Saturday, March 22  

Woman

Vic likes women well enough. But she knows better than to trust them.

woman: noun 1. female.

She thinks that the dictionary definition of the word woman is rather lacking. Surely it should include words like capricious, underhanded, conniving, bitchy, cruel, soppy, emotional, hard, cold, loyal, unfaithful, sexy, natural, siliconed, spiteful, angry, illusive, ellusive, catty, unknowable.

Sometimes, she doesn't like them very much at all. Especially when they're scowling at her or worse, ignoring her. She hates how they've always managed to make her feel somehow outside their tight groups. Not a part of them. Not the same.

She's spent half of her life wishing she could be more like them and half of it trying hard not to be.

When a young blonde woman on a bicylcle sneers at her while Vic walks through the park this afternoon, Vic wonders for the thousandth time what women see in her that they hate so much.

Or maybe the woman wasn't really sneering. Maybe she was just breathing enthusiastically, face distorted from the effort of riding her bike hard and long. That could be. But Vic knows women well enough to know not to trust them.

After all, she is one herself.