28 March 2002 - 9:23 a.m.

Finally showed up at the Y and took a jazzercise class (#29 on the The List). In fact, I've now gone to two. Oof, am I out of shape. It's a nice setting, though - a good range of ages (from college students to seniors) and wardrobes (from body hugging togs to sloppy, baggy shmattes like the ones I was wearing) and ability/experience/stamina (so, even though I'm low on all three, I haven't been made to feel embarassed at being a beginner). So, so far, so good, and I signed up for a six-week pass...

Last night's bedtime reading, from Abraham Chapman's anthology of Jewish-American Literature:

Poems about God

We should love the actualities, for we won't always be as we are.
- Cesar Vallejo

Throughout history
all the saints, all the important lawmakers,
say they saw something, truth came to them
after they sat on their asses for seven years
or ate the feelers of live bugs.
This is the only truth about god --
look, fuck, forgive yourself.

This is God--
life and death like scissor blades
come together and snip your head off.

We sat up in bed
listening to the cars pass,
fewer and fewer,
and stared at branches shattering
moonlight on the wall.
Then it was quiet.
Terror put my hand on her breast.
Fear put my tongue on her thigh.
Passion put me on top of her.
Love told me how to move.

- Stephen Berg

One year ago, I seem to have been in a similar place. Need to do something about that: 'This, I fear, is going to be one of those weeks where I simply take everything one plodding step at a time and repeat "first do no harm" to myself over and over again and congratulate myself for simply being functional.'