30 for 30 on the 30th Part 3

If Part 2 was a cheesy romantic-comedy version of what 'manhood' means, then today's is the passive aggressive Facebook status of a girl recently dumped.

Thing I should have: Respect for women as equals and not just as heads attached to boobs.

Thing I should do: Give up my seat.

These two actually sum up the duality of being a white collar redneck fairly well - balancing a very vocal support for women's rights while also being raised to treat a woman like a lady, when that definition is often at conflict with the word 'equal.' 

I know women don't think it's that difficult, but balancing respect and chivalry is a delicate task - especially when women themselves don't always agree on the two.  Women can't agree on which pack out of Ryan Gosling's six they love the most - how can they believe they all have the same definition of chivalry and respect? 

I can't tell you how many times I've gotten a dirty look for opening a door for a woman - or how many times I've gotten a dirty look for not opening a door for a woman. 

Something one woman finds charming can be taken as offensive to another.  Is giving up a seat to a woman considered a courteous act?  Because lord knows I've gotten, 'I can handle standing, thank you very much,' as a response.

So do I have respect for women as equals?  Or course, and I 'give up' the driver's seat to my wife as often as I take the wheel myself - even if I try to still open the door for her. 

But her head still looks great attached to those boobs. 

Maybe I'll just give myself a half-point for this one. 

30 for 30 on the 30th Part 2

Continuing with the series of things I'm supposed to do and things I should have by my 30th, I'm tackling both of today's items at one time:

Thing I should have: A tasty signature dish I can whip up for a date.

Thing I should do: Drive an Amazing Car.

These seems like crazy superficial things made more for a dating profile or romantic comedy than a bucket list.  I highly doubt I'll be on my death bed and worried about either of these - unless I woke up some day as Matthew McConaughey in 'Failure To Launch.' Even then the only reason I'd be on my deathbed is because I'd want to kill myself.

If I had a nice car and could cook a good meal I'd be a PERFECT candidate to play the charming guy that just wasn't quite right for the quirky sitcom girl.

Which is great - but I'm turning 30, not trying to date Zooey Deschanel.

Although that would make a great item to include on a list of 'Things To Do before You Turn 30.'

 

30 for 30 on the 30th

Well I turn 30 on June 30th. 

Of course, I drive home from my office job to my house in the suburbs to eat dinner with my wife and give my baby a bath.  So I've actually been 30 for a few years now.

Either way - we love round numbers in this country so I'm going to use this as an excuse to celebrate with a new blog series:

30 for 30 on the 30th.

I'm going to reference two articles -

30 Things a Guy Should Do Before He Turns 30

and

30 Things Every Man Should Have by 30

So I guess technically it is 60 for 30 on the 30th.  But you know what?  Shut up.

Thing I should do before 30 - 'Dance with a stranger in a strange land.'

Oh I've done this.  I was at a piano bar and got pulled on stage by a cougar to dance to 'Paradise by the Dashboard Light.' 

Now, I'm not new to cougar attacks.  There is normally some playful flirting, a joke or two, and it's over. 

But that damn song is 8 minutes and 29 seconds along.

I have enough dance moves for maybe, MAYBE, 23 seconds of dancing.  And that's if I go through all my moves twice.  This was like a marathon.  I got down.  I shimmied.  I threw my hands in the air so many times, I don't care to count.  And that was all just the first verse.  Not to mention the awkward juxtaposition of dancing with a cougar to a song about a high school girl losing her virginity. 

Thing I should have before 30 - 'A skin care regimen.'

No chance.  I have a strict 'No Showering On the Weekends' rule already.  And at this point my showers are a quick once-over the arm pits and leg pit before I get out. 

Here's the thing.  I have a beard.  It is constantly growing, which means it is constantly getting younger.  You fools are all worried about your skin aging - well screw you, my face is like a week old.  If anything, I need my face to get older.  My beard is immature right now, laughing at fart jokes and thinking girls have cooties.  Instead of using some stupid face cream, I'm going to rub a Playboy all over my face and let it smoke cigarettes.

And I'll warn it about the types of girls that go to piano bars. 

XXX Rated

Porn is pretty weird, right?

It is a billion dollar industry based around watching other people do something fun.

Think about it – what other purely experiential event is so heavily viewed by others?  We don’t watch people get a massage to relax.  I can’t watch a video of a dude eating a steak and feel full.

I mean, I get that there is nudity involved – but if you want to see nudity do a Google image search for LITERALLY ANYTHING. 

What do we, as a society, enjoy about it?  “Oh man, look at those two having such a great time.  Look at how happy they are.”   

It’s like looking at a friend’s wedding photos.  I can see they’re happy without seeing their wedding NIGHT photos.

Pet Names

That's my cat.

Or, that's the area I assume my cat inhibits.

You see, my cat is so uniformly black, he is nearly impossible to capture in a photograph.  He pretty much looks like a shadow with eyes.  If he didn't try to trip me all the time, I might assume he didn't exist at all.  Like my cat was actually a rip in the universe; a blackhole portal to another dimension.

But think about how great that would be?

He would be a walking, purring, self-bathing rip in our entire reality as currently understood.  Imagine having a cat that, instead of throwing up matted-up hairballs, threw up debris from far away galaxies. 

Any morning when running down the stairs, he could twist between my legs and cause me to step on him - but since 'him' is actually a vortex that sucks objects from Earth and projects them into a world that has no resemblance of our rules of dimensions and physics, I'd instantly be distorted into some un-human form.  Possibly that of a cat.

So there's a chance that my cat sucks in Earth-bound objects and spits them back out as cats.  My cat could be the genesis for all cats.  He is sort of the Abraham of cats - where to understand the number of cats that are direct descendants, you'd have to count all of the grains of sand on the beach and stars in the sky.

But those damn yellow eyes also make him look like something much more evil than a simple tear in the universe.  If he were nothing more than a portal or a vehicle, he wouldn't be able to emit emotion.  Looking at his sulking, all-black figure and being caught in the glare of those yellow eyes, it's impossible not to feel something haunting and...human?

Human in that something so dark, so dark to be almost unable to be viewed beyond simply his blackness, feels like some sort of a choice.  And choice, as a burden and a gift, belongs solely to humans.

So there's also a chance that my cat is the physical representation of human evil.  He exists solely through the hatred emitted by us as a species.  He is a Dementor or a Ringwraith, or something that non-nerds understand. 

Which is fairly believable.  We'll go long stretches without seeing any evidence of the cat being in the house - even after an exhaustive search.  Perhaps he uses the forces of evil to escape the house and do the Devil's bidding.  Maybe he is using us as nothing more than a host - like some sort of parasite, his only attachment to us is as a cover for his true passion: evil.  He may have chosen us, that as middle-class, white-collar, suburban parents, my wife and I provide no strong pull towards good or bad.  Our existence is so insignificant it poses no need to be destroyed through evil.  He can live under our roof with no questions of his true motives, and no need to destroy the host.

But with either scenario - is there really any need for question or concern?  If he is a portal to another galaxy, it really impacts my life very little.  The threat of being disfigured and distorted into cat form would be more threatening if I wasn't already exposed to the life of a cat; which is to say, a life of leisure.

If he is a physical incarnation of natural human evil?  My only concern is guilt.  Should I pose any threat, I wouldn't be here to write this blog.  Housing a pure and functioning act of evil under my roof is obviously not an honorable act, but neither is dying; at least not in the case of trying to defeat an evil greater than my mere suburban hands could injure.  So while looking the other way as I protect something evil is despicable, martyrdom for the sake of martyrdom is hardly a sign of courage.  Besides, I have a family to think about.

Which brings me back to the original point.

That's my cat.

The extra-curriculars that surround my cat really don't matter to me.  I cannot control them and they don't impact my life.  My cat might not be a cat - or even be real.  But I fed him cat food this morning.  I'll scoop his litter tonight.  He's a part of my house whether he's a cat or something completely different than a cat. 

So, to me...

That's my cat.