (2) we take our clothing for said event very seriously. And that includes undergarments.

I'm away from home, tending to my mother who is recuperating from major surgery, just finished teaching an online class and am in the middle of doing copy edits for a friend. I am devoid of creativity at the moment, so I dug through my email and found something my mother sent me a while back.

I will give credit where credit is due. It's from ConsumerSearch.com and was written by Sarah Burns.

The bra celebrated a birthday the end of May. The great whites finally turned 100, a milestone which has prompted us here at CS to pay a little homage. Here, some background on these cleavage caddies, and a few tips to ensure you're getting the proper fit. (Hint: There's a good chance you aren't!)

The first bra was patented in 1914 by New York City socialite Mary Phelps-Jacobs. Often on the town, Mary hated the constricting corsets of the time. Her idea: Two silk handkerchiefs tied together in the middle with ribbons sewn on to make straps--the first official bra was born. However, tried as she might, Mary could never drum up enough sales to sustain her idea, (many women considered her invention to be too taboo ) so she sold her idea to Warners. Yes, that's right, Warners -- as in the big bra company. And the rest, as they say, is history....

Today, these 'support systems' are a feminine staple. Available in every size, shape and color, women around the world now wear their bras with patience and pride. I say patience, because it's a rare woman who hasn't had to 'adjust' herself. Falling straps, too-tight bands, super-roomy cups -- any of this ring a bell? You're not alone. According to "industry studies," over 80 percent of women aren't wearing the right bra size. So, we thought, what better time than the bra's birthday to offer a little, ahem, uplifting advice.

The right way to wear a bra:

According experts, bras should be worn level (front to back). However, most women wear their bras too high on their torso, throwing their measurements off. "Most women go up in the back increasing their band size instead of getting a deeper cup," explains Susan Nethero, the "bra whisperer" and owner of the Intimacy lingerie store chain. "Instead, you want to keep the back lean so you can lift the bust." Plus, in order for your bra to maintain optimal support, she says you should give your bra at least one day of rest. "Don't wear the same bra two days in a row because you'll wear out its support elastic."

Four signs you're wearing the wrong bra size:

•Literally falling out of your bra? Go up a cup size.
•Cups caving in? Take it down one cup size.
•Suffering from unsightly back flab? Your bra is likely too big. Wearing the bra lower on your back with a smaller band size often fixes this problem.
•Straps keep sliding down? Go down a band size.

To calculate your correct bra size, Nethero suggests:

•Standing up straight, expand your rib cage (breathe out like you're going to blow out candles).
•For your correct band size: Then, measure all the way around your body, placing the tape measure directly beneath your breasts. Add five to that number, rounding up if necessary to the next even number.
•For your correct cup size: While wearing a bra, measure completely around the fullest part of your bust (across the nipple). Make sure the tape measure goes around your entire back. Then, subtract this number from your band size. The result will reveal your correct cup size (based on the guide below).

0=AA

1=A

2=B

3=C

4=D

5=DD

6=DDD

Carry on. Discuss as you will.

Or share an interesting undergarment story.

I'll go first. I was going to an office party one Christmas and decided to wear a pair of those pantyhose with the built-in panties. One less layer to worry about. So I get to the party and the pantyhose start to feel... odd. I went to the restroom only to discover the elastic in them was rotten. It had stayed in place just long enough for me to put the pantyhose on and ride to the party. But by the time I did my restroom check, the waistline was large enough to fit around a baby elephant. Oops!

How did I solve the dilemma?

HA! I'm not telling!

A Little Off the Top

I don't know about other people, but my hair has been a source of grief and aggravation for me since it got long enough to tangle (about 3 months old in my case). It's always grown like a weed, fast and wild. My mother, who has very different hair, always struggled with the unruly mop. Everyone kept telling her how beautiful it was - and it was - long, golden blonde curls - so she didn't cut it. I was very tender headed, so that made matters that much worse. I made it to about three before she gave up. The solution, of course, was to give me the dreaded Dorothy Hamill bob that was so popular at the time.

That took care of it for a while. Around puberty, the hair situation got worse because it started getting even curlier. Super curly. Frizzy. Like I didn't have enough problems at this point. Neither my mother or I had any clue what to do with it. We were ignorant of the fancy hair serums and treatments. Back before the heyday of mousse and gel, if it wasn't Aquanet, you didn't use it. So it ran free (read: amok) until I was about fifteen.

That's around the time I discovered the wonders of leave in conditioner and frizz control gel. I'd finally determined that brushing my hair was not an option and that short, layered hair and bangs would only make my hair 'fro. So I started growing it out. It was good. As long as I kept the ends trimmed, carefully detangled and conditioned like it was going out of style, it was manageable enough.

About six years ago, I had an unfortunate hair straightening incident and chopped it off to chin length. Since that time, I've let it grow out aside from the occasional trimming. Not too long ago, I went in for a trim. It had been a while since I went and it had gotten a little out of control. "Cut off the dead ends," I told her. I held up my fingers to about 3 inches. She nodded and she swung my back to the mirror.

Fifteen minutes later, she swung me back around and I realized I had miscalculated how bad off my hair was. Before, when my hair was wet, it reached to the small of my back. Dry, it kinked up to the low middle of my back. The dead ends translated to about six dry inches. (She probably only cut about 4, but it was wet.) Now... it's a couple inches longer than shoulder length.

Sigh... it will grow back. It won't kill me. I'm sure it looks fine. Its just not what I had anticipated. You'd think the hairdresser was a man the way the three inches I asked for magically doubled. Have you ever left the salon with something different than you anticipated? Please tell me your worst hair horror story so I feel better about my cut. :)

SP

Running...

...for the RWA Board of Directors, that is. Did you guys actually think this blog post was about exercise? Ha! You should know better than that. I only run if there's a tiger on the loose and a juicy t-bone tied to my butt.

Maybe I got caught up in the excitement of the upcoming presidential election, but at Nationals this year, I decided to throw my hat into the ring and run for the vacant Region 3 Director seat. At the time, I thought no one else was running. I thought it was the right thing to do - give back, support the organization, step up when no one else would, etc. Turns out there were several other people running. That changed things. Now I have to fight for it. My competitive streak emerged. Anyone who's been in a writing challenge with me knows how much I hate to lose.

So here I am, running for the board, and I'm not exactly sure how this process works. My only real experience with the campaigning world included making posters when a friend ran for senior class secretary. We hung flyers, handed out stickers and buttons, made speeches during lunch in the cafeteria... not much of that happens in RWA. Make that more like none of it happens in RWA. I was tempted to start campaigning in San Francisco and hand out "Vote for Andrea - Region 3" stickers, but had flashes of people talking behind my back about how I was being juvenile. I'm not sure how else to do it. How will people know to vote for me if they've never heard of me? I have no delusions of grandeur.

RWA has sent me questionnaires and bios to fill out and they will be posted online somewhere. Hopefully my well-thought out answers will win me some votes. I like to think I'm a solid candidate - intelligent, logical, sensible. I sent in my best picture, so maybe I'll get a few votes just for being cute. I have some good endorsements from various people, but if I tell anyone, it's bragging and not attractive in a candidate. I don't know my opponents, so mudslinging is probably a bad idea. :)

Now what?

I guess this...I'll blog about it. Tell your friends and fellow RWA members to vote for me (I'm listed on the ballot as Andrea Laurence, not Smarty Pants or any of my other fickle pen names) for Region 3 Director! I'll shake your hand and kiss your baby if you really want me to (although it might be difficult). If you don't want to vote for me, that's ok, too. Just vote. It's important to make your voice heard, even if you disagree with me, which is unfortunate. :) Feel free to steal the logo to the left and put it on your blog or website.

As I say that, I have to admit I'm lazy about voting. I always hit the presidential years, but very few in between. That's sad, but true. I have a degree in political science, so you'd think I'd get more fired up about this stuff, but the enthusiasm got beat out of me long ago. I am a blue dot in a red state, so that not surprising. What about you? Do you vote regularly? Have you ever run for a position of some kind? How'd that go? Any ideas on how I can campaign (without really campaigning?)

SP

Things that suck...

So, I’m trying to polish a first chapter and synopsis for a contest. The chapter was coming along just fine, but it was time to work on the synopsis.

I hate synopses. First of all, I can’t write a synopsis for a book I haven’t written—I’m a pantser. I know the beginning and the end, but the middle is still a question mark. A journey of possibilities, if you will. But since only the first four chapters of this book exist, writing that synopsis would be a real challenge.

But, hey! Look! I have a synopsis for this book. Neatly labeled as such in the computer file. Excellent. I have no idea why or when I wrote that synopsis, but let’s not look a gift horse in the mouth. I click on it, knowing it probably sucked, but figuring I could work with it.

It’s NINE freaking pages long.

NINE.

Now, let’s ignore for a moment that the contest only allows a two-page synopsis. I want to know what possessed me to ever write a nine-page synopsis in the first place. Especially considering how I have NO idea how the middle of the book will unfold, how in hell did I come up with nine pages worth?

Of course the upside to a two-page synopsis is that you only have to hit the highlights—surely I can cull highlights from those nine pages and pull something together. As I read through the nine pages, though, I realized why it ended up at nine pages.

Have you ever been told that you can spot a lie because the liar doesn’t know when to stop talking? Because the lie doesn’t sound credible to them, they think more details are the way to make it sound credible to you. So they ramble on and on, piling on the extraneous details.

A nine-page synopsis for an unwritten book is kinda like that. At least in my case.

I’m a terrible liar, too, just for the record.

But I worked and worked and managed to pull together a two-page synopsis. I’m so proud. Then I went back Monday morning to double-check the rules. It’s supposed to be two-page, double-spaced. ACK!! More hacking required.

But I buckled down and got that puppy down to 2 double-spaced pages. And I only had to mess with the margins a little bit in the end. (Come on, one measly sentence ran onto page three. So I decreased the margins just enough to pull it onto the previous page. Shoot me.)

Of course, after all of this, I find out the book may be ineligible for the contest anyway.

Now I want to go cry. All that work, and I might not have an entry to show for it.

But I think everyone has been in a similar type of situation. You work so hard, only to have it fall apart just as the end is finally in sight. (A good friend is going through something much like this today as well. I think we’ll go get drunk tonight.)

Feel free to vent about something that recently went all to hell for you. Or simply marvel at the insanity of a NINE PAGE synopsis.

PC
~heading to the bar~

Egads!

I completely forgot that today is Thursday. My days are all messed up. I can't remember if I'm supposed to be coming or going. And I can't for the life of me remember to write 08 on my checks! And I write checks for three organizations. That's a lot of shredding.

I'm backwards and upside down not to mention sleep deprived. But I did watch something amazing last night. We went out to eat with DH's family since we really haven't been able to all be together over the holidays. Nothing fancy just a chance for everyone to relax and chat over salads and pizza. However, when we were almost through a man walked into the restaurant with a remarkable resemblance to Santa.

The girls began to ask questions - namely if it really was him. He, obviously being used to the reaction, stopped and asked the girls if they'd been good on the way to his own table. It wasn't long before both of my girls were convinced that the man a table away was Santa taking a nice vacation after his long journey on Christmas night.

The man was wonderful. He pulled out a card - a picture of himself dressed as Santa - and told the girls they could come speak with him. He was so sweet. And it was wonderful to see the excitement in the girl's faces. Sweet Pea talked of nothing else until bedtime. What touched me most was to see her go from a little girl who was beginning to question to a little girl who believed wholeheartedly in magic once more.

Instigator

P.S. Anyone else hoping that the return of late night TV might mean a looming end to the strike? I'm really not excited about all the reality TV shows that seem to be popping up.