Wednesday, August 1, 2012

I Always Wanted To Be Tarzan's Mate


It's been a mighty good day. 


I got in my office and cleaned it up some, just enough to make it look nice, feel nice. I cleaned the desk and a few of the windowsills and set Fabio back up from where he'd fallen down




and then I actually took the laptop out there and wrote for a few hours. 


It's so funny. Here I am, finally with a room of my own and do I ever use it? Hardly ever because even though it's a dream of a writing room, a glory and a joy of a place to sit to go into other worlds in my head, I now have this entire house to write in and where I usually end up is right here on the back porch where I feel as if I am outside and I can see the bird feeder, the little pond where frogs hop and croak, the trees where the squirrels jump and chase and leap and scurry and play tag with each other.


But. My office is special. It's where I keep my mermaids, my madonnas, my Tarzans. 




If you've only been coming here for awhile, you may not know about my love for Johnny Weissmuller who is the REAL Tarzan, and we're not even going to argue about that. My first crush. 
Sigh.
He looked like this:


I mean, are you kidding? For circa 1963, that was as hot as it got. YOU COULD SEE HIS ASS! That loincloth. Why don't more men wear them? Plus, you know, he built Jane that fabulous tree house and brought her ostrich eggs to cook and he was always rescuing her and Boy from Amazon Warriors and lions and he could talk to animals and swim like a dolphin and oh hell, even the Beatles loved him.


 That's him, right between Ringo and Paul. Front and center behind the Beatles. 


Anyway, what was I talking about? Oh, my office. Here's another picture:




Yes. I know. I am the luckiest woman in the world. 

But a wonderful office does not a writer make. We all know that. And I didn't write anything even remotely spectacular. I did get it all down, that story of the telepathy and the pound of pot and love and lust in New Orleans. I'm going to try and work on it some more and then dammit, I am going to send it to the Oxford American and they won't take it but I'm going to send it anyway, just to remind myself that I can. 

Our friend Tom brought over some okra and some basil and also a copy of the Apalachicola Times because there was a story in it that he wanted us to read about a murder that occurred down in Franklin County forty years ago and I did read it and it was a thrilling story, also with love and lust, but this headline captured me.



 I mean, really? A dead man was found in the cemetery? Sadly, yes he was. And recently so. I am sorry for his death but I still can't help but crack a grin at that headline.


So Mr. Moon is at that alligator class. He is going to hunt alligator this year because the man he goes up to hunt deer with in Canada is going to come down here to hunt this year and he wants to hunt gator. I guess maybe he's been watching Swamp People or something. Anyway, there are many rules involved and you have to go take a class and that's what Mr. Moon is doing tonight but before he went to class to learn to lawfully shoot large reptiles, he went over to play with his grandsons and he sent me this picture.


Mr. Moon, Gibson, and Bogart The Chill Cat. 


Yes. Once again, I am the luckiest woman on earth. It was fun to write down my memories of that time in New Orleans when Mr. Moon and I were merely Glen and Mary and barely knew each other and were falling in love and had adventures, even if one of them was scary as hell. We survived. We've survived a lot and I hope we survive a lot more. 


I hope Mr. Moon survives killing alligators and I bet he will. Come to think of it, maybe he reminded me of Tarzan when I met him. Maybe I fell in love with him not despite the fact that he was a hunter, but actually because of the fact. 


Oh, who knows?


Not me.


But you already knew that, didn't you?


Love...Ms. Tarzan






7 comments:

  1. Oh, lord. The thought of Mr. Moon bringing home a gator... That man of yours is something to behold :)

    I can't wait to read that story about you two in New Orleans.

    Totally unrelated... but when you grow pinto beans, do you just plant the beans from the grocery store?

    ReplyDelete
  2. That's so cool he's going to a class about alligator hunting. I cannot wait to hear about when he actually goes. Wow.

    ReplyDelete
  3. I just got back from gator country in South Carolina -- weird, weird animals. I can't wait to hear about Mr. Moon's alligator hunting. And that last photo is darling --

    ReplyDelete
  4. Well, if we've all learned anything about submitting work, it's something like one acceptance for every 5, 6, or 198 rejections. Just know that you are a writer of singular talent, with a distinct, clear, wonderful voice.

    Both your back porch and office are so lovely-sounding. I am writing this hunched over at the kitchen counter, looking through the pass thru window at my son watching Scooby Doo.

    xoxoxoxo

    ReplyDelete
  5. I loved my writing room in my old house. 2nd floor, looking out onto the balcony and our giant trees and row-housed neighborhood. And I NEVER wrote in there! Only a few times! I wrote in bed and on the couch and everywhere else. But I loved knowing it was there if I ever needed it. Or that I wrote enough anyway that I could call a room 'writing.'
    Yours is beautiful.
    xo

    ReplyDelete
  6. We do have a lot of gators here. But I would rather not see them killed, pacifist that I am. Mr. Moon is a hunter and I am a planter.

    ReplyDelete

Tell me, sweeties. Tell me what you think.