Trejoe\'s post just now reminded me I wanted to tell you all this.

You know Oscar made me some sort of SOE, unscented, that I call Virtual Sweetie. I wore some at Christmas dinner. A long time friend of the family, an older woman, sat next to me. This woman was married but has never had a boyfriend in the many years since her husband died. So my parents are across the room, not paying attention, and this woman starts talking to me about how she never liked sex, and it was all just an act when she was with her husband. I said that was a shame, I was sorry to hear it. She said she was glad to be rid of it, what was there to be sorry about? I said I dunno, I guess it\'s just ... it\'s my very favorite thing. It can be a lot of fun. She said FUN? I never had fun with it, I hated it, and eventually I just told him not to approach me anymore. I said Oh. She said, I never went the OTHER way, either! I said You mean, women? she said Right, I never went that way either, that\'s disgusting to me, I can\'t imagine a woman touching me. And AS she\'s saying this, she reaches over and strokes my arm, firmly. I grinned and said well, you don\'t like men, you don\'t like women, I guess it\'s a good thing you can always take matters into your own hands. She pretended shock and said no, she\'d never done that, ever. I didn\'t know what to say, sat blinking and smiling. She said she wished she\'d been born a man, I said why, she said because men can go anywhere they want to and do anything they want to. I said yes, I\'d been in a conversation recently where a man said to me why don\'t you go out to a bar? and I said I\'d never go to a bar unescorted, and she said, see? This is what I mean. She said, I wish I had been born a man and I wish I had married you.

!!!

Her eyes were all glittery.

I got up and started clearing the table.