Women

Women.
A strange and mysterious species. Men don't understand women because men are pig headed and single minded. Men have to strut around all the time, trying to show the world how tough they are, how they have all the answers, how they don't need directions (I'll find the damn place on my own). Testosterone. Racing through the system and clouding the mind.
You cannot think clearly when you are always putting on a show. You run around trying to project an image or fulfill an expectation and you are not being yourself. Cut off from the things you should be aware of, the things you should be feeling and learning from.
Women have to take part of the blame here. Women love the bad boys, the tough guys, the outlaws. It's a stereotype but it's true. And we all know it. So even though we are low wage earners working at small jobs, we try to pretend we are dangerous, that we have an evil side, that we are capable of anything. Strutting like a peacock.
Women fan the flames. They hold all the cards and they know it so they work it. They play on our inability to think logically around a certain walk or a certain look or a low cut, slinky and evil red dress. Men are helpless.
But once you get past the games, women truly are a superior species. Intuitive, emotional, intelligent. There is something so mysterious about the way a women thinks, about her relationship to her emotions. Sometimes a woman IS emotion and that is so very cool. Men suppress their emotions, bury them deep, which is roughly akin to suicide. Because experiencing emotion is being human. Men pretend to be robots.
My respect for women is not formed around the usual stereotypes. "They are superior because they can have kids." That is a biological accident. If men could have kids it wouldn't make us superior. Although maybe it would make us more emotional, more natural. And I do consider childbirth to be a holy event; it goes beyond natural. I was there for the birth of both of my sons and I can still close my eyes and visualize those moments with clarity. And feel the emotions. An overwhelming sense of awe, of magic, of life in it's purest, most raw form. I'll have to give this childbirth thing more thought.
"Women can stand more pain" (childbirth again). Bullshit. Try being an accountant for twenty years.
There is a sensitivity about women that is supernatural. They experience the world like animals do (that is meant as a compliment). Absorbing it naturally in an extrasensory way.
It's the emotion thing that most gets to me because if you ain't feeling nothing you is dead.
Steven Tyler says he is half man and half woman because he is so sensitive. I identify with that. I AM emotion. I cry a lot and everything I feel I feel passionately. Of course I try not to cry in public or in front of the wrong people; that would be unmanly. So because of my own sensitivity I study women with curiosity. I have been married to one for 33 years. She does not even fit the stereotype. When I hear other men complain about their wives in predictable ways and predictable language, I realize how unique Carol is. She is strong like bull and yet she is all about emotion and being natural. And common sense.
I have a big, bad college degree. I am educated. I cannot tell you how many times over the years Carol has made me look like a five year old by pointing out the obvious. The obvious is never obvious to me.
I worry about everything including things I can't do a damn thing about. Carol just takes care of business. She is herself at all times in every situation. I am like Cybil; I'm a million different people from one day to the next.
I'm probably not being coherent here. I get passionate when I write and then I'm all over the place.
The point is that men and women are two entirely different species. Women are more in tune with life, with existence, in a spiritual way. They get it. This is something I am striving for. To be in touch with the natural order of things, to flow along with the beauty of life instead of fighting against it. Men are perpetual five year olds pretending to be Steve McQueen or Kojak. Men keep falling down because they trip over the obvious.
OK I am prepared for the backlash. I'm probably way off base or have trivialized women in some way. Or maybe I'm going to take crap for the half man half woman thing. I can't worry about these things.
I gotta go wash the dishes.