on summer and swimsuit season

http://www.someecards.com/usercards/someEcards.swf
It's summer once again.  Oh, don't be fooled by the calendar saying summer doesn't start until June 21st — I'm here to tell you it's here.  Yesterday was Memorial Day, and as everyone knows, Memorial Day is the kickoff of summer. 

Now, it's been hot here in south Louisiana for a while — mid-80's — that's hot.  As I've told you before, I'm not fond of the heat.  Temperatures that make my makeup melt are not my friend.  When I walk outside in the summer, I feel like the Wicked Witch of the West when Dorothy throws the bucket of water on her, "I'm melting, I'm melting!"   And I'm a girl who has to have her face on or I feel naked.  Really, I'm sure in the Garden of Eden after Adam and Eve made their bikinis from fig leaves, Eve cracked open a pomegranate and made the first lipstick and rouge out of it. 

So, summer is not my fave.  Last year I decided I looked silly in shorts with my white as milk legs, so it's capris and bermudas for me all summer.  I do not tan.  I burn.  Badly.  I've had enough sunburns in my life to know I can be outside at midday for 20 minutes and have a sunburn on whatever part of my body that is exposed.  I'm sure I will have skin cancer at some point from my own sun stupidity and the lack of knowledge my parents had about UV rays.  I recall a statement from my childhood that was repeated more than once that went something like "you'll be fine, we used to slather baby oil on ourselves and bake for hours!"  Which led me to develop my own philosophy "just because you did it, it doesn't make it normal or okay."  Feel free to use that little gem in your own life with your older relatives, sometimes it works.  

Besides the looking-like-an-albino-in-shorts thing, I also dread what most women do at this time of year: the swimsuit.  I'm no different than any other woman, we all have body issues and hate the swimsuit hunt and hate the "get ready for swimsuit season" propaganda that we get from magazines, television commercials, and now on my Facebook homepage.  You know, because I'm not good enough the way I look now, I have to prepare for "swimsuit season" like it's an Olympic event.  Here's a headline for you, advertising peeps: we will never be ready, perfection only exists in magazines thanks to Photoshop. 

Even though I hate it, I have to wear a swimsuit at the pool.  I'd rather wear a caftan ala Mrs. Robinson with a turban and sunglasses, but I think I'd get a few strange looks at Franco's.  And so, I've been shopping online for the right suit for about a month.  Guess what?  There is no such thing.  And I'm not just talking about for us plus-sized girls.  The online stores and catalogs all want me to think they have the perfect suit, but I know better.  You know why?  Because wearing a swimsuit is as close to public nudity as it gets for most of us. 

And so, I started my hunt.  Lane Bryant, Torrid, Fashion Bug, Macy's, Nordstrom, OneStopPlus, SwimsuitsForAll, Sihouettes, and the list goes on and on.  The suit I wanted was at Lane Bryant (no, they do not have swimwear in their brick and mortar stores, don't get me started), a top and a swim skirt, but the top was sold out in my size.  I can't tell you how long it took me to decide on that top, so I was pretty miffed that it was sold out.  I went back to my old standby, Land's End and picked two tops and a swim skirt, deciding to go in a completely different direction than the Lane Bryant suit.   When I went to pick my size category there were more options than I've ever seen:  Regular Torso,
Short Torso, Long Torso, Plus Size, 
Short Torso Plus, Regular Torso D-Cup, Regular Torso DD-Cup, Regular Mastectomy — holy Esther Williams!  I don't know if I'm a short torso plus or just a plus.  No idea.  How do you measure your torso?  Lands End, I'm a girl with ADHD, don't give me too many options or I'll go look at lolcats and forget shopping.  I went with plus. 

The fun part of shopping on Landsend.com is using their Virtual Model tool.  I've used this before, but not for swimwear, so I thought this would be nice and virtually humiliating, getting to see what the virtual me would look like in the suit.  Get a good look at this.

Meet Virtual Kerry.  I don't know about her.  Her hair is too long, but there wasn't another hair choice with curly hair.  My real face is rounder and my boobs are bigger, but I think the skin coloring is about right.  And she's standing like weird, but whatev.  This is the swimsuit I decided on: top, skirt, and sandal.  I went against my usual black suit, way out of my comfort zone,  but the idea is maybe I'll feel better in the pink and won't look as pale as I would in black.  Really, I just like pink.  The Virtual Model thing is pretty interesting.  On the site you can click the arrows to see what she looks like from the side and the back, which is helpful (and funny) to see what my virtual butt looks like.

The other weird thing about shopping Lands End is you can shop by your figure shape.  The choices are triangle, inverted triangle, rectangle, and star.  The link to see the descriptions for these shapes was broken, so I guessed that since I'm not the first three, that I must be a star, since a star is big in the middle (and so am I) — so that's what I went with.  Usually, when I've seen a figure shape chart in a magazine or wherever, I'm a circle or oval or an apple, if the choice is a fruit.  A celestial body has never been a choice, but it's kind of neat.  Pointy, but neat.  Just for my amusement I went to igigi.com to see their shape categories, and of course, I'm an oval.  Here's the description:

The Oval Figure type has the following characteristics:

• Shoulders are prominent or average and slightly sloped
• Face is fleshy with the fuller jaw and cheek area
• Neck is shorter with the inclination toward fullness at the nape and shoulders
• Back is broader and fleshier; wider ribcage
• Bust is ample; usually larger than the hips
• Waist is undefined, carrying the weight in the front midsection
• Flat buttocks
• Hips are usually proportionately slender
• Thighs are relatively thinner and only tend to have a slight fullness at the high hip.
• Legs are very shapely and lower legs are proportionately slimmer to the overall body shape.

Firt of all, man, she looks tall.

I'm so going to use "fleshy" as THE adjective to describe myself from now on.  Does "fleshy" sound better than fat?  That is the question of the day. 

And thank you, Igigi, I know I do not have a giraffe-like neck, nor JLo's derrierre.  I'm surprised they didn't mention my skinny ankles when describing my lower legs.  Seriously, the Igigi people must have been stalking me to get this info.  It's scary accurate.  Why they just didn't name this body shape "Kerry" is beyond me. 

So, that's the history of summer and me.  Just one big heatwave of sunburns and body image issues.  Hey, I'm working on it.  Here's to a great summer for all of us — be you a rectangle, triangle, inverted triangle, or star.  Shine on.