Domesticity

You've seen this type of person before -

At least on T.V. you have. The type who becomes unemployed and does some major soul searching with their new abundance of free time. This stint usually works out for a while, with the unemployed person achieving some degree of satisfaction from their personal leisure activities. Unfortunately, this “free time high” does not last. On T.V at least, the character soon reaches a tipping point and begins to spiral out of control.

Perhaps they become overwhelmed by their very own boredom. Perhaps, as I recently saw in an episode of Parks and Recreation, the character realizes how little they have actually accomplished in their tinkerings. In that episode, Ben, one of the main characters, is enthusiastically unemployed and spends his time creating a clay-mation movie. That is, until it dawns on him that three weeks of work has landed him only five seconds of (boring) clay-mation footage.

Obviously, This is one problem that I hope to avoid. I am thankful that I am living in real life, and not a Hollywood world where the twenty-two allotted minutes of screen time require a good deal of conflict. Basically, I want to avoid hearing the words: “Kevin. This is an intervention.”

You might guess from the title of this post what my unemployed tendencies have turned to. Cooking, Baking, Wedding Planning, etc. All very much included in the quote-unquote “domestic arts” I very much enjoy these kinds of things. It is exciting for me to pick out the various details of the wedding, from the colors to the registry items. It is exciting for me to eat bread that I have baked with my very own two hands (Thanks, Carla Histand for the excellent oatmeal bread recipe!)

While these things occupy a lot of my time, I hope and pray that I don't become obsessed. Naomi asserts that she could never become a “foodie,” but she thinks my personality is prone to foodie tendencies. Depending on how you look at it, a foodie is either a person who takes the time to select fresh and tasty food that was grown sustainably and locally, or a food snob who never eats anything processed and obsesses over food labels and ingredients. Obviously I'd rather become the first than the second. At least in Vermont, there's no danger of becoming the snobbiest foodie around.

Finally, you might wonder if I feel any degree of embarrassment or shame in doing these so-called domestic activities. As a man, I should be out doing the heavy lifting, right? Let me tell you what my friend Zach Metzler once told me. When Zach brought a sewing machine to college, I asked him about it. “Yeah,” he said, “I like to sew. I like to cook and clean as well as use power tools and fix stuff. My family taught me from early on that I should learn to do all sorts of things – both masculine and feminine – so that I'll never have to be dependent on no %*$&! woman!”

So yeah – I like to cook. However, I am rather fortunate to have a great fiancee to be co-dependent on. No matter how much I was taught to do dishes, that is one thing I really dislike doing. Lucky for me, Naomi would much rather wash a plate than prepare one. So it works out in the end.

That's it for today. Just let me know if you think I'm “spiraling” with my blog posts!

p.s. I also fixed the p-trap in the kitchen sink and am making plans to build a couch out of pallets. Not that I'm trying to prove my manliness or anything.