I've done nothing today. How deflating. It's 5:30. I had planned to be already on the road and on my way to the Mr. New Jersey Leather Contest. (All those men in leather, and no irony at all, because this is New Jersey, and we don't allow that here.) Dang. Well, I shaved my head, so I just need to take my dog Prosper for a walk, grab something to eat, leather up, and hit the road. Hopefully I'll miss only the lamest of fantasies.

Tomorrow, I hope, will be a more productive day. Church, followed by the GMSMA Novices SIG, the gym (for the first time in two weeks), food, then the Dugout.

What to wear to the Mr. NJ Leather festivities? I'm leaning towards my David Menkes orange-trimmed black leather flight suit. Or, maybe I'll wear my new motorcycle leathers that I got at Inferno. Or, the standard jeans and vest. Or, maybe go with the proto-look I'm developing, involving leather combined with space-age outdoors wear. The jumping off point there was this shirt I got. It zips up the front, it's form fitting (made for cycling), has a sort of nehru jacket collar. I look great in it. While I was out in Portland, I wore that with my leather pants to go to the drug store to get sleeping stuff to knock me out during my flight home and had to guys in leather jackets almost swallowing their cigars. It's kind of cool, because it looks like sort of hip, euro-trash street wear, but sends all the right signals to... uh... the men I want to signal.

The mail today brought some really, really bad news. My renewal notice for my car insurance. They want $5700 from me. For a year. How horrifying is that? I was hit by a car service guy on December 1, 1998, on my way to work. (I hate Flatbush Avenue. Hate hate hate. Do I make myself clear? I would live down a manhole in a sewer in Manhattan before I would move back to Brooklyn.) When I got insurance last year, I was deemed a really bad driver and was placed in a special really bad drivers' pool for insurance purposes. Last November, a week after I got my brand spanking new 2002 Jeep Liberty, I was again hit by a car service guy. Two accidents within the course of three years was what put me in the really bad drivers' pool. But, since the Brooklyn accident is now four years in the past, surely I can get out of the really bad drivers pool. I hope so. That, coupled with the paycut I'm taking, will leave me in abject poverty. I don't deal well with that. This is further incentive to move to Manhattan. In New York, I can re-sign with the wonderful folks at GEICO. New Jersey's auto insurance rates are just insane. The details elude me, but I think it has something to do with the fact that New Jersey has the greatest concentration of lawyers anywhere on the planet. This is why we need a Republican majority in the Senate, so George W. Bush can finally institute the tort law reforms he promised as a candidate. Anyway, let me get a move on.