It is hot. I’m sweating like Donald Sterling trying to start an NBA team in Ferguson, MO.

Burger King is phasing out their new Satisfries, French Fries that are 25% less calories and fat. Apparently they just weren’t healthy enough for those nutrition freaks who frequent Burger King.

A group of women in California, are pushing for pole-dancing to become an Olympic sport. Now women can win an Olympic medal while putting themselves through medical school.

“Let’s Be Cops” opened pretty well at the box office this weekend. OK, maybe “Lets Be Cops” didn’t do so well in Ferguson, MO., but otherwise it did OK.

My Transitional Journey

Many of you may not know about my journey growing up. Yes, I was born a nerd-boy, but all my life I knew something was different. While my grade school friends and playmates wanted to hang out in the basement and play board games, I wanted to go outside and get muddy.

So I began a lifetime transition from a nerd-boy to a man’s man. 

Somewhere around 6^th grade, I was playing trumpet in the band and my friends wanted me to try out for the school play. But deep down inside I knew I wanted to knock over other man’s men on the football field and then date the cheerleaders. My intense attraction to leggy blondes and brunette girls began when I was just 13.

The transition was not easy. Toys had to be abandoned and replaced with sporting goods. My parents, thankfully, were very supportive. Many friends were lost along the way, especially Jamie, the little dude from down the street, who, when we played Daniel Boone, always insisted on being one of the women folk captured by the Cherokees. (Later, I think Jamie made a different journey of his own)

It was at 16 when I made the full transition from nerd-boy to a man’s man. Now, it seeemed, I was officially a proud member of the non-transgender community. Or, as we like to call it: the hyper-gender community.  

The change wasn’t always easy. Yes, there were times as a teenager when I lapsed and I caught myself watching “The Sonny and Cher Show.” Or when I wanted to build a tasteful, yet modest bungalow out of Legos.

My transition from nerd-boy to man’s man became official my Freshman year in high school when I went to a track party, drank four Old Style beers and made-out with Rick Zachery’s buxom date, Judy. Judy, she of the incredibly soft, brown hair and the  easily removed grey cashmere sweater and the strawberry lip-gloss. Ahhh, Judyyyyy.

Anyway . . .

This is not meant to be a joke at the expense of transgenders. On the contrary. Even making my minor transition from a wimpy nerd-boy to a jock, or hyper-gender, took guts and courage. The guts and courage it would take to make a much bigger change is mind-boggling.

Remember, a rising tide lifts all boats. This tides/boats metaphor has no application to what I am saying, I just really like it. 

Now that I am a grown-ass family man, I find it easier to make small transitions back to my inner, well, less of a man’s man. Now I cook with frenetic enthusiasm that includes being a stickler for presentation.  And I can cry during rom-coms. Truth be told, when I hunker down and cuddle my puppy, Wally, the resultant high-pitched baby-talk that emits could, as my dad used to say, make a buzzard puke. 

Not man-manly to say the least. 

No, I still can’t dance to save my sorry tuchus, and decorating of any kind is a mystery to me, but that’s OK. I’m fine with my limitations as a hyper-gender man’s man.

Whatever transitions you want to make, I hope you have the guts to make them because life is too short not to. A journey, by definition, starts at one place and ends someplace else. Everyone has to take their own journey.