Suburb of Heaven

A former curator of mine has been, for the past five years or so, researching a journal written by a woman named Sylvia Lewis Taylor. She began the journal at the age of fifteen, in 1801, and continued writing it until she was forty-six, in 1831. In the journal, she chronicles her life in Bristol, CT, and, later, Ohio. Alden has been transcribing the journal and researching Sylvia and her family, and has written a short article about it here at Common-Place.org. Taylor was particularly detailed in writing down the routine of her day, and there is a lot of information in the journal about her work with textiles - knitting, quilting, spinning, etc. (The journal remains unpublished but researchers can request a transcript, I believe.)

Found in an antique shop in Paris, Kentucky

The spirit of Artemis and Esther Williams was with me, and I have returned, swimsuit in hand, and a pair of goggles, too.

I ended up spending a little more than I wanted. My Reebok suit was originally seventy bucks, but was marked down to fifty. It's a bright teal blue tank suit (the Santa Barbara solid classic tank), with no embellishment except for a little...what do you call it, ruching, maybe, but not to define an area or make your boobs look great but to simply add some loose cloth over the stomach. It was a tossup between it and another Reebok tank, black with a white vaguely Hawaiian border along the top, and what decided it was the fact that this was ten bucks cheaper and fit a little bit better, plus Bemo liked the color on me. Both of the suits it came down to were size 16, although there was a size 14 in the running until I saw that it was eighty bucks.

I tried on a slew of other suits, including a few Speedos. I found some that fit me well, but the lack of any support was noticeable in most of them, and the ones that held me in were too small, and I'd get a little more side-boob showing that was probably advisable. Some of the ones with the cross-strap backs were a little more challenging to wriggle into and out of, although I loved the way they sat on my body. I may revisit that option in another twenty pounds or so.

Grand total, including goggles, was $66. As I said, a little more than I wanted to spend, but honestly, having the ability to try on the suits proved to be really important to me.

I've been looking online for a reasonably-priced, one piece swimsuit in my size. While that looks like a simple proposition, it's proven to be surprisingly difficult. I started my search on Ebay, where the majority of the suits are either buy-me-nows at sixty to seventy dollars, but you can find the occasional used one for cheap. The problem is that I'm still a little squeamish about a used suit. When they looked like they weren't too dingy, I placed a bid, but I haven't been aggressive enough, and lost them to others.

So I started looking elsewhere - Land's End, Speedo, Amazon, a few websites that claim to carry plus-size swimsuits. I started running into a few problems consistently. First of all, many of the suits were designed to look cute by the side of the pool, but wouldn't be good to swim laps in. I wanted a simple tank suit with something like a racer back, or cross-straps, or just tank straps that wouldn't roll or slide. I didn't want something bedazzled, with belts, skirts, or ruched to add festivity across my boobs. Plus, I didn't want some of the eye-bleeding prints that are apparently quite fashionable at the moment. I was hoping for maybe one or two colors, maybe some simple color blocking. This consistently narrowed down my choices to a handful of suits, which, judging by the comments on them, were favored by women in their sixties who did water aerobics. But ok.

From here, price seemed to be a big problem. The Land's End's cheapest suit had terrible ratings for fit. Their pricier suit was just under fifty bucks - a little pricy for what I wanted, but I was willing to pay for it, until I read comment after comment from people who swim daily, and found that not only did the suit fade drastically in a very short time, but that they needed to buy new suits after about three months. Seriously? Three months? I mean, I'm not going to be swimming daily, but that seems like a really short lifespan for a suit. Every other suit I found seemed to be in the mid sixties to high seventies, and on up - more than I wanted to pay, but I may be forced to it in the end.

The next problem was size. I seem to have put myself into a weird category where I'm neither flesh nor fowl, and what will probably need to happen is that I'll have to take my measurements to settle the issue. Am I an 18 in misses? A 16 in womans? A 16 in misses? On some websites I seem to not be considered plus-size anymore, and in other places the difference between a regular 16 and a plus-size 16 seem to vary quite a bit. And am I a 40 or 42 in a Speedo, except when they switch to another measuring system that might be a dress size but then again maybe not? What about the different measurements Land's End uses when you designate yourself a "D Cup" person? After a certain point, I was completely confused about what size I actually needed. And when I went to a sporting goods store to try on a few of their store brand, I seemed to be somewhere between a 14, which fit but was snug, and a 16, that mostly fit but was weirdly baggy in the torso.

So, I have purchased no suit yet. I may just have to suck it up and pay more than I was hoping to. And I'm going to have to take good measurements before I do anything. Plus, it would be nice to drop ten more pounds (I've plateaued again) and become a more certain 14. Part of the reason I'm so dissatisfied with what I'm finding is that I'm chasing a swimsuit I used to own, way, way back in the day. It was a black Body Glove suit, with a racing back, very ordinary except perhaps for a slightly high cut on the legs. I loved that suit. I had my very own wind machine when I strutted around with that suit on. It made me feel like a badass.

Sadly, that was many years and many pounds ago. I should go check and see if Body Glove even exists still. I might be able to talk myself into a pricy suit if it still taps into that place in the back of my brain when I ruled the pool.

ETA: Body Glove still exists, but I may have to drop that ten pounds before I can fit into their largest suit. I also just looked at Title Nine, which is probably ditto, but also had some cute suits I rather liked.

It's almost October, and my personal style guru, an artist and manager of our museum's store, has turned the store's decoration over to Halloween. I took pictures so you can be as tickled by it as I am.

( This is why I end up buying nut cups that I have no use for - I just put them on a shelf and look at them with glee in my heart. )

Bought for a quarter in a local antique shop, because I liked her smile. There's an inscription on the back, but I haven't deciphered it yet, except for her name: Velma.

You can find many interesting things at auctions. A great deal of them are things I have no wish to bring into my house.