Talk about going with the flow, right? Although it is different for me, I have many days where my bodily functions do kind of take over, and it never really does get easier. Maybe there's a supplement that could help? Or maybe you could find a way to frame it in your head that is a little less master-slave(although sometimes I feel like my own evil twin so I don't want to be one of those "It's your attitude that *really* matters!1" assholes.(But it matters a little, I think, although everyone should get to rant without getting badgered to turn her frown upside down.)

I have no concept of what life is like when you don't have to organize your day around bathrooms and such. Which is not to say you shouldn't rant, it's rant worthy.

I think of peeing as my new hobby and try to find new places to do it. In London there are places you have to pay to do it, so it must be fun. 50p to pee!

Apparently kegel exercises help, but I haven't really been good about that except after childbirth. Worth a try.

Man, I have zero minus infinity motivation today.

I think of peeing as my new hobby and try to find new places to do it. In London there are places you have to pay to do it, so it must be fun. 50p to pee!

I don't think I have run into that in London. My tour guide taught me to walk into the poshest hotels and just pretend you belong there. In Italy though there were cleaning people in all the touristy bathrooms that you had to tip in order to use the bathrooms. At least there were a decade ago when I was there.

I only found a few public bathrooms that were pay-to-pee, but we kept giggling about them. One was in a train station and one was near the Tower.

My tour guide taught me to walk into the poshest hotels and just pretend you belong there.

Considering how scruffy we both looked, I don't think we could've gotten away with it!

In Italy though there were cleaning people in all the touristy bathrooms that you had to tip in order to use the bathrooms.

Oh, yes, I found a couple bathrooms where there was an attendant with towels and hand sanitizer and such, and a waiting tip jar. I learned to keep a few pounds available. It makes me uncomfortable.

Though I'm learning that a lot of my social discomfort comes from feeling like I'm underdressed or just look like a bum. If I were dressed better, I'd have a lot more confidence. It's also related to being fat, unfortunately.

You are lovely, though, Zen. You should consider seeing if you can choose some wardrobe pieces you love, in your body right now, and check if that affects your swagger and then how you present yourself and are responded to.

The times I have seen you in person, I never thought you looked like a bum. You've always looked very nice, imho.

Aw, thanks! I wasn't fishing for compliments, really. I do have clothes I feel good in. But I packed really light for London, and after a week of wearing the same two jeans and the same two shirts, and never needing the nice sweater I brought, and getting windblown and footsore from walking all about... and being surrounded by thin fashionable people... I felt pretty scruffy!

On our last night there, Katie wanted lamb, and to get it somehow we ended up eating at THE poshest restaurant ever, and they all were so nice to our scruffy non-posh tshirt-and-jeans-clad American selves! They sat us right next to a upper-class family and we got to eavesdrop on their conversation. Daughter had got a job in marketing, and was trying to explain to Mother what she did, and Mother couldn't fathom the basics of supply and demand at all. "Well, that's ridiculous. Why don't you just tell them..." "MUM. It doesn't WORK that way!" It was hilarious.