I'm on the right

Amber and I stand at the light in Red Hook, which is always stingy in changing for pedestrians. We wait to cross for dinner with my parents, owed to me by dint of having helped move Leelee months ago. Given that the restaurant is moderately fancy -- you could go in jeans and a t-shirt, but might feel weird about it -- I opted for black motorcycle boots, black slacks, a black Oxford shirt, and a black fitted jacket.

A car full of women drives by and screams, "You are really attractive!" Then, they repeat it to make sure I've received the message.

"Thank you," I say loud enough for my fellow pedestrians to hear, but not the women, hundreds of feet up Route 9 by the time I have the words out. "I work hard."

The guy beside me, in an unseasonable t-shirt and khaki shorts, snickers.

Beaming, I tell Amber, who heard it as well as I did, "They said I was attractive."

"Oh," she said in that flat way wives do, pricking one's inflating ego. "Your blacks don't match."

I look down. They look black enough to me, but she does have perfect color vision. I'm sure that includes the gradations of solid black.

"They match enough at forty miles."

I do not often feel physically attractive. I am not immune to ways in which I am appealing, but most of these are invisible at even twenty miles an hour. I am a marvelous writer. I am entertaining and sweet. I care for people. I can be a charming scamp. I have a curious knowledge base, which can make me fun at the right sort of parties if people would get around to inviting me.

The best I usually hear is that I look too young to be the age I insist I am. I can point out an aspect or two of my body that should immediately attest to my being a man in his early forties. However, judging wholly on my face and physique, I have heard as young as my late twenties from people who are sure I am lying to them for some inexplicable reason.

I look better in the mirror than in photographs. Perhaps some inherent living dimensionality in a looking glass contrasted with the difficulty of being frozen in some awkward moment lips half parted and eyes mid-blink. Who can't say the same? Even my early morning reflection usually trumps a posed shot.

Amber finds me attractive beyond what is required of her as my spouse. I have to add that she often tells me I am attractive when I have dressed up a little. In my natural state -- which she sees much more often -- she may likewise be immune to my more outward charms, whatever these may be. I am a gift better given wrapped.

I've been assured that my eyes and lips are top-notch. I suppose they are acceptable for lovers of blue and pink -- as we've covered, my color vision may lack nuance -- but one doesn't want to pin all of one's hopes on those colors, even in buying for a baby shower. My skin must be acceptable enough that I can be mistaken from the right angle for someone much younger, which I credit to having been boring: no drinking, smoking, or drugs, as well as keeping on a hat in sunlight. As for my body? I exercise daily, though more for my mental than physical health (along with appeasing my Fitbit). I will not be asked to post for a saucy calendar soon. I would appreciate a long discussion with my hair follicles, ordering them to reorients away from some places and toward others. I have a decent mental map of the scars I can see easily in a mirror or directly, but a few sources have told me that chicks dig scars. (I do not know if "So, I accidentally slammed my hand through a pane of glass, and a fragment sliced my thumb" or "My brother hit me in the eye with a rubber tomahawk" is getting anyone hot.)

I can grant that my attractiveness wouldn't do me any practical good. I have the committed love of a fantastic person. I am healthy. I tend toward happiness outside the digs of mental illness. Who would I be attracting, and to what end? I suspect my being a cutie wouldn't sell many more books. But who doesn't want to be catcalled simply for standing on a street corner?

last watched: Freaks and Geeks
reading: The Stupidest Angel