October 01, 2003
A Man's Mind
I ran across an interesting article [link] today, attempting to explain the differences between the way men and women think. Armed with this proof, I immediately sent the article to my wife -- "See, there's a reason for why I behave the way I do!"
She immediately fired back a email to me, discounting the research -- "You notice the book was written by a man. I'm not sure how much weight I can place on this."
Some days are like that around here, especially when discussing Mars/Venus issues.
When I total the genders of all of the inhabitants of this household, three humans, two canine, two avian, and one very disinterested feline, I come up with the score:
Females - 4, Males - 4
Parity, of a sort. However, Eddie (the sheltie) isn't quite normal, even in canine terms. Ozzy ( the cockatiel) is content to sit on his perch and bug the hell out of the rest of us when he's not tormenting Fresno (the cat), who really doesn't give a damn about anything except his next meal, his nightly back scratch and how he can gain access to the bird cage to shut up Ozzy. But when I total up the genders of those of us who really count, I come up with the score:
Females - 2, Males - 1
But I'm not even sure if that's the official score, since one of those inhabitants is a teenage girl who probably thinks she should count double.
Witness if you will a dungeon, made out of wood, brick, and Beanie Babies that stretch to infinity. The dungeon has an inmate: Mark J. Woods. For the record, let it be known that Mark J. Woods is a faithful, loving husband and father. Now witness if you will a man's mind shriveling under the pressures of life. Have the bills been paid on time, are the repairs to the castle current, has the trash been placed on the curb in time for pickup, was the subscription to Teen People mailed on time, did he notice the latest modification to his wife's hair style, did he put the seat down on the toilet...
Yes, sometimes life feels a bit like something out of the Twilight Zone.
I'm not sure if I'll ever understand how the female mind works. All of the logical constructs that I use in my career are useless at home, and most of the time I just wing it and hope for the best. I can appreciate the article when it says that all I want to do after a day at work is relax for a while and surf the channels on the TV. It doesn't help to have two birds squawking and two dogs expending all their manic energy in my presence.
So, what am I thinking about most of the time. Well it's not about babes and cars, that's for sure. Probably pretty mundane stuff the majority of the time but I, like my brothers, am capable of "deep thoughts" from time to time -- it's not all about hunting wooly mammoths and discovering fire, or castigating the Star's management for trading Darrian Hatcher. Men and women were just meant to be different.
You could look it up...
