southern surroundings
haven't been on here in a while. and, perhaps fittingly, I'm now writing from a "Panera Bread Company", complete with surfing on the Panera Bread E-Web or something. Whatever, it's free. I'm surrounded by old people, as usual. Well, not old. Senior. People who've progressed into a stage of their lives in which they take things slow, embrace leisure, and wear pastel or khacki-colored high-rise shorts. With woven belts. And sneakers. Or sandals with socks. There's something really complete about the look people achieve here, and I think I may appreciate it.
I started physical therapy on my knees this past week. The doctors keep giving me near doomsday reports about how my knees could blow at any moment. And this is of course difficult to balance with the fact that Rick and I dance like posessed diva natives every Thursday night (which is how I dislocated my knee in the first place, actually). It's a dangerous life I lead.
So I'm reading medieval philosophy, translating Latin manuscripts, and getting electrolysis to my knees twice a week (not at the same time, of course). It's . . . well surreal is a frequent word that comes to mind. Mostly I think it's because I'm a NorthEasterner, and so most of Florida is completely counter-intuitive to me.
The trash cans, for example, are twice as large for each single-family home as they were for my entire apartment building in Brooklyn. This week I was driving (yeah, driving, driving everywhere, it seems), and I rode alongside a Ford F150 (read: BIG) that literally had a ballsack attached to its trailor hitch. And to "top" it off -- the balls were blue. Good to be an american, getting slapped by testicles most everywhere I go.
But I'm really getting into developing my language skills. In the past week, I've built up about a 100 word Latin vocabulary, spoke to a woman at the Library of Congress, and got a raise. I like this stuff, it really relies on me thinking and sleuthing and I love that. An intellectual Sidney Bristow? Well, maybe I'm not there yet, but if I start doing manuscript research in Italy, I could be. I'm kind of thinking about pursuing a Fulbright to Italy in about a year.
As for the queer world, well there are some very aggressive lesbians down here. There are the boisterous (pun intended) southern dykes who I'll shoot a few games of pool with and make dirty, butch jokes. But the one I've had to watch out for is this crazy femme who makes me feel alternately like a man-dude who's supposed to go in for the kill, and a middle school boy who's supposed to take on this young, pseudo-aggressive role mostly foreign to him (he'd rather chill with his friends than undertake this girl's drama). I got a kind of reprieve from her for the weekend, said I was going away, but this isn't going to be pretty. I mean, she's pretty -- kind of porcelain looking and 100% pouty, but that's not my scene. I want some fire, some kick, some anger and humor. I want a thrashing about, a wrestling with gender or words or environment. And I don't want it to be so utterly plain what my "role" is. That shit is foreign to me, and not very interesting. I want movement in a relationship, even just an exchange. I want it to be jaunty, ambitious, then absurd.
i want, i want. instead, i get blue balls and blue belles.
I started physical therapy on my knees this past week. The doctors keep giving me near doomsday reports about how my knees could blow at any moment. And this is of course difficult to balance with the fact that Rick and I dance like posessed diva natives every Thursday night (which is how I dislocated my knee in the first place, actually). It's a dangerous life I lead.
So I'm reading medieval philosophy, translating Latin manuscripts, and getting electrolysis to my knees twice a week (not at the same time, of course). It's . . . well surreal is a frequent word that comes to mind. Mostly I think it's because I'm a NorthEasterner, and so most of Florida is completely counter-intuitive to me.
The trash cans, for example, are twice as large for each single-family home as they were for my entire apartment building in Brooklyn. This week I was driving (yeah, driving, driving everywhere, it seems), and I rode alongside a Ford F150 (read: BIG) that literally had a ballsack attached to its trailor hitch. And to "top" it off -- the balls were blue. Good to be an american, getting slapped by testicles most everywhere I go.
But I'm really getting into developing my language skills. In the past week, I've built up about a 100 word Latin vocabulary, spoke to a woman at the Library of Congress, and got a raise. I like this stuff, it really relies on me thinking and sleuthing and I love that. An intellectual Sidney Bristow? Well, maybe I'm not there yet, but if I start doing manuscript research in Italy, I could be. I'm kind of thinking about pursuing a Fulbright to Italy in about a year.
As for the queer world, well there are some very aggressive lesbians down here. There are the boisterous (pun intended) southern dykes who I'll shoot a few games of pool with and make dirty, butch jokes. But the one I've had to watch out for is this crazy femme who makes me feel alternately like a man-dude who's supposed to go in for the kill, and a middle school boy who's supposed to take on this young, pseudo-aggressive role mostly foreign to him (he'd rather chill with his friends than undertake this girl's drama). I got a kind of reprieve from her for the weekend, said I was going away, but this isn't going to be pretty. I mean, she's pretty -- kind of porcelain looking and 100% pouty, but that's not my scene. I want some fire, some kick, some anger and humor. I want a thrashing about, a wrestling with gender or words or environment. And I don't want it to be so utterly plain what my "role" is. That shit is foreign to me, and not very interesting. I want movement in a relationship, even just an exchange. I want it to be jaunty, ambitious, then absurd.
i want, i want. instead, i get blue balls and blue belles.
posted by LZ at 11:50 AM
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