100th post!

Today is a day of milestones! Not only is this my 100th post, but Prince William and Kate Middleton got married; it's finally sunny again in Chicago after 2 weeks of dreary rain; and I went to the tailor for the first time. That last one is what this 100th post will be about, even though I did wake up at 3am to watch the Royal Wedding on CNN. (Tyler has rather seriously threatened me if I try to rehash the wedding to him, and I'm guessing some of you share that sentiment, so I shan't subject you to my pathetic royalist fandom.)

On to my tailoring adventure.

So I'm going to be a bridesmaid for Anna's wedding in July, which I'm pretty excited about. Anna picked a lovely navy silk cocktail dress from BR for us back in November, and some of the girls even managed to get on sale. I got my bridesmaid shoes in an impromptu after-Christmas shopping trip with my family. As many of you know, I'm an OCD-planner, so having everything ready 7 months before the actual wedding was really awesome.

But ah, having everything picked out so far in advance created an unforeseen problem. I joined a gym in January, and all those Zumba classes must've really paid off because when I tried on the dress last month, it looked rather different than it did when I got it in November. My mom would be pleased to note that my arms no longer look hammy. But while thin arms are nice, they don't matter too much if the rest of the dress looks somewhat lacking, particularly in the chest area.

One of my Evanston friends recommended a great tailor who happened to be quite close to my apartment, so today I dropped in to see what could be done about my dress. The tailor was a tiny, middle-aged Korean woman, as nice as could be. Our exchange went something like this:

Tailor: Hello! What can I help you with?
Me: Hi, I need to get this dress tailored.
Tailor: What do you need done?
Me: I have no idea.
Tailor: Well, okay, go try it on and let me see.
[I go to the back room to change. I marvel at how incredibly clean her store is. Seriously. And it smelled really good, too. But I digress.]
Me: Okay.
Tailor: [pinches fabric here and there, examines the fit, etc] Okay, we do this and we do this, we make you a waist. I take it in here and here, you see? Now you have a waist! Looks good, right?
Me: Wow. Yeah, that looks good. Can you do anything about the top?
Tailor: [skeptically] You are very small on top. This dress needs more there to look good.
Me: Yes, I know.
Tailor: So there is nothing I can do for you.
Me: Oh. We can't just take it in or something, make it less baggy...?
Tailor: No, I don't think so. [encouragingly] What you need is a really big push-up bra!!!
Me: Ah. Okay...
Tailor: Get a big one! You can even use tissues, push it together, make sexy. Big bra!!! Push-up!!! You need big push-up!!!

After the receipt was written out and she had impressed upon me several more times of the necessity of a bra + tissue combo for my non-chest, she added, quite kindly, "But you are so cute!" The American half of me wanted to accept and say "Thank you," but the Asian side wanted to deflect and say "No, not at all." So what came out was a weak, strangled, "Oh." (This happens to me almost every time I am complimented. Does this happen to anyone else? Responding half a beat too late, usually with some sort of unintelligible guttural noise?)

So if anyone can recommend a good, gigantic push-up bra, that would be greatly appreciated! I already have the tissues.