Awww, Ple, I'm sorry I jerked your chain when you're having such a shitty week.

Feel free to punch me in the head anytime.

I'll bet JZ's Matron-friend will have some good ideas. She's all dressmakery.

"Now prepare your brain, filthy beast of meat and hair, your magical love adventure begins NOW!”

And so begins a brand new Amazing Race.

And so begins a brand new Amazing Race.

I think you should put it in your dating profile.

Oh, and I"m sorry you're having such trouble with the new car, Plei. I think I forgot to say that. Buying a new car (by which I mean not opreviously owned by you, I've never bought a new new car, so I don't know what that involves, really) should be happy-making and worry-lifting, not frutrating and needing work done. Bah.

But I also totally understand how just wanting the whole car buying process to be over gets you to this place. It's just luck that my own near meltdowns of "Just take this one so we don't have to look anymore" turned out relatively well.

{{{Plei}}} No advice to give, but I so sympathize on the dress-buying issue. I swear the baby-industrial complex thinks that the only women who reproduce are 5'4" and get pregnant with a B or C cup that neatly expands to a D or DD, no further, during the pregnancy/nursing period.

My rant of the day: I just joined a new diet support group that sprung from one of my writers' lists, hoping for some reason that it wouldn't be filled with the usual happy talk diet cheerleading combined with obsessiveness that made me vow never to attend another WW meeting.

Someone responded to my intro post with the following "encouragement": "Nothing tastes as good as thin feels."

Grr. Like I haven't heard that particular inanity a thousand times already, and like it's not fucking bullshit besides, and like I even want to be thin--thin doesn't look good on me. I just want to be a healthy weight, slim and strong but still with curves.

Now I just have to decide whether this group is doomed to be useless and unsubscribe in a silent huff, or try to explain that look, I know you meant to be nice, but I can't stand that phrase and tend to have similar knee-jerk reactions to all the dieting platitudes, so can we please find some other way to support me.

That's a big part of why I haven't taken advantage of any of the support e-diets keeps telling me I have available, Susan. Are these people you know pretty well from the writer's list, so you can say "That doesn't motivate me" and have them understand that that comes from Susan who has beta read for us and so forth?

It seems like if you could make it work, then it would be valuable. I guess it depends on whetehr what you want from this group is what everyone else wants, as well. More or less.

Eh. More coffee needed, clearly.

Plei, what's your cup size? I'm positive Charlotte can come through with a suggestion or five, but I want to give her the right info. Also, I have another top-heavy momfriend who's only an inch or so taller than you, so if Charlotte's suggestions are too talllgirl to work for you, I'll ping friend #2.

I don't know them super-well, -t--the group sprung from sort of a general writing list that does Q&As, craft topic discussions, etc., rather than hard-core critiques and the like. But I think I'll try saying something like, "One of the reasons I've had trouble with WW and the like in the past is that standard diet talk tends to send me fleeing for the exits."

Susan maybe you could respond with something like "I realize that you intended that as encouragment, however my goal is not to be thin, but to be healthy no matter what that size is."

That sounds mild enough. Then you can flee, if it keeps up.