Better With Time?

I think I was born an old soul, I was never awash with friends my age, never quite “got” the playground sense of humor and always felt more with my peers in a group of people that were older than I was. Not much has changed there really, and my poor son was born with the same affliction….only now, away at college is he finding people that share his interests and sense of humor, sorry about that kid. Part of that may have been that both my mother, and myself as a mother, were very inclusive, always wanting our kids to be at home and accepted in any situation including adult ones. Well that and having no extra income for sitters means if you want to go anywhere the kid has got to go too. This situation worked out better for my son, he was just born with this natural exceptionalism, people were and are drawn to him right away and he can flourish in groups of 40-60 year olds just as easily as hanging out with his college friends…it’s almost as if he is beyond being a certain age. Early this year one of my “older” friends was going to be in Louisville and wanted to meet up with Jeremy, “We can meet at a bar” he told me, this was when I had to remind him that while Kentucky may seem like another country they still did not allow minors in bars. Just seemed to work out really well for Jeremy, for me on the other hand…



I pretty much sucked at personal relations, never had more than one friend at a time and dating…what a nightmare. I was just awkward as hell, no one thought my snippy little comments were funny, matter of fact most people my age just thought I was mean, mix that with my very shy nature and a somewhat tough looking exterior…yeah, I was super popular. I never really dated per se, and the handful of boyfriends I did have, well they bored the shit out of me. Matter of fact before my 21st birthday the only guy I was crazy about was my 8th grade English teacher, Mr. Ackerman, now that man…well he drove me wild. My infatuation with him would set forth a pattern in what, and who I was attracted to, they had to be wicked smart or quite a bit older than I was or I was not at all interested. My last two relationships pretty much sum it up, the man before Carl, we started dating when I was 21, he had just turned 42 and now it’s Call-o who while a couple of years younger than I am, is one of the smartest people I have ever met…it’s that whole, “My junk is directly connected to my melon” thing.



The word sexy has been lobbed around a lot lately, and as always I find myself at a loss as to what it really means…I never think of it as a look as much as a feeling. My friends and I have spent countless hours discussing what we think is sexy or what sexy means to us….seems like there is no definitive answer and my friends and I could not be more off on what we find sexy. While we could agree that Brad Pitt was very good looking I could not go so far as to say I found him sexy…well, I did like his character in those Ocean’s movies, mouthy, smart and eating all the time…now that, that’s sexy. (Hmmm I am working two outta three of those, wonder if that makes me mildly appealing…) As we went back and forth trying to find one thing that we all might find really sexy we found that our taste in men…massively different but our taste in wine, well this was when we all came together.

One friend found men that were all inked and badass really sexy, one thought that young, chiseled, buffed dudes were sexy and me…fell back on my old habits, “So you’re like into those Hemingway types” one friend observed…dammit if she wasn’t right. As much as I tried to plead my case for the older man, “Um, do you remember what sex was like when you were 18? It was awful, why the hell would you find that sexy now?” my one friend just would not budge. The thing was, for her sexy was a look, at least when it came to what she found physically sexy, her junk and melon, when it comes to men….worlds apart, think she is kind of like a dude that way.



I extolled the merits of time, experience, years of life that was felt and dealt with years before I was even able to walk, damn I think that’s hot…knowledge, the shedding of that, “who’s looking at me” and flashy bullshit. Something beyond that first look, first heart pounding glance…something deeper, richer and with more layers, something that makes me think, well that is what fires my cylinders, what gets my proverbial juices flowing…confidence or comfort in one’s own skin…another major turn on and not often what one finds in a young man or a trying-to-place-best-in-show wine. Personally I feel the same about both…come back to me when you’ve shed your primary crap…I’m willing to wait.





So while my girls and I were at an impasse about what we find sexy with men the one thing we could agree on, wines that make us think and wines with a few years in the bottle…sexy as hell. We all felt that wines, even little wines, were just made sexier with a couple years on them, when they had time to shed their “up front-ness” and had that layer of intrigue, that moan inducing animal or underbrush thing and gained a little weight, texture, and stature…damn, turns out I like my wine like I like my men…unpolished, not showy, thought provoking and even better if they have a few years on em’.



With time people and wines flesh out, gain texture, become more interesting and in my book...pretty damn hot.