by J. R. Practix

Accessorize: (v.) provide or complement (a garment) with fashion accessories: the leisure suits were accessorized with white vinyl loafers and matching belts.

I wouldn’t say that I lose sleep over it, but there is a certain amount of turmoil inside my brain when I try to figure out what to wear with my gray jogging pants with the white stripe down the side and the elastic waist band which no longer seems to be willing to be elastic. At that point, you’re grateful to have a belly which holds your pants up instead of having to trust that the original garment’s intention for retention will hold true…

First of all, I probably should apologize for calling them jogging pants, considering that I have never jogged in them and probably will never pursue such foolishness. So let me change the name to blogging pants, since I have blogged in them and probably will again.

The problem is that I don’t know what to wear with graying trousers. They require an accompaniment which is just a notch above their social strata. Otherwise people walk up on the street, hand me dollar bills and wish me good luck.

What I mean is that a pair of old pants demands a newer, hipper shirt–or the pants don’t seem to be an attempt at dressing down, but rather, an admission of pernicious poverty.

So I guess my favorite way to accessorize my aging gray blogging pants is to wear a black t-shirt (which my oldest son insisted had a skeleton on it, but really, I think is the embroidered head of a Klingon. Some people think there’s not much difference between a skeleton and a Klingon, but I would have to refer to those people as the personification of ignorance).

Shoes become important, too. My blogging pants are not really long enough to hide my socks when I’m sitting down, so therefore the shoes feel totally exposed to the outside world and need to be confident that they are being appreciated for their fine, soulful, “footery” nature.

A ball cap helps. The beautiful thing about wearing a baseball cap is that it tells people that you’re accessorizing towards a common humanity–but that you’re also willing to advertise some inane team or idea at the same time.

Actually, as you can see, for being an extraordinarily masculine straight man, I probably spend entirely too much time thinking about accessorizing. But if you followed THAT logic, golfers and bowlers–with their funny bright-colored pants and strange, plaid shirts–must be flaming queens.