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Sailing; Important realization; Books
2002-10-07 - 9:46 a.m. So -- I went sailing this weekend, and feel about 1,000 times better. Everyone had a partner but me, but then I ended up with this guy, Cyrus, who was great. He's a windsurfer, which helps because he know about the wind. He's pretty good, but not better than me -- we're probably at about an equal level of goodness-- and he's very nice. We had races, and we did okay -- came in second once -- but when we didn't do okay, he was also okay with it. Phew. I can't tell you how fun it was. In the first place, it's nice just to be out on the water all afternoon. I love boats. I just do. I like all their gear. I like rigging them and unrigging them. I like being on the water. I like falling in the water. I like sailboats because it's a miracle to me that you can go anywhere just using the wind, but I like boats that you row, too. So -- But also, I had a sudden realization on Friday night. I kept meaning to record it, but didn't have the time this weekend. Hmm. Now, I'm not sure I feel like going into it. But it had to do with the ability to have kids. I think for me, an integral part of sex is that it might result in a kid -- which is pretty amazing, really. Obviously this is not true for everybody -- But there's something sort of mooshy and romantic and appealing about that. Obviously most of the time, you don't really want it to result in a kid -- but somehow the fact that it could is there. So, then, when that's not going to happen anymore -- well, that's a big change. I think this might be the appeal of mooshy, romantic books and movies -- even if you can't do this any more, it still has some big emotional draw. So it's sad, but strangely, figuring this out made me feel better about the whole thing. It's a sort of transition (duh), where now that isn't even a possibility, so you can start thinking of other things. It's a big shift, really -- I mean, I have half my life left, probably, in which I can focus on things non-childbearing related. It's funny -- I've been hearing all these things that have sort of stuck in my mind, but they're all been part of this realization. The one I can remember right now is a bit I heard of The World, that NPR program that's British and American, about how it's just come out that John Major had a big affair with some woman who was in league with Margaret Thatcher. Blah blah blah, but then the reporter noted that although she's 57, she's still considered sexy in Britain, and is, in fact, going out with a 38 year old man. Unlike the adolescent-idolization that goes on in American culture, whereby people over 20 are considered to be too old for sex ... Which made me realize that life goes on, and it's not over once you're past your child-bearing years -- I could have sex with John Major, too -- eeuw! OKay, enough already. I read a great book, though, over the weekend, if you children's fantasy novels. Sabriel, by Garth Nix. Nora found it in her school library and brought it home and read it, and it looked interesting, and I picked it up and it was great! We've got the sequel, too, which I'm afraid won't be as good as the first one. It's very funny. She has to read 1,000 pages per trimester, which is quite a lot. She was quite oppressed by this; it was too much; I had to keep bugging her to read -- But then she did it (she was allowed to count summer reading, which helped quite a bit). And now she's reading like a fiend. You might think it's because she no longer has to, but I actually think having to, and then doing it was what caused her to realize that she's a reader. Maddy's a reader, now, too -- she's reading an abridged version of Gulliver's Travels. Okay -- got to go -- Bye.
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