no excuse not to go swimming
Dec. 2nd, 2006 12:20 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
radfrac_archive_fullWoke up at 7:33, which meant I had no excuse not to go swimming, so I went swimming. I got about halfway there, walking carefully on the crazy-quilt of crunchy snow, white ice, black ice, and wet pavement, and then I realized that I was only wearing one shirt.
It's a good shirt; it's my Pike Place Market Seattle Debauchery Souvenir shirt, burgundy, with four pictures of a fish in various stages of disrepair and the legend CATCH ME BEAT ME COOK ME EAT ME.
What it isn't is the shirt I usually swim in. Well then, I thought: this must be the day I've decided to swim shirtless.
*Man* can you go faster without the extra material. It's a close-fitting muscle shirt, but the difference is impressive. The freedom! I still had to let the guy in the lane lap me, but I must have cut ten percent off my swim time.
I'm getting better in the locker room, too. I can wrangle the towel and the suit such that I can more or less obey the PLEASE DRY OFF COMPLETELY BEFORE ENTERING LOCKER ROOM sign and even put my suit in the cool spin-dry machine, all without risking my manly dignity too much. It would probably have come off more masculine if my loins hadn't been swathed in a decorative paisely towel, but it was the only one clean, except for the black one with the tassels.
Afterwards, I stood and looked a bit into the big mirror, at the scars, and the funny bits at the ends of the scars, and tried to decide how strange I looked or didn't look to the other men.
Ha! Then, at my locker, (I finally bought a lock, at the previously-mentioned Gathering Place) a guy showed up and changed into his speedo right next to me. Fortunately, I was engaged with my shoelaces.
It's tricky, this business of changerooms. Didn't we decide that the Y has a higher naked quotient than the other public pools/gyms?
Anyway, it's weird. It's great. It's weird. There are often completely naked men wandering around, and I have to remind myself repeatedly that they are not doing it just for my delight.
That they wouldn't thank me for spontaneously exclaiming (just exclaiming!) how excellent is their nakedness. God, I love to look at them. Whatever shape, whatever proportion, however hung or unhung, aged or, well, mostly older than me -- I just want to look. Not make them stay, not inconvenience them in any way -- just look at each man as he goes about his tasks, showering, putting on his suit or packing his locker, drying his hair or tying his shoes.
I start to understand, over time, a little of what it must have been like, growing up as a man who was attracted to men, feeling this way since you could remember -- that there was a terrible, inexplicable barrier between your delight and those who delighted you; that you could be near them so long as you didn't try to get too near. The paradoxical gravities of desire.
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It's a good shirt; it's my Pike Place Market Seattle Debauchery Souvenir shirt, burgundy, with four pictures of a fish in various stages of disrepair and the legend CATCH ME BEAT ME COOK ME EAT ME.
What it isn't is the shirt I usually swim in. Well then, I thought: this must be the day I've decided to swim shirtless.
*Man* can you go faster without the extra material. It's a close-fitting muscle shirt, but the difference is impressive. The freedom! I still had to let the guy in the lane lap me, but I must have cut ten percent off my swim time.
I'm getting better in the locker room, too. I can wrangle the towel and the suit such that I can more or less obey the PLEASE DRY OFF COMPLETELY BEFORE ENTERING LOCKER ROOM sign and even put my suit in the cool spin-dry machine, all without risking my manly dignity too much. It would probably have come off more masculine if my loins hadn't been swathed in a decorative paisely towel, but it was the only one clean, except for the black one with the tassels.
Afterwards, I stood and looked a bit into the big mirror, at the scars, and the funny bits at the ends of the scars, and tried to decide how strange I looked or didn't look to the other men.
Ha! Then, at my locker, (I finally bought a lock, at the previously-mentioned Gathering Place) a guy showed up and changed into his speedo right next to me. Fortunately, I was engaged with my shoelaces.
It's tricky, this business of changerooms. Didn't we decide that the Y has a higher naked quotient than the other public pools/gyms?
Anyway, it's weird. It's great. It's weird. There are often completely naked men wandering around, and I have to remind myself repeatedly that they are not doing it just for my delight.
That they wouldn't thank me for spontaneously exclaiming (just exclaiming!) how excellent is their nakedness. God, I love to look at them. Whatever shape, whatever proportion, however hung or unhung, aged or, well, mostly older than me -- I just want to look. Not make them stay, not inconvenience them in any way -- just look at each man as he goes about his tasks, showering, putting on his suit or packing his locker, drying his hair or tying his shoes.
I start to understand, over time, a little of what it must have been like, growing up as a man who was attracted to men, feeling this way since you could remember -- that there was a terrible, inexplicable barrier between your delight and those who delighted you; that you could be near them so long as you didn't try to get too near. The paradoxical gravities of desire.
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Re: How absolutely marvelous for you
Date: 2006-12-06 05:58 pm (UTC){rf}