Happy Valentine's Day

I have felt very challenged trying to write a witty and engaging post today. Not valentine blues but just a mental block. Maybe I am feeling chagrined because for all the years of complaining about Valentine's Day not being what I hoped, at least I have kept my head! History of St. Valentine Or perhaps I am out of witty bits and need to re-up before I can be amusing again. So I am cheating and posting something I wrote a few years ago. Have no fear, it is very apropos for Valentine's Day as it is about the muckety muck of relationships between men and women and the wonderful joy our female friends share. Though the below picture wasn't taken the same day the conversation took place, it was taken at Market and is my absolute favorite of Nan and me, friends for 30 years! 

So here is "Sex Confuses Things" from 2009... remarkably little has changed!

"We sat after a long morning - longer for her than I, I am sure - and mumbled at one another. It was hot and we were thirsty and dirty. The bugs were nipping at our ankles like small dogs and her little one still had more energy than the two of us combined. I know I looked worn out and worked over: the waist of my pants was sweaty and at some point the seat of them had acquired a hole. The sleeves of my shirt and bottom cuff were unfashionably rolling up reveling more of my corpulence than I cared to contemplate. The parts of my skin that weren't doughy white were freckled and pink. She, on the other hand, looked fresh. Her shoulders and cheek bones glowed with perspiration that somehow looked dewy instead of sweaty. Her legs looked long in her short(ish) shorts and the design of her top showed off her tan, muscled back. The parts of her hair that had escaped it's barrette were curling sweetly.

As so often happened, we began discussing the relationships in our life. Impatience with and awe of our sons. Frustrations with our mothers. Failings as friends (though those we we able to soothe rather quickly since we knew when all else failed we had one another. Always). The conversation then turned to our partners. Our failings which seemed to pale in the face of THEIR failings. I wondered why it was that she and I fought so little, were so capable of maintaining a healthy, long term, relationship. We were quiet a long time watching little man race around, cars meander up and down the street, birds picking at the detritus of market leftovers. Finally she says "Sex confuses things." Instantly we chortled, belly laughed, cried as it gets funnier. And when we are able to compose ourselves, I suggest we not ever have sex with one another. We shake on it as her husband arrives and the laughter fades."