Phone is pouting in the charger.

Bra is pouting on my bed. I was sitting in a meeting this morning and realized that there was a sore spot on my side under my left arm. There were no guys in the meeting, so I discreetly reached up while everyone was focused on data projected onto a screen and discovered that the side stay had chewed its way out of the channel and was looking for lunch.

I can do a little minor surgery on that hole in the binding until new bras arrive. I hate shopping for bras. Manufacturers think that if you have a wide band, you have breasts that require their own ZIP code. And as Gershwin wrote, it ain't necessarily so.

What I want is a front-fastening bra with back support, straps that don't slide off my shoulders or creep into my neckline in front, adequate lift, and separation without underwires. I think I'm just about over underwires. I've worn them for 45 years, first to scrape everything out from behind my shoulder blades and move it up front, then to wrangle the aftereffects of having nursed five children, with the additional complication of weight loss, weight gain, weight loss, weight gain, weight loss ... you get the drift. (And I've never been a yo-yo dieter.)

My skin is old-lady soft and a little fragile. I will not look 25 again until I get my resurrected body. I have more little rolls than a French bakery, and I'm tired of extenders in the back that accentuate the tendency of shoulder straps to head for my elbows, and I'm tired of pooching out beneath my bra band and spilling over the sides at the top. Underwires either break or escape over time, and soft-cup bras create a shelf or allow the girls to slump like a fallen souffle. Neither of which is the look I'm aiming for.

There has got to be a better system than the brassiere. One that allows aging bodies a modicum of grace and respect for their battle scars.

Mumble mumble rassen frassen. I'm gonna go knit. And once my phone has stopped pouting, I'll see how much meditation I can manage tonight.

Postscript: I had dinner tonight with one of the sisters I send visiting teaching letters to every month. We ate Mediterranean food, which you would think would have mellowed me somewhat. Hummus is definitely my happy place. She said that I looked great, very relaxed. I told her "anti-anxiety meds and a muscle relaxer". She didn't know quite what to say.