On How I Rode a Tractor, Had My First Bud Light, and Perhaps Burped

That I am a beard away of being a guy is a comment I hear often expressed in many different ways; sometimes intended as a compliment, sometimes as a Sibilla-esque insult. The concept has been there since the very moment I started planning strategy with my color coded plastic Indians at the time when most little girls are pining for an anatomically absurd Barbie.

I don't mean, in any way, to abjure on my womanly ways! I DO still posses some intrinsically feminine qualities such as the ability to understand unspoken word and feel empathy; the capability of effective leadership without manifest power; the appreciation for moisturizer, paired socks and twizzed eye-brows; the fatal attraction for anything that involves the word “chocolate” and/or “designer”; a higher threshold for mental and physical strain than at least 40% of the total population (which coincidentally bear penises); and an incurable tendency to instinctively baby sit cute creatures, kids, and kids of the taller type too.

YET, on the other plate of this gender stereotype balancing:...my ability for awe-ness at the sight of a power tool, a fire arm or a bundle of pretty colored cables; my morbid fascination for all exploiting, speeding, bleeding, camouflage-wearing, punching or boob-revealing input; my absolute exasperation with any communication style that invokes anything but direct, practical information for the task at hand and not a word more; my longing for the adrenaline hit of board meeting jungles and aimless physical challenges; and above all, my clinical tendency to drive around for hours guesstimating cardinal points instead of asking for directions...

In the light of this, you may be able to better appreciate my total state of glee with the latest manly man experience facilitated by Dan. Yesterday, I mowed 2 acres of grass in a big red shinny tractor...and I loved it! I topped the festivities with my first bud light in the most awesome honky-tonk hidden in the heart of freaking Crestwood, from all places. And perhaps, and just PERHAPS, in the intimacy of my car and overtaken by testosterone rushing through my veins, I MAY have uttered my first unrestrained burp worth calling it a such.

So ladies and gentlemen, transgender, plurisexual, pantalovers or experimenters, whatever you may choose to be today: If moral at all to this, my alternative way of psychotherapy, is that life is way more fun when you don't box yourself. Listen, or listen to me not, but it was an image worth the laugh, wasn't it?