A Revelation AND On Relationships or The Bear Whisperer, not in any particular order

I've been asked to be a special stunt blogger because your regularly scheduled author is officially on a break. That she has asked me to fill the temporary void of her hiatus is both honoring for me and head-scratching for you. Who is this guy? That's right. I'm just a guy. A guy like any other. A guy like no other. For I am the Bear Whisperer.

Now, our hostess has asked me to write about relationships. And because I got lucky once, she thinks I can do it again. This is why you never press your bets. But I'll try it and see where this strange journey takes us. Enlightenment? I think not. Ten minutes closer to quitting time? Oui.

The first thing you need to understand is that men are essentially just bears in pants. We're straight-forward. We're easy to understand. We're basic. We would live in a cave if that cave had cable and a couch. We don't examine our bodies for flaws. We don't have pillows, soap or towels that are only for guests. We take pleasure in the success (and failure) of all men everywhere. We identify with our teams more than our own emotions. And if you try to make sense of why we cried when Bobby Bowden finally won a national championship or Cal Ripken retired but not at our Mother's funeral, you're just going to make yourself nuts.

I'm no savant. I'm no shaman. I'm not offering any more insight into the traditional male psyche than you could get if you just bought them a beer and started asking the right questions. But if you'll trying to ask those questions in the last 5 minutes of a sporting event or with the phrase "we need to talk." No good can come from that.

Second, we understand that your goal in life is to make us love you. But even more important than that, we understand that you want us to tell you we love you. We do love you, we really do. But we don't want to have to be like two generals launching missiles who turn the keys simultaneously. You know we love you. We just told you two hours ago. What did you do in the interim--cheat on me or hit your head? Did you forget already? Write it down for the sake of sweet baby jebus.

But in making us love you, you want us to change. Marriage is an institution not a reformatory. And relationships are like a sweet little bird that you hold gently in your cupped hands. Sometimes it flies free and high and beautifully. And sometimes you want to bite its head off. And when you run around trying to catch a little bird in your hands, you wind up with poop on your hands and no bird.

A successful relationship is when you finally meet that person you want to drive crazy for the rest of your life. You know how it is. That look she gives when you're shopping that says "Set the electronic device down and move slowly toward the door or I'm going to kill you." That look when you see two people who obviously shouldn't procreate. That look when you meow in public. That look when he dances in front of her friends. That look when she does karaoke and doesn't need the lyrics for anything in the Manilow catalog. That look that says she gets you and you get her and man aren't all these other people morons for not getting it.

You'll eventually get that look. And you can get that look even if you have ankles that aren't perfect or fuzzy eyebrows or low cheekbones or breasts that are too big. Bears don't care about that stuff.

Just don't ask us bears to think about giving you that look. You'll get it when you come over with pizza and beer. It'll be because we're looking at you and not because we're secretly checking the box to see if you ordered from the right place. Now get over here and cuddle on the couch because you're blocking the game and it's practically kick off for crying out loud. And you know we enjoy the game more when you're watching it with us too. So quit asking who that guy is already.

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Can you not see why I e-love this guy already? That's right; I e-adore you, TO.

In other news, a girl can't feel this good about herself and writing and her crazy ass peers at a place like BlogHer and not come back to blogging. Like soon.

See you in a few, wonderful readers.