Tuesday, July 10, 2007

Feeling Like Haggis

Feelings for men are a lot like cooked Haggis. Innards and offal from a sheep or pig are boiled in its stomach. You never know what you’re eating: whether it’s intestine, liver or lung. We’ve come up with words to help us define feelings, but men aren’t good at identifying or using those words. So feelings for men are like Haggis indigestion.

Scotland sometimes makes me feel like I am trying to ingest and digest boiled animal offal. Some parts are exciting – maybe that’s like the liver. Some parts are exotic - maybe that’s like the intestine. And some parts are frightening – maybe that’s like the lung. All together though, it’s spicy, exotic, and strange. And, really, I haven’t a clue what I am biting off. After all, I’ve never tried Haggis. And like many things, I probably wouldn’t really know how I felt about it.

I deal with the frightening parts, which are plenty, the same way I deal with most fears. I just don’t think about them. I don’t remember what Psychology 101 told me about this coping mechanism and whether it was appropriate or not, but it seems to work well enough for me. Although I do get a tinge of indigestion occasionally when a piece of lung or liver surfaces that I wasn’t expecting. Overall, though, I have to think an expedition into the unknown is pretty awesome. It’s a lot more daring than eating a plate of steaming sheep organs.

When I was younger, I always wanted to be that guy who could pick up at the drop of a hat and move on down the road. However, as many roads as I roamed, I always ended back at home. That may not happen this time. But then again, you never know what Haggis tastes like, unless you dig in. Of courses, I’ll order the vegetarian variety…