Sat 3-21-2009 I Can’t Just Gather, I Need to Hunt!

Sat 3-21-2009 I Can’t Just Gather, I Need to Hunt!

I met quite a few stay-at-home dads at my cousin’s house recently and I think it’s a noble, difficult thing to do. I’m not sure I could do it. Many people think that being in the workplace is just about a paycheck, but in reality it has as much to do with your sense of personal identity and sense of self worth as it does with money. Friendships form at work and you are known as much by the work you do as by any other characteristic people would use to describe you.
Those who have won the lottery find this out when they realize that all their friends are still going to work every day and they feel weird, alienated and out of the loop. At the same time that these friends of theirs are envying their wealth, they may be envying the worker for having the same feelings of belonging that they no longer possess. They aren’t in the same situation as their friends anymore.
This sense of dislocation has nothing to do with the money they used to make at their old job. They no longer know who they are, where they belong or who their true friends really are. The same is also true f the modern day househusband or hausmeister as my German peeps might say. As much as stay-at-home dads can adjust to their new role over time, it still seems to go against the grain of the life they had known up to that point. They were the hunter who went out with confidence and determination to gather goods and services for their families with whatever skills they have developed over the years.
Now the man in the household is picking berries by the roadside while the Mrs. is wielding a machete in the urban jungle. She’s hacking a trail to find new sources of food, water, clothing and shelter while the hubby tends the home fires and she fends off the attentions of horny male co-workers.
All of this becomes a huge disconnect from the way things were. I think the idea of a huntress out in the jungle is a pretty exciting thing. She bares her teeth and claws during the workday, scrapping and scraping. At night, she goes home to snuggle with the cubs and takes turns protecting the den from intruders and outsiders. For guys, the female cop, the lady construction worker or a cute, feminine delivery driver is a huge thumbs-up. A good looking girl in typically male roles is intriguing indeed. Like the bikini-clad, tanned beauty wielding a machine gun, pinup style!

Tue 4-14-2009 No Regrets

Tue 4-14-2009 No Regrets

My friend Nano says she’s going to get another tattoo. It’s going to be some sort of scattered star pattern or something. She wants to cover up another tattoo she had done on her stomach when she thought she and her fiancée were actually going to get married. A pretty good idea, I thought. I wouldn’t be too excited about a girl who had some other dude’s name tattooed all over her body – especially if it was on her butt and it said: “this ass belongs to Dave.”

Sun 3-29-2009 This World Of Ours

Sun 3-29-2009 This World Of Ours

I’ve got good news and I’ve got bad news. The bad news – let’s get it out of the way – is that we come into this world and we go out of it alone. The good news is that along the way, the lucky ones of us will meet and be around people who will make our lives better and more interesting than they would have been otherwise. These people make the days go by faster, the days seem like less of a drag and we find ourselves trying to become better people for our friends.
I have a few friends like this. From time to time, they really surprise me with the things they do and say. The down side to this, of course, is that I then feel like I have to do something good to surprise them. This is the most positive version of one-upsmanship I’ve ever heard of. As long as it makes me a better person, I guess it’s all to the good.

Mon 3-23-2009 Ducks in the pool.

Mon 3-23-2009 Ducks in the pool.

I was driving around today and saw something floating in the community pool on my normal route. I went over to get closer look and saw that it was a family of ducks swimming around in the Condo Association pool. Then as I was leaving the complex, I noticed a poster with a picture of a little white rat on it that was lost by its owner. Her name was Nuffle Bunny and apparently the little white and beige girl-rat has medical issues. Don’t we all? The next day, I saw a hawk flying around the complex about 50 feet off the deck. Things don’t look so good for Nuffle Bunny.

Sun 3-22 -2009 You Don’t Know What It’s Like…

Sun 3-22 -2009 You Don’t Know What It’s Like…

My little friend Nano was telling me some things the other evening when we were at a happy hour celebration for our co-worker Tamara. She’s a beautiful, petite Italian girl who seems to always find the wrong guys. I was saying something about how she can walk up to any guy or even just look at him and she could leave the bar with that guy. She said, “It’s really not as easy as you think!” I was like, yeah right, guys are much easier for girls to talk to than girls are for guys to approach. It’s like apples and mangoes. We’ve been trained to believe that if we hit on a girl, we are being cheesy or douchey. By hit on, I mean saying hi to her.
If a girl shows a guy that she’s interested in him, it goes pretty easily from there. With girls, when you talk to them, they like to give you twenty questions, put you through the paces, measure you up, check your wallet, ask about your job and career and find out if your family has money they could inherit one day. I told my therapist this theory a few months ago and she thought I was getting a little too cynical and jaded.

Sun 3-22-2009 Happy Hour! Show Me The Beer!

Sun 3-22-2009 Happy Hour! Show Me The Beer!

How can you not love a show called Happy Hour? It involves an attractive, busty female host; it discusses business, investing, money and the stock market. There are frequent bouts of heated discussion and arguments (just like Thanksgiving with the family). There is a segment where the host walks around and plays 20 questions with strangers in the bar to ask them what kind of business they’re in and what brings them to New York City. Did I mention it takes place in a bar right near Wall Street, the financial capital of the world? Oh yeah – it takes place in a bar!! If the title hadn’t already been taken, they could have called it The Man Show.

Thu 4-2-2009 Crash is Back, Back Again!

Thu 4-2-2009 Crash is Back, Back Again!

There’s a little, slightly embarrassing ritual I engage in pretty much every day as soon as I get home from work. I dance around in my living room while holding my cat Crash and we dance to the tune of Shady’s Back from Eminem. In the name of full disclosure, I just thought you should know.