Praise then darkness, and creation unfinished

I stopped on the way to the gym to get a new pair of walking shoes/sneakers. It's a very easy process, especially as there's a New Balance store right next to the subway station I use to get to the gym: I walk in and explain to the salesman that I need another pair of the shoes I'm wearing, he asks my size, I say 8EE, and he goes back and gets it. In this case, I varied the process by browsing briefly, picking out a package of socks, and asking about sizes for those. He told me I'd want a medium, and got me one. The shoes fit okay (though I will want to relace them), I bought them and the socks, and went to the gym.

I'd concluded it was time for new shoes because of the way my right foot had been bothering me in the last couple of days. Worst case, that's not the reason and I have two pairs of shoes that fit. (I also have two almost-identical pairs of sandals that fit, a pair of winter boots that almost fit, and some flat pumps that I can wear long enough for a job interview if I have to. And I may still have the sandals with heels that I bought for papersky and rysmiel's wedding, because the store was out of the kind of sandal I normally buy and I didn't want to spend a lot of time shoe-shopping in a foreign city.) Shoes don't spoil: it's not like accidentally buying extra bread or fruit, or even a fifteen-year-supply of something with elastic that will deteriorate in a third that long.

( and now, gym numbers )