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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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The Demon Who Plays The Numbers
The Numbers Game The Aisho called yesterday in the late morning. He was at work. I could hear a television set in the background, so I asked, �You�re at work and you watching TV?� He laughed, said that he was. When I asked what he watches on TV at work, he said, �The news, things like that.� I answered, �Yeah, right. You�re really watching One Life To Live, aren�t you?� He said, deadpan, �That�s not on �til noon.� I laughed. I happened to be watching television too. �What are you watching?� he asked. I told him that I was watching a Marx Brothers film (A Night At The Opera) that I had rented. �Have you heard of the Marx Brothers?� I asked. He hadn�t. I told him that they made comedies in the 1930�s�which is a comment, now that I think about it, designed to all but turn off the most avid movie watcher. (1930�s? They didn�t have humor back in those days, did they?) We talked for two and a half hours. About what? Three Accidents: He told me about three car accidents he�s been in, one in which the car ended up, upside down, in a tree and he ended up being held in the car by his seatbelt, unconscious, for an hour and a half. He came to while he was being cut out of the car. After getting out safely, he got to watch his car being removed from the tree�a process that involved a chainsaw and the pleasure of watching his car fall out of the tree. The entire process took long enough that he was late for work and was fired when he called in to explain why he was late for work. The second accident involved a patch of ice and a bridge�and almost involved a fuel truck which hit the same patch of ice while he was waiting with a police officer for a tow truck. �It was like something out of a movie,� he said, of running for cover while the fuel truck barreled down on his truck, missing it by a few yards. The last accident happened in March, when he rear ended a young woman. No one was hurt in that one (and he was thankfully not seriously injured in either of the first two), but he lamented that his insurance premium was going to increase as a result. Two Jobs and A Mortgage Payment: We talked about a teaching gig he wants to have by September, a job that will allow him to one of his two current jobs, and I said, �Do you mind if I ask about money? What will you make teaching?� (I usually hesitate to ask others about money, if only because I don�t talk about where mine comes from.) He didn�t seem to mind, gave me facts and explicit figures�not only for the teaching gig, but for his mortgage payment, his insurance premium, the current salaries for his two jobs. A Nine and A Four: At some point, the conversation came around to sex. (He was telling me about Ukare and her fuck buddy�s latest bout, which ended up with Ukare being thrown out of the fuck buddy�s house for a blow job gone wrong.) I couldn�t resist asking him about our little encounter, saying, �On a scale from one to ten, how was I?� He gave me a nine, which was way too high. I told him that it was too high, that I was more like a five or a six. He disagreed. I finally managed to talk him down to a 7.9. When he asked about his score, I put him in the 8-9 range. I�ve given a lot of thought to The Scale, and have come up with the following: Solo Sex/Masturbation can only go from one to five, with an allowed extension to six for those times when you manage to amaze even yourself with your own fine and unexpected skills of self-satisfaction. Fucking can only go from one to seven, seven being the top (and reserved, for example, for a one night stand with that person that you always wanted to have at least once) and no extensions allowed. The extra two Fucking Points (six and seven, I mean) are allowed just because there is an inherent value in touching another person--making out, being kissed, feeling another person�s skin against yours, and so on�doing things that you can�t do for yourself. Making Love is the only time that The Scale goes all the way to ten, with those extra Making Love Points allowed because making love is a more intimate process that involves love and loving touch, feeling as though you had all the time you need, and the pleasure involved in putting forth the effort to give someone you love pleasure. Making love is a process that you don�t feel anything but good about when you are finished. So by that scale, I still think that my part in our performance was still only a five or six at best. I asked him to rate Ramona The Rebound, and he put her at a four. I asked why, and received several reasons, including the facts that her rhythm and timing were bad, she was careless (not just with sex, but with her life, with her children), and her paganism doesn�t include things like bathing too regularly. Nice. Between Eight and Eight-Thirty: I told him that I had been thinking that I would come in this weekend for sushi, and he asked when (saying that he wasn�t working on Saturday as he usually does because he was helping a friend paint his house). We talked about when would be a good time. He said that we should go shoot some pool after he got off work, and I suggested that I could come in, have dinner, then we could leave from the restaurant. (I never need an excuse for a good sushi dinner, but it is amusing anyway to have one, and to have one that involves billiards.) We made a plan to do it that night. One Hour At The Gym I changed into my gym clothes and walked to the gym while we talked. After an hour of my sitting outside the gym talking, my phone battery was about to die, so we got off the phone. I went in and did an hour�s workout. It was a legs/back/abs day.
More lies:
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