The future. I'm walking through a starport with my friend Lisadia. She's big in every way: height, weight, brain, voice, opinions... ego.

We pass a huge angular ship being serviced. Lisadia says "It's even uglier close up than I'd heard!" This starship model is notoriously drab--just a big powerplant with a hull tacked on around it. Cheap, indestructible... but ugly.

Up on the entry ramp, a dog person is working on the ship. She's part sheepdog, part collie I think, with tall pointy ears and brown and white fur in bangs hiding her eyes. She overhears Lisadia and calls down "No, we repainted it. Went to a lot of trouble to beautify it. Look at the colors!"

Lisadia snorts and says to me, not the girl directly "Aw, she has no taste. What do you expect, she's just an animal!"

Even though I think the ship is ugly, I'm a bit shocked. I hadn't expected bias from Lisadia. It's not like this girl hasn't heard worse, a lot of humans are specist, but still... I feel ashamed.

Then I think about what the girl said and really look at the ugly ship. And she's right. Rich, subtle colors, painted to harmonize and unify, to visually explain the proportions. Purple shadows sculpt and emphasize the shape. From a distance it's still stark, but close up, it's... well, not beautiful, but close enough that I considered the word.

I turn away from Lisadia, climb the ramp to the dog-girl and say "I owe you an apology. I thought the same as she did, but you're right. I was looking with prejudiced eyes."

Our eyes meet (such beautiful, dark, whiteless eyes, under those bangs!) and I see that she knows I'm not talking about paint.

Lisadia = a mix of friends and co-workers:

1. Lisa, my boss, called a student we know "cute but dumb" for getting a crush on a guy. Right! Lisa's above all that, I'm sure.
2. Claudia (clever, fat, opinionated) and her friends dragged me out to a dance club. I flirted with a thin girl who worked there. She was sweet, but Claudia dismissed her as "cute and stupid." She hadn't said anything stupid! But she was thin...

So Lisadia means Lisa & Claudia's "sexy = stupid" attitude. Has it infected me, do I underestimate hot girls like Cassandra just because they're hot? I need to slow down, turn off my path, and really talk to so-called bimbos. Can't trust what ugly women say about pretty ones!

And the dog girl isn't just Cass but all hot girls as cold girls see them. Not guys--I'm alert for guy-style sexism! But women who deny they're animals, who scorn girls with any animality, calling them ONLY animal... these so-called friends have made me overlook something.

Or someone.

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