This post is brought to you by Mr. Handsome.
Throughout history, men have sought to answer the question “What does it mean to be a man?” They have fought battles, slain dragons, searched for treasure, and built castles. All to prove that they are manly men. In a society of desk jobs and padded office chairs, it can be more difficult to determine what it means to be a manly man. I have developed a simple answer: Just count how many tools he has.
The following is a story illustrating how a typical man shows his masculinity while talking about tools.
Last summer while we were packing our moving truck, I realized that we needed something to tie the boxes down. My friend stated in his deep manly voice, “I always carry premium industrial grade ratchet tie down straps in the back of my truck. Surely you have some of those?” Unfortunately I did not have any tie down straps, industrial grade or otherwise, but I wasn’t going to admit that, so I improvised. “Ummm of course,” I gulped. “It just so happens that they are in my other car, which is currently in the shop getting an oil change.”
“You take your car to the shop to change the oil?” He asked incredulously. “It only takes a wrench and a drip bucket to do it yourself. Surely you have those tools?”
“Well yes I have those,” I replied, rolling my eyes for emphasis. “It’s just that I tweaked my back last weekend riding bucking broncos and didn’t want to re-aggravate it while crawling under my car.”…
Most of you know that Mr. Handsome makes oil and acrylic paintings as a hobby. We have enjoyed traveling around the Nashville area to different art shows and town festivals to sell his works of art. He has also displayed his paintings at coffee shops and other venues across the city. He started with landscapes and has since branched out to a variety of other subjects, including musical instruments, ships, abstract paintings, animals, and skylines. And for Christmas, 
Until this summer, Mr. Handsome had been painting solely with oils for almost three years before starting to use acrylics. Initially, he called it “experimenting” because he expected to have many failures as he got the hang of it, but he didn’t, and even his first paintings turned out great. (If I had been the painter, the results would have been much different, let me tell you.)
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Mr. Handsome has been experimenting with abstract art this fall, as different art shows have different clientele with different tastes. Last week, we spent a few late nights in his “studio” creating paintings together as a couple. (His studio is a tiny room off our garage that is devoted to his painting endeavors. It has been very handy because in our previous apartments, he has had to paint in our living room or kitchen.)
