Dear makers of women’s clothing,

I know this probably comes as quite a shock to you, but I don’t actually WANT pants that are “perfectly slimming.” I also don’t want skirts with “tummy control,” “hip minimizer” swimsuits, or “control top” tights or leggings.

I don’t want anything that involves the word “shaper” or “waist nipper” or a “torsette,” which I’m not even sure is, but it doesn’t look nearly as awesome as a corset and sounds like it stands for TORTURE. I don’t want anything that claims to be able to mold my perfectly fine body into a brand new slim shape that reveals the new me.

Because the old me is perfectly fine. I like my shape. It doesn’t need to be squeezed, squashed, or shoved into some sort of compression garment designed to make my body look the way YOU find attractive.

I’m pretty damn attractive as is.

And it’s all of you. Clothes that are made for petite women involve “shapers” and “minimizers” and “tummy control.” Clothes made specifically for big girls seem to think that all we do is worry about how best to squeeze ourselves into different contortions in order to make our clothes look better.

How about you make better fucking clothes? Make clothes that show off the shape I have?

Because you know what I do want? I want jeans that flatter my ass, not shape it. I want tops that keep the girls tucked in at work but still show off my awesome waist, and I want a fucking pair of brown leggings that actually fit in the crotch but don’t leave compression marks on my stomach.

Look at what you’re making. Look how you’re marketing to women. THERE IS NOTHING WRONG WITH HAVING CURVES. THERE IS NOTHING WRONG WITH HAVING A BELLY OR AN ASS OR, GODS FORBID, TO ACTUALLY LIKE YOUR BODY.

There is nothing wrong with me.

There is a shit ton wrong with the clothing you sell.

We were kids when we met – I was barely 15, and he was 16, and we were young and head over heels.

We broke up the night before my college graduation, sitting on a bench close to the tiny lake on my college campus, and I got up the next morning and tried to act normal around his family and mine.

We were kids then, and we grew up a lot in those years together, but shared interests at 15 remain entrenched in your memories somehow, because there is something about a Renaissance festival that always makes me think of him.

We’re in different states now, and it’s been years since we have even spoken to each other aside from the very occasional email, but it doesn’t matter.

Because there is a part of me that so deeply associates him there – in hand embroidered vest or a kilt, in devil horns, with a sword – that I always expect it.

I look for him around corners. I see him in the young man in leather armor across the way, and in the boy buying a flower crown for a girl. I see him laughing at the shows and humming Greensleeves.

I walk the Faire, and he’s alway waiting around the next turn.

And I wonder – does he see me there, too?

Things I would like to know, now that I am back at home:
1. Where are Voldemort’s fish?
2.

This is the entirety of a post I have saved in my drafts, and for the life of me, I can’t remember what else I wanted to know.

Or where I was.

Or when I started this post.

Where am I now? Help me, I’ve lost myself!

These are questions I might even be able to find the answers to (with the exception of what happened to Voldemort’s fish, because one day there were fish, and then the next day there weren’t. And it wasn’t the cats), except that while I am writing this, I am writing it in my writing software (which is different from my word processing software, and yet again different than my editing software) instead of the spiral’s dashboard, because my computer says there is wi-fi in my house, but nothing will load, and so I have 5 windows and 55 tabs all staring at me with Chrome’s “this page will not load” sadface icon.

Which sucks, because I have important fanfic to read, people.

Speaking of fanfic, one of the other teachers who are new to the school that I am new to (…go with it, pretend it made sense), is a geek.

That isn’t an insult, it’s a JOY. She’s a GEEK! A cos-playing, con going GEEK who reads fanfiction and participates in fandom and understands my references.

And it’s so awesome, but it’s also SO BAD because I want to start yelling obscure references at her to see what memes she knows and talk to her about why I can’t stand Cassie Claire’s writing and ask how she feels about the new Doctor and doesn’t she think Amy Pond has the prettiest hair and has she watched the last Teen Wolf and I HAVE OTHER IMPORTANT THINGS TO DO TO ENSURE I ACTUALLY HAVE THINGS TO TEACH.

For now, though, I shall leave my poor new geeky teacher friend alone and not pester her to death with fandom, and i shall ignore what i need to get done, and I shall roll around in my 3 day weekend joyfully.

Happy Labor Day, Americans!

1.

Cups, with amazing dancing

2.

The first time I saw this commercial, I didn’t realize it was selling potato chips, because I was too busy being amazed that they put a woman clearly lusting over another woman on a commercial.

3.

Disney getting feminism right in Teen Beach Movie. “Don’t dress for him. It’s better that you dress for yourself.”

4.
I begin tucking him into bed and he tells me, “Daddy check for monsters under my bed.” I look underneath for his amusement and see him, another him, under the bed, staring back at me quivering and whispering, “Daddy there’s somebody on my bed.”

Reddit posted a question: What’s the best horror story you can come up with in two sentences?

I may never sleep again.

5.

The Camp Gyno. *cackles*