Back on Sunday, when I met my brother and his wife, the topic turned as it sometimes oddly will to pants. Mainly, they were at the outlet mall looking for stuff to wear, while I think of getting something different to wear mostly when I'm prodded into it by my brother and his wife. Their point was that I have indeed lost a lot of weight, and should get into wearing more slender pants. They probably have a point, but my natural inclination is to not replace clothes until the old is unwearable for some reason and I haven't reached that point what with the technological development of a belt.
My brother pointed out that I might buy some new belts as well. I answered that I already have a belt. He noted the article there. Well, I can only wear one belt at a time, and they don't need to be cleaned between wearings, and while this one is starting to split along its narrow seam it hasn't made it impossible to wear even using the narrowest hole which, I'm happy to say, I now use. I'm not quite thinned enough that I need a smaller belt either and I don't see the need to buy a smaller one before that point. My sister-in-law listened to all of this reasoning and said she loved this family. Apparently she's gone through similar discussions in the past.
The eventual centerpiece was whether I would buy a pair of jeans. I haven't worn jeans since middle school, since they're less comfortable than other genres of pant. I'm assured that after a couple of wearings pants become comfortable; but I keep coming back to how I could instead wear pants that are comfortable right away. They kept asking, though, along the course of several stores, and I gave in and tried on a pair. They were both very complimentary to how I looked in a pair of size 40 jeans, and took pictures with their cell phones to help convince me that I looked great in them. While I fit in them, I couldn't sit comfortably in them, the way I could fit comfortably in size 40 dress slacks, so I bought the thinnest pants I've worn in decades and refused the blue jeans. Later they e-mailed me one of the pictures.
Trivia: Christopher Columbus's 13-year-old son Fernando accompanied him on the fourth voyage to the New World. Source: The Last Voyage Of Columbus, Martin Dugard.
Currently Reading: Diaspora, Greg Egan.