Third World Cocktail Hour

"This is not some third-world cocktail hour," he said, taking charge of the situation and pulling the cloying drink away. The waiter was summoned, the unpleasantness smoothed with deft charm. And inside my breast, some tiny feminine part lit up.

As much as we are trained to accept, to be content, to not make trouble, they are trained to expect, discern, demand. I don't want to be a different person - I would miss the parts of myself I'd lose in the process. But it is exhilarating to witness this difference deployed on my behalf.

The point is not whether I could or couldn't do something for myself, or even whether the thing is or is not done, but rather, the pleasure each person gains from acting according to his or her true nature, and the manner is which the natures supplement one another.

I struggle with owning this pleasure - it is shameful, is it not, patriarchal, degenerate. I stand alone! Unneedy, independent, and if I cooperate it is only within my gender, for there is no true cooperation without, merely oppression in pretty colors...

And yet. And yet. I still like it. Thrill to it, even. If this means that I am corrupt, must my goal then be to crush these pleasures, purify myself? I won't - I know myself. I will still seek out these moments of being met & supplemented, & merely feel guilty about them.
Is there an easier way? Can it be that simple, to enjoy the moment and not to consider how it conflicts with overarching philosophies? I laughed, after all. Lolling in the patio chair, full of lobster and rum, tiny nagging worries about WHAT IT MEANS to laugh at this, or that. How we partner in our own oppression, learn to love our chains, bla. Or what if the nags can be listened to, for a moment, considered, and held up against the starry night and the table of friends, and quietly dismissed? What freedom and liberty might I luxuriate in if I allowed myself to accept the pleasure and set down the compulsion to be without contradiction?