"Men Are Like Waffles

...Women Are Like Spaghettii..." is a statement that changed my life. I don't think I read the whole book but I read enough excerpts different places to get the gist of it, and I agree completely.

Particularly since my mind is a a huge bowl of spaghetti.

I actually started this post two weeks ago and didn't get to finish because my life is so jampacked there's not a whole lot I can do at one time. When I take something new on, invariably something else gets dropped even though I don't want it to. But I've learned it's just the way I work. There are only so many hours in the day... and whatever I do I do wholeheartedly and you can't do everything wholeheartedly. Which is why stuff gets dropped. It's awful. It disorients people I deal with, it fucks up projects I'm working on. But see, this is why I write. Because I started this post two weeks ago to explain the debate BigMan and I were having, and I'm glad I held on to the thought in writing because it's actually a pretty good way to remind myself of what I was thinking. But this actual post is going to be a little different, I think, than how it started out.

And I just realized, while writing the above paragraph, why I have such a hard time with continuity.

So to finish the epiphany I was having... I've stopped writing as much because the BigMan has entered my life and taken up that space/time I had to write in. And I don't mind... I like him. But I miss writing everyday. But there's just no time. And I have projects due but haven't been able to finish them because the time I would have spent obsessing over some project or another, I've been obsessing over my photography.

The payoff is that even I can say my photos are pretty good... and I am truly my harshest critic. I've recalled some things about my years in the darkroom, and the books I've read about Ansel Adams or Weegee or Cartier-Bressont or even my dad, and used them to a.) take better pictures and b.) "process" them better. I've gotten better at making them feel like old silver-gelatin prints, rather than digital. I'm happy with that.

But the downside is I owe two people who paid me work, and it's haunting me. And I know they are pissed as fuck. That "all-or-nothing" thing has a downside. And the ADD/OCD combo thing is tough to manage... because I'm obsessed until I'm distracted. And then I'm obsessed till I'm distracted. It sucks. I'm trying to manage it better; at least I realize what the problem is. And it's why I needed a groundwire. I prayed hard to the Higher Power to send me someone who could be tolerant of my isms, who would love me and who I could love (because love makes you hellatolerant of shit), who was patient, not intimidated by me enough so that I could fly unfettered, who was solid enough in his own security to not get upset when I flirt (and I only flirt for a purpose--a picture, a job, a drink). I realized I couldn't live life by myself anymore. The loneliness was killing me. Not that my life isn't full, because it is. Not that I don't have people who love me and who I love completely, because I do. But I needed a groundwire, I needed the balance of a man's mind and I have to say that for about 95% of what I needed, BigMan fits the bill.

But I'm still not consumed by him. I very rarely feel "mushy" about him or dream about him when he's gone (which is rare at this point but enough so that I can breathe). I like him; he's definitely getting under my top layer in a very comfortable way. But he's still a man, and he thinks like a man. And even though I'm obsessed/distracted, it would seem that I put things in a little box but I don't because the whole time I'm obsessing about something, it's just the sauce. Underneath that sauce those spaghetti strands are still looping and twisting and are all connected to each other, and I'm still subconsciously following those strands until one of them pops up in the top layer of sauce and I get distracted and move on to that thing. I like that BigMan doesn't have all that shit going on in his head.

I got into a discussion about the Waffle/Spaghetti thing yesterday with LilacBlue and ManCandy. ManCandy (probably named something else somewhere on this blog) is the father of a bunch of kids at the Sun's school, one of whom the Sun is pretty good friends with. ManCandy is fine. He knows it, too. He makes butch-ass women giggle. I've seen him do it. After awhile you get used to him and might even think "ah he's not that cute" but fuck that. There's something about him that sizzles and it's not just his looks. He has that jitter juice. He's also a famous womanizer which has caused his Wife to be a little um, what's the word... well she tracks his ass like the Armed woman she is. Meaning, she carries a gun as a profession. But anyway, I digress...

The first thing I've noticed about people when I say that Men are Like Waffles and Women are like Spaghetti is that most women want to claim they think more like men. That they can; that they are the exception. But it's bullshit. I understand that feeling of not wanting to be labeled. I resent it, as I say frequently. But the Professor is a social worker and she one day made the sweeping statement that people--all people--generally fall into one of a few categories. Of course that pissed me off. And I argued with her that no two humans are exactly alike. You look at two people's hands or fingerprints and nothing will make that clearer to you than that. By the way, that fascinates me... that the lines on one person's hands will never be EXACTLY the same as the lines on another person's hands, even if they are identical twins.

And it's true... no two people are alike; there is a wide variance in the category. But the facts remain that a.) people generally fall into one of a few categories, and b.) men and women do not think alike. Women tend to find that things are connected, and men frequently do not see the infinite ways in which things are connected. There are some men who do... and there are some women who are very compartmentalized. But generally, the more I make my way into the world, the more I throw myself into all these different scenarios the more I see that men and women just are different. EVEN those women who go into boymode. And I've seen a lot of those lately. A whole contingent of them. And as butch as they may appear on the outside, underneath the boyclothes and inside the manshoes they are still chicks... and their relationships with each other--even if one is wearing the pants and the other is wearing bright red stilettos... they still act like a bunch of chicks.

Which made me remark to BigMan one day that on the one hand, I totally get the attraction to women. In fact, there are some women who are just beautiful. Or who aren't beautiful, like StarStripper, but have the jitterjuice. And there are some women you can love fiercely and with all your heart. Women are cool. 80% of the time I'd honestly much rather spend my time with women than with men. Because they can follow me on the spaghetti strands--even BestGirl on her best boyday can follow me in a way that the BigMan can't, cuz I've already had that experience with them.

But there's no way I want to be in a sexual relationship with someone exactly like me. Women can be tiring. I need the balance of a man's mind.

There's still some stuff that needs work. There are still sometimes I wonder if I want to spend the rest of my life with him. There is still a part of me that misses certain elements of certain other people, and every so often what I miss hits me right in the heart. But of all the men I've dated or married or had a child with, no one has ever said to me "Are you really my girl?" "Huh" I asked? "I guess so, why?" "Because sometimes I can't believe you're really mine. I look at you and you make me feel good."

...sigh... I laughingly told him that flattery will get him everywhere but inside I melted, I admit... the whole quietly genuine way he said it got to me. Things like that will get a bitch hooked.