I have one point of view, he has another. And since he has never, ever worn the object of the discussion, I don’t know why he has always had such an opinion. Perhaps it’s because he used to be more hardheaded and unwilling to admit when he’s wrong. Not that the word “wrong” comes forth from his lips very often even these days but still…

And just what is the question, inquiring minds want to know?

Do you, or do you not wear panties under pantyhose? 

We discussed it again just the other day. It was a slow news day.

For those of you that think this is just too delicate a subject, please stop now and come back manana.

I’m a firm believer that the cotton crotch in pantyhose means that wearing panties at the same time is redundant. Doug thinks that most women still wear panties underneath. (Luckily for him he hasn’t gone out to do any research in person.)  To be perfectly honest I must admit that I haven’t conducted a study, ALA The Kinsey Report or anything. I just think I’m right. And it isn’t that Doug complains about my point of view, quite the opposite. It’s just that he’s held onto his notion for so long, that he has a hard time believing that he could be wrong.

In actuality I don’t think that there is a right or wrong answer. Not that I’d tell him that of course. I’m just assuming that most women don’t.

So today I Googled the question. I wasn’t even sure I’d get an answer. But I got one- more than one.

Then I kept looking and found another site which had posed the same question.

So I guess we weren’t the only people discussing this.

Of course if you believe what you see and hear in the fashion world these days, pantyhose are passe anyway, unless they’re actually tights which are a whole different thing altogether. But since I’m an AARPer, I still think that when you get dressed up, hosiery is in order. They just make your legs look better. And I think the older you get, the more you need them. Life is hard on legs. Well it’s certainly been hard on my legs anyway.

I told Doug what I’d read on Google. However he said I should still ask the question.

Do you or don’t you?

If you find the question too personal, please feel free to opt out. I will totally understand.

It sucks.

Sadly, I do understand the eyebrow part. If you’re in your late 50′s now, you lived through the “Twiggy” era in fashion.

For you young ones out there I will explain. Be patient. This may take a bit.

Twiggy was a British fashion model who ruled the runways and teen fashion magazines in the 60′s. She was SKINNY- think Kate Moss skinny, tall, and had her straight blond hair styled into a Pixie cut. Her eyebrows were plucked.

Since I was 15 and impressionable I wanted to emulate her. I was short, curvy and had dark curly hair.  Genetics were against me. The one thing that I could do though was to have her eyebrows.

Enter the tweezers. I had them. Her eyebrows that is.

The bad thing is that skinny eyebrows are no longer in fashion and now my eyebrows are pissed at me from years of over plucking.

So now as I’m getting older I use make up when I’m dressing up to enhance my eyebrows. Don’t be confused. I haven’t been reduced to taking a stencil and completely drawing them on, but still I’d like it if they could be fuller. I don’t want Brooke Shields eyebrows from the Blue Lagoon or anything, but still…

Now as far as the eyelashes, I have no idea.  WTF is up with that? It’s not like I sat around and plucked them. Only a masochist would do that.

Since I’ve gotten older I’ve been reduced to using reading glasses. (Lucky for me since I misplace a pair almost every day, I can use the chepo ones from the $ store.) Anyway, behind glasses my somewhat sparse eyebrows and eyelashes all but disappear. So I decided to do something about it.

I heard about Rapid Lash and decided to check it out. There are like a bazillion good reviews on Amazon. So I ordered it and having been using it.

I’m happy to report that after only about 2 weeks of use I can actually see my eyelashes getting longer. I’m not going to be mistaken for Bambi or anything, but they are longer- for sure. So since I was having such good results with my lashes I thought I’d put a little bit on my eyebrows too- just a couple of places where I’d repeatedly over plucked so many decades ago.

Did it work?

Drumroll please.

You bet.

Unfortunately, the new hairs repopulating my eyebrows seem unwilling to fall in line with all the other one that were already there. They seem determined to do some Andy Rooney thing and are going off in crazy directions. It’s truly bizarre.

Andy Rooney

So now although I no longer need any makeup on my eyebrows, I must now take a  Weed Eater to them a couple of times a week to keep them in check lest I look like the love child of Groucho Marx and Andy Rooney.

Be careful what you wish for.

Isabelle Caro, French model, dead at 28 from anorexia. I looked at her photos. They made me sick. Apparently it is time once again for me to drag out my soapbox.

This subject makes me both incredibly sad and really angry. Apparently Isabelle had suffered with this for a number of years, at one time getting down to as little as 55 lbs. From what I can gather she was once told that in order to be model she had to lose weight-; and you can bet she wasn’t heavy to begin with. And as sometimes tragically happens in people, that statement flipped a switch in her brain that sent her down a hideous path to her all too young  death.

Over 20 years ago I now heard a teenage girl say in an interview with Phil Donahue “I did eat breakfast today. I had my Cheerio.” That was no joke. That’s what that girl said. At lunch she was going to “pig out” and have some celery.

I can’t begin to understand how the mind of an anorexic works. I think it would be a scary place indeed.

What makes me crazy is that so much pressure is brought to bear on young women by people in positions of authority in the modeling business and in Hollywood where being stick thin is often a requirement and rewarded.

The average woman is the U.S. is a size 12.

Is that really so God awful? Get the Hell over it people. If I could I’d take a switch to most of the clothing designers while screaming this question at them: Why are you making so many of the sample sizes so incredibly tiny, therefore putting unbelievable pressure on girls who want to become models?– and the clothes so BUTT UGLY to boot.

Do you need glasses, Lasik or just a swift kick? Perhaps all three?

Just who do you think is actually going to wear that shit? Not the vast majority of women in the world, that’s who. So why do you keep trying to cram it down our throats and make us feel less than beautiful because we can’t or won’t wear it. Things that look good on a size 0 are not going to look good on a woman size 12 or God forbid 18.

Perhaps they think every woman over a size 6 should have a warning system on her ass so when she backs up it beeps, like the garbage trucks do.

Do you think people really should shun a size 12 woman on the beach who is wearing a swimsuit? Should they they cover their children’s eyes so as not to let them see the hideous spectacle?

I’d love to be a size 12 again. I was at one time; but that was sometime last century. My wedding dress, which I never got to wear, was a size 8. I’d worked hard to get to down that size from a whopping size 14, and in the process lost half my boobs and many of my curves. I became “chicken chested”, all bony looking around my collarbone. It was not a good thing. I was not made to be that small, truly.

Should I lose some weight now? You bet. I’m not disputing that. I’m not saying that I would be a vision of beauty parading around on a beach in a bikini these days- far from it. But did you look at those pictures of Isabelle? Neither would she have been, prior to her death.

At her biggest, my mom wore at size 10.  But even when she was a size 10, she never starved herself to be that size. Some people are just genetically destined to be smaller. It’s like eye color. I’ve got a friend who’s never been bigger than a size 6 her whole life. And on top of it she eats like a lumberjack every meal, and never exercises.

I hate love her. No I do love her. But it is frustrating that she can eat anything, at anytime and never gain an ounce, when the rest of us suffer when we make bad choices. Almost everyone I know put on at least a few pounds over the holidays.

Not her, the bitch. But forgive me, I’m rambling…

I got so fired up about this topic this morning I read a lot about her and came across this: On “thinspiration” Internet forums yesterday there were a number of tributes glorifying the model’s anorexia problems. One blog placed a picture of a painfully thin looking Caro alongside the words “die young, stay pretty“.

How sad is that?

My soapbox is being put away now. Back to the funny manana.

Before I met Doug he’d been involved with a woman who I affectionately refer to as “The Slut.” (There were a number of reasons for giving her this this moniker, but decorum prevents me from listing them here.) The Slut wore high heels everywhere she went, the grocery store, the dentist, to get her oil changed, to play tennis. I’m not sure she owned any shoes that were not stilettos. The one and only time I saw her was when Doug went back to her place to retrieve a few things he’d left behind some months back and I waited in the car. She was in the process of moving. She was wearing heels- and not just 1″ heels mind you, but stilettos!

Of course she wasn’t moving anything herself, the movers were and I’m sure they enjoyed her choice of footwear, or maybe not; if you believe what that study says.

I know each time that I’ve moved I’ve always put on my highest heels. They’re just the perfect thing to wear while you’re carrying large boxes don’t you know; especially while you’re stepping off curbs and driveways, etc. OSHA recommends them highly.

When I used to freelance for ad agencies in the early 80′s I’d dress up for my first interview- heels included. Doug liked those days. Over the years as we’ve become more and more self-employed the chances of seeing me wearing high heels is like spotting a Yeti- few and far between. Even when I was a tiny thing (I was once, don’t be ugly now), I never had a pair I thought were truly comfortable; certainly not comfortable enough to wear around all the time. In the olden days, when we went out someplace hoity-toity I used to wear heels; but that was long ago. Although I bought new heels for my trip last summer. I missed my big night out in NYC , so the shoes and my beautiful new dress have yet to be worn. I didn’t even wear high heels to my mom’s funeral last year. I knew I was going to be crying anyway; why should I have to be crying and in pain at the same time I theorized. I wore nice flats instead.

About 10 years ago we did a show in Tampa at an upscale shopping center. They had a “romance store’. Talk about a euphemism. Doug found these shoes on sale for only $25.00! Such a deal! He was over the moon.

Doug snapped them up in a heartbeat. Thank God they’ve never have, or never will leave my house unless I become a stripper somewhere. (How those women do everything they do while wearing those shoes is beyond me.) Doug just loves seeing them on me here in the house though. (Amanda is mortified anytime she catches a glimpse of them even sitting around.)

My friend Mother Connie, sent me an email with an article about high heels. I’m going to cut and paste some of the shoes I thought were the most interesting-

Extra stability when you need it

Good for uneven terrain

Masochist shoes?

Pony play? If you don't know, don't ask.

So there you go. Everything you always wanted to know about high heels but were afraid to ask. My Crocs are looking pretty to good to me about now.

Does anyone really wear heels all the time anymore?

When Doug walked in the door I could see from his face that he’d made a decision. Luckily, it was one I could get agree with. I’m at a point in my life where I just don’t enjoy a good argument like I used to. We would stay here today and go to the event tomorrow. (If we were going to have a car problem at least it wouldn’t be in the rain). I could tell that he still really wanted us to go on Saturday. However, for the sake of keeping peace in the house he decided to compromise. Even five years ago, he wouldn’t have done that and we would’ve wound up having a somewhat heated discussion.

So instead we stayed home- or I should say I stayed home. He ran errands and got everything ready for tomorrow. When he’s out I have a chance to surreptitiously grab stuff that we haven’t used, is partially broken, or hopelessly out of fashion, i.e., stone washed jeans, and stick it in a bag to  give away). I stuffed six bags yesterday! It probably doesn’t sound like much. However, every little bit helps. Now I only have about 250 more bags of junk that I need to get rid of. (Since Doug is going to Dallas again on Monday I’ll have a chance to do just that). Anyway, while doing that, I worked around the house like my life depended on it. I got a lot of stuff done-all that stuff you only do every so often- wiping the top of door frames and baseboards, cleaning switch plates and louvers. I got rid of the cobwebs up high; quite a job since the ceiling in the den is 17 ‘.

Since the show is so far away, I’d better pop in the shower so we can get going. We’re supposed to be set up ready to go by 11am. However, very few people ever show up before noon on Sunday- usually after 1pm, with people either choosing to sleep in or attending services of some kind, having lunch then coming out. I’m taking Julie and Julia with me today to read just in case the show is a bust. I hope everybody who doesn’t have to work today has a good Sunday. I’m jealous. Today’s trivia answer: 45 minutes.