For the last couple of weeks I've been returning to my artistic roots, taking the sketchbooks and pencils to one of the all night diners during the dead hours after supper and before the bar rush, brushing up on skills atrophied from disuse and the forgiving nature of digital media. Last night however brought me a distinct chuckle not related in the least to perspective or shading, at least not on paper.
I'd finished a medium decent drawing, not great, certainly not show and share quality, but decent. The figures were in proportion to each other, the faces proper, one hand in particular was beginning to show the tension of the scene expressed in a posture, in essence what I'd wanted when I started the image. Ok, all well and good.
Ordinarily I'd have picked up and left at about that point, but then one of my younger friends wandered in, a lad who crews the joint on his day off coming in to let someone else cook him a midnight breakfast. Inevitably we fell into conversation, he's bright, inquisitive, very much pursuing a full understanding of self and world and doing a good job of achieving his objectives, lord knows I've talked to many twice his age with less than half his understanding of things. As friend Josefina would say, he's someone who knows he's a somebody.
Somewhat to my surprise he shifted the conversation into the realms of sexuality and the alternate lifestyles, speaking to the emotional elements found in the relationships of the bdsm set, in point of fact (although I doubt he'd use the word to describe this) speaking to the erotic elements to be found there. I kept my surprise off my face, played it for a straight line. What the hell, at 1:30 in the morning it's all grist for the mill. When the crew adjourned to their outdoor smoke-hole for a break before the drunks arrived I was invited to go with them, and the conversation not only moved with us but enlarged as the girls joined in. All well and good, the midnight shift is as you might expect crewed by a group of youth who each have their signature stripe on the rainbow flag, if you take my meaning.
Shortly the conversation turned a bit to the torrid side, things were getting explicit. Not really vulgar, but there are some things where explicit is required to suit the thought. In other words, it was getting deep, by rights everyone should have been wearing rubber boots. Which brings me to the point of this post.
After a bit one lass had just about had enough of the subject. Now, when I was their age if such a scenario had evolved I can imagine any number of ways she might have communicated her desire to change the subject, but what happened was truly classic. Her ears perked up to the signature snarl and back-rap of glass-packs being properly stuffed by a well warmed small block, she glanced out at the street and with totally delighted appreciation on her face exclaimed "Niiiice El Camino..."
I had to laugh, both her comment and her demeanor was an exact match for what would have been seen thirty years ago on a lad when the subject had wandered a bit beyond his comfort zone. I laughed, and thought but didn't say "Ok libbers, there you go. You've done it. If that isn't proof positive the genders are now equal I don't know what is. Now what are you going to do when you discover the more feminine half of your daughters are going to take the exact same stance as the boys you used to cuss as insensitive brutes, leaving you to these convoluted contradictions of your emo-sexual politics in favor of things you always said were nothing but over driven compensations for a little dick? They're not equipped that way."
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