Articles

Untwisting the Knickers

A popular euphemism, yes…but I have actually been thinking about underwear lately. Specifically, the fact that what I have is wearing out, or doesn’t fit right, or both, and that my storage “solution” at the moment currently…ah, isn’t. I’m not fond of shopping for clothing, and that includes underwear, so I do it as little as possible. But, the time has come…

It is kind of symbolic, in that I’m finally starting to get several pieces of my life organized that had sort of fallen by the wayside during the “brain fog/midlife crisis” years when my proverbial knickers were pretty twisted, so to speak. Seriously. If I’d known then what I know now about minerals and magnesium… *sigh* But, live, learn, and clean out your underwear drawers, apparently.

In any case, men, you can read along or sit this one out, as you wish. I know plenty of guys who could not care less what their underwear drawers look like, but just as many who I suspect would tell me (if I asked them) that they keep their skivvy drawers far more organized than I ever will. Actually, those same men probably keep their whole houses cleaner than I do…but whatever.

In any case, after dealing with ill-fitting bras (and the resulting discomfort every single day) for far too long, I finally forced myself to go looking online for information on how to figure out what exactly my problem was, and how to buy a better bra to fix it. After several videos and articles explaining how to properly choose a bra (yes, I’ve read them before, but obviously did not do it “right” last time…also, bodies change over time, and…gravity, damn it), I think I figured out how to choose a better-fitting bra for my body, and ordered a couple to try. They should be here sometime this week. If they fit better and are comfortable, I’m going to order a few more. I’ve been living with just two (boring, nude) bras that “work okay” for years, and since I refuse to spend a million bucks on one bra (seriously – I do *not* get why the supposedly high-end ones are so frickin’ expensive. It’s not like they’re whalebone corsets, right?!), I’m thinking I should own more than two so I can rotate them and not wear them out as quickly. Like shoes (which I should also buy more of and rotate, but whatever).

While I was doing that, I decided, heck, I should just order some new skivvies too. I probably shouldn’t admit this, but the majority of mine are coming apart in some way, or they don’t fit right. Before I purged my sock & underwear drawers yesterday, I had enough skivvies for one week and one day (like I said, I hate to shop). After “the purge” I have enough to get me one day past when the “grab bag” of 20 pair I ordered from Amazon is scheduled to get here, and then three more pair are headed for the garbage.

Of course after I found that “grab bag” for a good price (with good reviews, mostly), I saw an ad on Facebook (because when you spend an evening shopping for bras/underwear online, the FB algorithms figure you need more help) for Knotty Knickers, which, between the name and a pole-dancing unicorn made me snicker. So I clicked the link, and by golly, it’s a subscription service for undies – a Canadian business. You can seriously get almost anything in a subscription service these days.

In any case, they looked like fun (I mean, they have seasonal skivvies!), so I signed up for a bi-monthly subscription. Because…why not?

Anyways, now I have all these knickers coming, and I decided it was time to clean out and maybe even organize my sock/underwear dresser (which is a small cardboard dresser covered with contact paper by the vanity table in my bedroom). There’s no way all those underwear were going to fit with all my socks in that little dresser, so I decided to go completely off the reservation and store my skivvies in a drawer in the bathroom, so they’re right there after I get out of the shower. Genius, right?

Yeah, well. The bathroom vanity drawers were…um…basically glorified junk drawers, so I spent all afternoon yesterday cleaning them out (and decided to use a smaller one instead of a bigger one). Two large garbage bags later, I had more storage than I need, and no time to make the drawer dividers I want for the “drawers drawer”. But, I’ll figure that out later.

Then I purged my socks (because hey, I was on a roll, right?), and still ended up using all four drawers in that little dresser. One for fuzzy socks, one for thin/fun socks, one for lightweight work socks, and one for heavyweight/wool work socks. And then I was sad because I couldn’t figure out how to wear more lightweight crew socks with fun patterns on them, because there’s a subscription service or three for those too, and i want more fun socks (mine are all mostly boring black/gray), but have no idea what kind of shoes I’d wear them with for work, especially in the winter when I wear the wool socks because…brr! *sigh*

You want to know what actually started all this? Someone was selling a vanity table on our local rummage sale that had a set of drawers attached to the left side – smaller drawers on top for jewelry, and slightly larger drawers on the bottom that would work for “unmentionables”. I didn’t get the vanity, but it got me thinking about how my own vanity, jewelry and skivvies were organized, and…well, here we are.

Perhaps one day I’ll pony up the big bucks for a new vanity table like that…or just another large jewelry/lingerie armoire (I have a med. sized one, but it’s full). But for now, I’ll have new undies, and more organized drawers. Which is good enough, I suppose.

When was the last time you “untwisted” your knickers, literally or proverbially speaking?


Resolution Check-In
Sleep 6 hrs: Most nights last week, actually. Though I didn’t sleep well, but that was a temporary thing.
Goals check-up: Nope. Forgot all about it, because I moved to a new calendaring system and need to set up the reminder. Will do that this week.

Writer’s Notes