So, about the pic…

‘Why not?’ I figured.

I had chosen a basic Blogger site template and I knew I wasn’t going to be messing around with the HTML too much. That being the case, a pic of yours truly would be the only thing that distinguished the Spin from countless other look-alike blogs out there. I must have something appropriate floating around on my hard drive, right?

Well, wrong, kind of. That proved harder than I had thought it would be. See, when you have an 18 month old and a digital camera, you tend to accumulate pics on your pc. Lots of pics. Lots and lots of pics. Unfortunately, (and unfortunate only for this particular case), they all tend to be of the same diminutive subject. And no way was he getting credit for this too…he’s talked about enough around here.

Undaunted, I opened up a folder my wife had downloaded, figuring there’d be a better chance of me in a picture if I wasn’t the one taking it. (Clever man, I.) There, wedged between gads of shoe and boot pics destined for ebay display, was the beaut you now see at the top-right corner of the Spin.

It wasn’t the first time I had seen that pic pop up on my monitor, but it was the first time that I had pulled it up. One night, several weeks earlier, I happened to catch my wife messing with it on the screen as she pounded away at the keyboard.

“What the heck are you doing with that?!?” I asked, peering over her shoulder. I recalled when she had taken the shot, popping in and snapping it as I exercised on my bike one evening.

“I like it.” She said. “I think it’s sexy.”

Clever reply. My brain almost bought in to the misdirecting ego feed when I realized that that answer wasn’t good enough. My wife never just sat at the computer to look at pictures. Surf the net? Ha! When she sits down at the keyboard, there is always a mission: store hours for Ikea, Directions to the nearest outlets, middle of the night transfers to paypal. (paypal? How presumptuous! You’re not my pal, buddy.)

Anyway, I tuned down the Right Said Fred playing in my head and continued the questioning.

“Thanks, but, uh, what are you doing with it?”

Turns out, the picture had some accompanying text: an application for Queer Eye for the Straight Guy. I’m guessing she had planned on telling me once the cameramen were on the way? It gets better.

Apparently -and rightly so- the application is supposed to be completed by the prospective ‘make-over-ee.’ (Make-Overy. That sounds emasculatory right there!) Anyway, so not only is she trying to get me on this show without asking me, but also going about it by skirting the rules and regulations devised by the show to prevent, I’m guessing, situations exactly like the example we have here! (Though I do admit to curiosity regarding the penalties assessed if a faux candidate is discovered after he makes the show. Do the ‘Queer Cops’ storm the set, muss your hair and whiz on the Tunisian Baked Lamb?)

Anyway, I argued the shady morality of the attempt with her for a while, knowing that logically it was a far more defensible approach than disproving I actually needed any assistance from the Queer Folk. I think she finally agreed, because that’s the last I heard of it. Of course, she could have sent it anyway and I may have just been rejected, which in and of itself would have been a good thing. So I had made my peace with the deal, until the picture surfaced again for the blog.

So, what was I talking about? Oh yeah, the pic! I used it for the blog because it shows me in action in two of my most prominent hobbies, exercise and video games. (yes, I’m playing a game in that pic, while riding an exercise bike. You won’t see me making that face doing anything else outside of the bathroom.) Family, thoughts, hobbies… that’s what I’m here to talk about, right?

Of course, there could be another reason for using that pic.

See what you’re missing, boys?