To MEN IN BLACK everywhere, HAPPY NEW YEAR

Tonight's the night that will usher in 2011. It will be an odd year. I will be putting on my Tuxedo along with millions of other men so that we can stand neutrally beside our wives who will immediately go home to change if any other woman in the ballroom has on the same dress. I have a natural resistance to wearing the "uniform" of the night, though I have worn real uniforms for many years in one capacity or another. Removing one's individuality on purpose so as to blend in with ALL the other males and a few females in the room...same fabric, color, tie, shoes, seems wrong unless you are going out to kill the enemy. Isn't it the MALE peacock (the female is a peahen) that has all the colorful plumage?

Real uniforms have medals, multicolored ribbons, and sashes, bars and stars and stripes of gold. The dress versions are often blue and red. And yet here we are, on the cusp of a NEW YEAR, and I will be going into the special place in my closet where I keep my black wool tuxedo, white shirt, black tie, and shiny black patent leather shoes. It will look exactly like every other guy there. Sure some will be rentals, and mine is an Armani which I bought for my daughter's wedding a few years back because it was, in comparison to other expenses of the wedding, a "rounding error." Despite the expensive varieties of tuxedos, from Kiton, Brioni, and others, it would take a haberdasher from Saville Row, or the average prowling divorcee to tell the difference.

So tonight, even though the invitation says "Black" tie, I will chose one of another color (so long as it does not "clash" with whatever the Kitty finally decides to wear). Speaking of the Kitty, I will be dressed and downstairs watching TV waiting for her to finally begin the "trunk show" of her closet. "Which looks better...this or this? and Which shoes etc.?" Eventually, once our bedroom looks like someone lobbed in a grenade, and I hear the clop-clop-clop down our oak stairs of her size 5 1/2 Manolos, I will know that soon we will be on our way, just in time for the last 5 minutes of the cocktail hour. She will be gorgeous in something that I will say "Is that new?" And she will say " No, I wore it at the Schmendrake wedding, don't you remember?" We will leave in her car because I can't stand to hand mine over to a sweaty teenage valet who has been running back and forth all night. Then I get in the driver's seat in my wool tuxedo and stick to the seat, while the Kitty sits in the passenger side and tells me to turn up the heat since the transparent wrap she brought to cover her bare shoulders is not enough, "Can I borrow your jacket?" Giorgio takes a brief trip to the dry cleaners the next day, then returns to my closet where he will await his turn to once again blend in with all the other tuxedoes at the next Black-Tie event. Happy New Year.