On the subject of domestication.

" You know Joe, you clean up real well". That is a quote I have heard several times in my life and it bothers me. I understand that it is meant as a complement. I get the idea that it is used as a flirtacious line at weddings and formal events. I get that is is not meant as an insult but, I have decided to take it as one. What am I, Pigpen? I am always relatively well groomed, well, at least showered off. I try not to stink too bad but I am a man and I do sweat and I have a very physical job. A job, wherein I get really dirty. Yet, every day after work, I go home and clean myself using hot water and a lather creating object some of you know of as soap. That is why I consider the afore mentioned line as an insult, to me it implies being dirty as a habit. I said this jokingly to a woman one day and she told me I just needed to be domesticated and then I would get used to it. Domesticated, me. I take exception to that as well. Domestic pets, domestic partners, domestic living, white picket fence and a mini-van... the American dream. That " you just need to be domesticated" comment really rang true in my mind. See I feel that I am about as domesticated as a man needs to be. I wash dirt off me, I mow my lawn, I crap in a toilet and, probably most important, I do not react to my urges to play smashy, smashy, brick face with people that get on my nerves as I meander through the city. Sure I still sleep on the floor, or under the table, now not so much because of a cave instinct but because I overdid it on the rye. And, yes, if a stranger enters my yard unannounced they are taking their concern for keeping their teeth and skin a tad haphazard. I am after all, a mammal and my space is mine, not yours, so stay the hell off of it unless I say otherwise. I think I am pretty tame though but, I am no family dog, nor am I a broken animal. Not as vicious as when I was young and angry at my balls for overdoing it on the testosterone but still, not the first person on someones "Let's piss this guy off list". I actually like the animalistic and savage side side of my nature and, truth be known, I believe that being kind of savage in the head is a boon to the enjoyment of the experience of life. After all, it wasn't until I realized that you can actually smell when a fight is going to happen, or a girl is turned on by you, or a turned on girl is about to try and fight you, that my life really perked up. Not until I started to truly embrace the more feral components of my psyche and shed many of the habits forced upon people by society, did I even become interesting to myself. Sitting in a tree on a cool summer evening, eyes closed, just smelling the world around you and listening for intruders and zombies, maybe werewolves, is a thing I have done since I was a child and I will not give up until I am buried, though the tree part gets harder every year. There are things we all do that are rooted to the days when we barely spoke in anything but grunts and refrigerators were but a pipe dream. Every year that passes these things are taken from us, most people deny they actually happen. Men walk through life broken and scared but accepted as civilized. This is domestication? They can have it. I will keep my ability to smell pheromones and my keen sense of peoples weak spots. I will not allow intruders into my cave, even if I am only renting it at the time. I will also not dance around a fire in the woods crying about my mother issues like an idiot, in a pathetic attempt to get in touch with my inner animal. I will imply sit in my tree and enjoy or hate whatever comes of the experience. I will, of course, do this with a rather fine snifter of Scotch, after all, I may be a bit of a barbarian but I am by no means a monster.