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Today, I am doing something I have not done in some time: running the smoker. The Mrs. and I have two pork loins cooking in sweet hickory smoke over many hours today, and they promise to be quite tasty, indeed. My mouth already waters at the thought, in fact, and I wonder why it is that I have let so long pass between when I last did the work of smoking tasty, tasty meat and today. It is a thing I have long enjoyed doing, as I think I have attested in this webspace, one of the few out-of-door activities and "traditional" American masculinities I actively and explicitly enjoy (in the sense of "take direct pleasure from" rather than "benefit from," since I am aware that I experience significant privilege because I am a man).

This was pointed up yesterday as the Mrs., Ms. 8, my in-laws, and I went to Bricktown in the City of Thunder and puttered about. That puttering took us to an expansive outdoors store, one filled with hunting and fishing accoutrements, rifles and shotguns and poles and lures and jigs. I was bewildered by the display, confused by it in large part (except for the smoking and camp-cooking, with which I am familiar), and aware that it is not aimed at me (again, except for the grills). I am flatly not an outdoorsman, not a rugged individualist comfortable away from society and civilization, out in the woods with a knife and axe and rifle to make my way.

I do not want to fashion myself in such a way, as many so desire who shop at the outdoors store. (I have the sneaking suspicion that those who are such people without having to be fashioned are already out and away, or they make no commotion about the thing.) I know that I would rather be inside at home with a book in one hand and a drink appropriate to the time of day (coffee in the morning, iced tea in the afternoon, beer in the early evening, whisky or whiskey later on) in the other. I know that, while I do like my privacy, I like access to the things that population density permits, as well, and that I can make my privacy with a shut door. And while I have respect for the outdoors and appreciate what it can provide, I would rather stay inside--or, if the weather is right, on my front porch. (I believe in porch culture.)

But that does not mean I do not question how I fit in amid a masculinity that values at least the display of outdoorsiness. It is perhaps from something related to that anxiety that I value as highly as I do the work of the smoker I have going on even now, work that allows me to stay close to home--the smoker is in my driveway--while still doing a "man" thing, recognized as such by even the more bluff and rugged folks to whom I am akin and around whom I find myself surrounded, the town and the countryside against the gown I sought long and now seldom wear.