SUCH A LOVELY PLACE TO LIVE

Amusingly,

Believe me, this is pure fiction, with a bit of fantasy thrown in. I hope that it is also thought-provoking. something thought-provoking is usually quite acceptable, while something provocative may have an entirely different connota- tion. Who knows, this may turn out to be more provocative than thought-provoking, though I hope not.

My wife's name is M. That's all, just M; that's the way we do things here. Her parents liked the sound of M, so M she is. My name is Oh Dear. That is precisely what my Mother said when she heard that she was pregnant again. "It's not that I don't want another child," she said, "but there are so many other things that I would rather do". That was not a selfish or unfair assessment on her part; she had already birthed six child- ren, and she was ready to climb mountains. Instead, she ended up climbing walls for a few more years.

M. and I live in a town called S. L. P.L. usually referred to as Lovely. It is lovely, not so much because it is a physically lovely place, though it is that too, but more because of the attitudes of those of us who live here. Not everyone is allowed to move-in. That probably sounds

by Elizabeth J. Warburton

as if we are highly prejudiced, bigoted and that sort of thing, but no! We have neighbors from every conceivable racial and ethnic background. We do have some very stringent ground rules, however.

Two words have been e- liminated from our vocabulary; they are: masculine and femin- ine. Please note, we did not ban male and female. Heavens no! Had we done so, my Mother never would have said, "Oh Dear". We also discourage the use of man and woman; we encourage, no! insist upon the usage of the word, "person", instead. When we must be more specific, we allow male-person and female-person; with names such as M. and Oh Dear, you can see why that is necessary. We have kept he, him and she, her, for convenience sake; we tried to eliminate them, but it became too awkward; suppose I had to call M's employer: "M. will not be in today, female- person is not feeling well." Awkward! So we made that concession.

So by now you are probab- ly saying: "This man "This man (male- person, please) is soft as a That's alright. We hear this all the time. Whenever any of us venture outside of Lovely, we usually end-up in a discussion

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with those who consider us to be odd-balls. "So what is wrong

with being masculine or femin- ine," they ask? We answer:"no- thing, but having to be masculine or having to be feminine is an entirely different story. Are we to assume that someone in authority, somewhere, at some point in time, sat down and decided that all males would perform in a prescribed, limited manner, to be labeled mas- culine, and that all females would do the same, their behav- ior being labeled feminine? Are we to assume that this labeling is infallible and irrevocable?" The answers we get from the "outsiders" are obvious and too predictable to enumerate here. But all is not lost; some have been willing to listen to our beliefs, a few have made further inquiries and one couple has "converted" to the Lovely way of life. Please do not misunder- stand, we never proselyte; we do try to respond to all sincere inquiries. Live and let live, as old as the adage may be, is a signif- icant part of our philosophy.

Allow me to give you a few examples of what life is like in Lovely. M. and I decided to take Karate lessons; we want- ed the exercise and the art ap- pealed to us. I must assure you that M. is a beautiful female- person; if you could see the pair (Whoops! See what I mean by provocative?). Well, anyway, M. excelled in her lessons, while I steadily fell behind, in mine. She now has her black belt and I am still beltless and thinking of trying Yoga. Outside of Lovely, I would be a laughing stock because my spouse suc- ceeded in this traditionally male art, while I failed. We also took a cake decorating course. M. is great, she does some really fan- tastic looking cakes. Mine look as if someone sat on them. On