Skin and bone and what's between

I had many lofty intentions for this posting: a meditation on the number 27, a description of my brother whom I saw to the airport last weekend, or what would be the first in an embarrassingly long series of reflections on the men I have dated. But, it being Friday night, and my evening closed in by the city's sudden barrenness, I haven't the attention to sustain any single idea for long in writing.

Instead, there is the aching of my body, which, since my near-drowning last month, has been rapidly (and strangely) changing. Like Square (see The Library's Grin #99) I've had long and not so-long bouts of muscle-gaining efforts: eating and drinking and lifting in every superfluity imaginable. As it tends to go with these things, nothing worked or worked for long. But now I seem to have gained six pounds - and done so without any conscious intention. And so my body is suddenly unfamiliar to me - bigger, I guess, but also hungrier for strain, for movement and exhaustion. It's all I can do, given the emptiness of my schedule (and of my social life), to try to avoid satisfying it more than once a day. Though perhaps, as I did today - running in the morning and lifting in the afternoon - I should just give in to its urges.

Whatever the case, the sky outside is dark now, and for the rest of the night, I'm intent on finishing the biography of Joyce's father I've been reading. I'll eat a salad somewhere between chapters, maybe listen to the new Johnny Cash. Then bed and an early rise. And another day like this one.