I Am a Meat Eater

I work very hard--usually from 8 a.m. to 5 or 6 p.m., 6 or even 7 days a week, depending on deadlines.

So when I get back to my apartment at the end of my work day, I usually just microwave something (I assume its edible; I bought several boxes of it on-sale at Aldi's) then collapse in front of the TV to veg (unhealthy, I'm sure, but I'll deal with that later). I have a Netflix subscription (or, maybe I'm just using my brother's login--shhhh!). There's a lot on Netflix that does not interest me, but sometimes the craziest thing will catch my interest.

Lately, I have been watching a series called "Meat Eater." "Meat Eater" is a series of these little vignettes where "Steve," a reasonably handsome, 40-something, outdoory guy goes all over the Western Hemisphere (haven't seen him in Europe, Asia, or Africa yet; maybe he's on a restricted budget) hunting and fishing with "buddies" (he has a lot of them). In each episode, he is in a certain locale ("I went hunting for musk ox in the Rocky Mountains of Alberta . . .") with a friend ("with my ole pal, Steve Stunning"). And then the episode is about the stalking, shooting, and dressing (a deceptive term--he's not really putting clothes on the musk ox, he's skinning and carving up the dead ox either for an impromptu barbecue at camp or for his freezer at home). Don't ask me why, but I have gotten completely hooked on this series.

This is a very strange development for me. I mean, I have nothing at all against meat. In fact, I love a good steak or pork roast occasionally. And I have nothing against guns. Even though I grew up deep in the Chicago suburbs, I know how to shoot and have been glimpsed haunting firing ranges occasionally. But all of that is for protection. Since my mom grew up in central Texas and my dad on a farm in Minnesota, I would be struggling against my genetic makeup not to have some familiarity with guns. But that's not what attracts me to "Meat Eater." Nor is it a love for hunting and fishing. My forbears hunted. My uncles still do so in Minnesota, but I could never bring myself to shoot an animal. I mean, I cried for the entire day after we were forced to euthanize our ancient 28-year old cat when I was a young girl. Somehow the platitudes of my elders ("she's going to a better place" and "she will no longer suffer") didn't make me feel any better ("what will they do to me if I get really sick?). It's not even the occasionally "deep" philosophizing that Steve does about hunting and fishing ("being out among God's creatures, I never felt more an integral part of the larger ecosystem than surrounds us all"). In fact, if there is one theme I derive from "Meat Eater," it's that hunting and fishing can be profoundly boring activities ("it's now 5 a.m., we have been sitting in our makeshift blind for three hours in sub-zero temperatures waiting on the deer"). Both hunting and fishing strike me as long periods of boredom punctuated by sharp, short adrenaline rushes. God, even golf has more consistent activity in it than hunting and fishing.

So, why do I enjoy "Meat Eater?" I really can't say. Maybe because the lifestyle it conveys is so radically different than my hermetically-sealed upper middle-class life. I guess that is some ill-formed and poorly understood romanticism on my part. I go to the store to buy my meat and fish, but Steve tracks his down and kills it like those pioneering, mountain men of old.

Or, maybe I'm just so tired at the end of the day, that I will watch just about anything on Netflix?