Tag Archives: manliness

Cigar

Cigar: (n) a cylinder of tobacco rolled in tobacco leaves for smoking.

I work very hard at being a man.

I thought having a penis and a beard would be sufficient, but turns out, both of those things are too common to set you apart from the herd.

“Manly things done by manly men in a manly way.”

What in the hell is that?

But you shouldn’t question it too much, because that brings up the possibility of you being gay, which is not a bad thing anymore, but might connote that you are “soft.”

You know what soft is, right? Neither team wants you.

Women think you’re nice for conversation and men keep wondering when you’re going to finally turn gay.

That’s the way I feel about cigars.

I get offered cigars a lot–and by a lot, I mean more than once. People who smoke cigars are historians. They not only know all the details of the little brown tube, but where it began, who smokes this particular brand, how illegal they are, and an absolute plethora of adjectives to describe the smoothness of the taste.

In my lifetime I have smoked two cigarettes and three cigars. (Yay! Cigars win!) Anyway, I can’t truthfully tell you that I adequately partook of either experience. I did not inhale. Just like President Clinton, my morality suddenly clicked in right before taking a deep breath. So the smoke remained in my mouth, barely escaping into my nose–where it stung really, really, really bad. I struggled not to choke. (God, please don’t let me choke! I’m sitting in front of someone I want to impress and I don’t want to be choking on the $54 cigar he just presented to me.)

Yet it was unpleasant.

For two days, no matter how much teeth brushing or mouth-washing I did, cigar residue clung to the inside cave of my mouth.

I have nothing against cigarettes or cigars from an ethical or moral position, but if it’s going to be a symbol of manliness, please mark me down: “N for neuter.”

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Anima

dictionary with letter A

Anima: (adj) Jung’s term for the female part of a man’s personality; the part of a person that is directed inward and is in touch with the subconscious.

I grow bored with a culture that gyrates between religious conviction and the pursuit of science.

Recently when I suggested to a friend that God, Science and Nature were the same living Creator, he became vehement at the assertion that his deity of intellect could be permeated by any sort of religious terminology whatsoever.

But if you just look at it logically, whether from a Biblical perspective or a scientific one, both of them agree that men and women are not really that different.

We focus on subtleties and we tout the cultural conflicts that are created by our own miserable manifestations, but when you get right down to it and you’re looking across the room at a man and a woman, it isn’t exactly the typical vision of the Great Hunter carrying his spear with his woman trailing two steps behind, hauling the papoose.

Actually, we’re so much alike.

I remember the first time I went on the road with two women in a music group and we ate at a Mexican buffet and came back to lounge and watch television. One of the young ladies ripped off one of the longest, most intense farts I had ever heard in my life.

I was startled–and not just by the volume and change of odor in the atmosphere. The fact that it came from a female body was foreign to me, against all the training I had received about the delicacy of the female form.

Likewise, when I was in a locker room with a friend who had broken his toe during football practice, they took off his sock, and when he saw the bent digit pointing eastward instead of north, he started to cry, worrying about what his mom would say and whether he would be able to put on his shoe to go to the dance on Friday night. This was our rough and tumble fullback, who suddenly, right in front of my eyes, turned into Cinderella.

Yes, I feel that the more we try to be male or female instead of embracing our humanity, the more ridiculous we become. I think in future generations they will laugh at our insistence on roll-playing.

Do I have a woman living inside me? God, I sure hope so. There is so much I like about women–so even to have a few ounces of their poundage of personality would be terrific.

Do I believe there is manliness living inside the women I know?

Absolutely.

So I don’t know whether these attributes are really male and female, but rather, just human qualities that are earth-friendly.

Therefore, whatever Jung came up with is okay with me as long as it’s not portrayed as an aberration, but rather, a true discovery of how much we honor one another by possessing portions of one another.

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