I’ve always thought the world divided itself between beach people and mountain people.
Maybe I’m too binary. Too beacheononormative. Maybe there’s a Kinsey scale for Beach/Mountain.
I love the mountains.
I grew up in a small town in the mountains.
I love to ski. I love to pack into the wilderness and camp. I love the smell of the mountains. I love the way the sun comes up and the sun goes down. I love the sky. I love the clouds. I love the dry air. I love the hot summer days and cool summer nights. I love the cold winter days and the colder winter nights. I love snow.
I hate the beach.
I get bored at a beach after 10 minutes. I’m irritable after 20 minutes. I’m a stark, raving, homicidal maniac after half an hour. If I can find a little kid, we’ll build a sand castle. That will keep me occupied for as long as it takes. But when I’m done, I feel like I’ve just wasted time I’ll never get back.
Plus, I hate sand. The inside of every swimsuit I’ve ever had: a sand magnet. Sand down there, ugh. Sandpaper in my bra? Ouch.
(Aside: I absolutely, positively do not believe anyone who says she’s had sex on a beach. A movie love scene on a beach kills my libido for days. Ewww.)
My Love is also a mountain person.
She grew up on a ranch in the mountains.
She’s a terrific skiier. We skiied together a few times last winter. I thought I was good, but she took me places at Alta and Big Sky that scared the daylights out of me.
Since starting her business, she’s spent Augusts at her parents’ ranch, recharging her batteries, putting up hay, riding fence, doctoring cows and calves, planning a new irrigation system with her father and packing into the wilderness behind the ranch.
But … She is also a beach person.
She has spent a lot of time working in Rio de Janeiro.
Her idea of heaven is to sit on Copacabana in front of the Palace, get served caipirinhas, read and watch the kids play futebol (soccer) and futevolei (volleyball played with feet instead of hands).
[Aside: I haven’t been to Rio. From what I understand about fitness and dress standards on Copacabana, how could she have failed to realize that she’s a lesbian?]
[Aside 2: Her beach reading tends to be either
- Work: A mathematical model predicting the probability of outcomes of a multibillion dollar business decision
- Self-improvement: A monograph on algebraic number fields
- Leisure: A novel by Henry James, Willa Cather or Marilynne Robinson
How she can do that and drink a caipirinha? I keep telling you, she is amazing.]
[Aside 3: A caipirinha is a lime, cut in eighths, muddled in a glass with sugar, doused with cachaça (Brazilian moonshine that doubles as paint remover) and finished with ice. Deadly. Delicious. Deadly.
I don’t drink much (I haven’t been drunk since I was in high school) and I’m a cheap date. Two of those and I’d be a babbling idiot.]
Now, anything that includes a caipirinha, women in Brazilian bikinis and futebol/futevolei has to be good. So Rio doesn’t count in this Beach/Mountain dichotomy.
Still, she claims to like the beach.
I don’t get it.
PS: No, she is definitely not bisexual.
Family Values Lesbian 