The Captain Is Out to Lunch

One of my heroes has died. I had the good fortune of seeing Carlin perform live just over a year ago in Pittsburgh. As someone who spent his formative years plopped in front of a television set, I feel as though I could meter out my childhood in George Carlin HBO specials. He was profound, prolific and honest. Goodbye, George.

I really struck a chord when I decided to speak up about my suit-shopping adventures. In fact, I can guarantee that if you walk into a room full of men and say, "I'm thinking about buying a suit," you will surely elicit a chorus of sympathetic groans. Now, when I walk into work, the nearly every member of the staff greets me with, "how's the suit hunt going?" or "did you decide to buy that suit from Men's Wearhouse?" in a tone usually reserved for the bereaved.

Well, I found my suit. I am now set to be the sharpest looking dude at the wedding next month. I picked up a charcoal grey Hugo Boss suit from Saks. I know what you're thinking. Wasn't that a little pricey? Not as pricey as you'd think.

All hail the suit sale!

Seriously, if you're in the NYC area and you're in the market for some nice duds, go check out the 7th floor at Saks. They've got stuff marked down over 60% off and it's real designer stuff, not the knock-off stuff and pushy staff you're going to find at a place like Men's Wearhouse.

Good god, I need to stop buying so much crap. More accurately, I need to stop needing to buy so much crap. I sit around thinking about budgets and and saving and blah blah blah and then--WHAM!--it's time to buy another Metro Card. WHAM!--I need a new pair of shoes.

My finances have been taking quite a beating in recent months. Now, the next wallop to the financial breadbasket is upon me: I need to buy a suit. My good friend Andy is getting married next month and he's asked me to do a reading during the ceremony (more on this later). This will surely be an occasion for something a bit more upscale than a pair of jeans and an ironic t-shirt.

When I tell people that I need to buy a suit, the usual reaction is, "You don't own a suit!?!"

Is it really shocking that a man-child such as myself doesn't own big boy clothes? The truth is, the last time I owned a suit was when I had to get one for my First Holy Communion. It was a navy blue number with gold buttons. I rocked a clip-on tie and haven't looked quite as dashing since.

So I started out by asking for advice from a colleague of mine who happens to be a men's fashion editor. He told me to relax and that all I would have to do is head over to see his friend at Saks who would set me up with a nice Hugo Boss suit... for approximately the amount of my monthly rent.

Back to the drawing board.

So I thought, screw it, I'm going to head down to Men's Wearhouse and let them sort it out for me. One day after work last week, I walked over to the Men's Wearhouse on Madison Avenue (that makes it classy, right?). Within five minutes, I was standing there in a Calvin Klein suit, the tailors chalking it up for alterations while the salesman began drawing up a bill. Up until this point, the only thing I had said to anyone in the store was, "I'm thinking about buying a suit."

I told the salesman that I was going to need to think about things for a bit. He tried to railroad me into putting money down on it, otherwise "somebody might take it before I come back." Please. If another 6'8" guy wants to walk in and buy that particular suit within 24 hours of me, he can have it. I made it out the door without spending a penny and with a promise from the salesman to hold the suit until the middle of the week.

Then I did what every man should do when he's attempting to buy expensive clothing: I asked a female friend to come with me when I went back.

A couple days later, my friend LT came with me. I tried on the suit and the look of horror on her face said all I needed to know. I tried on a couple more suits under her supervision to no avail. The salesman, used to dealing with clueless lunkheads like me, kept promising that this or that could be altered to make the suit into what I was looking for, but LT was unflappable. LT is a Shopper. Unlike me, the oppressive overhead lighting doesn't sap her energy. It invigorates her. She doesn't have the impulse to climb into the middle of a clothing rack and hide. She's too busy looking for deals. She doesn't feel pathetically indebted to sales people the moment she walks in the door.

We are very, very different creatures.

The salesman knew he was no match and eventually wandered off while I changed back into my regular clothes.

That about brings us up to speed. I am still without a suit, but I'm heading out after work today for more grueling shopping.

First off, many thanks to everyone who has been inquiring about my well-being. Not to worry, I haven't flipped my lid or slipped into some depression spiral. I've just been super busy. I swear I'm going to try to get back on the ball here.

Financially, things have been at sort of an even keel for the last couple months. I haven't made much progress, but I haven't really dug myself in any deeper. I suppose things could be worse.

I joined a street hockey league here in New York and the season started a few weeks back. So far, it's been an awesome experience. It's nice to get out and run around in the sunshine and to expand my social sphere beyond people who work in my field. When you spend 99% of your time with your nose right up against a computer monitor, you tend to forget how much fun it can be to spend a day running around, chasing a little ball with a big stick.

Work has been going pretty well. I managed to round up a few freelance assignments in the past month or so, which means more clips in the ol' portfolio and who knows, maybe they'll even get around to paying me.

I still haven't gotten my economic stimulus payment.

I have become a somewhat prolific Twitterer. You can follow me here.

I threw a huge surprise party this past weekend for my roommate's birthday. There is a Mostly-SFW video of it here.

I was recently interviewed for a story in The Globe and Mail, Canada's national newspaper. I almost forgot it even happened. They called to interview me while I was really sick and I was all doped up on cold medicine and they never got back to me to let me know if the story was even going to run. Well, it did. And they, of course, failed to provide a single link to my blog. It's a good thing I'm fairly googleable (that's right, first search result! Take that, Bukowski!)

I think that's basically it. I hope life is treating all of you as well as it's treating me.

So my bad for not giving my blog the love it deserves. I swear, I'll be stumbling out of this Sudafed haze any day now. In the meantime, here's a funny finance video from our friends at CurrentTV.

Check out the Walletpop post about the Debtsy beta!

One of Marie Claire's bloggers, Sarah Wexler, posted about signing up for her company's 401k program last night.

I felt like a financial superhero just by agreeing to squirrel away 6% of my income. Yes, it would be a hit to my paycheck, but I’d be a noble, PB&J-eating, strong-ass woman, never to be reliant on some lame Sugar Daddy. Empowering? Hell yes. Despite the wildly fluctuating financial markets, it felt great to sign up, like pampering my finances with a nice glass of Sauvignon Blanc and a bubble bath.

Way to lead by example! Though I probably would've crafted a more tough guy metaphor, like "As I signed up for my company's 401k, I felt like John McClain and my financial future was one big, towering Nakatomi Plaza, filled to the brim with Eastern European terrorists. My retirement was my estranged wife, Holly. And that 401k? You guessed it. A pistol, cleverly duct-taped to my back. Yippee-kay-yay, Captain Finance."

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Previously: Marie Claire's Investment Diaries