Well, wouldn'tcha know it

I think a lot of people, when they find out my boyfriend is a farrier, assume he's some redneck cowboy who wears a cowboy hat and buckle 24/7 and maybe even has a reed sticking out of his mouth, which he somehow manages to grip with his lips even as he spitting a wad of tobacco.

Honestly, before I met Chris, if someone had asked me what a farrier was, I would have had to look it up in the dictionary. Chris is not a redneck. He used to surf, for chrissakes. He listens to Air America (very few redneck cowboy types here listen to Air America. OK. So the station's not even available in Farmington. If it was, I'm sure someone would try to burn the studio down). He talks a lot about politics, usually intelligently, although I'm so used to it I often tune it out. (Sorry! I can listen to Al Franken. He's funny, but I heard somewhere his own wife doesn't think he's funny).

So Chris. He wears contemporary clothes, doesn't chew, spit or smoke tobacco, and usually shows up to the job in cargo shorts. Anyway I have a tendency to be oblivious so it didn't dawn on me that some people would think my boyfriend was a "redneck" until one of my co-workers said something about "so I heard you're dating this cowboy." and then I mentioned to my boss that my boyfriend was a farrier and he looked surprised and said, "Really??"

I guess I don't look the type who'd date a cowboy. Ha!

All of this to say, next week I'm meeting this guy who grew up in Bloomfield (neighboring city) and is now a semi-famious designer of fashion doll clothes (fashion dolls=high-end Barbies). His doll clothes retail for $59! I only talked with him briefly, but I instantly knew he could never, never, in a million gazillion years have fit in in Bloomfield. Him: little boys who liked to dress up dolls. Bloomfield: hard-working, beer-drinking, church-going men who work in oil fields.

Anyway, I'm really interested in meeting him actually. He no longer lives in Bloomfield (of COURSE) but is in town for a few days. Like, Chris, he too holds down a job that I wouldn't have thought even existed and is happily (well mostly happily) making a living at it.

I wonder what people would think if I told them my boyfriend was a fashion doll clothing designer. Judging from my co-worker's reactions, they would assume I'd have to be a boy myself.