Love and the Fairer Sex.

But not a Valentine's Day special.

This morning I woke early with many thoughts in my head of things said, events of the week, things that matter.

I’m afraid none of them involved Seymour, Willis, or Luxon so if you’re looking for something political maybe take the day off and come back tomorrow. You won’t find much in the way of politics here, perhaps just a little, but not with the individuals I’ve mentioned.

Rather this newsletter is on life, love, and mostly about the fairer sex.

Are we supposed to still say that? The fairer sex? Maybe it’s out of date, perhaps some even find it offensive. My intention is not to offend. What you’ll read is what I think, and if it sounds a bit old fashioned, if I use words we’re not supposed to, my apologies.

By the way, although I’m writing this on Valentine’s Day, and despite the subject matter, this is not about the commercialisation of love. You can read what I think about Valentine’s Day in this newsletter from a year ago. It was paywalled at the time but I’ve made it available to all now.

Ok, so back to our non-Valentine’s look at love and the fairer sex. Let’s go back to when these events I was talking about started. Last Saturday night…

We made our way down to the corridor, past large security people with hidden faces, into the main room and sat at a couple of tables. I was sharing one with my middle boy Johnny, my eldest daughter Emma, and my sister Juliette.

Without us realising she was there a young woman leaned over our group and slurred seductively in a voice that sounded Irish American. She said, “have another drink, it’ll make me look better, and you remember less”, then she laughed.

The young woman was wearing a shocking orange wig and not a great deal beyond, although sufficient to leave modesty and mystery intact. As she moved on to another table our group laughed happily, my sister leaned over and said “wasn’t she good?”

I thought she was incredible, and I have done her whole life. The young lady was my daughter Thea, and this was the closing night of Night of the Queer.

Before the show I was chatting with my Uncle Ian in the foyer, who had joined us for the evening. Some of you will know who I mean, he was knighted last month for services to film, television, and theatre. He was intrigued by the waiting crowd and asking what sort of show it was.

It was certainly a very young and diverse crowd. My wife overheard and told Ian it was essentially a burlesque, space extravaganza. Night of the Queer was in its sixth year and this incarnation was set in space. Providing opportunity for incredible costumes, lighting, and terrible jokes about “Uranus”.

I’d been getting a bit of stick during the week as to how Dad would feel seeing his little girl up there in fairly sparse costumes, and with some “we’re not in Kansas anymore”, dance moves. Although Thea remained clothed, unlike much of the cast.

The old theatre cry of “tits and teeth”, was quite apt.

So how did I feel? Incredibly proud and profoundly grateful. Not only that she had this opportunity as the intern in the company alongside these incredible performers - her mother and I suspect she might have found “her people” in the theatre, or perhaps those are our vicarious dreams.

But mostly so happy that my daughter was comfortable, and thriving, in this celebration of human beings of all sizes, shapes, and varieties.

Now there is no reason she shouldn’t be. She is a beautiful young women with a dancer’s physique and a wit and charm that almost make me feel a bit for her would-be suitors. Almost.

There’s no reason she wouldn’t have a fabulously healthy body image, and yet I feel elated that she does. In this world of the internet and social media, the pressure and negativity on young people, especially young women, is obscene.

As a parent these days you worry as much about online bullying as real life physical dangers. So to see my daughter emerging into this world of wonder and joy, of real humanness, away from, and untroubled by, all that poison was a wonderful feeling as a parent.

The show was of course fabulous. A dear friend of ours had one of the major roles, and has bucket loads of personality and talent - so that’s alway fun.

One performer was slender and athletic, performing with a pole, and other apparatus, in such style and athleticism that you’d think she should be in Cirque du Soleil or off to the Olympics.

“The star” Image: luckandschooney/Instagram.

Another was a mature woman with a full figure who danced with such sensuality and intensity with the other lead that you truly believed, as he joked at the end, that they must be lovers. This despite his mustache that would have been quite at home in Frankie Goes to Hollywood in the 1980s.

There was a great buzz after the show in the foyer. It was closing night, the bar was open, and as a non-drinker these last two and a half years I’d forgotten how rapidly a group of people can get quite pissed. I think my wife quite liked the turn of events whereby I was the sober driver.

As we were making our way inside my wife pulled me back until the others had gone. Then she kissed me in the dark outside, passionately and a little drunkenly. It felt as exciting and thrilling as the first time I kissed her, 28 years earlier at the top of Mt Eden.

Inside we sat together as everyone laughed about the evening and had a few more drinks. I leaned back in the couch, my wife against me, and felt like the luckiest man on earth.

Love changes. Hmm I’m not sure “change” is the right word. Love matures and becomes different things. The lust and passion of our 20s is inevitably put on the back burner as we enter new phases in our life. Children become our priority and consume much of our time and attention. Love becomes about being a team.

I don’t mean that in some American Rah Rah - Go Team, kind of way. I mean you’re in it together. The worries, the to-ing and fro-ing, all of the things that fill our lives - you become family to each other.

Soon our nest will be empty and it will just be the two of us, although I suspect the kids will be coming and going for some time. Grandchildren will come. We already have our lovely grandson Ollie who was such a delight this week, he’s become a little boy that you can converse with.

Some find it hard to adapt to that change, when the kids and so much of the purpose for the last couple of decades, move on to their own lives. I think we’ll be ok. Fi makes me laugh more than anyone else, I know the context, the reference points, I can almost imagine the thought process and sometimes hear the words before they’re said.

The companionship, and kindnesses, the honesty, these are the things that life is about. It’s a terrible cliche, but true, I’m as much in love with my wife now as I was when I first kissed her. As intrigued by her, mind and body, as then. But with so much more. There are of course moments of disagreement but there isn’t a day goes by when it doesn’t occur to me how lucky I am.

Which is maybe part of the reason I find it so hard to understand why so many people, so many men, have negative attitudes to the fairer sex.

We saw that this week too, sadly we see it every single week. Look I don’t want to come across all David Cunliffe, saying “I’m sorry to be a man”, but actually, sometimes I am. Generally I’m happy in my own skin, could always do better, but some men are absolute pigs. Just the worst, and their attitude towards women and the things these men say make me sick.

This week we had the Superbowl, as American as Apple Pie and High School massacres. The American dream at only eight thousand bucks a ticket. To Kiwi eyes it’s not much of a sporting spectacular, with about 15 minutes of actual gameplay extended to about three hours. So you understand they need to find ways of making it interesting. The top dollar commercials, the halftime show is the highlight for some.

Tay Tay and Trump. Image: CNN.

This year there was a different kind of distraction. Taylor Swift vs Donald Trump.

Now in case you’ve not been following, one of the more bizarre recent conspiracy theories in the US has been that the whole Super Bowl was going to be fixed for the Kansas City Chiefs, who did in fact win, because Taylor was dating one of their players.

The reason for the fix was so that after the win Taylor could give a victory speech endorsing Joe Biden. Just mental.

As an aside Jon Stewart last night returned as host of the Daily Show after being out of the role for nine years. It was an excellent watch and a great place to catch up on the latest craziness in the US.

I admire Stewart greatly, his humour and honesty really cut through all the fakeness and insanity to something human. I love that he’s back in the chair. Check it out, it’s very funny. My wife told me off for laughing so loudly while she was trying to read.

Anyway, back to Taylor. What quickly became apparent, although not a surprise, was that much of the conversation around Trump, Taylor, and the Super Bowl was very negative about the young pop singer. And it wasn’t because of her music, which I’m sure that most of those making objectionable comments had never even listened to.

I commented with the following, on a friend’s post about it:

It's easy to be cynical about the clean cut all American image. But she seems to me to be a decent, honest, and courageous human being who is also a highly talented songwriter and performer. We saw similar attacks here on Lorde for being an intelligent, successful, young woman prepared to speak her mind.

It’s the same thing we see again and again, whether it’s Taylor, Lorde, Jacinda Ardern, and no doubt soon, Chlöe Swarbrick. I can’t imagine what it must be like as a woman, or a young girl growing up, and seeing this garbage constantly. As a man it makes me want to yell “Stop! What the bloody hell are you doing?”

Whether it’s the young suitors circling my daughter, or me after 28 years, or these neanderthals making sick comments from their basements, or sadly in their offices or farms - you should be so lucky!

That you might find such a connection, the passion, companionship, and love of the fairer sex. Or whomever it is you desire.

When we’re school kids we might say mean things to girls. It means we like them. But we grow out of that and we learn of intimacy and respect and how fortunate we are if someone feels the same about us too. And it is wonderful.

I can see through the window that the sky is starting to lighten, there’s a dusty glow over my neighbour’s hedge. Shortly I’ll be waking Fi and making coffee. If you read the newsletter about Valentine’s Day you’ll know there won’t be any gifts. We don’t need those.

Tonight my daughter Thea will be performing at the Halberg awards, as will my youngest boy Matty. A bit different after Saturday night, although this weekend they’ll be performing in the Pride parade, so full circle.

Goodness I see this got rather longer than I intended when I got up. Hope it was a good read, and here’s to love and the fairer sex. Something much more worth celebrating that Valentine’s Day.

I reckon I’ve almost certainly included this track before. It’s one of my favourite songs and I hope you’ll enjoy it too. It seemed appropriate for today.