Working out, Cowboys in my Kitchen, and the Douchasaur

I just lifted weights for the first time in *mumble mumble* years. I feel a little bit like my arms have been stretched out by the rack and then flogged by little people placed at two-inch intervals each wielding a variation of a cat-o-nine-tails. But, I can sit down without my thighs giving out so that’s a plus. We’ll see if that’s still the case tomorrow after doing legs.

I came home and was standing in the kitchen heating up my leftovers from Bucca di Beppo (because nothing accentuates a good work out like family style Italian food) and I looked to my right at our “Studs ‘n Spurs” calendar. It was a joke (sort of) but some days when I’m feeling particularly sad I find my spirits buoyed by the shirtless cowboy on my kitchen wall with his too, too tight jeans. As I gazed at Mr. September I was excited at first; July, my birthday month, had a model who if he was a day over eighteen I’m a super model. Other months have been pleasant, but for a calendar dedicated to studs wearing spurs we haven’t always been guaranteed studliness.

All of this is to say that when I gazed at Mr. September, shirtless and appropriately misted so as to appear wet and tired after a hard day’s cowboying I became aware of something ruining my delightful objectification. There was something nagging at the back of my head that this picture just wasn’t as hot as it ought to be, and that bothered me. Gleaming six pack abs? Check. Wet? Check. Pleasant face? Sort of. I narrowed my search and realized it was, in fact, his eyes that were ruining our little moment.

I know. Have a laugh. Mock me. Who looks at a “Studs ‘n Spurs” calendar and feels bereft because the EYES aren’t right? It’s sort of like anyone on the planet actually knowing what color Pamela Anderson’s eyes are. But here’s the thing--or at least, here’s what I’ve decided the thing to be. There is a certain amount of badassery that exists metaphysically. Part of it is attitude; a man walks into the room and thinks, subconsciously even, I can take anyone here. Not because his self worth is dependent upon his ability to take anyone there, and not even because it’s true. More, it’s the knowledge that if he had to he could protect himself, but he won’t have to because no one there is worth his time to fight with. No matter how assy they get he’ll just buy them a drink and go on about his business. Unless they piss him off.

Furthermore, that attitude needs to exude from every pore of his being. Some call it confidence or assurance of self, but I don’t think that quite captures the self possession I’m attempting to describe. More it’s the complete inability of this man to conceive that even if he gets his ass kicked, even if he gets laughed at, even if no one in the room is aware of what he could do to them, he won’t be beat. That’s badassery my friends.

Bringing this back around to Mr. Sept. I want, when I look at a picture of a shirtless, wet cowboy on my kitchen wall the knowledge that the character portrayed for that photograph (and it is a character, you don’t shave your chest if you’re a real cowboy) has the sort of badassery that makes genitals weep. I want John Wayne with a James Bond attitude. I don’t want some dude with a six pack in a pair of tight jeans that looks like the only thought he’s contemplated for longer than a moment was how awesome he is.

I hate it when my fantasies are so rudely destroyed by life’s refusal to be objectified.

But that brings us to the discovery of a new species known as the douchasaur. There will be a list of all the various types of douchasaurs, but I’m sorry to say my hot cowboy fantasy has been destroyed in no small part to the undeniable knowledge that Mr. Sept. is a douchasaurus. And yes, I know this because of the eyes.