Blue Gold

I have coffee.  I have 30 minutes til it's time to go to church.  I am listening to the Live Horses EP from Needtobreathe.  My wife is on the other end of the house getting ready for church.  My WIFE is on the other end of OUR house getting ready.  Will the fun of saying "my wife" and "our house" ever go away?  I doubt it.  (Perk of being a boy...I get ready in 10 minutes.)

I am a happy camper.

Want to know why else I'm a happy camper this morning?  Well let me tell you.

BLUE GOLD

So I must preface and explain my hysteria/excitement this morning.  My wife is obviously a very fashionable young woman.  She always has been.  Her effect on my fashion sense is unmistakable.  It has been unmistakable since we started being "friends" back in the day.  She freed me from the undershirt.  She introduced me to the v-neck T.

Since we started dating the woman has been trying to get me into designer blue jeans.  Every year, armed with Christmas or birthday money we would trek to some outlet in hopes that this would be the year.

Why do I sound so hopeless and dejected in channeling those old days?  BECAUSE THEY WERE FREAKING MISERABLE.

"Why were they miserable, Chris?" you might ask...Why let me tell you.

Let's be honest.  Most guys who wear designer blue jeans aren't built like your boy, Hill, here.  As my friend, Wes Whitney, says, "Hill has redwood tree trunks for thighs and the back-end of a bull moose."  Great for football and beating people up on the basketball court - one of my favorite pass-times - but not so great for trying to fit into that True Religion denim.

I am also 6'4" tall barefoot.  Add the normal inch to inch and a half boots that I wear, and you have another problem.  Seven only makes one length.  Guess they only claim to make "Jeans for all Mankind" or I'm not a part of "Mankind".  I'll let you decide.

Another issue.  Despite the rather "linemanesque" lower-half that I manage, I have a fairly skinny waist - 34 or 36 tops.  I REFUSE TO SAG.  If, admittedly as a luxury, I use my bday or xmas money for this kind of jeans, is it too much to ask that they really fit?  I didn't think so.

Hence, I had given up hope.  I was done trying these jeans on.  Ever.  Lucky makes jeans that fit me fine.  I was completely content to go with them from now on.

...and then the miraculous occurred...

Wes and Sheridan - best friends, partners in crime, etc - called and said that Wes had found these awesome Rock and Republic jeans at the Nordstrom Rack in Katy.  Wes shares my same frustrations with these "people" who make these sort of jeans, and Sheridan has also had a rather obvious effect on his fashion/desired to get her man into some good lookin jeans.  

Hope.

A gchat conversation later, Wes decided that I should come try the jeans on.  They might fit me better, and there were more out there that he thought might be better suited to him.  

OK.  Hopes not to high there, Mr. Hill.  Keep that excitement in check.

Yesterday, I tried them on.  It was as if someone took measurements of me and then made jeans.

I am Christopher Carl Hill.  I build fence, I know how to work cattle, I move large objects.  I now own Rock & Republic jeans.  Sometimes I find myself to be a strange blend of a person.  Now would be one of those times, and yet I am perfectly comfortable with it.