Dichotomy: division into two usually contradictory parts

  

It all started with white wicker.

My sister recently moved from her home in Arlington to an apartment in Dallas. She had a ton of things she just couldn't take with her, one being her bedroom furniture, made of white wicker.

I, being bereft of bedroom furniture of any kind, became the lucky benefactor - though not without cost (I paid her for the furniture, though I did get the sister discount).

Once the furniture was all in place, I began to notice the interesting contrast in my apartment - black leather in the living room, white wicker in the bedroom. The next day, I commented to my friends about how odd that seemed to me.

But J remarked that he didn't find it strange at all: the combination was a reflection of my true personality, which isn't one-sided, but rather, an interesting mix of opposites.

There's my tough, masculine persona (black leather), and my softer, feminine persona (white wicker). And, appropriately enough, the black leather is in the living room (public), whereas the white wicker is in the bedroom (private).

That analogy stretches pretty damn far into my entire life. I've spent twenty years pretending that the only persona which exists is the one draped in black leather - tough, sarcastic, cool to the touch, but sticky when it's hot. Heaven forbid that I should let anyone know I've really got a white wicker soul.

But clearly, if my friends can recognize that this side of me exists, I must not have hidden it as well as I thought.

  

Hell, now that I think about it - this entire site is done in feminine colors! Okay, well maybe I did that because it's The Girlie Matters, after all. Yeah. Right.

And, hmmmm. I look like a white wicker girl, with my manicured nails, long hair, salon tan, full makeup, and all that jewelry. Mary Kay consultants have tried repeatedly to recruit the well-groomed me: in the gas station, in the grocery store, in department stores.

Yet I smoke cigarettes, drive a truck, can shoot a gun, listen to Howard Stern, and make liberal use of the word "fuck" in conversation. Mary Kay would roll over in her grave.

(Don't worry, MK - no pink Cadillacs for me; when your company starts offering black TransAms for incentives, then you can roll over.)

Okay, so not only am I a dichotomy, I'm a confused dichotomy: a woman who dresses like a Barbie doll but acts like GI Joe to divert attention from the fact of her true gender!

  

And men - well, how many times have I said "Who needs them?" with all the bitter sincerity one damaged heart can spew forth? When the truth is that I'd love to be in love again, but only if I can have that sappy kind of love where just seeing the person's name makes you feel weak and jittery inside.

(Yuck. See why I don't want anyone to know about the white-wicker me??)

I am a dog person and a cat person.

I bought two things at Best Buy the other day: This is Spinal Tap on DVD, and Shania Twain: The Woman in Me on CD. Even the check-out guy made a comment about that.

Yesterday afternoon, I watched TLC's For Better or For Worse, where a couple's friends and family plans their entire wedding for them (and got all teary-eyed at the exchange of vows), then that night I watched the detective on Law and Order: Criminal Intent poke at a dead man's eyeball with his latex-gloved finger (and became fascinated with the tales that dead men tell).

What it all boils down to is that, like most human beings, I'm not one-dimensional, no matter how much I might like people to think that I am. But unlike the majority of people I know, I don't fall down squarely on one side of any particular scale. I'm a weird blend of contradictions.

And I like it that way.