The Lady is a Tramp
January 28, 2010 @ 06:42
I’ve got this funny thing that I do. I pretend to myself and to others that I’m not girlie. This is born of my great need to be in control. It’s a security blanket that makes me feel safe, strong, secure. I’m not a lady and don’t you dare call me one. I’m a tough cookie. A lot of my friends buy into this. Or play along. If the truth is that they are just humoring me? I’m okay with that. Just so long as they keep doing it. On that whole idea of being a lady? I’m actually just a weeping, swearing, cookie baking, hockey watching bundle of contradictions. My best guy friend always asks what I’m doing first thing when I answer the phone. Usually because it’s always something hilariously strange like . . . flipping back and forth between the Godfather and a hockey game . . . or baking cookies and installing a new deadbolt. It’s never an all girl kinda picture that I paint. I just don’t relax into a lot of things that typical girls do. And instead of languishing over it, I have actually come around to reveling in it a bit. To the point that it drives a few of my friends nuts. So here I am, unfit for stereotypical girlie ways. I don’t think all babies are pretty. Precious, yes, pretty? Heck no. I hate to shop. I like shoes like men like lingerie. I think they are props. The shoes I walk around in every day? More than likely they can go from office to paddock with no problem. I think sex is a team sport. Almost all my exes are still friends. I’m a home owner. If something is wrong, with the car or the house or the whatever, I fix it or competently hire someone else to fix it (not sayin’ I couldn’t use a seminar in carpentry though, Heather has cringed over some of my DIYs). I’m a single mom, so I never get to be the good cop. I’m all bad cop all the time. But I do get to read the bedtime stories and make the birthday cakes. I’m not complaining. It’s not all hard. But I’ve got this life that has made me choose not to give in to soft.
Except that . . . I am. Soft. Very. Like a marshmallow. Even though I love to watch old, and frequently cheesy, action movies, dammit I cry every time Stan saves the train driver in Volcano. I really do sit with a lap full of embroidery and scream things like “Put the puck in the damn net!” at the television. But I can also make a soufflé. If I cook dinner for you, it’s probably going to make you forget how good your momma could cook. But it’s most definitely not an invitation to date exclusively. Sarah had to tell me what commitment food was. That’s how little I participate in the game. It’s not that I wouldn’t be capable of flirting across a candlelit dinner table, I’ve just been too busy.
As much as I love pedicures, I love hockey more. Beer over wine. Godfather over Casablanca. I’m just not in possession of one half ounce of princess-ness anymore. It atrophied. And I think that’s why I never get treated like one, because I don’t demand it. Subliminally or otherwise. And I like that about me. And all of my friends who’ve got that same thing going on. But I would sure as hell put on high heels and cook dinner for a man who brought me flowers. Enjoy your heaping helping of contradictions for the day.
