Clothes are expensive.

I overdid this week a bit and had to get out of the house today. It was also hot for the first time in a couple of weeks so I had to get out into it. I had plans to buy a few things but they partially fell through and all I did was end up pissed off.

I did find some (pretty crappy) sort-of-actual-shorts (as opposed to no-they're-actually-longs, you know, they actually end above the fucking knee) because the typical length shorts of the day are too hot, too uncomfortable, and rub the top of my legs in ways that cause soreness. Now I don't have such a fat-arse at least it's possible to have them fit the leg when they fit the waist. One of the pair I got is basically white - they look like 60s sports day shorts, I just need the white singlet and dunlops and the no 1 haircut to go with an old family portrait, but they're just for for around the house. Either the sizes are a little "generous" or i'm down to a small now and that size definitely wasn't tight.

Actually I haven't really stopped losing weight despite eating pretty normally and doing enough basic exercises to gain muscle. This week I measured a minimum "under 69.0" for the first time in decades (but that was just the extreme of the trough). I somewhat expected it to level off by now.

I went looking for a battery for my bike headlight - the charger for the chinese junk I bought broke but the light is fine and i've been charging the mystery battery with a PSU I made in uni - but i got really pissed off at the dickhead at jaycar who couldn't do more than point at the shelves I'd already looked through so i gave up and walked out. If i just want to get their cheap junk i can get it myself, i only went to the shop to see if they had knew anything I didn't and to support a local business. dx.com it is I guess. Last time I tried the battery bar in the city but the shop assistant was utterly clueless and the 'tech guy' was a condescending fuckwit and it seems more like a "junk bar" than a battery bar anyway.

There's two local shops I will NEVER return to ever again. I made the effort to go to a local shop physically and with a literal pocket full of cash, and they weren't interested in even attempting to close any sort of sale. Fortunately at the expensive wool-clothes shop I went to after the battery bar I had a long chat to the bored shop assistant and she tried to upsell everything 'male' they sold (which isn't much but i hadn't intended to get a jumper when i went in).

I bought some dried fruit from The Market and tried to find a silicone gasket for a (stove-top) coffee maker for one of my brothers - but nobody sells them. At least one guy said it was because they never wear out - which is the whole bloody point! I got one for my machine at Gaganis Bros but they're still in the bad books for their bicycle parking arrangements they didn't have many back then anyway.

At this point i was ready to fall apart or have an accident (i've just been in a foul mood all week and this made it worse) so I said fuck it and had a beer at the Exeter. I quite like the pub itself and the staff are decent but this isn't the first time i've looked around and realised I was surrounded by other middle-aged men so I decided if I have any more I should try somewhere else. I decided at this point to go buy some bike shit after seeing it last time - I grabbed some new shy shorts (30 was the right fit, so yeah I guess I am small now) - the ones i've been using lately are 36 and they were too tight last year but now they feel like nappies with their built-in chamois and the draw-string. Also too long and too hot. Ugh I spent like 170 on another pair of cargoish things at the same time back then which I had been using but they feel like clown pants now, they were even bigger (and both have faded poorly, why are they all black anyway??). And a couple of jersey's which are possibly a bit on the tight side but we'll see - most they had were black and that's too hot so I got a white one and a red one to match my roadie (hey why not). One specific jersey I used most recently still has serviceable cloth but got stretched too much to be passable so at some point I will see if i can take it in somehow. Those expensive bike faded shorts are too big for that but I might also try to take in some other stuff I've never even worn if i can get my sewing machine to cooperate (stuff i was too fat to fit, and now falls off).

So that bike shit (incl, shoes I bought last week, new pedals and cleats), the wool tshirts and jumper, the "POW" PE shorts, jerseys and shorts, a new tyre, well over a grand. It is what it is.

I ended the afternoon with a few beers at the Austral - fuckit, if i get gout so be it (but so far so good?). I had 4 total for the day but I think 2 was probably what I should've stopped as after those two I just wasn't' really feeling anything good and all it left me with was a headache and a churned guts which still persists a couple of hours later.

I contemplated life and it came up very very short. As ever.

I even thought about tattoos. Why? To belong to "something" I guess? I didn't think about them too much.