Today, On a Very Special DLOG

Fair warning...today's post is not meant for the fellas. Instead, I want to address a serious topic with regards to women's health issues. I know it's not a popular topic, and I will completely understand if all the guys want to call it quits right here. In fact, I'll even give you something better to do to make up for leaving you out today. Here: The 7 unintentionally perverted toys that will ruin your children. Enjoy.

Now then, for the women, I would like to discuss the serious issue of chronic kidney disease, and how it can effect women's health in ways that haven't previously been considered. According to recent research, chronic kidney disease can be involved with various gynecological health issue that may not have been thought about before. Why am I talking about this here? Honestly, just to ensure that all the guys stopped reading at the first paragraph, maybe the second sentence of the second paragraph tops. If you really want to read about that stuff, follow the link above. Bob knows I don't want to talk about it.

Okay, so this weekend saw a combination of events that caused a reaction in me that, while not unheard of, is unusual. See, since election night I haven't gotten to catch up on my sleep at all, and have actually had a couple of rough nights on top of it. Throw in a couple of drinks (followed by a couple of drinks), and Saturday night found me in an emotionally unstable state. My lovely wife and I settled in to watch Sex and the City in our living room, and she snuggled up to me, and this is key, so she wasn't actually facing me in any way.

This last part, it seems, is the deciding factor to what I'm about to confess. At several points during the movie, I cried. It wasn't for any of the typically acceptable man reasons either. I had not been shot or received any kind of flesh wound. None of my immediate family had perished (although if action movies have taught me anything, it's that the loss of your immediate family is never met with tears, but rather a blind rage that leads to a complicated and bloody path of revenge fueled destruction). It wasn't even the loss of a pet (which, as a cat owner, is not actually a publicly acceptable excuse for man-tears).

Instead, I was crying for the reasons one might expect from such a film. My eyes watered when Carrie went all the way across to New York so Miranda wouldn't be sitting around alone on New Year's Eve. I actually had tears running down my face when Miranda and Steve met each other on the Brooklyn Bridge after determining that they did in fact want to be married and get over all of the problems they had been having. There were waterworks, too, when someone pooped their pants. (Okay, that time I was laughing, but it's bathroom humor. What do you want from me?)

What's fascinating is that I realized that, had we been sitting in a different way so that my lovely wife and I would have been facing each other, it wouldn't have happened. I'm not sure why. It's not like she's going to make fun of me, or call me a big sissy or anything (at least I don't think she would - she's still wonderfully unpredictable, and frankly I still haven't recovered from the dreaded wedgy of '99 indecent, of which nothing more will ever be said), but I'm sure I would have stifled the urge to cry had my face been visible. Bizarre.

I guess it's so ingrained in me that men aren't supposed to show emotion at stuff like that that even in the exhaustion and whiskey fueled state I was in, I glanced to make sure no one was looking before I discretely wiped my face on my sleeve. (What? That's what sweatshirts are for.) I mean, you always hear about how women want men who are sensitive, but as it was once explained to me, that doesn't mean women want a man who cries, they want a man who comforts them when they do. So even though I know that it wouldn't have bothered her, I still couldn't have cried if she would have been watching. Not sure what to make of that, or if there is a lesson in all of this for me, but there it is.

Now let's all hope the guys skipped this one - between not knowing how football is played and still not having seen 300, I'm already dangerously close to having my man card revoked.