After a period of severe to crippling writer’s block, I’m back. And the time off means that there are a lot of important things I need to get off my chest.

I bought new jeans last weekend. It’s a biannual occurrence for me. That’s if biannual means every other year. If biannual means twice a year, then me buying jeans is a semiannual event. That’s not right. It’s definitely biannual. I mean, the correct word is biannual but that has no relation to how often I really buy jeans. I was trying to explain that it happens not that often. Why didn’t I just say that? I’m such a moron.

But that doesn’t really matter. Either way, I bought new jeans and the process really traumatized me. I started at Bloomingdales, where there is literally (not really literally though) an entire floor devoted to denim. And by denim, I mean material that looks like a pair of jeans when held up at eye level, but in actuality has been stitched together in such a way to prevent any male human being from fitting the product on to his legs.

So after about 30 minutes of shimmying my way into “relaxed” jeans that had an entirely different idea of what relaxing means than I do, I left Bloomingdales in search of a friendlier product. Or as my mom might have called them back in the day, “big boy pants.”

So on I went to Earnest Sewn, the store that sold me my last pair of jeans.

I recalled that first visit to earnest sewn fondly because when I was on the fence about the snug fit of their jeans, the cute sales clerk famously inferred that my ass looked good, thereby tricking me into spending an exorbitant amount of money. Anne was there as well, and I think she still holds a minor grudge at my giddy excitement during that moment. In other words, I was somewhat surprised that Anne accompanied me back to Earnest Sewn. I was a little scared that Anne was only joining me because she planned to claw out the eyes of the minxy sales rep that may or may not have cupped my balls a little bit when she was marking where to hem the bottom of those jeans (I have short legs, shut the fuck up ok?).

But unfortunately, the return visit to Earnest Sewn did not bring the same prostitution based sales strategy. This time, the young lady manning the boutique showed me the two cuts they have: straight leg (200 different pairs) and relaxed fit (two pairs), for men with more “athletic” thighs. As if the words “athletic thighs” did not already make me a little uncomfortable, I squished my meaty stubs into the straight cuts and forced myself out of the incredibly un-private changing area to show Anne. And by show Anne, I do mean “show” because the way those jeans were clinging to me, she had to have seen everything. Severely uncomfortable, I hopped back to the changing corner (I couldn’t bend my knees) and slid off the straight fit jeans. I guess slid is not exactly the right word, because that would imply that when I took them off, they glided off rather than somehow adjoining with my boxer briefs and leaving me nude in the changing stall, which I will remind you is mostly visible to the entirety of the store, or at least the enormous wall of mirrors reflecting my image (i.e., netherparts) across the lower east side of Manhattan.

Ashamed and discouraged, I realized I’d need a pair of those relaxed fit jeans. Some of my anxiety disappeared when I realized that the room was much more private if I closed the door instead of mistaking the relaxed jeans that the saleswoman had placed on a hook as my curtain. And I’ll be honest, for a pair of mom jeans, they looked really great on me. So I had them hemmed for my 22 inch legs and took them to the register, where the cashier sized me up and told me that the “Dexter” (husky pant) was a perfect style for me. God, I hate her.

It’s so hard being a man sometimes.

Here they are, by the way:

Note – Per my intro sentence, I meant to have this cover a number of topics that have been bothering me (Like my continued disappointment with the line system at Whole Foods, the surprising amount of nudity in the locker room at Equinox in Connecticut, and perhaps a video update on my handstand routine), but I got so worked up describing this jeans fiasco that those those will have to wait for another time. Given my track record, probably 4-8 months from now.