Where's the moisture wicking article of clothing for this?

Good evening friends!

Again, I apologize for not checking in more often this month.  I'm working feverishly on my first draft of "Fresh Ice" as well as blocking my Elsie W book.  (By the way...have you voted?)  November will be worse since I've just signed myself up for NaNoWriMo  (National Novel Writing Month.)  The idea is to complete a novel in a month.  Why they picked November, one of the socially busiest months in the year...I do not know.  But I am determined to get two books out by Christmas...okay, Valentine's day at the latest, so I must, as they say, sally forth.

However, I have to pause and share with you a problem I'm sure many people, fluffy women especially, have.

There are parts of my body that are simply never, ever dry.

Okay, I'll give you a minute to get your minds out of the gutter.

Thank you.

As we age, ladies, gravity stops being our friend.  Everything gets pulled downward, which means there are portion of our body that are covered by other portions of our body...and therefore these covered portions don't get the sweet drying relief of a soft breeze because...well, these are portions that really, no one wants to see out in a soft breeze.

You've got to have friends...
friends who know where to get
good supportive moisture
wicking bras.

When I was in college, one of my favorite milk through the nose comedy routine was of the Bette Midler talking about taking the pencil test on her upstairs female bits.  The theory was that you could go without foundation garments if you stuck a pencil under your breast and it fell out.  I believe Divine Miss M shared that she stuck a wing backed chair in there and it stayed. 

See, it was funny because I was thin and had a small upstairs.  Now I'm fluffy, and two kids (and countless bags of Cheetos) later, I'm hitting wing back chair status.  Which means there are large portions of my upper gut that are not getting dried by a cool breeze.

But it all evens out...because a liquid mass will fill the space it's put in, and thusly my gut drifts downward toward my knees, hanging gently over my undergut...for lack of a better term, and putting yet more acreage of skin in the moist dark of my flab.

I could live with that, except for one thing...skin that stays moist tends to get rashy and itchy and not so pretty.  Think athlete's foot...under the mammaries.

So I hit the stores to find undergarments that will magically wick away the moisture.  (I hit the stores to find undergarments that will magically make my body think it's been to Gold's gym four times a week so it weighs 140 pounds...but I haven't found that product yet.)  I've tried sports bras, but here's the secret about athletic clothing...

THEY DON'T MAKE WORK OUT CLOTHES FOR FAT PEOPLE.

I'm not making this up.  Go look in the plus size department of any store...sure there are T's and sweats...but not work out clothes.  It's like...if you're heavy, it's assumed you're going to wear the workout clothes for lying on the couch, so why bother making anything fashionable or pretty?  Or supportive?  (that's what the couch is for, right?)  Go to the sporting goods store and look for a plus sized sport bra.  NOT HAPPENING.  I know, I've looked.

Okay, so if I am a fluffy girl, and I want to work out, I'm relegated to the ugliest clothing in the world....the sweat pants with the elastic band at the ankle.  These pants say one thing:  I'm afraid I might sneeze and lose a cookie down my trouser leg, so I'm binding the cuff.

And if you want to jog, but you have a bit of back fat...for get it.  If you have massive missiles, but no back fat, you can get your pick of jog bras.  (I know: Hubby's workout regimen includes reading "Runner" magazine and they go into tremendous detail about good supportive jog bras.  Just not for the fatties.)

So back to my original problem:  I have not been able to find anything that will wick away moisture from glacial fat covered areas.  I've tried powders, I've tried lying naked on a bed and holding my fat pouches up while a fan blows on me.  Believe me, it's not nearly as sexy as it sounds. 

Short of hanging upside down from one of those anti-gravity things, I'm not sure what to do.

Don't mind me...I'm just drying my undergut.  Get in line..
The blonde is next, but then it's your turn!

So hey, wanna make a million bucks?  Try designing some workout clothing for plus sized girls that 1)  Doesn't cost as much as a Vera Wang wedding dress and 2) actually wicks away moisture from those covered areas.

Oh, and a pair of really comfy, sexy sweat pants wouldn't be bad either.

Couldn't I just get the flu and be normal for once?

Hello all!

So here we are..the first day of school, at least for some of the bigger districts in Wisconsin.  Peaches is starting high school, Skippy is starting his last semester of high school.

But I'm not here to drip sentimentality all over you.

No I'm here today to talk about another of my growing list of odd ailments.

Apparently...I have prickly heat.

I know...what person over the age of 3 gets prickly heat?

Well, I guess I do.  At least I'm hoping that's what it is as opposed to what I've been calling it which is "A rash fat women get in various crevices of their lumpy fat rolls."

Yes, Prickly Heat sounds better.  Cool, in sort of an old Western movie sort of way.  Like John Wayne would walk in a say, "Ma'am, that's a mighty fine batch of biscuits you're cookin' there, but why don't you set a spell and take some easy from that Prickly Heat that's tormenting you?"

See, if you say it that way, it sounds almost romantic.

Reality, for me, is of course far more hilarious. 

Parting the Red Sea was just a cover for
a raging case of prickly heat.

I've been suffering from this rash in odd places for about a week.  No amount of Benadryl, calamine lotion, or scratching seems to help.  The worst of it is in my elbow and knee pits.  You know where those are, stop laughing and pay attention!  Standing at my desk with my arms open wide isn't allowed at my place of work  (What...no Christ complexes allowed at Dunder Mifflin?  How about a really convincing Moses?).   

 I have to suffer as my acidic sweat  (Those of you paying attention remember that I cannot wear Sterling Silver because of my acidic sweat.  I really should be analyzed.  My sweat might be worth money, like Panda Bear pooh is right now because they THINK Panda pooh they can make into grain alcohol and burn it as a fuel.  I'm not making this up.  Brian from the The Bob and Brian show said it this morning, and that makes it so.  Brian does not lie.  And if we can use the pooh of Pandas for good, how much longer before we realize that sweat that can eat through sterling silver is worth something?)  collects in the various pits of my lumpy form.

But none of that is the funny part.

No, the funny part came, as it usually does, while Hubby was trying to help.  Baby powder, says he, will cure your sweaty suffering.

So off he goes to procure me baby powder.  He returns with something better!  GOLD BOND EXTRA STRENGTH...in a GREEN BOTTLE.  (Anyone care to guess what the green means?)

I'm so excited about this find, because I know, I KNOW that it will be the cure to my itchy ailment.  So I shower, and I dry off.  Then I open the green bottle of the powder and apply...liberally.

Beautiful form, long legged
extensions...All covers
for a raging case of prickly heat.

I apply it to the affected areas and to my other sweaty spots.  Ladies...you know where I'm going with this.  Bette Midler style, I hoist up the gals and dust with the soothing white powder.  And then I return them to their customary droop.  The powder, that isn't stuck to the prickly pits blows off me like new snow in a Budweiser commercial.  But what sticks covers my rash and the itch seems to dissipate.

As I emerge from the bathroom, (And I should mention I look like a Soviet Olympic weight lifter at this point and the bathroom looks like Nadia Comenici's parallel bars)  I  and filled with a tingle of optimism.

No...that's not optimism.

THAT'S MENTHOL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Green...green means mint.  Green means menthol.  Green means a minty, mentholly fresh tingle that eases into a chilly cold burn when moisture is added.  AND I HAVE PUT THIS ON MY SWEATY SPOTS.  ALL  OF MY SWEATY SPOTS!

Do you know what sort of calms the effect menthol has on sweaty skin?  Because I do.  It's a sort of weird little dance that keeps your droopy bits from sticking to any other skin, thereby trapping the menthol in a moist 98 degree cooker ready to explode with an icy menthol burn. 

After a few moments, it passed.  And there I stood, in the middle of the kitchen, a little circle of excess powder around me, my husband trying very hard not to laugh.

BUT you know what?  My elbow pits aren't driving me crazy.  Bonus...I'll bet that dancing counts as a workout.  Which means I don't feel guilty about not going to Gold's today!

WHOO HOO!  BRING ON MORE MENTHOL!