20 January 1999: Place of the Skull

Best single sentence of the morning: "The word 'of' is in the kitchen sink." It would seem our refrigerator is shedding its poetry.

Hooray! The rec center bought real steps. That made last night a much better workout. And I found a coworker's wife who's attending, or she found me. It must have been my sparkling personality as I gave the counter clerk 20 dimes and flashed my id that made the woman ask, "Are you--?" I cut her off: "I am if you're…" and we were off.

Yet a third instructor though, last night, the third night. It always takes a class a while to learn a new instructor, and with three first days in a row I doubt I'm getting the benefit from the class I might. Oh well. She was a good instructor so maybe she'll be the permanent one.

If you had worried, today's bus ride was just fine, even with the going backward.

The other day somewhere on the web I came across two names for the thieves hung with Jesus, Dismas and Gestas. I thought that was an interesting bit of information and noted it. (I need to catalog all the randomalities I come across .) So the other day when I saw on the new fiction shelves a novel called The Thieves of Golgotha, I plucked it up. I like novels told from another point of view, like Grendel and Wide Sargasso Sea. It's not metafiction, like Gore Vidal's Live from Golgotha, but it's an interesting perspective.

The thing that throws me is that in the novel the thieves' names are Azriel and Nikos. So are the thieves named in the Gospels or even anywhere in the Bible? Or are their names something an organized church thought of later, like Christ's being both fully, 100% human and simultaneously fully, 100% divine? Reeeeeeally logical. And I will research it, but I do hope no reference librarian thinks I'm some religious wingnut like the Abe Lincoln freak.

Whom I saw again today. This time, without my suitor, I told him off: "In that context, the capitol building, "capitol" is spelt with an 'o.' But you're wrong on two counts, of which the spelling is the minor." He thanked me for the first correction, anyway. His deal is that he dresses up like Abe Lincoln and roams downtown Denver to emancipate zygotes from Roe v. Wade. His placard also says something about his being unable to tell a lie. If dressing up like someone he isn't and wearing a false beard isn't lying, is attributing a fallacious legend about George Washington to Abraham Lincoln a double falsehood? Or do I give him too much credit when he is really merely a stupid freak?

Today my errand--and a hard task it was--was to exchange a sweater from Express I was given at Christmas. It's acrylic, so even though I liked the weave and the color, I couldn't wear it. I went to Express the day we saw "Shakespeare in Love" and saw nothing at that store that I liked, possibly only the second time in fourteen years that I've shopped Express that has happened. Today was different (whew!); maybe the downtown store's merchandise is skewed toward a downtown constituency. I saw a long gray skirt I loved, but one size swam about my waist and the next size down clung to my hindquarters. Sigh. I found a lightweight sweater of the color of an orchid Crayola instead. And a pair of tights purportedly as opaque as wood. Perfect.

And a birthday gift for ZBD, who will turn two before she receives it. A pair of overalls she can grow into, I hope, if they're too big now, and a little white turtleneck. I buy my nephews books because I am the Book Aunt but I buy my nieces both books and clothes, because clothes for little girls are so fun. Color me sexist. Plus two of the nephews have lots of cousins so I figure they don't want for clothing but I do believe every child needs its very own books.

I did my step tape when I got home. Not as hard a work-out as the Nordic Track, but longer.

Blake imitates the Mac alert noise, which we have set to "Quack."

The Thieves of Golgotha is interesting. I assume it's based on the Gospels more closely than I know them. I know there was a trial, but did Pilate really give the people a choice between Jesus and someone else to put to death? The prose is clumsy in bits, and just look how black that kettle is over there, but then, how many different ways can the agony of torture and crucifixion be described? Did y'all know about the peg set into the upright? It stablizes the torso from the moment you're hanged--and its point of contact with your body is your genitals. So that when your torso sags down as its weight dislocates your shoulders, your genitals support more and more of your weight.

Also I don't know if the thieves are portrayed in the Bible as being Redeemed, but they are in this. Overall, Live from Golgotha is a better different point-of-view work.

I just read in Man Out of Time that the only Bible that Bill, an atheist, possesses is one he was handed by someone distributing them in the street. I don't think, myself, that not subscribing to the Bible's faith means it's not worth reading. Its influence on western civ is profound and therefore worth appreciating. I went to Sunday School through fourth grade and received a New American Bible. I always think it's "American Standard," which indicates how valuable I find it now. I would like a King James Bible, an edition for academic study. The language is so lovely.

The new translations of the Bible I doubt are translations at all but just rework of existing English versions. This is just my jaded supposition, but to my ear, "Adam knew Eve his wife" is much more evocative than "Adam had sexual intercourse with his wife, Eve." BJWL told me BDL gave her a Bible for Christmas, so I asked which edition. She had to go check--and I figure their church allows only certain editions--and told me it was the New Living or New Life Bible, I forget. "And it has my name on the cover, in gold." I restrained myself from asking whether it was Child of the Manger gold. She wouldn't've gotten it. My name on my Bible is in Child of the Manger gold.

Hey! In looking up "Paper Moon," I see it's a book! Addie Pray. Color me stupid. I wonder how good it is? There are few cinematizations I like of books that I love; and "Paper Moon" is one of my favorite movies. Hmm. I do not require a cinematization to follow its book slavishly but I do require it not to betray principles and oppose its integrity. I shall certainly seek this book.