Two friends of mine awoke on New Year’s Eve filled with excitement because, if all went according to plan, the last leg of a 28-mile hike in Peru would come together with a visit to an exotic 15^th century Incan site to create the New Year’s memory of a lifetime.

Another friend awoke on New Year’s Eve filled with excitement because, if all went according to plan, the freshly fallen snow would come together with his puppies and his friends to create a Currier and Ives holiday spent at his newly renovated cabin in the Adirondacks.

Exotic. Sophisticated. Exciting.

I awoke on New Year’s Eve filled with excitement because, if all went according to plan, the 55-degree weather in Nashville would come together with a pile of scrap 2x4s and plywood to create new shelves I could use to organize my tools in the garage.

Exotic? Not so much. Sophisticated? That would be too much spin for even me to try to put on this descriptive tennis ball. Was I as excited about my sawing-and-screwing day as my Peru-mountain-climbing-Currier-and-Ives-memory creating friends? You better believe it.

I’m thinking that means I am either a) super-butch, or b) super-lame. Honestly, I think a case could be made either way.

In my defense against the super-lame charge, I could submit the fact that Amy and I had big party plans with our nearest and dearest on the last night of 2011. Unfortunately, that evidence falls apart when you add the fact that one of the aspects we were happily anticipating about the party was that it was scheduled to end at 10:00. This timing worked perfectly for most of the guests because they could go from there to the clubs or other soirees. This timing worked perfectly for us because we could go from there to bed and watch the DVR of Dick Clark in the morning.

So, a plausible case can be made for super-lame, but the potential for the super-butch charge is equally strong. Don’t get me wrong. It’s not slam-dunk case. I suck at softball. Seriously, I do. In my defense, however, I own enough hand and power tools to build a small city. Most of them were passed down to me from my father because I spent the majority of my youth in the basement tearing things apart and building new ones.

(As a total aside, as a parent, I still cannot believe that I was allowed to use a table and a radial arm saw, unsupervised, and that I made it to adulthood with all my fingers intact. As an adult, I am truly deeply grateful for both. I won’t insert the obvious lesbian joke. You can infer.)

So the deconstructing and reconstructing talent is kind of butch. Unfortunately, the fact that this was a solitary activity I engaged in while my friends were figuring out what-was-what on overnight trips to sports tournaments strengthens the whole lame-from-birth charge.

So super-butch or super-lame? Hard to say. The upside is we have new garage shelves.

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