This memorial contains almost a month’s worth of parts – though not all of ‘em are about clothes! – and the post you’re reading is the second in the series.
On 3 June I started wearing a different belt – a tan coloured one this time – to replace the black leather one in use for six weeks. The need for this testament to my weight loss, something that was evident on this day as it was raining and my trousers got wet, the cuffs dragging on the ground. By this time I was sitting at around 87kg, and the size-38 trousers I’d started wearing had become a bit loose for fashion, though they were still ok.
A few days later, on the night of 10 June, I put on pyjamas I hadn’t worn for a decade, the weather getting really cold and night-time temperatures in Sydney dropping perilously low. A couple of weeks earlier I’d started to wear a pullover or fleecy top on top of my button-down shirt. On top of this, while at home, I wore a zip-up jumper a friend had bought me and that, though I’d lost weight, I still used daily. Later, I’d exchange this for a cardigan.
I’d decided, before altering my trousers, to wait until I lost more weight to avoid spending money needlessly but on the day I went to the GP to have a corn burnt off (18 June) I also dropped by at the tailor’s shop and got him to tell me how much it’d cost to change them. (The corn had developed because I’d waited until the end of April I to throw out a pair of worn Sketchers shoes that’d become damaged in the inner sole.) I took all of the trousers with me in an Ikea bag (which the tailor asked me to leave with him when I quit the place that day) and for his information – he put in pins to mark where to cut – I tried on pairs of the Reserve brand (Myer) pants in 42 and in 40, there being multiples of each. In the batch were also other pants of different brands – these purchases going back a very long time indeed, in fact back longer than I had any memory of.
For some he’d have to remove 18cm of waist to make the pants fit and all told I left ten pairs with him for each of which he charged me $40 as long as I paid in cash, so immediately I opened up my wallet and handed over $50 deposit telling him I’d bring the balance the following week. I’d thought that the GP wanted to see me on the next Thursday for the second dose of cold on the corn, but this appointment turned out to be, in fact, two weeks away. On the other hand I anyway had to be in Pyrmont to see the psychiatrist on the 24th, so was in the area on that day and when I picked up the five pairs of trousers that had been completed. I organised to get the rest later when I’d be visiting Dr Nanda, my GP, for my foot.
The photo below was set up especially to enable me to show people what my renovated waist looks like – I normally never tuck my shirt in – as a Facebook friend in France (mais bien sur!) had asked to see my middle. “Pas mal,” she drily responded in a comment.
It means, for those of you who’re not conversant in French, “not bad”. Even at this new size, however, I’m still officially overweight, so my psychiatrist recommended that I lose a few more kilos to bring my body mass index below 25. As it is, when this photo was taken, I was just over. On the second Friday in July I fit in another visit to the psychiatrist due to panic attacks while driving and picked up the rest of the trousers on the same day, which was also when I got my second Covid jab. The tailor was still open when I dropped by at 4.15pm, though he told me I was lucky as, normally – he’d changed his routine on account of the state government’s new travel restrictions –, he shuts at 3pm.
I was now a size 36 and when I took Ming and Omer back to their place on 7 August he let me try on a pair of his skinny jeans which’d gotten too small for him. I did as Ming asked me to do, the result being that I felt like an old man trying to look young, Ming gripped by the effect as she rolled on the floor laughing (literally) taking snapshots – which (below) show me as I normally look (left-hand photo) and me in Omer’s skinny jeans (right-hand photo).
Ming’d just bought me the (size L) yellow sweater shown in both shots. My French friend (who I don’t know in real life) said, when commenting on the photos: “looking super good”. The mother of another friend said I’d lost too much weight. A third friend just told me to tuck in my shirt.
It was on the night of the 9 August that I thought to myself: “I need to stop wearing pyjamas to bed.” It was so warm (and out of a habit ingrained by fear due to a severe cold period in early June) that I’d been wearing pyjamas daily after showering. In June the tailor in Pyrmont had repaired a tear next to the bottom button on the pyjama top, and though the pants were much too big for me they’re made with a drawstring so size doesn’t matter and I can cinch them tight around my waist.
I retired my old batik wallet on 24 September (see below) as it’d become so worn that the cover was coming away from the body. I’d started using the thing in December 2019 at the time I was tidying up the library in my apartment in Pyrmont though mum had years earlier given to me a collection of colourful fabric wallets I’d kept in a shoebox full of bric-a-brac stored in the sideboard. I now took out of it a different batik wallet to replace the tired one.
On 12 October I wore a pair of shoes that’d last seen action before I moved to Queensland, an event that had happened in the relatively barren wastes of the year 2009 at a time when I had been employed in an IT department. I now felt the badly damaged heels worn down due to my customary scuffing especially pronounced because of a legacy of mental illness that oppressed me as I used to walk from West Pennant Hills to Hornsby to visit a bookstore on weekends.
I vowed to take the shoes to Mister Minit when I went to see the GP on the following Wednesday and on that day I stopped at Broadway Shopping Centre at about 10.30am and headed to the kiosk in the arcade where a man took my shoes after remarking helpfully that the sole of one of them was cracked. He showed them to his colleague and came back to tell me that it’d cost $65 for new heels. At my quiet prompting he couldn’t say for certain if the cracked sole’d result in wet feet in the rain, “Unless you’re going to cross a stream.” After telling him that I’d be back in a couple of days’ time to pick up my footwear, I silently promised myself not to wade in a stream, headed back to the car, and went to Pyrmont to have my hair cut. Later, as planned, I saw my GP and was home in time to cook lunch.
In the last week of October I took off my bedspread and put it away in the closet. I also stopped wearing a cardigan while inside the house, and on some days didn’t wear a jacket when going outside. This caused some problems with masks as I normally keep one in my in the breast pocket. To compensate for the new arrangement I started keeping a mask in the car so that I’d be able to go into shops or buildings without contravening regulations.
I finally bit the bullet and removed my overshirt on 16 December due to warm weather. On this day, for the first time since winter angled its teeth down, I went around dressed only in a long-sleeve shirt. It was the mooted “wear a Hawaiian shirt” day – a day of shame to celebrate Scott Morrison’s absconding to the island state at the time of the summer bushfires the previous year – and I decided not to participate. Looking round I saw that I was missing out on some “fun”.
The 19th was the first day for me to wear a short-sleeved shirt and on the night of the 20th I removed two blankets from my bed which, the next morning, I put away in the cupboard. La Nina had meant an especially cool start to summer (at least, on the east coast of continental Australia) but it was time to come good with summer’s promise.
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