Way way back in the beginning of Kate and I being a thing, she messaged me an excerpt from a fabulously strange book called Even Cowgirls Get the Blues.
It was shortly after our first night together and we were stuck in the so are we doing this or not? phase. Our hesitant conversations weren’t accomplishing much, and so she grabbed her copy of the book and typed this to me:
(The author, Tom Robbins, is speaking to the leady character, Sissy Hankshaw.)
Oh why is it so difficult between women? Between a man and a woman it’s yes or no. Between women it’s always maybe. One mistake and the other runs away.
and then
But it’s worth it, Sissy, worth the pretensions, interruptions and caution. When a man is in you, you cannot imagine what it is his body is feeling, nor can he know your pleasures accurately.
Between women, each is precisely aware: when she does that she is certain that the other is feeling this. And It’s so soft, Sissy. So soft.
The book itself is a wonderful mess of cowgirls, a countess (male), the Rubber Rose Ranch, and whooping cranes. I can describe it to you possibly as what it would be like to read The Rocky Horror Picture Show. The deeper you get into it, the better it is.
Suprisingly, though I rave about it and think of Cowgirls as a good paper friend, I have yet to finish it. At the time she lent it to me, things with the three of us were so hectic. Then came a time (that I haven’t even mangaged to tell you about yet) when Kate left, and I didn’t really want to read it.
Now that she’s gone again, and I’ve mostly made peace with that fact, I decided to pick it up again. I made myself a steaming hot bath, grabbed a glass of wine, and read. Pink-fleshed from the hot water, and pink-cheeked from the wine, I moved to get out and knocked my favorite read-in-progress into the water.
I didn’t rush to pick it up. Hell…once a book is wet its wet. Instead I looked at it for a second floating there, pages turning from the water’s movements, and thought how fitting it was.
My unfinished book felt like my unfinished relationship with Kate. (In my opinon at least it feels like things were cut short…the whole journey wasn’t taken)
I picked it up, water pouring from it’s spine, and marveled at it’s sad, soggy, bloatedness. My copy of Cowgirls will never be the same. It’s still legible, but you wouldn’t even get a dollar for it at a book sale.
I’ve still got Kate. Hell, we’re even doing damn well at being just friends…but it’s not what it once was.
Soggy, bloated ex-lovers.
