IN PRAISE OF COTTON

I no longer wear Bush-era underwear. Not that I'm concerned in any way with bad vibes from a truly horrible time in recent history clinging to the fine cotton with which I garb my nethers, but I am a fashionable man; I haven't worn what Marky Mark wore since Marky Mark stopped wearing it.

There's very happy stuff in my wardrobe.

Whenever I pose in front of the hallway mirror, I see a dashed fine looking middle-aged specimen. Kind of Irish-looking, but without the blotchiness, burst bloodvessels on the nose, or the jelly-like paunch from a sedentary life drinking stout. Sort of trim. A little angular, even.
Rather cultured, instead of a bricklayer on the lam from the Bobbies.
Not that I'm suggesting that the Irish are miscreants who need to flee.
When residing across the water, in Liverpool or Glasgow.
Fine upstanding folk, despite those accents.

Like all decent people, they confess their crimes straight away.

Or at least, that's what I think they do.

It's a lovely fantasy.


Again, not fat, but verging on lean. No surfeit of potatoes, spam fritter, and lard, but instead a healthy diet of rice, fresh green chili peppers, and crispy crunchy vegetables with a bit of roast duck or porky bits.
And hills that start outside the door.
There is no sedentation here.
Even if I wanted it.

In actual fact, I do not know if the Irish wear underwear. I rather suspect not. Fine cotton probably doesn't last long in a barmy climate, such as they have over there. I understand it was the coldest and wettest May in a century, and they must all be stir-crazy by now, what with sitting indoors waiting for the beer to warm up. Them and their fine mildewed procreative regions. Awfully moist, what? And the humidity really brings out the smell of mothballs in those ancient rags they're now forced to wear because nothing dried on the line all last month.

Somewhere in Dublin there's a public house with a multitude of grim Irish gentlemen acting Scots, all dour and stuff, whispering dolefully into their Guinness that they hate the climate, it's effing ghastly is what it is, and they really wished they lived in California.

Boys, we've had a pretty nasty Spring too.
Bitter winds, and chilly nights.
Don't bother coming.

You'll freeze.


On the plus side, we've got lovely male underwear here in San Francisco. Comfy boxer shorts with smiling owls and frogs and puppies, pink and lilac and powder blue stripes, little joyous polky dots in such lovely hues.....
Nice stretchy fabric wife-beaters that look ever so Puerto Rican.
Baggy pajama pants, with pockets for your smokes.
Even tidy whities and tee-shirts.
Thermals, too.

I never wear thermals. Like longjohns, they don't flatter the body. Yes, they're warm. But what if someone saw me? It would look goofy. And rather Midwestern. Far better to swan around the apartment styling in my happy frog boxers, radiating vibrant youthfull middle-aged devilishness, lean and vulpine, elegant, and just a hell of a lot sexier than most men my age.
Especially if they're Irish, or any other type of trans-Atlantic.
Because MY underwear is fine. Totally.


You should see me.




==========================================================================
NOTE: Readers may contact me directly:
LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================