Tonight I sit in my 10pm bath. Hot. I like the water to scald to the very edge of pain. I cannot be pleased until my skin is a lovely lobster crimson. Ahhhhh. Perfection.
Candles burn. Tall red ones with varying degrees of melty-ness. They are romantic. Romance does not have to include a significant other. One may revel in the purity of water and flame alone and experience deep Love and Peace and bubble bath soap in the eye.
A single flame can mesmerize my tired mind for hours. He invents music and stories in my head until the water grows cold.
The book I read by candle light is Ernest Hemingway's The Old Man in The Sea.
Hemingway is sexy. He is a Real Man. He writes as Real Men should. There are lions and sharks and cock fights. He speaks of the sea (la Mar) as a woman. He loves the sea as every man should love his woman. With fire. Passion. Bravado. And heart-rending terse prose.
I read and read. Waiting for something spectacular to occur.
The old man in the sea stays in the sea for many days. He talks to himself. I talk to myself. We have that in common.
Sometimes I say, "Hey Crys, don't write that. It would embarrass your parents and husband." So then I write it in my Personal Collection of Things That Would Embarrass My Parents And Husband. It's quite a collection. Perhaps it will be published post-humorously. That would be cool.
I want the old man to die at the mouth of a shark.
I am very mean, I think. To want such a thing to happen to an innocent old man in the sea.
Do you understand me? Can you empathize? Do you ever watch a peaceful movie and wish some exciting violence would occur to spice things up?
Why does the human soul cry out for blood? Why do we crane our necks at horrific car accident? We are good people. And yet...
I like the old man. It isn't personal. He's a nice, noble old man.
But I want that blessed old man to perish at sea. I want a shark to leap out of the water and send him to his watery grave. He should die fighting. Yes! I would like to read that story.
The Old Man has hooked an enormous sword fish. A magnificent animal. Bigger than his little boat.
Sharks eventually swarm the old man in an effort to devour the magnificent fish. The old man punches and fights the sharks for his fish. They have rows of daggers for teeth. There must have been a dozen encounters. He kills them all, mostly. He stabs them in the eye. Punches their noses. Clubs their heads to the point of death.
I often have nightmares of monster sharks. And big ships. And the ocean. The ocean terrifies me. I do not understand it. People always fear that which they do not understand.
The Old Man in the sea drifts for days. Stranded. Lost. Hungry. Dehydrated. Injured.
But does he die?? DOES HE? NOOOO! He makes it home to his bed to dream of lions.
Hemingway won a Pulitzer for The Old Man in the Sea. I can't argue with Mr. Pulitzer. It's just that the old man was out to sea for such a very long time with no provisions. I suppose that's the point. The old man is the best of us. Kind-hearted. A survivor.
Never mind. I'm glad he didn't die. I take it back. The Old Man fought a good fight. It's fair.
Mr. Hemingway took his own life later. He couldn't pull the trigger on the old man in the sea. But...
I often wonder at the suicides of artists and writers. Perhaps they delve so far into their souls they remember we humans do not belong Here. They live in an Unseen World with their feet planted Here. Madness ensues. Tragic.
Anywho...
That's what I read.
In addition, I ate WAY TOO MUCH today! Why would I DO that to myself? WHY? OH WHY? WHY MUST MY SOUL DROOP IN SIN?
I ate an entire Costco Polish Sausage with lots of mustard and sour kraut. Later I had a slice of pizza larger then my left thigh. Sizable, my thigh is. Chicken wings on the side. Oreo cookies plagued my weak mind until I indulged at 1 am. They will go straight to my elbows.
I had been doing so well with my High Protein Eat Nothing Fun Diet. I'm all toned up and fit as a fiddle. Not for long, my friends. If I keep THIS up... not for long.
