Women Are Like ... What Again?

This is the third installment in what is apparently becoming a series.

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Women and the Movies

Most of us enjoy a good movie.  The question is, what movie and why.

Science Fiction Action Movies

They have excitement, explosions, chases, fights, shooting, explosions, objects that can destroy the universe, people getting into cosmic messes in places far away from earth, and explosions.  Some of them also have ugly monsters who have a lot of fun making life impossible for humans.  Muscular, hunky robots are also common.  Sometimes they are the good guys, but to us Real Women who are heterosexually oriented that isn’t as important as the hunk factor.

A guy might suggest going to see the latest sci-fi action flick because he loves special effects, fights, explosions and monsters.  He imagines himself in the role of the hero, vanquishing evil all over the cosmos and protecting everyone from some painful annihilation dreamed up by an imaginative screenwriter.

The guy’s girlfriend will be happy to go with him, but her priorities will be checking out all the hot male stars and admiring the female lead for being able to fight and shoot like a man.  She will wish she looked as good as said female lead in those tight, body-hugging costumes.  Special effects and fights are entertaining, but she can take them or leave them.  The plot of the movie and the sexiness of the onscreen males are most important, especially if the plot includes romance or cute characters like Rocket Raccoon and Baby Groot in http://www.imdb.com/title/tt3896198/ Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2.

James Bond Movies

These films are in a class of their own.  James Bond is the ultimate Sexy Hot Heavy-Breathing Inducing Movie Guy, whether he is played by Sean Connery or Daniel Craig.  The fact that he only hangs around with stunning women who look 500 times better than any of us doesn’t bother us heterosexual Real Women, because we all daydream about being Bond girls – at least the ones who don’t get killed.  Getting killed puts a real damper on the fun.

I mean, even Miss Moneypenney can’t get near him, and she’s not exactly ugly.  She just doesn’t look as good as Ursula Andress or Jane Seymour.  I think Mr. Bond should reassess his priorities.

James Bond is cool.  He never has to buy a car, courtesy of the British government, and he can drive like a maniac and never get a traffic ticket.  His cars have all kinds of gadgetry, and he’s so smart all it takes is one little demonstration session with Q and he is automatically quick acting and competent at all of them.  For those of us who must pour over instructions word by word to learn to operate a simple kitchen appliance, this is an incredible feat of genius.  I wonder if Q slips an instruction brochure under the driver’s seat, in case 007 forgets how to operate the cigarette lighter bomb or the exhaust pipe torpedo.

... or how to shoot a gun

James Bond can’t be bothered going undercover.  He announces his name out loud to everyone who can hear him: “Bond.  James Bond.”  That takes real moxie.  It’s stupid, but it takes moxie.

He likes his Martinis shaken, not stirred.  I don’t know the difference myself, but, when he isn’t killing someone or chasing A-list women, he has real class, at least when it comes to mixed drinks.

When offered a choice between Goldfinger or The Terminator on cable TV, a Real Woman is going to choose Goldfinger, unless a guy who is ready to defend it to the death has control of the remote.

Member of the Bond Girl
Gene Pool

Casablanca

Guys want to be like Humphrey Bogart.  Women want to be courted by him.  Guys wonder why the Ingrid Bergman character doesn’t leave Victor Laszlo and stay with Rick so the two of them can take up the great sex they had been having in Paris behind Victor’s back.  Women understand that the movie must end the way it does, but it’s just so ROMANTIC that way, especially for those of us who cry at sad movies.  After all, the problems of three little people aren’t worth … well, you know.[1]

This brings us to the subject of romantic movies in general.

Romantic Movies

Most Real Women are suckers for sappy onscreen romance, especially the kind that is not likely to ever happen in real life at any time, ever.  How many street hookers wind up with billionaire boyfriends?  Come to think of it, how many street hookers look like Julia Roberts and how many billionaires look like Richard Gere?[2]

Back in the 1920s, women were fainting with desire over Rudolph Valentino and sighing when he hooked up with an onscreen love.

Things haven’t changed much.

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[1] In case you have been living on another planet for the last several decades, that’s a quote from Casablanca.

[2] Pretty Woman, okay?  There.  I gave the proper credit.

Women are Like ... What Again?

CHAPTER TWO

I have been reading Dave Barry’s Complete Guide to Guys (published by Ballantine Books and available on Amazon.com, which is where I found it).  Since there is a guide to guys on the market, I thought it would be fair to give equal attention to us women.  I appointed myself to the job, because I am eminently qualified, being a woman.

I already started this in another post, and it was fun.  I like to have fun when I write, so here is the next installment.

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See that chair in the background?
It used to be in front of the daybed.

Interior Decorating

There is one thing that every red-blooded woman feels deep in her heart:  nothing in the house ever looks good where it is now.  This is of vital importance.  To a Real Woman, her environment is intertwined with her mental health, the well-being of her family and her reputation with in-laws, friends, neighbors, the co-op board (when applicable) and anyone else who might drop in, including that cute UPS guy who looks like Johnny Depp.

Even women who work outside the home during the day and only see their dwelling places on evenings and weekends are afflicted with the compulsion to move things around at home.  It comes with estrogen, breasts, lady parts and Cosmopolitan Magazine.

Some women are happy to move furniture around by themselves.  I am one of those.  It gives a female person the sense of power that you only get when you have successfully waged war against a heavy object and won.

WOMAN:  Okay, couch!  I’ve got you where I want you and don’t you ever forget it!  I can put you anywhere and you can’t do anything about it!

COUCH:  I have patience, my dear.  One of these days, when you least expect it, I will blow a spring or make one of my legs fall off.  Vengeance is sweet.

WOMAN:  I dare you to try it!  I know where all the thrift shops are, and I won’t hesitate to send you there.  You can be replaced!

Other women, for one reason or another, would rather get a man (or men) to do the work while they, the women, supervise.  To achieve this, there must be a man (or men) available, and they must be willing to help, eager to avoid a confrontation or in a position where their only other choice is a life of supreme misery and degradation.

The advantage of having guys move the furniture around is that the woman can see if the new location improves the ambience of the room, or if the piece being moved would look better somewhere else.  This sometimes involves moving several big pieces around more than once.  In that case, the men usually stage a strike after about the fifth time they are asked to pick something up and move it.  They declare that the woman should have planned the whole room and made all final decisions ahead of time.  That is difficult for us.  We save it for the times we are moving the furniture ourselves.

Once every item in the room is in its new place, the woman will be happy and content – for about six months.  She will then decide that the feng shui of the room is all wrong and start the whole rearranging project all over again.

We can’t help it.  Our hormones make us do it.

Another aspect of female interior decorating involves our intense attention to detail and our love of frills.  These include such disparate objects as:

1. Knickknacks and tchotchkes, the smaller and more breakable the better
2. Plants
3. An afghan that Grandma crocheted back in 1940, hung over the back of the couch
4. Matching bookends
5. Stuffed animals
6. The children’s First Grade art projects
7. Doilies, usually white ones that get dirty if you look at them
8. Pictures of relatives and pretty scenes

If you see any of the following items of decoration in a home, you can be sure that (1) no woman lives there or (2) they were put up or placed somewhere despite strong protests and severe disapproval from the women of the house:

1. A singing fish
2. A moose, deer or elk head
3. A gun rack
4. A gasoline can
5. An old chair patched up with duct tape
6. ANYTHING patched up with duct tape

This illustrates a basic difference between men and women:  we care about all the important things, like matching furniture and the proper display of small figurines and family pictures, and they don’t.

It makes life interesting for everyone.

Women are Like … What Again?

I have been reading Dave Barry’s Complete Guide to Guys (published by Ballantine Books and available on Amazon.com, which is where I found it).  Dave Barry is one of my idols.  One of these days, if I work hard, I’ll be able to write like that.  Hope springs eternal in the human heart.  Somebody was the first to come up with that quote, but I won’t tell you who it was because I don’t feel like looking it up right now.[1]

Now that there is a guide to guys on the market, I thought it would be fair to give equal attention to us women.  I appointed myself to the job, because I am eminently qualified, being a woman.  Besides that, it’s my idea and I got here first.

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A Couple of Old Timey Ideas That Are a Crock of You-Know-What

Old Timey Man and Woman

To start with, women are not scatterbrained, weak or helpless.  If you don’t believe this, try any of the following traditionally female occupations: 

•       Childbirth
• .       Raising children and keeping a house clean
• .       Raising children and keeping a house clean while working full-time outside the home
• .       Keeping the boss organized and the office running smoothly, including handling emergencies 

If that’s scatterbrained, weak and helpless, I’m Cleopatra.  By the way, she wasn’t scatterbrained, weak or helpless, either.

While we’re at it, women are not either saintly and virginal or whores.  We are somewhere in between.  Most of us have a healthy sex drive, and, like men, it ranges in intensity, depending on the person.  The range includes everything from: 

• .       Able to do without it, needing the right kind of stimulation to get going
• .       Horny as hell and ready
• .       Some combination of the two, depending on circumstances
• .       Any degree in between 

And, just like our male counterparts, women share information with each other.  If you don’t believe me, listen in sometime to a bunch of college women, especially if they are a little bit high.  Yes, men get reputations, too.  This includes married men, because wives who are friends talk among each other, and not just about kids and quick recipes.

If women did not have a sex drive, there would be no market for vibrators, especially the ones that fit into lady parts.

In the meantime, a man who plays around indiscriminately earns the admiration and envy of other men, unless he comes down with an STD or ends up in jail or something.  A woman who does the same is considered the neighborhood skank.  Considering that, unless you are pleasuring yourself, it takes at least two people to perform a sex act, it isn’t fair to bow down in admiration to one of them and blame the other one.  They are both in on it.

(DISCLAIMER:  I am not advocating promiscuous and/or indiscriminate sex.  I want to make that clear, in case anyone thinks I said that or hinted at it above, which I didn’t.)

This is probably going to turn into some kind of series on this blog, so stay tuned.

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[1] I gave in and looked it up.  It’s from “An Essay on Man” by Alexander Pope.  I feel better now.