Thanks. Funny, though, probably the third one in which I've mentioned my late-arriving breasts. Hope y'all don't think I've got an obsession(much).

Babe, I don't think I really hit puberty until I was about 16. I went from stick-skinny and flat to, "Huh...curves" in about two months. It was very disconcerting.

"Oh. Look at those."

Pretty much. Training bras to a C cup. Poof.

ETA: Reminds me of that essay in that Susan Gilman book, though I think she went from flat to a DD.

Me too, Kristin, although I was 12. I went through puberty so quickly I had stretch marks on my hips and breasts. It wasn't from fat, either.

OTOH, I didn't get a single stretch mark in any of my pregnancies, which just amazed my OB, for some reason.

Yeah, sort of like "Slums of Beverly Hills."

Yellow drabble #2:

I hate the way my palms sweat and my stomach jumps. I hate the way my heart pounds as the clickclickclickclick gets louder, the way the air feels colder. I hate the whiteness of my knuckles as I clench the bar and the way the fear builds in the long climb to the track’s zenith. I hate that I won't love every second, that my passion for speed is overthrown by my fear of falling. But, as I have done so many times before, I scrunch my eyes shut and try to remember to breathe.

I hate being yellow more.

"Oh. Look at those."

Or, as Murphy Brown put it: "Why did I stop playing softball at puberty? Because suddenly, sliding into second HURT."

erika, Kristin, those are kickass.

Invisible

They were put up as cheap row houses, a century ago. Typical to San Francisco, they've been lovingly restored with yuppie money and pride of ownership: stone front stairs, corbels and wainscoting, front doors painted in ice cream colours.

Each stairway ends in one of those pretty doors. Above each door is a window, the fanlight showing golden, offering a yellow welcome to, presumably, all comers.

The rain comes down, washing the stairs, the painted doorways, making the fanlights glitter like gold leaf.

The man with the mismatched shoes and the shopping cart passes them, unwelcome, invisible as a ghost.

He pushes it into her hand awkwardly, and she receives it with surprise and as little grace. She's never received a flower before, from anyone. Never even dared buy them for herself, making do with purloining from gardens or liberating them from place settings.

This one is her own, its delicate golden velvet gentle in her palm, the other hand grasping the thorns too tightly.

She looks up at him slowly, thick with confusion, fear hiding her happiness.

"D..." Her mouth opens and closes, her hands relax.

"I shouldn't have," he mutters and grabs it away, charging for the door.