I don't have anything.

On a blustery Saturday afternoon, I walk along the sidewalk, approaching a homeless person. The unshaved face of a man peers towards me, and he reaches his hand out. He wears gloves with holes, which are wrapped around a coffee-stained paper cup jingling with a few coins. He mumbles at me. His toothless mouth barely murmurs the words, but I respond anyways: "I'm sorry, I don't have anything."

I continue on my walk and those words hang in the air.

My feet hurt in the heels I chose to wear. The tall, crinkly leather boots, warming me to my knees. The boots my parents bought for me a few Christmases ago. I have several pairs of shoes, so if these bother me, I can go home and change into a variety of others.

I have a warm coat on my back and money in my purse. I have a credit card and a driver's license. I don't have a car, but if I wanted to, I could buy one on a loan. I could get a loan. I have a job, and it's in a career that I enjoy.

I have a craving for a drink. I am not thirsty. I could definitely survive with this hankering. I could suppress it if I wanted to. It was more of a want than a need.

I walk another block towards my apartment. I have an apartment. I have a heated shelter, that I sometimes choose not to heat so I can save money. I use that money to splurge myself. I buy things for my hobbies, like skateboarding or doing crafts. I can have hobbies, because I have the time.

I have friends who share in my hobbies. I have a best friend who trusts me and whom I trust. We can keep each other company, but we can stay apart and know that we will be able to see each other again. We share common interests and a background. We have known each other for a long time, and we will know each other for many more years.

We met in school. I have an education. I went to school, and I graduated from school. I can read. I can write. I can speak two languages. I have traveled abroad to practice that non-native language. I have friends and families who live in other countries who reach out to me to share special moments in their lives, and with whom I can share mine.

I have a family with whom I keep in touch and wishes no harm to me. I have a family whom I can call if something bad were to happen, and they would drive 30 miles to help me. If they were farther, they would get on an airplane or on a train or in a car to get to me. They call on a regular basis just to check on me. They care about my well-being.

I don't live very close to my family, but I do live somewhat near them. I can have independence. I have independence. I can live alone, with no desperate reliance on another. I have rights. I have privacy. I can vote on my leaders. I can boycott things. I can express my opinion without fear of physical harm.

I continue to walk.

I can walk. I have two legs. I have two arms, which I can use to hug the people I love and who love me. I have lungs that breathe, eyes that see, ears that hear and a mouth that speaks. I have my mental health, or so I believe. I have ten fingers and ten toes, which function perfectly well.


He may also have a family and a home to go to, but I don't know for sure. I do know that I most definitely do not have nothing.


This essay was first published by Melissa Weinmann on inyournaturahabitat.blogspot.com

I got my boobs fitted for some bras and this is what it was like

The other day I got a coupon in the mail for $10 off an Aerie bra, so today I headed over to Aerie at American Eagle to see if I could find a match. They have this new campaign where they don't photoshop the girls in the ads or the models' pictures that are posted around the store as this "real you" idea.

To the guys out there, bra shopping is quite the ordeal, as much as jean or swimsuit shopping is. I am not sure which of those three is the worst, but just trust me that it's pretty hard. Since guys' bodies don't seem to come in as many shapes and sizes as they do for us ladies, I can't make an understandable comparison to something that you would understand. Maybe tuxedo shopping? I give up.

Another thing for guys to know about bras: the size is a number and a letter. The number is the inches measured around the woman's rib cage, right under the breasts. The letter is determined by some magical formula that basically says how big your breast is. 

Summary: 

Number=rib cage size

Letter(cup size)=boob protrusion

So I went to the store wearing my best-fitting bra so I could do a comparison and also remember my size. Just like with clothing, your bra size can change from year to year based on your weight. I usually shop at Victoria's Secret (VS) so the bra I was wearing was of course from there. I feel like VS is most common bra store since they have such a huge variety and their stuff is good quality. Your boobs feel like they are on a soft fluffy cloud instead of strapped onto your chest with elastic and padding. 

The first thing I noticed at American Eagle was this weird cover version of "Under the Bridge" by the Red Hot Chili Peppers playing on the overhead speakers. The cover was by some girl (not sure of the artist) with a cutesy voice, which was off-putting since the song is about drug addiction, so it's like listening to Zooey Deschanel sing about a heroin overdose. I felt like it would inappropriately play in a makeout scene of Pretty Little Liars or something.

I went to Aerie's bra section and they have a  huge variety of bras in different cuts and perkiness. Seriously, they all are measured in a perkiness factor to show you how perky they make your boobs on a scale of "Perky" (obviously) to "DOUBLE WHOA!!" of which the latter describes boobs that appear 2 cup sizes larger. 

What's a girl to do? Try on every single style, that's what. 

I grabbed a bra from every single collection they offered in the store in the same size as the VS bra I was wearing. I had a total of 8 in the dressing room with me, but according to their website there are 24 total styles. The store I was in obviously didn't stock all of these, and also there were one or two styles that didn't carry my size. Try-on time!

All the bras are named after girls, so Aerie can say "shop all girls" on the bra webpage and have a winky wink pun with girls and "girls" i.e. boobs. I think. Also, the girls' names are all hip and cool like "Abigail" and "Reese" and "Harper." No Sarah or Mary here. Sorry to the Sarah's and Mary's out there, but those names just aren't hip enough to name bras after them, 'kay?

The girls' names are hip and cool so you can also feel like you have a hip cool friend named Brooke or Lexi that helps support your ta tas all day long. Like a friend who is really grope-y. Or maybe not grope-y because you're a girl comfortable with your sexuality so much so that you share everything with your friend, even the task of supporting your boobs. Either way, this made it super weird when the one of the best fitting bras I got was named after my mom. 

Bridget was the first winner.

I tried on the Emma which is a  "WHOA!" on the perky scale, and includes removable "air padding." And by air padding, I mean little plastic pouches filled with air. I felt like I had bubble wrap stuffed in my bra, so I tossed that one aside almost immediately. 

Some of the bra straps were the killing point for many bras. There was one bra in particular that had a ribbed bra strap that made it almost impossible to adjust. As most bras are on the tightest setting when on the shelf display, it requires lots of adjusting to open it up to a length that renders it wearable. The bra I struggled with was so difficult that I gave up and just didn't try it on. That could have been the perfect bra, but the straps were impossible, so TO THE FLOOR IT WENT. Actually, not really...I neatly put it back on the hanger and hung it on the REJECT HOOK. Most of the straps felt rough and itchy and they left red marks on my skin from all the scratching they did in the 20 seconds of wearing them. I think twist ties would make better bra straps than these things. I kept putting my VS bra on after trying on the Aerie ones for comparison and also to remind myself that better bras do exist. There IS a bra that can make me feel like Katy Perry's boobs did on that cotton candy cloud.

Pictured: Boob Heaven.

Aerie is on the cheaper spectrum compared to VS, so there's no denying that the quality will be affected. The sale I encountered had all bras between $20 and $30 which is a STEAL when you think about how VS bras can be anywhere from $35-$65. The cushiony heavenly one I was wearing today was $50 at VS. 

To be honest, for most of the Aerie bras I had to go a number size larger compared to my VS size since they all were squeezing a little too much. That's something to note if you go bra shopping at Aerie vs. VS. I don't know which company has more accurate sizing since I didn't ask to be measured at Aerie and because I never trust the measurements at VS. I could go into VS one day and the dressing room attendant could confidently tell me I am one size and all other bras that I have worn in my life have been wrong and that this is the One True Size, then three days later a different girl measures me and is like "No no no no no NO! You have been mislead, THIS is your One True Size!" And I think they just make up how the bra should fit so you buy more bras every time you come in since every time you enter the store you are convinced that all other previous bra shopping wasn't real and true but this time it's DIFFERENT.

However, with the "Drew" bra (DOUBLE WHOA!! perkiness factor) I kept my number size but I had to go down a cup size to make my girlies fit in with all that padding. When they say DOUBLE WHOA!! they really mean it. This bra is amazing in the way that it makes anyone and everyone look like Katy Perry. It is a must try. Even if you appreciate your current bra preferences or little padding, you must try this bra on so you can have your chest region protrude to the point of knocking stuff over when you turn around. If, instead of girls' names, the creators of these bra styles just named each style after a different boob nickname, then I think the Drew would be called "BOZONGAS." I feel that if you put all the padding from one football uniform into a single bra, the Drew would be the result. I think your boobs are bulletproof in this thing. While wearing it, I felt like a character in a Robert Rodriguez movie that has machine guns strapped onto her boobs.

KAPOW!

I asked the dressing room attendant for a tank top because sometimes trying on bras with a shirt on is what people do since that's usually how they are worn in everyday settings. It also helps to see if/where the bra makes you ooze out. Clean lines! It's all about clean lines with bras. The Drew passed the clean line test, and also the "don't wear in a porcelain shop because you'll knock over those tea cups on the top shelf when you turn around" test.

The Drew was a definite winner. 

After all that trying on, it was time to get dressed. You know how when you repeat a word over and over again, it stops making sense? Well, I felt like I was staring at my chest so much in the mirror that it was making me think my boobs were located too high on my torso. 

**this was not endorsed by Aerie or Victoria's Secret in any way. I doubt either of them would want me to have pictures of boob cannons as the descriptive images for their bras.