I sit this morning perplexed, not knowing how to begin or how to end. I've struggled for a long while trying to choose an image. Everything I put down on the page seems wrong. I should probably do something else and come back to this later with a clear head. But habits are hard to break, and so I'll muddle on.
Really? Something like this?
Patriotism cuts a wide swath. Ideologies and theologies may vary in your area.
Well, now. . . that has taken me about an hour to put together. I've had to delete a lot. I hope I've made my point. I thought about putting a photo of Sydney Sweeney from the American Eagle ad where she lies in a bikini before the American flag or the recent one of her naked holding a baseball bat and saying, "What's more American that baseball?" but you can look those up for yourself. I'm already on the wrong side of too many things.
Let me see if I can just write a story. There is a woman who comes to the Physical Fitness Club who I should disdain. She is fifty, about six feet tall, and fit as a fucking fiddle. Not an ounce of fat on her body. She is ripped. She always wears either Lulu Lemon yoga tights or little tennis skirts. Or so I thought. She chews gum always and has a very well defined jawline. The first time I saw her, she was working out with her husband who is built even better than she. It was the only time I've ever seen them together. I tried talking to him once, but I guess I am not his cup of tea. I think he is a real prick, but I'll give it to him--he's both physically and financially buff.
After that first time, she has always came in alone, do a brief workout without talking to anyone and leave. When she's in the gym, I find it difficult not to look at her. I find her striking.
One day, I was using a bench in front of the big wall mirror when she sat at the bench next to me. I was all kerflumpt looking at myself in the mirror and messing with my hair when I caught her looking at me.
"I hate mirrors," I said.
"Just another Monday," she laughed. Her voice poured southern honey.
We have been friendly since. She's a real priss, southern as they get, and typical of her class. Two children, a boy and a girl. Her son plays football for a small college. Her daughter plays softball at my old alma mater. She herself played college basketball. I've never asked, but I'm sure her husband must have been a college baseball player. They met in college she told me. They've moved to my own hometown to be close to their children, sold their big house in Georgia, etc. They bought a house in the college towns for their children so they could go on weekends to see them play. She has the air and the manners to go along with all of that.
One day I asked her, "Yoga or tennis?"
"What?"
"You are always in either yoga pants or a tennis skirt."
"Oh. . . no, I'm a runner. This is a running skirt."
A running skirt?!? Holy Moses, I almost shit myself. I'd never even heard of that before.
She gets to me. I don't know why, but I have two types, and she's the other, the surface conservative society type. Her face shows her age, but when she smiles or laughs, it lights up, and it makes me happy. I want to tell her so. I know her values would piss me off, but I'd like to test them and see.
And I think I'd like to help her cuckold her husband for awhile. I don't know if it is because I like her or dislike her husband even more. Either way, the thought is shameful. It makes me feel like Happy Loman who compulsively seduces the fiances and wives of his bosses. Or like Biff, stealing the fountain pen from his former boss's desk.
Mean-spirited and small.
And of course, it is a brief and stupid thought. I think she only tolerates me out of courtesy anyway. She's married to an awful man. I'm sure there is something vicious behind that radiant smile.
What was that fable about the fox and the grapes?
I am nothing if not confessional here, revealing all my deeply flawed character--but remember, I am a shy man, and I keep my hands to myself. I don't lean in. And I've never asked a woman out in my life. It is the dichotomy of a flawed individual, don't you think, Dr. Freud?
But as both Frost and Anderson allude, however, the ugliest apples are sometimes the sweetest. It is the flaw that makes them beautiful.
Something like that.
Hey now, I found something to write after all. I think I won't go back and read it for fear of deleting the whole thing and needing to begin again, and I just don't have the time now. Mother needs breakfast, and so do I. I'll just leave you with a song I heard yesterday, a kind of tribute to the end of summer. It is the kind of thing the kids at the Cafe Strange listen to.
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