Masculinity

I rarely feel macho. When I was in high school, I played Magic the Gathering. I played the Star Wars roleplaying game , the one with paper, dice, and imagination. After high school I started a band , but even that didn't help the matter much. Despite what Kid Rock would have you believe, playing music isn't exactly the chick magnet that you'd think, which is not to imply "babe catching" as a motive for being in a band. I'm irreparably nerdy and I'm uncertain that any amount of Axe Body Spray can offset the fact that I own approximately four hundred trade paperbacks , which I methodically alphabetize and admire.

None of this is said to imply that my masculinity never bares its head. It does all of the time, but only in the most absurd circumstances. When I lived in Denver, Colorado, I walked past the Platte River on an almost daily basis. Having lived my entire life in close proximity to the Ohio River , I was a bit offended at the notion that the Platte would be referred to as a river. I was absolutely prepared to battle over this. I could piss across the Platte at it's deepest points. I felt like Crocodile Dundee . You call this a river , here's a river . Then I would teleport everyone in my vicinity to Louisville and they would cry at the sight of a proper river, not this bullshit estuary that minnows scoff at. I would then shotgun a PBR , crush the can on my head, and throw it at the nerd who dared pretend like the Platte was anything more than the creek that Louisville threw away. End fantasy.

A more current example would be my aversion to Dungeons and Dragons . In the nerd hierarchy, the one that exists only in my head, D&D is almost the nerdiest, just barely being edged out by the legion of Warhammer virgins that spend their weekends painting figurines. At least, the Warhammer virgins can take solace in not being this guy. Again, I feel the inclination to spike something, and jump a monster truck over weaker cars . It's inexplicable why I would even care, but I still kind of do. I still kind of want to throw food at D&D nerds, I'm looking at you Connor Bell , and then laugh at them while they're cleaning up. I abstain though, because I'm a grown up.

Most recently, I've been obsessed with filling up my iPod . It's one of the big, 160gb deals, and so far, after digitizing all of my musical collection, putting some of my wife's collection on there (but not all, because I have distinguished taste and all), and scouring the internet for good music blogs, I still have 97gb's to go. I will fill you up iPod, you'd better believe it. I realize that how perverse it seems to submit to the challenge of filling something up and I'm certain something Freudian is going on here, but I can't shake it. This is my masculinity people. I have to fill up this goddamned iPod or I may be less of a man. I'm not sure how, but I know with absolute certainty that it's true.

What is wrong with my brain to cause me to give a ratshit why any of this would matter? I imagine that most men are provoked into machismo for their athletic or sexual prowess, over their ability to fix things, or their ability to build things, but I just can't seem to be bothered with any of that. I just want to crush a beer can on my head over my iPod or my choice of nerd entertainment. It defies logic and I know it, but I rarely feel an emotion that I can't identify, and I don't know what to do with it other than to acknowledge it. As I a friend said yesterday, it's not a problem if you celebrate it, right? I'm inclined to think so. Since I haven't suplexed any larpers , I guess I've got enough restraint to just cope with it, without a support group for nerds-who-are-marginally-less-nerdy-than-other-nerds. I've seen a woman naked before, in real life, and without any exchange of money, so I guess I'm doing alright.