This was always my original idea for the magazine images I've started collecting, but it's been hard to find exactly what I'm looking for. This being my first, I'm happy with the outcome- a good marriage between image and lyric. It's kind of like those e-cards you see with old-timey people saying slang or subversive things, but also different. You'll see! More to come...

Also, to spice things up a bit, if you like any of these pieces I post with the label artistic calisthenics, be the first to let me know via the comment box with an overly enthusiastic and highly encouraging comment*, and I just might send it to you**!

*or send $$
** some terms and conditions may apply, which I'll make up as I go along.

I really wanna be wit you
'cause you just my type

ooh, na, na, na, na

photo from YWCA website

If I could write poetry, I'd write a poem about my love affair with swimming.

Fleshy figure exposé

I go to the downtown YWCA, a beautiful old building.

The perfect ending to any day

The pool is in the basement.

White tiled pool, ceiling, and walls

It's beautiful.

The crystal clear aqua beckons. It calls.

I'm usually the only one there, except for the lifeguard. It used to be a little awkward.

Easing in, warmth outside and out.

I'm not great, but I'm getting better.

Makes me want to cheer, makes me want to shout.

I awkwardly try to sync my body movements and breathing.

The closest I'll ever feel to flying.

My thoughts are healthy.

And the furthest I'll feel from dying.

My heart at rest.

That's kind of extreme

but you know what I mean.

Last week was the East Tennessee Community Design Center's 100 Block Party Fundraiser.

I donated the piece above to their auction. It's a photograph of the former Flynn Paint Building, located on the corner of Summit Hill and 11th Street, in a window from Knox Heritage Salvage.

I used to be obsessed with this building. Obsessed is an understatement. I'd drive out of my way to pass it, daydream about owning it. I wrote business plans for how I'd use it and contacted the owner to see if he'd sell it.

But I had no money to offer him. It sat for a few years until he converted it into a bar. And he desecrated the building in the process. I lament the way it looks now. People say, "At least it's saved." They don't understand. I was in love.

I've made several pieces about it since then. A muse never dies even when it dies.

Remember my vicious and sad sheep dog friend? Here's an update.

I've cut him free and we're now living in a craftsmen style bungalow in South Knoxville. He and Juicy are getting along juuust fine...

Sigh... 

No, his life is still tragic, especially now with the summer heat. He spends his days a filthy heap of fur asleep by his house. 

His owners did shave him, so they aren't 100% terrible. Only 99.

I have taken it upon myself to give him treats and a reason to live. Of course, they're dental treats because I mean business in my Good Samaritan efforts. 

The first time I tried to give him one, I called for him to come up the hill to me, but he stayed on the porch. I threw it to him, it bounced off the deck, and ricocheted out of his reach. Fail.

The next time, I had a better throw, he ate it, and stared at me from the porch. Progress.

This past weekend, I coaxed him to come up the hill to me. He's still a little snarly, so I used my trusty stick to pet him. 

I gave him the treat, and then he started doing the same thing he did when I freed him from the tree trunk he had wrapped himself around in the storm- he bounded around playfully. I continued to stick pet him but I knew he wanted something more. 

 

It looks like he has little sore spots on his skin (mange? I should know this, but I don't) where flies keep landing. Or maybe the flies like him because he's dirty. 

 

I did pet him on the head with my bear* hand for about ten seconds. Then I went home to wash my hands immediately.

 

 

In my teeny tiny bubble of a world, this is the most risky thing I've done with my life in a long time. Not only is he unpredictable, but I have this wonderful feeling I'm going to get a gun pulled on me one day very soon. The blinds of the house are closed and I only visit when there aren't any cars in the driveway, but still. This is life on the edge, and it's exhilarating. 

 

 

I decided to give him a name. My first thought was Pookie Face, but then, I thought, no. A desperate dog such as this needs a strong and noble namesake. So I've named him Samuel, after Samuel Hamilton.

*ha!

I was with my family last weekend at my grandfather's lakehouse in Alabama. I've been going there my whole life, and it's where I learned to eat well and ski.

My goal for the past few years is to be able to get up on one ski on the first shot of the summer. I'm usually unable to do it, but this year it happened effortlessly.

BETH MEADOWS Gluttony's Humble Get-Together acrylic on canvas 2011

I know, however, that it wasn't effortless. I've been in preparation for this season over the past few months- seven months to be exact. I've lost almost 25 pounds in that amount of time, and I've been taking care of some aches and pains, in my back, shoulders, and legs, that I've had trouble with over the past few years.

While there seems to be evidence of my hard work physically, there is still more work to be done in the way of self-discipline as I, sometimes agonizingly, count calories, stretch, swim, hike, jog, and bike. I wouldn't say I always do it cheerfully.

***

I'm not sure exactly what brought on the motivation to alter my life last November. I remember being fed up with my shoulder and neck hurting, so I joined the YWCA so that I could swim, to see if it would relieve the pain.

Then I started doing yoga, and after a month or two, I had accidentally lost five or so pounds. After that, losing weight became contagious. I wanted to walk into a room confidently.

***

After graduating from college five years ago, I sort of let myself go, as they say. Mentally, I was a wreck, but I was also on the mend. I knew I had a lot of healing to do, so I decided the remedy was to live my life "organically", to go with the flow, to do what I wanted, in big and small ways. For me, there was freedom in finally listening to myself, but it was also horribly confusing, not only to myself but to those around me. The problem was I wasn't quite sure what I wanted yet, especially on things that really mattered, when other people were involved.

At the same time, I was relishing in life, going out, eating and drinking with little to no limit. I have no idea how I made it work financially, but somehow I was able to keep paying my rent. I was fatter and happier than ever.

***

I was in a not great relationship at the beginning of this year. It's not that we didn't enjoy each other, we really did, but we weren't on the same page about a lot of things, and you know how that ends up.

It was hard to let go of him, but at the same time, I, rather sadly, realized how much I loved him, more than anyone I've been with in a long time, while also realizing how little he wanted to understand me or listen to what I thought. I was falling for someone who wasn't being the man I needed him to be.

I'm still not quite sure what he wanted with me, someone who thinks about every detail of everything, when he didn't want to think about much at all, but I've always tended to be a magnet to men like him.

I walked away from that disaster, and at the same time, felt like I was walking away from every other relationship I've had over the past ten years. I've liked every person I've ever dated for different reasons- how much they made me laugh, how smart they were, how dorky they were about their interests. My affections can run so strong for only an aspect of a man, so much so that I tend to overlook the qualities I could never live with.

***

It's odd to realize you've never fully loved someone, but I guess it's for the best.

***

I hate it when single girls in their twenties say that they'll probably never get married. (I've said it before, so I can say just how much I hate it.) I won't say it again, but I do know I'm in transition- a stripping away of the foolish girl I've been in the past. I've had to tear my heart out for so many men, to help myself let go of them. Sometimes I wonder how I still have hope, but I do. I don't think a heart can lose it's ability to love.

I'm trying to will myself to turn away from my natural inclinations and look toward something... brighter.

***

It is my desire to be more sensible these days; I have to be able to counter my heart that is always so full. I'm working on self-control, because, quite frankly, living organically has turned out to be a bunch of crap. It left me wreckless, fat, and poor.

Strong relationships, friendships, and bodies don't happen naturally. All of life goes against it. The more adamant I am about eating right, the more friends and co-workers give me free drinks and food. It's a proven fact!

I have to run and I have to eat less than what I used to if I want pounds to shed. While I often (stupidly) daydream of wearing smaller clothes that fall better on a less rotund body and to have men fall for me left and right as a result, I'd like to hope my motivations run deeper.

Though I run the risk of being self-absorbed in my fitness endeavors, I hope that at some point it will mean thinking about myself less.

It's worth a shot.

I should clear something up.

A few weeks ago I mentioned a boy and since then have been asked several times about my "relationship."

I failed to mention at the time, but that boy was all ready fading from the scene when I wrote about him. I'm sorry to say, it was not meant to be.

But I knew that from the beginning.

It's easy to feel like a novelty being single in the South in your late twenties. A lot of friends I know dated one, maybe two people, and then got married. This has not been my experience.

I've been put through the wringer relationally speaking, more times than anyone should be allowed, but I realized not too long ago that it's my own damn fault because I've been giving the same type of guy** a chance for years. In the past, I was shocked when those relationships didn't work out, but now I know- I have a bad habit that I need to kick.

 Still, I am ever hopeful, not to meet the love of my life necessarily, but to be content with where I am presently, to quit reaching for things I want but aren't good for me. We're all a work in progress, you know.

So as I dust myself off from another pseudo-relationship, I aim to be a more sensible human being, and what I mean is, I'd like to begin giving nice guys a fighting chance. I'd also like to run from the bad ones. They are tricky (and I like them), so this will be difficult.

What will this look like? I imagine a future scenario, some guy with trouble written all over him approaching me on a lovely Friday evening. Me covering my eyes and yelling, "Noooo!" then bolting for the door.

If flirting is the gateway drug, this might have to be my new protocol. Don't even flirt with flirting.

It might seem extreme, but this is how I handle other bad habits. For example, I hate wasting time on Facebook, but I'm addicted to it. The solution? I don't have internet at home or a smart phone. I wish I was stronger than that, but it's the only way I've found to gain strength over something I know has an unhealthy hold on my life. Flee the scene.

***

By the way, like I always assure my mother, if I should ever meet the right person, no one will have to pry the news out of me.

It shall be proclaimethed from the rooftops.


*I wish Goldfish rhymed with single because I don't even like Pringles.
** the wrong one