I’m not wearing suits anymore.

I’m sorry, I’ve had it.

This was a record hot summer for both the entire Northeast of the United States and New York City in particular.  I’ve spent most of it wiping my forehead, adjusting the coat I was carrying under my arm and throwing away $100 dress shirts that my back soaked through on the way to meetings, conferences and whatever else I’ve had to traipse across Manhattan for.  Not to mention the three flights of stairs up to the LIRR platform each morning and the twice-daily trek horizontally across Midtown to and from the office.  And the steamy underground filth-caverns of Penn Station.  And everything else.  It’s just been absolutely absurd, I’ve licked more salt off my lips than the margarita quality control guy at TGI Friday’s.

I don’t mention this to you in search of any kind of sympathy – many of you are enduring the same torture right alongside me and others have their own grueling tales of two-hour traffic jams and all sorts of ridiculous bus routes and ferry voyages. And some of you “work from home,” in which case you can kiss my ass.

No, I relate these hardships to you as pretense for what I’d really like to convey: I’m not wearing suits anymore.  At least not until October 1st.

I tell you this now so that if we have a meeting of some kind, you don’t take it personally if I show up in shirtsleeves and an open collar.  Oh yes, there will rarely be ties either, in fact there will never be ties.  Did you happen to catch Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan on 60 Minutes this Sunday?  Tieless!  Both of them!  FDR rolled in his grave and the Brooks Brothers, down in the fourth circle of hell, had to pinch each other so massive was their disbelief.  Not to mention all these Silicon Valley guys who show up on The Street to dump their IPO trash on us while wearing hoodies with blazers over them and a pair of royal blue Pumas.

If the Presidential and Vice Presidential candidates – from the Republican party no less! – are not going to wear suits and ties, neither am I.  If the nouveau riche digerati are going to dress like assistant skateboarding instructors, I should probably be allowed to wear jeans and a button-down shirt on a Friday.

Please don’t take it as a sign of ambivalence toward whatever it is we are meeting to discuss or as a lack of respect.  It is neither of these things.  It’s just that, well, if you’re judging me based on how many layers of tweed shit I’m wearing in the middle of August, we probably aren’t on the same page anyway.  You know, about life and priorities and outward appearances and character versus flash and all the other things that we should be aligned on.

So no, I won’t be in a suit for the rest of the summer.  If we meet, I hope you can see past that.