sublingua

(Be present.)

(It's past.)

(Go there now.)

Part I: Olly Olly Demon Free: I'd Like To Give A Shout Out To All My Demons In The House (With Love, From Your Devoted Demon Wrangler)

Hello, my little demons. I have some idea of who you are--my stats illuminate your shadows, show me your increasingly frequent visits, where you have traveled from, the maps you've used to get here, but you lurk instead of revealing yourselves. Are you afraid to be wrangled?

Part II: If You Put Your Heart On Paper, Does It Become A Legal Document?

From the paper diary:

Looked at stats and found the above and also that Magdalene [or someone using her computer or ISP, and also The Demon Who Does The Right Thing�hi, babe!] came to look. I haven�t heard from her, thank God. Our friendship came to an end when she exposed her ignorance�her willful ignorance�about feminism. God. I should forgive, but I�ll move on first and forgive later. Right?

I also should go work out before sushi dinner tonight. Yes, I said sushi dinner�even after trying to convince myself that �God�s No Friends Rule� applies to me �n� Aisho-san. I�m going with Mayflower and The Enforcer and must remind Mayflower to NOT embarrass me by making some declaration of my interest.

Some woman w/ fab arms just came into the study area. She�s too thin, tho.� I�ve been coming around to appreciate strong women with muscle tone beneath some womanly padding. Those girls whose chief attribute is skinniness? Yuck. It�s, like, congratulations on beings skinny, honey. Have you seen my biceps? Pretty fucking cool, huh?

Later:

What was I saying? Oh, right. The Body. Food. Demon Viewings. Sushi. The Aisho. Yep.

The list:

I am grateful for demons. I am grateful for Mayflower and The Enforcer. I am grateful for Max and x and Sophistica. I am grateful for my Kmart t-shirt. I am grateful for bananas. I am grateful for elliptical trainers, for tattoos. I am grateful for Elvis Costello. I am grateful for birds and sunshine and spring days and for water. I am grateful for The Demon Who Always Does The Right Thing and The Demon Who Tolerates Intolerable Behavior (a.k.a, The Demon Grrlfriend.) I am grateful for sushi. I am grateful for time, for this day, for apprehension and uncertainty. I am grateful for the gym, for red lipstick, for sunglasses. I am grateful for green. All green things make me feel grateful. I am grateful for lettuce and summer.

Later:

A couple: An African-American woman with a perfect figure�big and loose�in a skin-tight purple dress (but too giggly). A bald man in a tie and white dress shirt. No jacket. She has long, tousled brown hair. He humors her as if she were stupid. They sit at the table, having lunch. (I know she eats a BBQ sandwich.) I try to look mean so that he keeps his eyes off of me. She speaks of someone who is in violation of their probation. Is this a long-term but strictly cash basis kind of relationship? I can�t see them together otherwise.

Ran into Ron the Hairdresser in the parking lot. He and his mother had �just seen the movie.� What movie? God, who knows? I love Ron. I am grateful for Ron.

What�s left for me to lose? Nothing that would cause me to mourn out of proportion to its loss. Nothing I can�t afford to lose. Nothing that means more than it should. Nothing that I wouldn�t willingly walk away from.

I woke up last night from a nap and my bony ass hurt just from lying on it. My body and I have some gettin� used to each other time coming up.

Later: Big sushi dinner. God�s No Mo� Sushi Rule. [Written at the top of the page as reminders: Kobe Beef. Fuji�s Eyes. Miller Lite; Tattoo Talk.]

Dinner at __________. No mo�!

(There were some strange moments. Was he unaware? I�m tired and the newness has worn off. I flirt a bit, but not with the interested intensity I once had and was not able to sustain I suppose�.Strange moments: His asking if I slept in the nude; admitting that he did. [I asked him, "Are you too po' to afford pajamas? Not even a sweat sock? What would you do if there were a fire?� Mayflower laughed. Aisho replied, �I�d wrap a blanket around myself and run outside.� The Enforcer said, �Or you could just run out in the nude and maybe there�d be some women out there. [Playing suave] Hey, ladies. How you doin�?� I said, �Then you�d have to say, �It sure is cold out here.�� The Enforcer laughed and said, �I have to sleep with an ice pack on my genitals.� The Aisho-san did the �Tchss!� sound, shook his head at us.] Strange. His telling me where his house is, after having made me think it was in the Heights (?); mentioning his dogs again. Mentioning how his �service� was what? (This in response to my asking if I had paid my entire bill last time�because it had seemed a bit low. Had I missed a round of drinks or something? He shook his head, mentioned that he gave me �service.� I jokingly asked if that was like in �lotion parlors,� where you pay an exorbitant price for the lotion but the massage is �free.� He laughed, explained that it was a reference to a bit of free sushi thrown my way. Fine, but it�s unagi being thrown my way and not toro. A few sexual references, yes. But that�s not unusual. I�m just�I�ve just�The Demon�s copy of Stone Butch Blues shook me. Hard. I recognized my own dilemma in there. Why? Not liking to be touched. Needing to feel tough, needing to feel in control. Being unable to climb out. And then tonight, feeling a struggle with Aisho-san somehow; his trying to take a bit of control. Do I yield? How can I? It�s not that I don�t want to, but that I don�t know how to. How do women yield without becoming paid bimbos in too-tight knit dresses? I could not not wear the pants. And so many things echo in my head: The doctor who lived in Japan and who informed me that Japanese men don�t respect women. Period. Right? He sort of pushes at me; the way I push at him, yes, it�s true, but what? God, I want him. Okay, God�s No Sushi Rule applies. Right now. Because I was just looking at magazines here at ____________ and one of them showed a headboard. And I so pictured us fucking; him nailing me against that headboard. And I keep saying that I�ll make friends first, right? Right. But then I picture something like that in my head and I just want to get on with it, to bypass all the getting to know you crap and just fuck him. What kind of lover would he be? I wonder. When I ask him to choose for me when I order sushi, he always hesitates. Why? I can just see him hesitating to put forth in bed as well.

Part III: Wrap Up The Loose Ends And Be Damned Thankful

Kobe beef: Talking about Kobe beef, Aisho saying it�s really good beef, how they �feed it beer and massage its skin.� I make The Enforcer laugh by saying, �Yeah, I had a boyfriend like that.� The Enforcer says, �You had to feed him beer and massage his skin?� And the Aisho shook his head at me, but grinning.

Fuji�s eyes: I was telling Mayflower about Fuji�s beautiful eyes. �Don�t you think they�re beautiful, Aisho?� I prompted. He rolls his eyes at me and walks away.

Miller Lite/Tattoo Talk: My jokingly saying that I would take off my shirt to show him my tattoo�after explaining to him about my Hand of Fatima�after a few Miller Lites in the parking lot. He said, �That�s not a problem. I can supply the Miller Lite.�

[I suppose I should explain the whole Miller Lite thing. It references a visit when the Aisho-san and Fuji were talking in Japanese about something and I gave the Aisho a questioning look. He explained that he had bought beer for Fuji. I asked if Fuji--who is probably in his mid-50's (according to the Aisho)--were not old enough to buy his own beer. The Aisho (who was still then thinking that even my most joking questions required earnest answers) told me that he and Fuji and one of the waitresses usually had a few beers after work, trading off paying. I asked if they just sat around the parking lot after work like a bunch of high school students, drinking Miller Lite. Fuji interjected at this point that he was an alcoholic but that it was not my problem--was his problem. (I chose to take this as a joke.) And that's the long, I-guess-you-had-to-be-there explanation for the drinking Miller Lite in the parking lot thing.]

Other talk about his not being Catholic, about another Japanese restaurant, his speaking Japanese to two women who came in, my teasing him about how well he had memorized the phrases out of the back of the book. Mayflower trying to set him up with me. The Enforcer�s keeping one eye on him, commenting about his always keeping one eye on us.

Thank you, Mayflower, for making me get back on the bicycle.

retreat or surrender

More lies:
Waking Sleeping Demons II - Sunday, Oct. 30, 2011
Waking Sleeping Demons - Saturday, Oct. 29, 2011
time - Friday, May. 20, 2011
- - Wednesday, Oct. 06, 2010
The Return - Tuesday, Oct. 05, 2010