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sublingua | |||||
| The heart with a mind of its own.(Be present.) | The mind with a heart of its own.(It's past.) | The dream that is your waking life.(Go there now.) | |||
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Jammed-Finger Demons
HAPPY LIST DAY!!! Part I: Shopping Lists Sought And Purchased: New CD Walkman (as it sadly turns out that you cannot repeatedly drop a walkman on a tile floor and expect it to keep playing your new Missy Elliott CD), a pumice stone (because you've noticed--while painting your toenails with the beetle carapice-like blue nail polish that The Demon Who Always Does The Right Thing left on your doorstep--that the heels of your feet need some work even though you've encased them all winter and spring in your Docs). Sought But Not Sought Hard Enough (Or Not Purchased Even Though Found): a cheap pink lipliner pencil (which the cashier thankfully noticed had been opened and which I then declined to purchase), veggie burgers, a new pair of sunglasses (because two kids were hogging the damn mirror in front of the rotating rack of sunglasses), a pair of jeans (because trying on jeans is a chore best left for a time when you remember to wear underwear). Part 2: The Gratitude Can Be Transforming List The Ladas look-alike car with the decidedly non-Ladas look-alike driver (Ladas = Hip-Hop Lovin' Utah-Derived White Mormon Missionary Boy All Grown Up. Non-Ladas = Black Hip-Hop Lookin' Dude) The empty condom wrapper on the pavement near the golf course passed on the Judi walk this morning. The tall, gun-toting driver of the armored car in Subway, who reminded you to tell Max the following Aisho-san story: Aisho-san had just had his wisdom teeth out when The Demon and I stopped for dinner a few nights ago. I told him about having had my teeth out and watching Fight Club over and over while high on painkillers. That led him into a story about how one of his martial arts students was trying to start a Fight Club (which Aisho-san found out about because the guy came to class with a black eye and, when questioned, admitted the whole venture). Aisho-san was vehement in his denouncement of this activity, saying, "I told him, 'I'm teaching you this stuff and you're using it to beat up on people?'" I smiled and interupted him to say, "Aisho, tell The Demon how you hurt your finger." He looked a bit confused at this, but unhesitatingly launched into a story about how, once, cutting up some fish, he had sliced into one of his fingers and-- I interupted again, "No, not that old fish story. Tell her about the time you caught your finger on that guy's sleeve." He stopped, blushed, laughed, said, "Oh, that." I insisted that he tell her. "Okay," he said and turned to The Demon. "I was fighting and caught my finger on some guy's sleeve and jammed it." The Demon laughed. I asked, "Why were you fighting, Aisho?" He replied that he was a kid, that there was nothing to do on base except go to the "teen center." "Who wants to go to the teen center?" he asked rhetorically. "So we used to go off base and pick fights with GI's." I asked, "Who won the fights?" He replied, "It's not about winning or losing, Sublingua." I said, "Don't be hitting me with no philosophy, Aisho. Just tell me if it was you or the other guy lying on the ground when the fight was over." He laughed, refusing to say. I teased, "See?! That right there means that you lost the fight. You be tryin' to get out of sayin' by bringing out the philosophy." The Demon said to the Aisho-san, "She's an instigator, isn't she?" and laughed. Thankfully Aisho laughed too. (And writing that reminds me that he laughed again when I pointed out how he and The Enforcer had started to pick on me the last time I was in the restaurant.) Part 3: The Gratitude Continues List Be grateful, Sublingua. Be grateful for Max, who told you to not focus on how much the CD player cost, but to buy the one you wanted. Be grateful for your tuna sandwich lunch and for bad movies. Be grateful. Be grateful, Sublingua, for a bright day and for the ferns unfurling beautifully from between the paving stones outside your apartment door. Be grateful, Sublingua, for the sound of your neighbors' loud lovemaking in the middle of the afternoon. Be grateful for beetle carapice blue nail polish. Be grateful. Be grateful, Sublingua, for all your demons and for God's gifts of angels disguised as demons who were sent to distract you from the loneliness you had resigned yourself to. Be grateful that you are blessed in ways that you cannot possibly imagine. Be grateful for it all and by that show your obedience.
More lies:
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