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.)

The Demon Misfit
Tuesday, May. 11, 2004

The Ballad of A Ms. Fit

Yeah, so I was writing about how I love to check out the girls at the gym. Mostly, I�m all agog because of the crazy shit they�re wearing. I mean, it�s not just that I wouldn�t be caught dead in lavender spandex, (and you�re wondering what I do wear to the gym? In cooler weather, I wear long sweats, a sweatshirt with a t-shirt or long-sleeved shirt on under, socks and gym shoes. In hotter weather, I ditch the sweatshirt for a long-sleeved baseball shirt and the sweats for a pair of capri sweats (either ones I hacked myself or bought at Target).) But my point is: most of them don�t have what it takes to be caught dead in lavender spandex. Or bikers shorts. Or those hipster dance/yoga boot cut pants rolled down at the waist so they�re official do-it-yourself low-risers. And please, please don�t get me started on the tank tops. Or, better yet, the sports bra worn as a top. And it�s not that I really fucking care what any woman wears to the gym. You can wear a couple of coconut halves held on with duct tape if you want to and if you are there to actually work out. (Yeah, I�ve ranted and raved about this before. I want women to push themselves, not put twenty pounds on the butt machine and do their little workouts. I mean, even when I was in sorry shape, I could max the setting on the butt machine out. One half of my tired old ass can lift a hundred and fifty pounds, so don�t try to tell me that some nineteen-year-old hard body can only lift twenty pounds. And--Rant Alert failing on that one, sorry.)

Wear what you fucking well please, ladies. I like looking at cleavage as much as the next guy. But for chrissakes, don�t embarrass your Auntie Sublingua when it comes time to pump some iron. Do it for the movement, okay? Grrl power and all that shit. Right on, sister.

Smell You Later

The studio where I work fires kilns off in a closed building. Closed and, like, ten feet from where I work. And it�s usually not a problem. Shit burns off in kilns as they reach temp, and it�s not always safe shit, you know? I mean, chemists and potters die young from inhaling all kinds of crazy shit, but, you know, it�s part of the job, right? But today�Oh, my God�it smelled like someone was trying to get rid of a body in one of the kilns. A body and perhaps boil away three or four gallons of urine at the same time. Because the whole studio stunk to high heaven. I was talking with Stuart (who is at the very top of Max�s funniest people�s list) and he said, in his charming Southern accent, �Why, that smells like burning feathers.� I stopped to consider the smell, comparing it to what burning feathers might smell like. Then Stuart continued, �Annie [his wife] used to have a black friend. And she always used to say that white people smelled like wet feathers.� I immediately forgot the smell and tried to think simultaneously of what wet feathers and white people might smell like. I love that Stuart can do that to me, make my brain go all in strange directions.

And just to continue for a moment with the amazement that is Stuart, I often find myself enmeshed in conversations with him about ancient Greek literature. I mean, one moment we can be talking about, say, what might be burning in a given kiln, and the next moment I find myself relating my favorite moment from Ulysses (where Penelope tests Ulysses by asking him to move their bed) because Stuart has somehow skillfully brought the conversation around to when Ulysses shot an arrow through twenty-nine axes. Or we can be talking about a glaze and suddenly I find myself trying vainly to remember as much Ovid as I can, or what exactly was the last thing Telemachus said to his father. It�s crazy. But I love Stuart for it. You�ve just got to love a man who actually uses his English degree, puts it to use in casual conversations.

The List? Why Sure, Why Not?

I am grateful. I am grateful for Judi, for Stuart, for Max. I am grateful for The Great Nutella Fiasco of 2004. I am grateful for my bathtub. I am grateful for a steady hand. I am grateful for Jun Kaneko and Hamada. I am grateful for manganese dioxide. I am grateful for Shakespeare and Homer. I am grateful for bananas. I am grateful for summer and roses. I am grateful for a heart that digs graves and fills them up again endlessly. I am grateful for this moment. I am grateful for this time. I am grateful. I am grateful. I am grateful for Bob Dylan who said, �If you believe in love, act lovingly.�

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

� sublingua sublingua.diaryland.com.