“Well P, I met you not long after I got here (from another country) and I had no idea what was going on. I had to learn everything from you. Everything about everything, I learned from you! Did you know that? I have always been the learner and you the teacher.”

“No, I didn’t know. You know way more than I do.”

“Yeah, about some things that’s true. I know about physics. And I know how to fight a war and win. I know some things you don’t know but none of it counts when it comes to trying to live in this world. In this society which you understand. You understand people and how they think, hat they do and why where I have no clue.”

“I guess.”

“Well you do, and her I am after all these years, back for another lesson. I need your help, P. I just have no idea what the hell is going on. I went to war for 20 years and come back and nothing is the same. Nothing!” he said emphatically. “I can barely survive in this world the way it is now. It makes no sense to me and I really think I need to you translate all the changes.”

“Like what?”

“Like lipstick lesbians! I don’t know what that was until you told me! How the hell am I supposed to know what a lipstick lesbian is? Can you imagine? What if I were the type of man going out there looking around for women and I ran into one of them?” he asked very sincerely.

I laughed.

“What would I do? I wouldn’t know what to do. Lipstick lesbian? What’s that? I wouldn’t know what was going on if you’d not have explained that, told me what they were. How am I supposed to figure something like that out? I wouldn’t have a chance of ever figuring this out! A woman who likes women but dressed like she wants a man? What the hell? I am completely mystified about the existence of this.”

“Well I am sure they would find their way around you. They’d avoid you anyway. They’re not looking for you. And I guess it makes sense you don’t know about this. Not a lot of lipstick lesbians in Special Forces,” I said. “Not so many of them out living in the jungle so how are you supposed to know.”

“Well hell no there are no lesbians with lipstick in my world. There are no women, period! And that’s not the only thing that’s changed. I come home after 20 years and what do I find? I find women have no hair! What happened to all the hair on women? Women take all the hair off their bodies these days. Why do they do it? I liked that hair! What’s wrong with having hair on your body? Tell me, P. Where did all the hairy women go? I want a woman with some hair on her! Can’t I find one of them anymore?”

“The hairy men are gone too. They get their backs waxed,” I said. “And their chests, too for that matter.”

“They do?” he was incredulous. “Oh my God, what is wrong with them?”

“Oh, I don’t know. Style I guess.”

“And how come no one eats anymore? Is that the new style too? Since when is beauty looking like you just got out Dachau? Why do women have to look like they’re starving? That’s not attractive! I don’t want a skinny hairless woman. That’s not a woman! That’s a Chihuahua.”

I snorted.

“P, I’m not kidding. The men are meterosexuals, the women are Chihuahuas and I don’t know what I’m going to do besides come to you for help in figuring this out. Same as when I was 19. I couldn’t make heads or tails of how the people acted when I got to this country. You helped me figure things out when I was 19 and I need to you do that for me again.”

“Okay yeah, I can and I will.”

Iconoclastic Men, Chiron, Virgo, and Astrologer, Barbara Hand Clow