More Pants

Only very recently, today in fact, have I reconciled myself to the unpleasant fact that while I once owned more than one pair of exercise pants, I am now a man who owns merely one pair. This is the sort of difficult set of circumstances that a man can deny for quite some time. But ultimately, he must own up to them.

I remember the heady days of owning as many as three or four pairs of exercise pants. Each had a specialized purpose for which it was perfectly suited, whether that purpose was running in the rain, bicycling in the sun, or kicking the french fries out of a portly gentleman's airway. But for so long now, I have been a man who owns merely one pair of exercise pants.

I won't lie. I truly wish I were still a man who owned several pairs of exercise pants. There is a certain something about a man who owns multiple pairs of exercise pants. As he sloshes by in the rain, you find yourself admiring his gait a little more keenly. As he whisks by on a bright afternoon, you marvel at how he sits in his saddle. As he kicks you in the lung, forcefully expelling the Happy Meal lodged in your trachea, you anticipate tha first breath you will draw through your cleared airway, as you know it will be scented as fresh and bold as clean laundry.

There is a steely glint in the eye of a man who owns three or more pairs of exercise pants. A no-nonsense air of masculine competence. Apparent, but not o'erweening. Case in point: it is known that Sean Connery owned seventeen pairs of exercise pants, whereas Roger Moore had only two.

How many pairs of exercise pants Chuck Norris owns, alas, remains a mystery.

But a man who owns only a single pair of exercise pants is a sad figure indeed. Such a man must contemplate either slavery to his laundry machines, or reconciling himself to "airing out" his one pair of exercise pants between sessions. It is a cruel choice.

For while he may deceive himself into thinking that his "aired out" exercise pants retain a kind of manly musk, they do no such thing. In fact, they come to more closely resemble a murdered possum, left to age somewhere dark and damp until finally being draped across the air vents of one's enemy's automobile. Wet, dead possum musk is no proper substitute for multiple pairs of exercise pants.

O, cruel fate.

About the M3

"We need a blog about the M3," Fashpo said. So blame the orange-haired librarian if you don't like cars.

Last week, during my extremely non-productive time off, I got out for a good drive or two. One day I woke up hearing a radio forecast of sleet, snow and freezing rain in the mountains. So naturally I jumped in my rear-drive coupe with semi-slick performance tires and headed for the mountains.

I turned around when it got too stupid, of course, but not before I had some fun and took some pictures. Most of which didn't come out. Apparently, cameras need light. Which was a revelation to me, so the nice, nestled back in the trees pics I took didn't come out at all. But a few others did.

The scenery was beautiful, especially the snow-dusted mountainsides visible from the road. But, once again, I'm rubbish with a camera, so you'll have to take my word for it.

The old M3 was marvelous, once I was able to break out of traffic. The back roads through the forest and mountains are good and twisty, and this car has far more grip than I will ever need, absent a Bugatti full of machine-gun wielding thugs behind me. The steering is about as communicative as you'd want on American roads. Some folk say E36 M3 steering was vague (though not as vague as E46 M3 steering), but they're shmucks. Any more feedback, and your average North American road would drive you completely nuts, imvho.

Just before the weather forced me back to lower altitudes, I got it up as fast as I've driven the car so far. I've driven considerably faster in lesser cars, but I wouldn't want to anymore, after getting the feel of this one. Dead stable at high speed. It just hunkers down, feels very well connected to the road. Very impressive, though I'll admit it is fresh from a full 4-wheel alignment at the shop.

Of course, I never exceeded the posted speed limits. Whatever the hell they were.