When I was a kid.

As I was writing my ‘About’ page, I started thinking about well... ya know, me and how to describe myself. Some little thing made me think of my small self, and of course the fact that I was not a ordinary child.

I can’t tell you how many times I have heard women describe themselves as ‘tomboys’, regardless of their ‘orientation’. It simply seems to be a common ...if not coveted, attribute. I think (key word here) most folks would assume I was one. I can’t tell you how many times people have said to me “So ...you played ball in high school?”

Tomboys are typified by rough and tumble, getting dirty, climbing tree kind of activities. They are good at sports, they fist fight, they are competitive, they throw caution to the wind... me... not so much.

I was NOT an effeminate child. No dresses, no pink, no dollies, no foofy hair, didn’t get into makeup or frilly underwear (altho I have gotten better about that :o)
However, I was also terrible at sports – to this day I ‘throw like a girl’, something my son has taken great interest in correcting over the years... without much luck. I did not like to climb trees, and I simply couldn’t stand being dirty. As a child, I organized the pantry, polished with pledge, folded laundry to military standards. I liked to re-arrange the furniture in our living room seasonally, probably as young as 10. I waxed my bike. I washed my mothers car, I cut the grass in orderly patterns.
I was not a Tomboy.
And, no – I did not play ball in high school.


(Of course had I known women could use power tools as a child – I probably would have put an addition onto my mothers house.)