5.19

I have a confession, Loughmann. I know you won't want to hear it. I've been looking at older women.

No, idiot. Not like that. But like I've passed that age when men stop looking at seventeen year-olds and thinking "alright."

Well, I always assumed so, anyway. But that's not my point. My point is that I've started trying to find out for myself if older women are attractive. Hear me out, now. I've been looking for the last six months for a woman who clicked for me. Six months of actually looking at women at the mall, or restaurants, or wherever one sees older women, and you know what? Nothing. Nothing ever at all.

Really! I can explain, see: all these women I've seen have a stranglehold on their youth. Yeah, locked in a vise grip. They wear too much makeup and they wear young clothes. Like a sexual relationship with a car--just wrong. So very wrong.

Well, I bring it up because this morning I ended my search.

Haha, she was something nearing forty, and she was beautiful. Not gorgeous or sexy, but beautiful like a very old statue left in the rain. I know. Don't shake your head at me.

Self confidence. That's what you're looking for. She walked like she knew who she was and she didn't need people to agree. That's what all this painting yourself up is for: to make other people think you're young and vibrant and alive, well, I'll tell you something. If I had been older and stupider, I would have asked this woman's phone number. She was that--

I am not, either.

And you can shut up, Loughmann. See if I trust you again.