So many things to catch you up on here. First off, I’m starting a new series about the outdoors*, which I haven’t come up a name for yet, but we’re getting there. Then there’s the San Diego Marathon, which I didn’t officially run this weekend. There’s the Fresno State baseball team, which officially ended its run this weekend. Also, I’m considering an entire blog on the new Mentos gum that is both exhilarating and disappointing. In that order.

*It is, without doubt, a shame to live where I live and not experience the outdoors every week. I go outdoors all the time; a jog, the walk from the parking lot to the front door, but in central California that doesn’t cut it. I can start my car and be in Yosemite National Park within an hour. In Sequoia National Park in 80 minutes. In Kings Canyon National Park within … I’m really not sure how long it takes to get to Kings Canyon because along the way I seem to stop at every single lookout point, and there are roughly 120 of those per mile. And, there are giant sequoias that strain your neck and waterfalls at which to gasp and a gift shop with these goofy hats that have bear heads on them and is there anything funnier than watching foreigners try on goofy hats? The entire drive is heart-stopping. I made my way to Kings Canyon a couple weeks ago and thought I was in the park for three hours before I even got to the entrance sign. Seriously, where can you drive in and out of a glorious canyon, snowy peaks surrounding you, and you aren’t even to the national park yet? South Dakota, enjoy your corn palace.

A lot has been happening the last two weeks. A couple trips. (You can read a few of my thoughts on my recent Kings Canyon day-trip here in Wednesday’s column.) I’m trying to prepare for my brother’s wedding — COMING: SUMMER OF 2009 – of which I am involved to whatever extent a Best Man is involved. This is my first attempt at Best Man, after two somewhat successful roles as groomsman. I’ve been building my resume. First, I stood on the very end for my buddy Dave in some little town in Wisconsin. Then second-from-the-end for my buddy Mike in Seattle. I figure it’s a seniority type thing. Experience is factored in. You’ve got to pay your dues to be Best Man, and moving from second-from-the-end to in-charge-of-a-ring is a big step for me.  I’m nervous, especially considering my mother and the groom call every three or four days to pass along the new and updated bachelor party rules. I think we were all hoping for some sort of vague “don’t do anything I wouldn’t do,” but no, there are specifics, the first being no Vegas. More specifics to come in an entirely exclusive wedding blog.

What I’m getting at, is we have a lot to talk about here, and I’ve been slacking a bit on the blogs, so let’s get to a topic I’ve long been interested in: Why do guys’ apartments always smell like a hint of sweaty jock strap? I know guys who haven’t worked out since the mandatory mile run in eighth grade and I know guys who compete in ultra marathons, and their apartments all smell the same. No amount of cleaning removes this smell, not even actual cleaning, let alone guy cleaning, which is to throw all loose items into a closet, arrange magazines on the coffee table and wipe the counters with Windex and a bath towel.

It doesn’t make sense. Soap scum, now that makes sense. We use soap. Soap is scummy. We don’t clean our showers, because it’s not an area of the house that involves a TV or food. Thus, all guys’ bathrooms have soap scum. There is a direct cause and effect. But this apartment smell doesn’t make sense, because it doesn’t go away and doesn’t wash off. Logic would say that it’s some sort of body-produced odor, but when you pass a male on the street, you don’t smell it. Occasionally, we even smell nice. And yet you could walk into a nice-smelling guy’s apartment, and it would have that same musty odor that leaks into couches and bread and hammers away at your soul. Women have for years referred to this phenomenon as “Boy Smell.” I knew girls in college who would only let their boyfriends stay over a maximum of two nights a week for fear Boy Smell would take over their apartments and they’d have to move mid-semester.

I once tried those plug-in air fresheners, which worked a bit like adding fresh strawberries to motor oil and then microwaving it for 7 or 8 minutes.

Living with female roommates always seemed like a good idea in your 20s — hey, they’ve have friends, and eventually they’ll come over, right? — but now I see how dangerous that was. A female could, theoretically, run over a male roommate’s car with a federally-funded armored tank and never get in trouble. She wouldn’t even need a lawyer, just simply walk into court with a Tupperware container, pry off the lid and say, “This air came from our apartment. HE made it smell like this.”  Any jury would not only equit, but require her to also run over his bigscreen TV and personal computer. Literally, a criminal case would morph directly into a civil one, the prosecution and defense would switch tables, and they would start awarding punative damages.

Of course I’m writing this from an apartment where three males live. That could be the deadly fumes talking.

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