MetroSexual Dad

Tweet

This past October, while visiting from Chicago, my father snapped this pic of me at Fort Tryon Park in Washington Heights, a.k.a. "Hudson Heights" for anyone trying to sell real estate up there. In any event, he told me to look "over there" which was in the direction of the Hudson River and this picture to the right is what resulted. I wasn't trying to look fly. I wasn't posing. In fact I was annoyed because some jackass walking his dog with one of those retractable leashes let him (the dog) practically run up on the stroller with my giant, sleeping two year old inside before I came out from behind it. He kept it moving without even acknowledging me. The election was only a few days away and I made myself feel better about the near-confrontation by speculating that he was a McCain supporter. Not that supporting McCain made anyone inherently bad. You are who you are. Your political party doesn't really matter these days as proven by yet another one of my home state's governors.

Back to the picture: my wife actually laughed and rolled her eyes when she saw it and gave me one of those "Are you serious?" looks.

A day or two ago, I was chatting with a friend who asked me if I thought I was a Metrosexual. I busted out laughing.

"Nah," I said quickly. "That would require me to have a regimen and products and I don't have either anymore."

If I had astringents, toners, moisturizers and masks and a morning regimen and an evening regimen, then surely, I'd be one. And although thanks in part to the latest 007 movie, I have been dressing like I fell out of a magazine (it keeps up my morale at work) behind all of that I literally pick whatever falls out of my closet each day that doesn't need ironing. This is what I have devolved into as a married man at a job that burns up nearly 14 hours of my day between commuting and working.

My friend and I had a good laugh over the fact that I was quick to claim I wasn't a metrosexual, but I seemed to have an awful strong sense of what one is. Maybe I'm in hibernation from the days when it took me longer to get out of the house than any woman I've ever dated. Maybe with these kids and this wife and our impending departure from New York looming overhead, I don't have time to make sure all my pores are open. Besides, being oily keeps your face from drying out in the wintertime.

Did I say that?