swimsuit season

on top of everything!

It was hot enough in LA over the weekend to turn on the AC (the first time in my adult life that I’ve experienced “central air,” AKA heaven!). I’ve been wearing shorts, have consumed a bowl of extremely delicious cherries and one pretty good peach. I’m sweating on dog walks and not just because I’m listening to the shitty news. You know what that means:

IT’S TIME TO BUY A BATHING SUIT.

Even Marilyn seems to have struggled with swimwear — as evidenced by this suit made of rope.

There are approximately seven types of women who seem to enjoy — or at least not dread — purchasing a swimsuit.

1. “Confident” types, often with naturally un-mottled skin or an expensive tan

2. Sporty types who often reside in New England, and, if they lived in Katharine Hepburn times, would most certainly have used the word “yar”

3. Earthy types who can effortlessly bend into vrschikasanas while explaining the life-changing magic of celery juice and maybe refer to god as goddess

4. Rockettes and former Rockettes

5. Anyone who pronounces Ibiza with a “th”

6. Many/most young people, especially when drunk on TikTok

7. Wise elders who have weighed their options, decided the only way is to carpe diem this shit because, truly, who the fuck cares

I imagine these women cheerfully log onto Land’s End or Frederick’s of Hollywood or Hemp Huggers or Net-$-Porter (or wherever people who don’t hate buying bathings suits buy bathing suits), click to buy and stroll happily, half nakedly out into the sun.

I am none of these women.

I am instead a woman who’s never met a sleeved rash guard that did not induce suffocating skin-suit panic. I have yet to don a “bottom” of any type that my ass didn’t try to eat upon trotting a mere step. I would truly rather frolic middle-aged nude than attempt to sort out which of my bits to strategically cover (and very much not cover) with the contrivance of a bathing costume.

I know, I know. There’s always this one magic suit that everyone says will solve all of these problems. But I do not want to spend the equivalent of a Christmas Lexus car payment for a swatch of well-sewn spandex I will literally spend the next few years rubbing against cement and dipping repeatedly in salt and bleach.

In the same way I resent spending excess money on, say, a drain snake, I want a cheap suit that’s fine. I want to spend under $50 for something simple and reasonable with coverage that is ample-ish and not a thong.

Here’s what I’m eyeing.