Close Calls, Cars, Concerts & Clothes

I almost drove into a car today. On my bike.

I was leaving the house, gathering speed, ready to swerve around a corner and ride to the train as if my life depended on it. A lawnmower woke me up early after a late concert night and midnight dinner and I couldn't fall asleep again, so I was weary and careless and the shrubbery by the corner nefariously concealing of both sight and sound, and didn't see the car until it was almost too late. Braked, but started sliding and almost lost control of the bike, coming to a stop centimeters away from them. They slowed down, and I raced ahead, shook but intent on catching the train, and so I did, cycling ferociously in a late morning rain that wasn't supposed to be there either (like the car - it's a deceivingly calm street). I've been thinking a bit about finally buying a car btw. Skimming through adverts. Still thinking.

It rained waterfalls yesterday too, though it shouldn't have. It should have rained today, but today the forecast was all clear - just cloudy. But it's summer rain. Doesn't matter if you get soaked right?

I wasn't prepared yesterday. It came out of nowhere, and I waltzed around my sister's mid-city apartment impatiently before the night's coming concert, but the rain stopped just in time and I ran out in deep puddles, sunshine and rainbows just in time for the music (managed to get a rare spot under the edge of a roof too, in preparation for potential squalls that did come). It was The 1975. Huge crowd. Good music.

Today, when it was supposed to rain, I took my rain jacket, but not so much because of the rain as because it was colder. My thin jacket's too thin and the thick one's too thick, but this one's somewhere in between. Then the sun came out, and the world warmed up, and I was sweating waterfalls at the concert. It was the wrong choice after all. Nefariously devious early summer sometimes-like-it's-still-on-the-verge-of-Spring weather, but at least the music was good. Monster Magnet this time. The crowd was smaller, but too big for the smaller stage they were on - I didn't get a good vantage point at all. The next group's back on the big stage though, so that's something to look forward to. Flogging Molly, this Friday.

Choosing appropriate apparel is getting all the more difficult. I've gained weight too. During winter. I am currently shedding, but slowly. The things I bought when I was losing are now too tight, but all the old stuff from when I was bigger (I don't recall being that big... maybe I was just in a baggy phase) is way too big. My new T-shirts are too small, my old T-shirts billow in the wind - yet they're too short to be allowed to billow freely until I get a six pack, and most of my pants crease in all the wrong places when I sit down, and my belts loosen, and my shirts are too warm, and sweaters can't be considered, and my shoes must be wrong because my knees don't feel all right.

My current selection of clothing is a highly restricted one, and yet each piece of attire has certain defects, like how my thin jacket almost instantly starts sliding up my back when I have a backpack on, or how my better pair of shorts is in such thin linen they're almost see-through, and my perfect-fit T-shirts have all somehow garnered withered collars... though are otherwise fine. Have I just become incredibly self-conscious or is it finally time to get new clothes? I'm a simple being: I just want to wear cheap, comfortable stuff in decent material that feels and looks like it's supposed to and not think any more of it, but lately I'm thinking way too much about this stuff.

I've been thinking about optimizing my wardrobe a while... yet each year I tell myself not too buy anything new. It's a challenge. An environmentally assisting, economically strengthening and anti-norm rebel soul kind of campaign. Not that I usually succeed, but somehow the occasional clothes I buy all have similar flaws. How do normal people find good clothes?! I'm starting to wonder if maybe avoiding synthetic materials and jeans has something to do with this eternal issue. Or more probably: you get what you pay for.

Meanwhile it's 20°C in the water up North (it was 7 when we visited less than two week ago) and my alternate summer wardrobe has surprisingly little issues up there. Yet the clothes I have there are carefully selected as worn-out and otherwise undesirable clothing to have in the city where people are. How did the two somehow get switched up? Is it how the clothes are used that shape them - too much winter time spent sitting down? Or is it just so much easier to wear anything when there's nothing but birds and bears and family around, or how when on a rare visit to the city you're instilled with confidence after arduous gardening sessions; starting to feel in shape? Is it so easy? All clothes are well-shaped on a well-shaped person. Words of wisdom just now devised but possibly used by many others before me.

I guess what I'm saying is: it's better to change You than change your Wardrobe (that sounds almost like War drone), because really, I have no shortage of anything. Especially not shorts. It's summer: the shorts age. Some are worn-down, sure, but I only feel worn down if I am when I wear then. The cheap challenge goes on; contemplating cars and shredding concerts shedding pounds. And New Grounds.