I got this from my sister-in-law this morning and had to share it. There are some expletives starred out (*) so if there are kids reading you might want them to not read this entire post. You have been warned.
Here is a prime example of "Men are from Mars, Women Are from Venus" offered by an English professor from the University of Phoenix.
The professor told his class one day, "Today we will experiment with a new form called the tandem story. The process is simple. Each person will pair off with the person sitting to his /her immediate right. As homework tonight, one of you will write the first paragraph of a short story. You will e-mail your partner that paragraph and send another copy to me. The partner will read the first paragraph and then add another paragraph to the story and send it back, also emailing a copy to me. The first person will then add a third paragraph and so on back-and-forth. Remember to re-read what has been written each time in order to keep the story coherent. There is to be absolutely no talking outside the e-mails and anything you wish to say must be written in the e-mail. The story is over when both agree a conclusion has been reached."
*** The following story was actually turned in by two of his students, Rebecca and Gary. ***
THE STORY
(1st paragraph by Rebecca)
At first, Laurie couldn't decide which kind of tea she wanted. The chamomile, which used to be her favorite for lazy evenings at home, now reminded her too much of Carl, who once said, in happier times, that he liked chamomile. But she felt she must now, at all costs, keep her mind off Carl. His possessiveness was suffocating, and if she thought about him too much her asthma started acting up again. So chamomile was out of the question.
(2nd paragraph by Gary)
Meanwhile, Advance Sergeant Carl Harris, leader of the attack squadron now in orbit over Skylon 4, had more important things to think about than the neuroses of an air-headed asthmatic bimbo named Laurie with whom he had spent one sweaty night over a year ago. "A.S. Harris to Geostation 17", he said into his transgalactic communicator. "Polar orbit established. No sign of resistance so far…" But before he could sign off, a bluish particle beam flashed out of nowhere and blasted a hole through his ship's cargo bay. The jolt from the direct hit sent him flying out of his seat and across the cockpit.
(Rebecca)
He bumped his head and died almost immediately, but not before he felt one last pang of regret for psychologically brutalizing the one woman who had ever had feelings for him. Soon afterwards, Earth stopped its pointless hostilities towards the peaceful farmers of Skylon 4. "Congress Passes Law Permanently Abolishing War and Space Travel" Laurie read in her newspaper one morning. The news simultaneously excited her and bored her. She stared out the window, dreaming of her youth, when the days had passed unhurriedly and carefree, with no newspaper to read, no television to distract her from her sense of innocent wonder at all the beautiful things around her. "Why must one lose one's innocence to become a woman?" she wondered wistfully.
(Gary)
Little did she know, but she had less than 10 seconds to live. Thousands of miles above the city, the Anudrian mothership launched the first of its lithium fusion missiles. The dim-witted wimpy peaceniks who pushed the Unilateral Aerospace disarmament Treaty through Congress had left Earth a defenseless target for the hostile alien empires who were determined to destroy the human race. Within two hours after the passage of the treaty, Anudrian ships were on course for Earth, carrying enough firepower to pulverize the entire planet. With no one to stop them, they swiftly initiated their diabolical plan. The lithium fusion missile entered the atmosphere unimpeded. The President, in his top-secret mobile submarine headquarters on the ocean floor off the coast of Guam, felt the inconceivably massive explosion, which vaporized poor, stupid Laurie.
(Rebecca)
This is absurd. I refuse to continue this mockery of literature. My writing partner is a violent, chauvinistic semi-literate adolescent.
(Gary)
Yeah? Well, my writing partner is a self-centered tedious neurotic ! whose attempts at writing are the literary equivalent of Valium. …"Oh, shall I have chamomile tea? Or shall I have some other sort of F**KING TEA???! Oh no, WHAT AM I to do? I'm such an air headed bimbo who reads too many Danielle Steele novels!"
(Rebecca)
A**hole.
(Gary)
Bitch.
(Rebecca)
F**K YOU – YOU NEANDERTHAL!
(Gary)
Go drink some tea – whore.
(TEACHER)
A+ …….I really liked this one.
I could totally see myself having this same interaction with my wife. In fact I could see just about any man having this same interaction with just about any woman over email. Even moreso if they were dating.
Oh that I would be a man and do the things that men do.
Robert Gonzalez
I have so wanted, as of late, to stop being a wimpy, cowardly, weak male and become the strong, dominating, adventurous, aggressive man that I was created to be. And for the most part I have begun this transformation, authoritatively, taking back what I should never have surrendered to begin with. And I have found that with this step toward exercising my authority, dominance (as a person, not as a man over someone) and power that I have also been faced with challenges designed to poster me to to that very thing.
What I mean by that is that I have felt the need recently to display my strength to myself. My physical strength, the stuff that comes out of the broad shoulders, large legs and muscles that God gave me. As I man I have been created strong and I believe that is for a purpose. But a purpose in design is nothing more than an idea if it is not put into practice. It is my intention to put my design into practice as often as I can and with that shatter the notion of what I used to be when being a man was not a priority to me.
To that end I have decided recently that I needed to begin the handle the management of the finance in our home. If you have ever read any of my more recent entries you would know that our finances are pretty unstable right now. There are a number of reasons for this and to be honest, I do not see Sandi handling the finances as a reason at all. I would say that any real man would take responsibility for ceding that role to his wife.
Now hear me as well as you can... I am not saying a woman cannot handle finances. Lord knows there are plenty of men out there that have put their women necessarily into the position of financial manager of the home. But I have to say that even though my wife is skilled at handling a checkbook and several bank accounts, it is my calling as the head of our home to handle that, very often stressful, responsibility. I am the hunter, the gatherer, the conqueror, the killer. My wife is the preparer, the tender, the handler of the kill. Together we are the consumers of both my work and hers. I believe it is my role to ensure that my wife has all of the tools the she needs to do her work adequately and effectively. It is my place as a builder to build her a platform upon which she can live out her calling.
To that end I am now in charge of management of the finances. Not blindly and in complete isolation. To the contrary, we are both involved intimately in the finances, we both know where we stand daily and we both are aware of what is coming up. The difference now is that I am making the hard, sometimes painful decisions that were really entirely too heavy a burden for my wife to carry for so long and she is supporting me in that.
So after church this morning my wife gave me some time alone to get the finances and accounting log in order and then we talked about it. I had to come to some pretty hard decisions and some pretty inevitable conclusions, but it felt good to do something I am supposed to do. Even Sandi told me that she is feeling better with this change. How can you not when you begin to fulfill your purpose?
Later on during the day I was working on something for a client. Lord knows we need the money something awful and this project has gotten so sidetracked by things in my personal life and the busy-ness of my client. It needs to be done, both the work and the project, and I need to get it done. I am a worker and builder after all. This is what I do. And I was doing it. And something came up. Something that needed my manliness at that moment.
My two older daughters' bunk beds needed to be put together.
One of the funnest things a man can do is use tools of any sort and physical strength to forcible manipulate those tools. We love that kind of stuff. So much so that some men go into trades that require that daily. My friend Ray is a prime example. He is millwright. He gets to break stuff, build stuff, work on stuff, work with tools, get dirty, get bloody knuckles... the full gamut, daily. I write web applications. I still get to use tools, but not the kind that put the feel of cold steel into a burly hand and demand that the steel be wielded. So when I get that chance I run to it.
I was able to take apart my two daughters' beds and reassemble them in a way that allowed me to stack them. The I had to assemble the rails and what not so that Sarah doesn't fall on her face in the middle of the night. Then, the coup de grâce was that I had to coordinate the lifting of the upper bed onto the lower bed and move the assembled bunk into position on the wall that we decided to put it on. Outstanding. I haven't worked like that, physically, in a long time. And it felt great.
After this I was a little tired (from waking up early primarily, I will explain that in a day or two) and from all the other activity this weekend. But it felt good to use my physique for its designed purpose. And it felt good to be tired because of physical exertion. I needed that. In more ways than one.
As I have described in recent posts I am on a bit of a quest to find out who I am as a man. I discovered recently that I have abandoned my masculinity in favor of peace and harmony over the last few years and that has led to much angst and issue in my home and family.
Today I discovered something else about me that I hope to improve upon as I develop my masculinity: I all too easily will put a promise that I make aside for my own benefit. That is cowardly and shows no sign of fortitude at all.
Case in point: last night I told my wife I was going to go to Target at lunch and pick up the movie Chicago so we could watch it tonight. You know what I did at lunch? I went to lunch.
I know it doesn't seem like much but to my wife it was huge. And I suppose it should have been. I said I was going to do something and I didn't do it. I took my manhood and staked it on a promise that I blew off. All that does for me as a man is show that my words means nothing. Any of you men out there ever done something like this?
I am at a point right now where doing what I say I am going to do is vital. I have to be able to build that trust back up that was lost over all these years of complacent maleness. Not coming through is not going to do that. In fact, it will do the exact opposite. There are few things as important as a man as being accountable. When you stake your reputation on a word you have got to come through on that word. Period.
I hope there is a lesson to learn here. I am still learning and I full on expect to learn the hard way a few more times before I get it right. But it is important to take things like this seriously. Your identity as a man, and mine too, depend on that.
