Gardening, farming, glass eating, and gender equality

It’s been like three days since I’ve had anything even remotely resembling an idea of something interesting to write about. I hate coming back to this, but here it is, another one of these “I don’t know what to write about,” pieces. It’s like, OK, I’ll sit down to write. And the page is blank. And there’s plenty of time before I have to go to work. So just don’t freak out, just take a deep breath, look out the window for a second. You know what? Maybe I should water my plants. I have a garden. A small garden. Well, I guess it’s not the smallest garden. It’s big enough. I don’t like calling it gardening though, because I feel like I’m being robbed of my masculinity just a little bit. So I call it farming. Because what’s manlier than farming? Nothing. Well, maybe knife-fighting. Or alligator wrestling. Or motorcycle stunt driving. Or glass eating. And I’m not saying that women can’t do any of the above professions. I’m just talking about gender stereotypes. But now that I mention it, I don’t think I’ve ever met any female glass-eaters. But now that I mention that, I can’t really remember meeting any male glass-eaters either. I’m trying to think if I’ve ever even seen anybody eat glass, or if I’ve only heard about it maybe, or perhaps I saw something on TV once, but that’s not really saying much, because you can see anything on TV, and for me to make these sweeping generalizations about the genders based on a fleeting idea about some manly glass-eater who may or may not exist, well, this is probably an all-time high for me in terms of ignorance, in terms of gender insensitivity, and so I’d like to offer an apology, a brief apology, brief but sincere, to women, but not just to women, but to men also, to all humans really, because in running my mouth about accepted roles for men or for women, I’ve done a disservice to both men and women. But more of a disservice to women. In fact, I’m going to make a pledge right now, to myself, to the world, to my future unborn daughter, sweetie, when you grow up, I want you to eat as much glass as possible. I’m going to be right there behind you, every step of the way, I’ll get you regular shards of glass, but I’ll also go to the beach and look for really cool green pieces of sea glass that have been polished and smoothed down by years of slowly getting caressed by individual grains of sand. You’re going to be the best glass eater in human history honey, and you’ll show the world what glass eating is really all about, and I’ll have showed you, so I’ll indirectly have showed the world, and by that point in my life, hopefully I’ll have made up for my completely unacceptable remarks above about manliness and farming and … you know what? I should just come clean, a blanket admission. I have a garden. I enjoy gardening. There, I said it. You know what? I actually don’t think I’m really comfortable with that, I don’t think I’m ready for that big of a leap. I’d like to backtrack a little, if I could still refer to it as farming, I hope that’s OK with everybody. I still stand by all of the things that I wrote about gender equality and acceptance, but there’s just a part of me that still cringes inside when I picture myself telling people that I like to garden. What’s next? Gardening gloves? A nice handcrafted gardening spade? With the handle having the same matching pattern as my gardening gloves? And I may as well buy a gardening apron while I’m at it, you know, just make sure my clothes don’t get all dirty. And a nice floppy hat, because seriously, if I’m spending all of that time outside, well I don’t want to get too much sun, I don’t want to suffer any more sun damage than I already have. Yeah, you see, this isn’t really rolling off the tongue the same way farming does. I can’t see myself gardening, but I can totally see myself farming. I’m picturing myself in nothing but overalls, one strap undone, no shirt on underneath, and I’m barefoot, and I’m not even using any tools, I’m just plowing the soil with my bare hands, and I’m covered in sweat and my fingernails are blackened with dirt, and I’m not even harvesting vegetables, I’m growing steaks. They’re coming right out of the ground and landing straight on the grill. And then I’ll pick them right off the coals, again, no tools for the grilling either, and I’ll just chow down, no utensils, no napkins, no plates, just me, overalls, and a perfectly cooked steak. Alright, maybe a little salt and pepper, just a little, just for some seasoning, just to really make those natural flavors pop.