hello sleepy head

Believe it or not, I woke up in the middle of the night to find this guy looking in my window. I was a little surprised when he let me take his picture and then ask him a few questions such as: what are you doing? Why are you looking in my window? And where did you get that ladder? Just kidding, that didn't happen, but I thought that it would be funny to say that it did, and then tell you that it didn't.

On an irritating note rather than a funny one, the students that I referenced in an earlier post felt the need to educate me on what stalking is. In my mind the dude in this picture is a stalker: the robust nature, the mask, the smoke, the chest hair, and, yes, the incredibly sexy glasses. My students, on the other hand, see stalking as something small and meaningless as making eye contact for more than half a second.

Trying to be intellectual, I quoted one of my brothers saying, “the only thing that separates stalkers from a love interest is whether or not you like them back. If you love the guy or girl that hides in the bushes just outside your window then it is romantic, but if you don't love them then it is creepy and you call the fuzz.” Not so in the mind my students. Anything that goes beyond one text message and a simple hello is stalking.

So in other words, if this guy in this picture can keep himself bound to one text message everything else about him is perfectly legit. I still say, “cover up the curly hair on the chest. I don't want to see them.”

i am a man

This is one of those examples of a male who never has to wonder if he is a man or not. He can go home and confidently say to the mirror, “I am a man.” Whereas the rest of us slightly moot males have to look into our own mirrors and seriously consider if we are men or girls. I have never ridden a horse through a burning swathe of flame. Just seeing the picture of someone else doing it causes me to wonder how much that must hurt. I have also never chased down a criminal, shot a six shooter, or had lasers come out of my eyes. If those things are required for manhood I need to get my game on along with my leotards.

The unfortunate thing about this whole situation is that I am a dad. I love my kids, but to them I must pretend to be a man. One day, I imagine that I will have to do manly things in order to save myself in the eyes of my children. I will have to tear a weapon out of the hands of a criminal; I will have to eat fire, walk over coals, take three rounds of a .358 to the chest and still live; I will need to walk into a room and somehow or other make every woman present along with a few of the men faint with passion. Sadly all of these manly things are very daunting tasks if you stop to think about it.

My first impulse when faced with manliness is to say, “well, I have a job,” but women have those, too. I also like to eat greasy cheeseburgers from America's finest fast food chains, but even children can tackle those. So really what is left for me to do that is manly enough to impress my children and to encourage them to be men? I think that perhaps wearing flower-patterned shirts in public is the only real option left to me.