Da-da's Listening To...

Waitaminute... Da-da IS a big woman! Well, maybe he's just big boned.

What Serves as "Manly" These Days?

Now that The Rapture has come and gone, it's time to tackle the tough questions, like: what's the post-post-modern definition of "manly" now, anyway? Da-da has said for years (well before best-selling books on the subject) that men are the new women. Men have become so pathetically sensitive that they cry at the thought of a soiled canape, hug anything within reach, tell their life stories at the drop of a chromosome, pine for design, yearn for That Perfect Font (which is Courier, hello?), turn horribly tragic poetry into horribly tragic "art" foisted on Tumblr between crying jags, and stay at home to raise the children while wearing feckless tie-dye and blogging about it (hey).

Confounding this is the new-and-improved truth: women are the new men, even without the italics. They're all tough and sexy and cool, heavily armed zombie killers climbing that corporate glass ceiling and taking everyone prisoner while rock climbing and spelunking -- and looking HOT doing it, ow. What really passes for manly these days? WOMEN. But that's a different point that leaves Da-da looking for a new font family.

So what passes for manly these days -- for men? To Da-da's boss (ze wife, or Ma-ma to you), manly merely means taking out the trash and keeping the kitchen clean, as well as tolerating the slow, quantum parenting death of a million errands, a billion tinytown tantrums, and a quadrillion kid-meal explosions. To Da-da, manly means... talking about yourself in the third person? No. Um, it means... ok, he's forgotten what it means. What was he saying? Oh. Like any unsung hero, DA-DA DOESN'T CARE ONE WAY OR ANOTHER WHAT IT MEANS. Indifference? Yes, INDIFFERENCE. That's MANLY, right? No, not really, but that taco-meme is already wrapped and bagged and passed through the drive-thru window of your mind, where it will give you some initial digestive problems, but won't be life threatening... at least not directly. You're welcome, here's your change. Time for that celebratory creme de menthe... wait... what? Oh, right. Have to take the trash out first. Crap.

Manliness starts with three remotes, taming a possessed cat, and chugging
a tumbler of creme de menthe after a hard day in the Mr. Mom trenches. Does to. Shut up.

Oh. Now Da-da understands. Perhaps too much.

I am NOT an Animal... I'm a Human Da-da

Every time Da-da picks up the monkeys from the kid gulag or gymnastics or their snake husbandry lessons, Da-da get these LOOKS from other moms. Females, that is. REAL ONES. Remember them? Da-da doesn't. Anyway, the moms always give Da-da and the few other Mr. Moms the trout eye. Why the shunnage? Da-da's not a stalker, a pedophile, a weirdo (not like those other freak-bastards). Sure, he has a beard and hasn't bathed in a week and has a crazed gleam in his eye from all of DARPA's midnight rDNA harvests, but he's really very sweet, sorta like Julie Andrews, but with a penis. And a complex understanding of Boolean disintermediation. Sympatica, hermana! And so what if Da-da skips and sings, "Madame Butterfly" arias all the time. Lots of people skip.

Ex. 1. Manliness.

Still, [sniff], despite our common ground, the white-blood-cell moms continue to treat Da-da like an invading virus. C'mon, ladies! Let's commiserate! Let's swap recipes! Make JELL-O! Da-da will even let you wear his Mr. Mom uniform:

Ex. 2. SUPER Manliness.

Hey, wait... maybe Da-da's kryptonite because he's so so HOT. Ah. Yes. That must be it.