bedroom galilee clive barker bathroom amy and isabelle elizabeth strout car/walk evening susan minot
office look sharp! joe jackson lilith fair 2, 3 various car more tales from the city [book-on-tape] armistead maupin living room the sci fi channel
brand x the message came from out of the blue: Brand X welcomes you into its clutches.
1999 june 02
proprietary
i've been wearing all manner of little clippie things in my hair of late.
[more later...]
[...okay, it's later]
anyhow, i don't just wear one, it is always at least two, and the other day i had a full dozen in my hair, holding it all back in sort of cornrow fashion. gene and i were driving to the library and i was looking in the rearview, admiring all the little flowers nestled in my tresses, when i said to him, "baby, do you think i look like a twit with all these things in my hair?"
"nah."
"you sure? i bet all manner of people thing it is idiotic that a woman of my age is still wearing little clippy flowers in her hair."
"it doesn't matter what they think. it only matters what i think."
at which point i laughed out loud. gene is not usually proprietary in regards to our relationship, but that comment slipped out so easily and so naturally that i just had to give him the obligatory incredulous stare. "excuse me?"
he reached over and put his hand on my knee. "you know what i mean."
and i did. but it is a hard thing to try and explain without having gene look like some sort of neoneanderthal. he does has an almost proprietary way of putting his hand on my leg: my woman. of saying society's opinions don't count towards me, only his: my woman. but it is not a my woman in an ownership sense but rather a my woman in a belonging sense, a part of him sense, a word i just can't seem to pull out of my vocabulary but would explain just exactly what i mean sense.
must go peruse the webster's.
feeling loved, but not owned, claire
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