Harmonic Convergence Of Manliness

Well, what better way to spend my last day of nearly two months of unemployment (yes, I've been hired!; start tomorrow) than reclaiming my manhood and getting to work? After nearly fifty years of experiencing it, about all I can say concerning what it means to be a man is that I stand up (for the time being) to pee and have to shave my face every thirty-six hours or so. But something tells me the periodic fits of whimpering, "What am I gonna do?" that I've endured the past several weeks do not make a man a man. And so I'm grateful that to get me back into the swing of this manhood thing, I undertook and successfully completed two very macho endeavors today: mowing the lawn and putting up Christmas lights.

Now stop, think about that for a second, all of you who live in climates where winter is truly winter. On the same day I mowed the lawn (for the last time in at least four months, I assume), I also put up Christmas lights (in season, mind you, not like some foolish people I know who light up their premises from December until, well, the next December). How many times in a man's life in a city like Cleveland is this ever possible? A post-Thanksgiving light putting up and grass mowing? I daresay it's a first for me and quite probably the last. What a day for manliness! I agree wholeheartedly with Henry Rollins who said, albeit sarcastically, but then he's from California and doesn't know about such things, "You're such a man when you're putting up the Christmas lights." And for a colorblind man who had a scary encounter with electricity when just a wee lad (plugging in a Christmas wreath, I'll have you know) so that every plugging and unplugging of cords ever since has been a seemingly near-death experience, putting up Christmas lights doesn't come easy.

But I did it all: lawn neatly trimmed and ready for four months of snow, bushes festooned with colorful (non-blinking, the only kind) lights. I feel so proud and good I'm going to go out and celebrate by doing some spitting and looking for some things to nail together. Then I can sleep like a man and wake up and (finally) go out and earn some bacon.