No, he is not my white man.

Every culture has its own criteria for "becoming a man," from building a seaworthy boat to slaying a calf and/or father. I'm not sure which culture uses the standard of "being willing and able to eat a chicken's foot using two sticks while a table of people who do not speak your language watch and applaud," but I do know that today I became a man. Please note: "chicken's foot" is not a cute anglofied term for a cookie, like "wife cake" or "uncle hand." It's a chicken's foot.

My coworker took me on a hot date today, which means that she brought me to eat a bunch of meats with bones shoved into them, and we walked around the street that smells like dried shrimp because that's where people sell buckets of dried shrimp. I think that if you add water they'll plump up and start swimming around, but maybe I'm too optomistic.

I was a little worried at the beginning of the day that we might end up growing tired of each other. At one point, I had a tough time explaining to her why a t-shirt that says "Santafe" as one word is actually very funny. But ten hours later I was analyzing the upstart costs and marketability of breast milk pudding, and she was crying without sadness.