Owning Speedos

OK, headlines are up and down. Blood, despite going down another pill (just two of this particular kind now), and having some late night carb - 4.1 this morning, good enough for me, thankyouverymuch. Weight this morning -
15 stone 10.75 - so, up a couple of pounds. Dammit.

Still - it's one of those 'can't do the time, don't do the crime' things - I've been saying all week 'out for dinner, no exercise, out for dinner, no exercise, out for dinner, no exercise...'  so to expect anything other than an increase is clearly just wishful thinking. In a way of course, I've gone back a couple of weeks during the last seven days. I still think though that when - and it's an imminent when - we start getting back to a more active lifestyle, it'll shock my system into sudden, hopefully significant losses again. d's doing a car boot sale with my mother for the next couple of Saturdays, and apparently I'm not required to flog stuff, so - much walking in the Valleys for Tony.
"Hey honey - how d'you feel about going swimming tonight?"
I don't know why, but I was struck with the idea this afternoon.
"Sure," said d. "Why not?"

Why not was because Ma turned up with some fairly sage advice. Even recent readers will know that my current swimming shorts were pre-Disappearing, and don't currently fit. I also have something of a morbid fear, when swimming, about hitting my head on the side of the pool, so I tend to swim for four or five strokes, then pop up, panicking, and bob about like a big fat spluttering cork. Science has of course devised a solution for this kind of stupidity, in the form of goggles. So when Ma turned up with her discount card for a local sporting goods store, we piled in the car and went there...instead of anywhere where the goods might be sportingly employed.

So now I own goggles. And a pair of Speedos.

Don't vomit yet - they're not what you're thinking. They happen to be made by Speedo, but they're still shorts, not the second-scrotum nightmares that are most closely associated with the name.

Oddly enough though, I still find owning them vaguely significant. It's like...
When you get beyond a certain weight, there's a kind of self-devaluation that happens. A sort of self-exclusion from the right to own certain things, or do certain things, because you know you're just going to look awful and embarrassing owning them or doing them. Speedos are pretty much one of those things. Hell, anything that trades on its sports credentials qualify, in all probability. But on the way down - here's a tip to all Disappearers - you get that sense of sporting value back. Clearly, it happens in stages, cos there's still no way I'd wear the second-scrotum Speedos yet, but as I get down, there seems to be a little voice of self-righteous vindication at the back of my head going "Fuck you, fashionistas. I'll wear what I like..."

Feels good.

Now of course all I have to do is put them to some sort of use. Maybe tomorrow night? (Still no bike cord yet. May have to just bite the bullet and buy one!)