alex hates changing clothes. at night, he battles to sleep in what he wore to school. come morning, he fights to wear to school what he slept in. it's quite easy to see what a sinister cycle this is and we've yet to find a loophole in his logic. he's got all his bases covered and you simply have to hope for a serious spill in the kitchen or some mud-sport in the backyard to soil his outfit to the point that even he doesn't want to wear it anymore.

one downside of alex's war is he's not very good at dressing or undressing himself because he's only got a quarter of the practice/experience a boy his age should have. one upside of his obsession is i could watch him try to take a long-sleeve, pull-over shirt off for hours. you just have to keep him clear of the stair-case.

and a word about the cut-off shirt mentioned in yesterday's post. when marty says i'm wearing a cut-off shirt, it's not like the eighties-style top you're probably imagining. eighties-style being defined by one's full gut and navel being exposed. my cut-off shirts are a product of how ill-fitting todays basic t-shirts are for me. they wear more like a tube-sock than a undershirt. they hang several inches below my groin. they don't quite pass my knees, but obviously i look quite ridiculous. and if i tuck them into a pair of pants, i end up with all this bunched up material just below my belt-line and the last thing i need is more padding sitting anywhere near my ass. so the last time i bought some shirts, i got totally disgusted with how low they were hanging. so i took them off, got a pair of scissors and cut six inches of material off the bottom so the damn thing would actually end somewhere near my waist instead of three inches below my crotch.

my idea was gold excepting two details;
1. i'm not garment savvy enough to project how much a shirt will shrink, so a few of the first shirts i did this to have shrunk so much i can no longer tuck them into my pants. if i keep them long enough i reckon they may soon qualify as an eighties-caliber cut-off, but this is not in any way intentional.
2. when you scissor-cut a cotton shirt and don't stitch the wound, it rolls up like a severed achilles tendon. no matter how much you flatten it with your hand, it rolls right back into its tight curl. at first i wore the shirts inside out so the roll was inside towards my body, but then the label faces out and everyone you pass asks if you know that your shirt is on inside out. so, i stopped doing that and in time have grown to like this added flourish. in fact, it strikes me as a smart addition to something that is otherwise, a dull, flat and boring shirt hem. you just wait, in ten years time, this is how all shirts will be manufactured. granted by that point mine will have shrunken so much they will stop a few inches above my nipples, and unfortunately that trend won't catch on for an additional ten years.

growing up in colorado i was taught the importance of layered clothing. somehow i genetically passed this insight onto my eldest son because getting alex dressed in the morning is like preparing an arctic explorer for a month-long expedition. his goal is obviously not warmth or comfort but simply one of wearing a multitude of his colorful shirts. so instead of settling he slowly moves through each item in his drawer holding them up, studying them, choosing items based on some internal measure. on average he will select three to four shirts. and given his slight frame he is easily able to accommodate multiple garments. some parents may be inclined to step in the way of such a childish obsession, but marty and i place it in the 'doesn't matter' column alongside making messy bubbles with straws and urinating in the back yard.

this year alex wore three shirts to our christmas celebration with marty's side of the family. when he opened a 3-pack of white t-shirts he elatedly ran to me requesting i help him put them on, all of them. i unquestioningly did so. three presents later he ran to me with three long-sleeve rugby shirts repeating the request. the kid already had six shirts on so i said i thought he should save these so he would have some clean ones to wear tomorrow. my suggestion was quickly called a bad idea and dismissed. on they went, albeit not as easily as numbers four, five and six. but he wiggled and i wrangled and sure enough, alex set a personal best of nine shirts, five of which were, impressively, long sleeved.



add to all of this the detail that if alex likes an outfit, and he inevitably likes them all, he refuses to remove it at night. this would be another arena marty and i elect to not engage. and don't think the efficiency-zealot in me doesn't see the time gains in just peeling a layer off a child each morning. doing this, we'd only have to get him dressed once a week. problem is, he's even less generous in the morning about changing than he is at night, so once they go on they in many ways become hermetically sealed to his frame. the above picture shows alex in his nine shirts. at this point they've been through two nights and are working on their third day.

and yes, i get that he may be a tad gamey under all that cotton and twill but i figure there's eight layers of insulation between his clammy skin and me. i'll take those numbers any day. in the end, i didn't see a real downside to all this until one of marty's brothers commented that alex, artificially bulked up so, looked like a miniature lou ferigino. my good parental mood was momentarily fouled until i reasoned that without the shirts he may instead look like a dark-complected erkel. and i'll take a little-ferigino over that any day ... and twice on bath nights.

alex has graduated to big boy underwear. when i was his age, they were white. maybe a colored band here or there, but mostly just plain ole white. nowadays these utilitarian garments are a colorful and busy strain branded just for kids. you name it, someone makes it. right now, alex's favorites are batman and spiderman, with buzz lightyear getting some occasional play.

for alex, in addition to selecting which super-hero to pull from the drawer, he must also decide which artwork he likes better, the picture on the front or the picture on the back because for him it is important that the better of the two be front-facing giving it superior exposure. so each morning before slipping his tiny jockeys on, alex diligently studies the front and back of the shorts, deciding which scene deserves the marquee. you'd think this review would be consistent, but for reasons i can't explain, it is a total crap-shoot from day to day, and one i'm mildly embarrassed to say leaves me thoroughly intrigued.

i'm a boxers man. have been for decades. in looking at a pair of briefs i would have guessed they could be worn backwards without even noticing, other than having the ill-conceived penis-tunnel even further from the member it is meant for, making the knee-bending maneuver of extraction that much more precarious. but, if you, like me, thought the cut was reversible you'd be wrong. it turns out the material on the back is significantly larger than the front, and when you wear them backwards you find it only partially covers one's biscuits (that's parental-speak for ass-cheeks). this unforeseen detail results in what appears to be, from the back-side, a modest man's thong. and, before you think this is the only flaw in the design, consider all that bonus material in the front which makes the wearer look like they shoved a hot-pocket down their shorts.

all this said, how ill-fitting the shorts appear doesn't phase alex in the least. he just sucks in his tummy, looks down and excitedly points at the display saying, "BATMAN!, look daddy! batman on my shorts". and i do look and i must confess that the picture of batman standing atop gotham with his cape flaring in the wind looks pretty smart in wide screen across the front and am both impressed with and pleased by my son's eye for such detail. but it is during this revelry when alex turns to leave the room anxious to show others today's selection where i'm left spying his narrow biscuits sneaking out of the deficient material in the rear ... and sneaking more with every excited stride.

bella obtained some new underwear that has a different day of the week printed on the front of each pair. a few of the days are missing which makes me afraid to ask where the pantaloons came from. my spidey-sense is whispering bad words in my ear. like words that begin with 'good' and end in 'will' or begin with 'salvation' and end in 'army'. don't get me wrong, 90% of my wardrobe has come from vintage stores or darkman's closet, but 100% of what i like to call my 'intimate line' came straight from the super-mall (or mail order). because there's no real reason to maintain the secret that used boxers are to troy dearmitt what punctured scrotums are to george constanza. for sanity's sake we're going to chalk bella's 5-day week skivvies up to lame packaging, dear lawd please let it be lame packaging and if it ain't please let me remain an ignorant old fool.

anyways, i've been looking for the adult, male version of these decision-free briefs. wondering how the adult, male model differs from the tiny, girl model? instead of the days of the week, they have, in block print across the front, the weeks of the month, as in week one, week two, and so on. sadly, this item seems to be quite in demand because every store i contact says they don't have anything like that in stock.

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as for the quiet week, my dsl went out to lunch a few days ago. i'm making this post via the back porch of some out-of-town neighbors who left their wireless router on. truth told, i only started out on their back porch. i've since found a way into their home and am now sitting indian style on their king size bed, with my shoes on. and, yes, i did see if he had the cool weeks-of-the-month boxers. he doesn't. nor does his wife.

given one half of my diet i should look like calista flockhart and given the other half i should look like ralphie may.

so i guess when you balance it all out, it explains why people think i look like this.

be thankful for...

your opportunities.
people who like you.
indoor plumbing.
and an underwear optional lifestyle.

i miss wrist bands.

and i'm talking about those big three-stripe suckers. never has a more utilitarian accessory fallen to the fashion whores.

well, unless you include the raised collar. and, if you are wondering what functional purpose that fad served, it made me look less like a bobble-head doll.

imagine britney spears' career if she were 50 pounds heavier.

but then again, it hasn't seemed to hinder anna nicole's ability to earn a buck, so who knows.

at a social gathering last weekend, unbeknownst to me, one corner of the room spent several minutes of their life trying to figure out why i looked different.

one person said i looked thinner. another explained that was not because i lost weight but because i seemed to have not gotten my hair cut for a month and because of this it only appeared as though i was wearing a batter's helmet and therefore skinnier through the body.

another guessed that it was the clothes i was wearing and that the best they could tell i was attempting to pay some sort of homage to bill bixby from the hulk given my tattered, tight jean shorts, super baggy, mostly unbuttoned shirt and drifter necklace (bomber's words).

upon hearing of this discussion i asked one of the participants if my ensemble smacked of bixby before he became the hulk or ferigino as the hulk or bixby, post hulk after waking up in a landfill. bomber said i was definitely sportin' the post hulked out look. this was not a promising opinion in that i certainly wasn't trying to look like a person who had recently turned into a wild, green, oversized mutant and tore to shreds every last thing on his body.

i'm thinking we may need invest in one of those mirrors that hang on the back of the door.

ok. so we have two of those already. maybe i just need to have my wife ok my outfits before leaving the house.

i'm not happy that it's come to this.

a few things i don't get...

1. people who think eating lots of food is funny.
2. my compulsion to roll the sleeves of my workshirts up like charles ingles did in little house (past the elbow).

i'm looking to create a word to describe the excess flesh riding above an ill-fitting bra. i'm not sure what this bursting mound of mammary should be called, but know that there is a term out there floating in the air above our heads which aptly defines it. suggestions?

five or six years ago i walked into a j crew store. during the visit, a certain sweater caught my eye and i tried it on. it was super soft lambs wool and had a thick, heavy feel. being a little pricey i only picked up two, a dark blue and a hunter green. at the time i didn't realize the relationship about to be forged between me and these two wintertime garments. you see, since that day, these would be the only two articles of clothing i would wear whenever the temperature dipped below 45 degrees, except for the occasional college sweatshirt i may don on less formal situations. one day i would wear the green, the next the blue, then the green, then back to blue, green, blue, green. it was a whole thing. tragically though, another thing i didn't know the day i purchased these two items is that i would never again see them on a j crew shelf.

somewhere between years four and five my bony arm joint punched through one of the elbows. shortly thereafter another, and then another until only one of the four elbows was still in tact. what was i to do? i checked back with the crew religiously only to find tube-sockish, wafer-thin or fuzzy wannabe sweaters lining their walls. marty told me my alpha wear was out of style, has been for years, she'd add hesitantly. but, my hands were tied. i had no other contenders and therefore no other options so i continued to wear them, gaping holes in the back of the sleeves and all.

a day could not pass where i wouldn't be stopped by someone tapping me on the shoulder and saying "it appears your elbow gave away" or "i think your sweater has about had it". i would convincingly reply "oh suck, that must have just happened, well i guess this one goes to the back of the closet". but in my mind i spat on them in disgust for their petty pickiness about the completeness of garments and their irrational need for structurally sound apparel. every new day would renew this dance between the public at large and myself with no end in sight.

and then she entered. a heavenly spirit who did not look at my injured lambswool with abjectness but instead pity. her eyes sympathetic to its hurt, her hand gently touching the wound. i can fix this she said. it is here i don't feel capable of putting my inner thoughts out there to be read. they are too singsongy, too personal. suffice it to say the maimed fellows were delivered to her in the spring and returned to me before the next season's first frost. mended and healed with gray (for blue) and black (for green) gauze (elbow patches), ready to drape my awkward frame again. she has delivered me from despair and for this i'm forever thankful.

sadly, i've discovered a whole new world of patch haters living among us.

fricken wretches.

i'm not a woman.

i do not wear bras.

only have a few times at least.

but i've got one question, why the hell don't they all clip in the front? seeing the antics marty goes through to get dressed all i can say is it's good i'm not a woman and that i don't wear bras because if i were, i'd be three hours late to work instead of two.

if you see me on the street and i look different, it's the belt. i've only recently begun wearing one and am very self-conscious about it. this pointless strap of leather goes against everything i believe in, clothing wise and is the one article of clothing i wear that serves no function other than to scream out to all that see me that i am a total whore to industry and too wrapped up in what others think to think for myself.

some days making a living sucks.

i was part of a conversation with someone recently (i can't remember who) where they were asking/wondering what one's skin would look like if it hadn't been abused by the sun for however long they have been abusing it by the sun. the listener told the curious one to drop their pants and look at their ass-skin in a mirror because this is most likely their last frontier free of skin-damage.

having done this easy-enough test i found that if i were to mimic the skin on my left cheek over my entire body, i would have many more tiny, pointed pimples than i presently do. i'd also have a stray and wispy hair about every four square inches. so my sun worship is back on. in fact, i may need to upgrade my tanning bed privileges given this new window into the world of 'what-could-be'.

a recent behavior being questioned, frowned upon and ridiculed by marty is how i've been wearing my sweaters as of late. first, we're all painfully aware by now that i have a tragically misshapen body. it is modeled, sadly, after my feet. my size 6 EEE feet. for those lacking visual aides, this would be square in proportion. given this, sweaters manufactured for the average human fit me more like an oversized and striped tube sock rather than a comfortably hanging and stylish winter garment. for this reason i must buy them bigger than my height might suggest. the shortcoming in this compromise is they are also much longer. to adjust for this i have taken to cuffing the waist band much like i do the wrist bands.

marty says this looks stupid. i contend that it also looks stupid to have one's sweater hang to some point between their groin and kneecaps, possibly more stupid in fact. i mean if you were to throw some ankle warmers on me i'm suddenly and very concisely transformed into every side-ponytailed aerobics instructor from the 80's. i gotta say i'm not budging on this one. partially because if i were to move too suddenly all the various pieces of debris that have collected in the cuffed hem of my sweater would be certain to spill onto my lap and about my feet. wanna talk about looking stupid.

marty has entered the second half of her pregnancy with captain*. she started showing about a month ago and her clothes stopped fitting a few weeks ago. frustrated for apparel she started ripping stuff out of the closet which slowly started to pile up on the bed in an unbuttonable fury. solution: raid the hubby's side of the walk-in.

do you have any concept how frustrating it is that after two years of religious gym-going you discover that your new svelte frame is the same girth as a half-pregnant woman.

and she's got room to swim in even my most hip-hugging khakis.

there's two years down the crapper.

* captain is baby number two's in utero name, rockefeller having been bella's pre vaginal chute-ride moniker. i had suggested Copernicus but walt nixed it for complexity reasons and somehow captain emerged as its elementary counterpart. and, you can keep your capt stubing jokes to yourself. i ain't in the mood and i don't have the time. there's a jazzercize class across town i need to sign up for.

i wear glasses. my glasses cost more that every sock, pant, shirt and short that i own. some may think i'm using these overblown descriptors to simply add import thus emphasizing the point, but i'm not. if this were barker's showcase showdown my specs would be valued higher than my entire wardrobe. although, this info is for those who have never met me, because those that have, know this, tell me this and sadly shake their heads at this routinely.

let me tell you a story. my mother has one hobby: collecting pictures and then finding and placing them in frilly frames all valued under 7.99. for my wedding, she made two photo assortments of marty and i crammed with grainy shots of us growing up. at the reception while walking past some people hunched over these curiosities i overheard the following hushed conversation in reference to my seventh grade school picture:

man: why is he wearing shop glasses.
woman: those aren't shop glasses, those are his regular glasses.
man: oh, damn.

oh damn is right. and as i was saying, my current glasses cost more than all of my clothes combined. but it wasn't just this experience that moved me so. childhood trauma aside, i've simply never understood (some) people's logic in regard to their face hardware versus their wardrobe. assuming you are one who requires eye wear, you are wearing them daily. daily! as in everyday! and unless you are me, that super-rad sweater-vest you got from old navy or the gap or af or the other place where everyone seems to buy their clothes, it may get worn once, maybe twice and on a good day thrice a month and that's of course only seasonal wear. so in summary, many people, perhaps not you, will spend more money on five sweaters which they may, may collectively wear 30 times in a year than they would on something hanging off their face, something people actually look at, each and every day of the year. sometimes i just don't get folks. i love the differences in 'em, don't try corn-holing me here, i just don't get 'em.

and no, i will not be posting the picture in question anytime soon. i'm not that hard-up for readers just yet.

how wrong is it that i spend time contemplating how i can pull off wearing capri pants. i feel confident that these confused trousers would immediately satisfy about 7 different issues i have with every pant i own as well as all of those i don't and are still on the rack. i tell every woman i know that if i were a woman i would be uber strong and not shave my legs or pits, burn and axe high heels and never ever wear pantyhose or bras (don't even get me started on bras). but, here i sit, unable to shoulder a single and not too historic of a fashion battle. all i know is some sort of get out of jail free card should exist for those who have been dealt a physique as odd and contorted as mine. is it my fault that a small child could stand on my haunches or that the waistline of traditional pants attempt to rest in the space between my navel and nipples or that i have to buy my pants off the web where they honor "irregular" sizes for "irregular" folks.

perhaps if i called them beachcombers instead of capri pants.

the number of times the guy sitting in front of me on the metro touched his combover, trying to repair the havok caused by the wind: 7

i'm told that when my doctor asks why i've been going to the gym more, i should not say "so i can have a stomach like brittney's."

I go to my barber every 10 to 14 days. When I ask other people how often they go, most report between four and six weeks. Learning this I asked my barber, Larry Evilsizor, if he saw anyone more than me. He claimed he had a guy that was close but thinks I squeak him out since I don't always make it a full two weeks.

Our local hipster paper, The Riverfront Times, recently named Larry as The Best Place to Get a Regular Haircut in Saint Louis. In that I've seen Larry every two weeks for nine years now, this was not news to me. But I am glad to see him finally receive the unexaggerated adulation he absolutely deserves.

In hearing this it occurred to me that if Larry is the best barber in Saint Louis and I am his best customer, should the Riverfront Times not run an article on the Best Customer of the Best Place to Get a Regular Haircut.

As an added note, the last time I saw Larry he told me that he would have to start running the clippers along my ears before long. I asked what that even meant and he explained that as men get older darkish, thickish and noticible hairs begin sprouting on the ear. Disturbed, I consulted my close friend bookguy on the matter. His response, "That's about the scariest shit he could ever say to me."

We must first thank britney for plunging waistlines to all new depths. We must next thank the perseverance of the Europeans for sticking with the thong concept and letting it grow on them, in them, whatever the proper description may be. We must thank these people because it is through their diligence to fashion and image that make moments such as this possible at a Saturday afternoon football game.

I ran into a website for a clothier and their motto reads "happy clothes for happy kids". Talk about getting a jump on breaking humans into thinking that their well being and emotional fortitude is encapsulated in a shiny and crisp garment specifically from their storehouse. I'm rarely offended, and am not here, but if I were more offendable, this marketing campaign may have sent me into a raving fit.

I just sent them an email stating that I am currently constipated and wondered if they had something in a clam digger jumpsuit, taupe preferably, that could resolve my discomfiture.