Sunoasis Jobs! Research
Writers Notebook

THE FARM ON THE HILL

"It took a while before Mona grew on me. That is, when I would lay on my cot and think about her, roll her over in my mind and probe and poke my imagaintion. "Was this going to happen?" I thought perhaps I had fallen in love with her cynicism. She seemed to know everything, why this was, why that was, she had all things pretty well thought out. It gave her a sense of power because she knew no one was going to contradict her judgement of them. But I wondered if a relation with her was going to commplicate things a bit much. I was going to leave at some point. Something would call me back. I knew this. The more I was with a woman the more ensnared it became. What if she got pregnant? What if she used me to make another guy jealous? What if, in her secret heart, she had her own plan that was worked out to the minutist detai and I was simply a twig she needed to throw on her pile?"

"Yes but you were getting some weren't you?"

"Oh yes, that happened. It was crazy for a few days and then tailed off. I know Rasputin knew what was going on. He approved of me though so there were no bad feelings generated. And after, more than once, laying there in the heat and steam of it, vibrating in sweat, silent, I had vast utopian visions of the woman and I absolutely happy and contented some place that I couldn't identify."

"She liked to do men things. She liked to climb rocks and kill chickens. She liked using the "f" word. Only other female I heard say that word was my mother and I was embarrassed for it. Her favorite painters were Mondrian and a few cowboy painters. She was not embarrassed when she farted. She didn't care. Her eyes could get fixed hard sometimes but would eventually soften if she felt safe. She had a husky laugh, a man laugh. Remember the Dylan song, "she makes love like a women but breaks like a little girl?" That was her."

"Left alone and the women seemed to do very well. They did their tasks and would get into a group. Something was said and they'd burst out laughing. They protected each other if they sensed any problem with the men. It was rare because the men, for the most part, were fairly passive. Their grand gesture was sometimes a protracted shrug of the shoulders. It had always been my experience that when men got together they always talked about women in a negative way, a crude and vulgar way, as if they harbored deep anger against the poor things. One could even go so far as to say there wasn't much love between the men and women. They respected their rights and collaborated on projects but had no desire to pair off and romance.That's why the thing with Mona was a bit oblique," he now said to his friend. "Get a bit close and whoosh she'd slide somewhere else. But then she'd come back hot and heavy after a few days. Then I'd try to get close and boom, she was out of there. I never felt hate from her. I felt some anger, some hurt. Someone had hurt her along the way. When I discovered that I made a greater effort to get connected emotionally. She swore at me and told me to back off. So I backed off. Then we did the thing. And she practically threw me off of her. I didn't undestand it. I still don't understand it." '

Story from the start

March 16, 2024

Click here to send your comments on what you read here.

Old Events/First Columns:

Post-election 2004

Election 2004

On Political Culture

On the Debates

War on Terrorism

The California Recall

The Progressive Era

What is a perfect President?

On Political Culture

On JFK Assassination

The Clinton Bubble

The state of things

IRAQ

Affirmative Action

Liberals and Nuders

The Trent Lott Affair

Why the Democrats are in Trouble

The Uncertain Decade

Back to Media Resource page

eide491@earthlink.net

Copyright 2024