On Tans and Spears

Hi all-

Cross posted from LJ...

"These plants need water like I need this tan I'm trying to get. That tan that makes sure that my first long day out in the sun this year won't bake me like a potato. That's what winter does to you: it makes you pile on aluminum foil that's guaranteed to melt the butter on you before you escape.

I don't water his. I leave them to whatever plan or schedule he follows. They aren't mine to encroach upon; it's not my place. Besides, they are exotic things with stiff leaves and ceramic pots. My plants are things like ivy and bamboo in whatever plastic container they came in. Watering them is easy. Do you have water? If so, give them some. End of story. His plants are complicated, and I best leave them well enough alone.

The sun is crisping the edges of the leaves in this window. I wonder how many times I'll have to lay in the sun to get the tan I'm looking for. Five, ten? No way to know. When I go from looking like a lima bean to a coffee bean without stopping at kidney, that'll be how many times. No, coffee beans are too dark, that's too lofty a goal for my complexion... I'd be setting myself up for failure.

I only want to be as dark as the construction worker I saw as I drove home today. the kind of tan you get when you haven't quite let your last sunburn heal before you go out and get another one. The kind of tan that he never even asked for, he was just doing his job. Roofs, decks, front lawns. He became beautiful by complete accident, which is something working in an office does not afford you. I have to go out looking for my accidents. Day by day I have to stalk them. If I did so in nothing but a loin cloth, beauty would come faster I think. More sun that way. More muscle from carrying that heavy spear."

-A