Clothes Shopping

I used to love buying new clothes Especially summer clothes. Now - not so much Firstly I get all twitchy when I walk into the shop - there is just TOO MUCH STUFF! Where the heck do I start!? Then there is another problem - I love clothes that are unsuitable for me - (I fear it may be a form of arrested development: I also wish I could have a tattoo on my butt and a ring in my belly button Ooh and false eyelashes!) I like skimpy tops that show the navel Trouble is, my navel is no longer a show piece - Hasn't been for years And tight tops - they look so great - I convince myself that these ones will look ok. Ba-aa-ad mistake Every bulge and roll is excruciatingly visible. Ew. And then the hipsters. . . Oh good grief! I wasted half the winter trying to find non-hipsters (You try. . .!) Hipsters manufacture a bulge around your middle. Have you noticed? Its a fact. First it isn't there; your hips look normal - but pull on a pair of hipster jeans and hey presto! there it is, spilling over your belt. Ew. Its like an evil plot against the post 25 year olds. Anyway, having lived in jeans limbo for a long time, I finally found: longer, looser tops - they help except what do ya do about the belt buckle bump? But wait! two more horrors await: The sizes and the mirrors! Omihat! When did they start marking size 8 as size 14? Its the creepy Chinese again, I bet. Just cos they are tiny people, we have to suffer?? Anyway, the ususal sad scene is that I fill my arms with my size clothes and head for the change rooms. There the assistants tell me that I can't take so much stuff into the change room. Please! Do they REALLY think I'm going to put it all on and walk out wearing it?! Don't they know how fat that will make me look? Once I get into the cublicle (which also seems to get smaller by the day!) with my smaller stack, I try one thing on after the other. Or I attempt to. They are all hopelessly, nightmarishly, too small. Enter part two - The mirrors - All around - Including the back view: "Is that me - "When did that happen?!" Oh good grief! So now, I mostly just wear what I have; only view myself in a head and shoulders mirror at home and NEVER look in the mirror with my reading glasses on. There's a lot to be said for denial.