rear window-ledge, fairly bursting into the yard in a lush blossom of a sentimental dress. His guitar-serenade in Spanish. lyrics which I never understood will make my heart palpitate forever.

No exchange other than his wave and a flutter of the chiffon hankie under my bracelet. I hope he still has that hankie which I let flutter down. It was gone the next morning.

Or my steady date a young man in a pickup truck who for many nights I could depend on to drive by as I sat in a spread of wide skirts and pettis on my front steps - could depend on to ask me (again, and again!) to go riding around with him. He'd always accept my "No" in a friendly way would continue to drive by, exchanging waves. Gave me a cozy-nice feeling. Do feel I know him so well.

Girls-by-choice, who march to a different drum than mine, may wonder why I haven't pressed my womanliness much more deeply into the daily world of nitty-gritty. I hope those gals can understand my preference to the fragilely romantic. To the uncontested womanliness which is mine when I want it. Which no one takes exception to, nor advantage of. Encastled in my fantasy, always physically secure, my visual presentation only to those who find an answering fantasy in themselves, mine is a trouble-free dream world - and so REAL!

I feel I'm skimming the cream off the top of the best of both my worlds (and do feel guilty toward born-girls I know who have had so much less of the romantic, which should be woman's right, than I have).

Yes, I love being a woman almost beyond all things, but on my own terms, and when I want to. But no, I would not (I finally decided) change to my favorite sex permanently. For then, and forever, I would lose the wonder, the thrill, the ever-new fulfillment of the change itself.

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