"how many kids do you want?"

I met my family for lunch at a mall restaurant yesterday.  Back to the snooty part of town again.  My brother asked how my eye was and wasn't happy to hear it's no better.  Get in line, fkr.  My dad jumped into the conversation saying his eyes have never been better.  That's when I called dibs on them when he dies.  My brother spit out his water he laughed so hard.

I decided to go shopping in the mall afterward.  Because I haven't been there in years.  And because at lunch, I admitted to my family that I suffer from anxiety.  And because I feel the need to force myself past it sometimes.  And to show my anxiety who's boss.  Today, anyway.

And then I get rewarded with lame pickup lines from Eurotrash hipsters.  I was wearing my new Mars Generation t-shirt because Launch Support was my Halloween costume.    :)   Eurotrash Man asked what Mars Generation was.  Trying not to judge a book by its cover, I thought perhaps he was a space geek.  But eventually the conversation devolved into asking how many kids I wanted, which is when I bailed.  I didn't want to hear about my perfect child-bearing hips, so I ducked into an up-scale women's funky boutique to lose him.  Fortunately he didn't follow; however I was prepared to hang out by the lingerie for as long as it took. 

I probably could have picked a better day than a Halloween Saturday to push past my anxiety.  Oh well.  It was cute seeing all the little kids trick-or-treating in costume.   One little boy had on an inflatable fat Sumo wrestler suit.  It was adorable watching him waddle through the mall. 

I stopped in another store to admire a blazer, and a saleswoman pounced on me.  Usually, they turn up their noses in disgust because I don't look like their normal clientele.  Maybe it was my magical hair.  Or perhaps my Launch Support t-shirt fooled her.  She told me how fabulous the blazer was, and she wasn't lying.  It was very nice.   She started with a size 4 (too large on me) and worked her way down to a zero (too tight on my massive shoulders and triceps, massive I tell you).  I said to her that I was deceptively both bigger and smaller than I looked, which she decided was a nice problem to have.  She settled on a 2 that she scavenged from a mannequin.  I almost bought it out of guilt by that point.  

But I didn't love it.  And it was $160.  Turns out that was a bargain after seeing blazers in a few more stores.  I'm not a fan of double-breasted blazers on me though.  It will go out of style before I wear it more than a few times because it's too hot to wear jackets here much.  She told me that my form-fitting paper thin t-shirt with the cap sleeves was bulking up the jacket and making the shoulders tight.  I'd have to wear a camisole under it instead, meaning I couldn't ever remove it at a professional event.  Not very practical.  I passed.

I wandered around a bit more, but I was done in and desperately avoiding eye contact at this point.  I couldn't make strides back to my car fast enough.  And finally back home in my bubble.  Ahhhh.