I like men.  I've always liked men.  

I am the oldest of four siblings, and the only girl.  My playmates were my brothers.  We had lots of fun playing in the timber as my dad did his logging.  We climbed on the fallen trees and in general had a great time.  I figured I could do anything they could do, and more since I was the oldest.  My mom would be driving the wench truck, letting out the wench's cable with the big hinged double hooks that looked like a giant mouth with a single sharp tooth for digging into the bark.  My dad would catch the hooks as they unreeled, and guide the heavy jaws to the large log, catching one hook on one side and the other on the other side.  He would signal my mom to stop, and the gears would quit their whine, and then he would signal her to take it up.  You could hear the change in tone to a deeper labored whine as the weight of the log lifted into the air, swinging slightly while Dad guided it toward the flat bed truck where he would position it to stay on the truck so he could drive it along the narrow road he had cut into the forest.   We were always told to watch out, and now I find it amazing that there were no accidents with three little kids running around.

 As I grew older, I was used to playing all the boys' games, and being the leader.  I liked to talk to boys, but also had girlfriends.  I disdained girls that wrinkled their noses at mud or spiders or refused to climb a tree.  I liked dolls and ruffles as much as any girl, and I always wore dresses without much fuss, but I really liked to play trucks and cars and horses, and cowboy and Indian, too.  

 It became much more complicated with puberty.  When the hormones started surging, I was right there, ready to go.  But the guys were slower.  And, I think I was a bit different.  I was smart, and didn't mind showing it.  But I think I was pretty awkward, and socially inept, so I would blurt out stupid things without thinking.  Plus, I had just moved into a very small town and in general was considered to be a pariah.   I spent a lot of time crying at home wondering why people didn't like me.   I did feel like I had too many hormones because I really wanted to be around guys all the time, and spent a lot of time working out what was okay and what wasn't in terms of sexuality.  I would know something was okay if it enhanced my longer term relationship with the guy.  It wasn't okay if it was a "one-night-stand," even without the actual s.e.x..  

 So now, after a long marriage and three kids, being on my own again is really odd.  I was fairly happy without any males in my life until last year.  I had an independence, and I was happy because I did have opportunity, but I wasn't ready to take anyone up on it.  It did give me a sense of not being totally unattractive.  

I don't really know the rules any more.  I have checked with my daughters for advice when faced with a dating dilemma.   I don't believe I have actually "dated," when I think about it.  I was in college when I met my husband...a freshman in fact.  Over the next four years we were together, but really didn't date so much as live together.  When he left for medical school, and I finished up my last semester... we decided to get married.  So I haven't had much experience of waiting for a guy to call.  If  I want to do something, I generally call the guy.  But does that work now?  

I usually thing I know if I want a relationship right away.  I have had two short relationships since the divorce.  The first one, mentioned in the preceding Cheshire Moon poem, was pretty amazing for me.  I wasn't expecting it, but it just happened instantly like in the movies.  He kept singling me out of the crowd, and finding excuses to be with me alone.  I was really happy with it, because I felt a rush of passion around him , but I didn't really know what to do with it.  

When he told me he had never ever met any woman like me,  I was just puzzled.  I didn't think I was that different.  I decided that he was probably seeing his own reflection, since he had an amazing past including being captain of a sailing ship he had designed, made out of "fero-cement,"  which became shipwrecked on Samoa for seven months.  He had been with a traveling acting troup, and had his PhD in Architecture, and had designed and built the first eco-hotel in Nepal, and was a cowboy on the Australian outback.  He invited me to come join him on his current design project.  

I bought an RV, and went to Texas.  Then I was lost.  I became part of the Board of Directors of the project, but could see pretty quickly that the project was suffering from some major problems.   There was no good starting point for the work.  He imagined building a city of 5000  that would be totally sustainable and independent on the edge of another medium sized city.  The cost would be on the scale of the Bailout, or $650 million dollars.   I would have been glad to work on raising some of the money, but there was also no concrete drawings or plans to show someone what they would be investing in.  If anyone suggested that we start with just one building, or that we might need to scale back the plan, he became explosive.  It shocked me.  How could someone just explode at people around them for no reason?  At first I was very quiet when that happened.  But, I realized that I had always been quiet when people exploded around me, and I had blamed myself.  What he was doing was so strange, I really couldn't take credit for it, even though he did blame me.  So I began something I had just done once to my husband before he left....I matched his tone, volume, and words and sent the same thing right back to him.  When he told me I was dense and didn't understand anything, I told him HE was dense and didn't understand anything.  When he said I didn't know how to shut the door right, I told him that HE didn't know how to shut the door right.  Boy was that interesting.  I wondered if this was some kind of game he played with people.  I talked to some of his friends who had been with him a while, and they said that he always did this...he was proud of being nicknamed T.C., or Thunder Cloud.  Not for me.  And not for him.  It escalated to a huge storm and blew the top off the local rock pile.  When he told me that we never had had a relationship, and he blocked the door to keep me from leaving while he screamed and demeaned me, I knew that was enough.  I dodged and ducked the words, (at this point not physically), and waited out the storm until I could get out to my little RV and toodle on down the road.  Yep, I can unhook an RV in the dark in the middle of the night.  

I did stay for a little longer to see if I could help the company, but when I got a call from my daughter begging me to come back home, I didn't think twice about it.  I left.

It has been a year, and I still have fond memories of this amazing, if flawed, guy.  He meanwhile has gone back with his old girlfriend, who decided that maybe if someone else wanted her guy, he must be okay and she took him back.  I say, if they have a balance worked out that has lasted a few years they better go for it.  Because I couldn't last with that.  

I still haven't "dated."  What is "dating," by the way?  Is it some guy calling you and asking you out to dinner and a movie?  Is it inviting a person over to see your etchings?  Is it having a couple of coffees together?  Is it proper to kiss on the first date?  How about sleep with someone?   Do you have to stroke a guy's ego a lot like women were taught in the sixties?   I just don't know about this whole thing.  

I'm actually not that bad by myself, but this guy did kinda get me revved up, and I found that fun.  I can always stuff it back down and cultivate platonic relationships.  Maybe I do have more work to do on myself before I find someone.  Men? men. Women.

 So that was Number One, T.C.    Number Two, G.G., could actually be number 1.5, since we didn't really develop much of a relationship, but it was an enlightening experience that has left me rather despondent.  Maybe tomorrow...