The Garden or, Oh, My Back!.

LesbosOnTheCouch by Beth C, one of the Lesbos

I thought that this day wasn't really here. I actually thought this day had no business in my life and wasn't going to come…and yet here it is.

My Love has decided to spruce up the garden with some winter bulbs. She ordered hundreds of them – literally and today we decided to plant! (Actually, today they got here. Today I am home. Today we both had some work we wanted to avoid. Today there was some housework we really wanted to avoid. Tomorrow it is supposed to rain.)

My Love was out there first, sorting the darn things. "Could it be I've overdone it?" she asks. "I mean could I have ordered too many bulbs?"

Never my Love, we can do this and the garden will be even more beautiful! Never mind that the people we rent from seem to be getting restless, pestering our lawyer and wanting all kinds of paperwork and other stuff…A sure sign in my mind that they want us to leave…a sure sign in my Love's mind that they are bored.

I went outside and was given the task of 'turning the soil' - because if we don't turn the soil it won't turn itself. My Love started placing the bulbs were they were meant to be…Do you have any idea how many bulbs are hundreds of bulbs? Well, let me just say that the garden looks like a mole's New Year's Party! I am quite certain that our landlords will not be so thrilled if they show up before the spring, when the winter bulbs are to bloom…We've taken their nice weed infested front yard and hoed and weeded and turned the soil!

Anyway, I hoed… (No kidding, I hoed.) I turned the ground inside out for what, 15 whole minutes. Then I went inside to get some water. Then I went inside to look for something (where did I just put that hoe?) Then I came out and asked my Love some questions. Then I told her that maybe I could do this for another half of an hour. Then I realized that I couldn't, so I started grunting louder and making some suggestions that I knew she wouldn't like…

Soon my Love said that I should go write. She really didn't want me to have a back ache latter…Go in and write….

So here I sit at my computer writing about the day I didn't want to come. The day when my back lasts for forty five minutes of garden work? No, the day that my attention span is so warped that garden work bores me to moan and groan and make dumbass suggestions, happy to have my Love – a full five and one half years younger than me still enthralled with planting bulbs, sure that my advancing age and belly are keeping me inside…

I am such a snake!

And More Double D!!!....

LesbosOnTheCouch by Beth C, one of the Lesbos
...and more Double D.

Surely the Commander and Chief of the Men’s League had some agenda. It was highly uncharacteristic of him to request a meeting when such tension between the sides was at such a high point…He must have something planned….

Again Jane’s mind wandered. - Commander in Chief Dward. Oh, he was a handsome man, but his tender looks were deceiving, as was everything about him.

Jane hadn’t gotten to be Second Cowander on her outright knowledge and Judo abilities alone. That uncanny ability to perform hundreds of different tasks simultaneously – while her mind would focused on one something else in particular She could be teaching her JudoJuniors, or lecturing to the higher echelon… and all the while forming a new method or plan or theory that could – and often did, change the way of the world that she and the WFM had formed. How they all went about their daily duties and what exactly their goal was to be, this was a large part of Jane’s philosophies put into practice. Indeed Jane’s brilliance was one of the main and most vibrant sources of the force behind the Woman’s Forward Movement.

Jane, still lost in thought had already gotten into her transporter, checked the controls and spoke through her panmittter to base and programmed the coordinates of the clandestine meeting into the transporters guiding system.

“Ready Jane,” her transporter responded upon receiving the hand that that was so familiar these past few years, mission after mission. In a matter of minutes, Second Cowander Jane Double D had reached her destination –A cave hidden deep in the recesses of moon plane II.

The landing just outside the cave was barren. Either Dward hadn’t arrived yet or had come early enough to manuever his transporter to shelter. Double D suspected the latter. It was unlike Dward- Commander In Chief- to be late for anything, especially a meeting that he himself had requested. D walked up to the entrance of the cave, waiting a moment for her eyes to adjust to the darkness before entering. From the entrance she could see Dward kneeling by the altar. For a very short moment, Jane saw not Dward the Commander in Chief of the Men’s League, but Dward, long time Judo companion and favourite foe on the mat…No one could challenge he moves –no man had the nerve, the substance to challenge her the way he had.

Most of the men, upon seeing Jane on the mat, resplendent in her Judo Whites fell weak in the knees at the very sight of her goddess like body, flowing and strong – and then proceeded to severely underestimate the strength of ‘the woman.’’

Not Dward- He may have let his hormones, his affections and prejudices get the best of him off the mat –but on the mat he knew –Double D was one of the best, the quickest and the most knowledgeable Judoists to practice in this century- if not greater!

"Dward."

"Double D."

They exchanged the embraces of old friends, and D was relieved not to have to engage in immediate contra-contra tactics…maybe they could avoid a confrontation of the forces, after all.

Dward, who was the host- the initiator of this meet, offered the wine. "So what's this about Dward? Wine, secret meeting…Why the call to arms? You can't possibly think we passed the bad air?

"D, slow down. First friends, then foes…I see you wear the pin of 2^nd Cowander. Congratulations. I understand this puts our meeting at different level-But Jane Double D…How can we just skip the part where our histories and attractions offer us respite from the possibility of conflict between our 2 sides.

"Dward, ever the man and the manipulator of womankind… How can we talk of affections when the possibility of air strikes and even all-out war stand in the balance…?"

"But Jane, that's just my point. We must, for the sake of averting war, make love."

The reference to the past was not lost on Double D. She has been remembering the days before the great Split that separated the men and women. The times when she and Dward fought on the same team, shared the same goals and dreams.

Dward and Double D fall into a pensive silence- both lost in a barrage of memories as they sit side by side on the stone bench that lines the dimly lit cave.

Dward turns to Jane and lifts a tentative hand to finger her pin. Jane, prepared for such a move executes a flip, chop and hold- Dward, gasping and laughing is on the floor- Janes knees in the soft of his neck, arm contorted in the air.

 ....

LesbosInTheCar

LesbosOnTheCouch by Beth C, one of the Lesbos

We all give objects human characteristics --- I know that we all do this. And My Love and I are no different…for us, our car is one of those objects and I do declare our car has opinions of its own and maybe its opinion isn't exactly those of My Love and I…

The other day while we were on the way home, we were driving up the winding and curving road to our home, and our car starting beeping. You know that beep. Not the old time beep of the horn, but the beep of beep beep – (meaning beep, something is wrong beep something is wrong, beep, fix me, beep, fix me - Fix me!)

Beep – but there was nothing wrong with the car – The mechanic says it is just an ''electrical issue'. I disagree. I think it is my car making a statement. Why did it choose to make these loud beeps just as we were going up the winding and curving road?

Car dear, we have to talk.

The car ignored me and continued to beep up the road.

Now listen here. My Love and I are not straight.  The car went quiet. There is just nothing straight about us…and you belong to us, you are our car.

The beeping was reduced to one beep every other turn and curve.

We like the curvy twists and turns. We live a winding and curving life. The thing about curves and turns – you cannot see what is coming up next. With the winding and curving road, life is just full of surprises…some good, some not so good. Living the lives we live full of curves and twists seems to give us a hope and a fullness that we lacked before we knew each other – before we had you, dear car.

Our bodies curve and turn. Our bodies twist and turn and bend to meet every challenge life has to offer. My Love and I bend and twist with laughter. Our time together is joyful…and we are who we are and this curviness fills us with laughter and joy.

Face it car, you can't beep at every curve, twist and turn and be our car. We are the LesbosOnTheCouch, and to you, we are the LesbosInTheCar…You are our car. So stop beeping and Get Over It!

Amazingly enough, the car stopped beeping. I guess she gets it. I guess she's happy to. Who knows, maybe she is one of the Lesbos too.

The Last of the Chocolate Fudge Brownie Ice Cream Will Be Gone

LesbosOnTheCouch by Beth C, one of the Lesbos

One more spoon and the last of the chocolate fudge brownie ice cream will be gone. One more spoon and I am on my way to the rocky road of trying to eat healthy – seems that trying to eat healthy ought to be called starving my soul – and not in the bosom of Abraham…maybe if I could just keep my soul in the bosom of My Love for an extended holiday of bobbobo booby bobs I wouldn't need to eat ice cream. Does anybody think that I can get some time off from work for booby bobbs in the bosom of My Love in the name of losing weight and being healthy – or how 'bout in the name of losing weight so as not to feel like a beached whale at my son's nuptials? Maybe if the bosom of Abraham doesn't work for me and I can't get time off for the bosom of My Love – maybe the bosom of Sarah or Mary would be a more acceptable pretext.

Let's face it. I love eating. I love food. I love cake. I love ice cream… but it doesn't stop there…I love a good sandwich and fries, pizza and spaghetti, pasta of any kind as long as it has tomato sauce… I do wish I could love my body the way My Love says she does but, I don't. I wish I could see myself through My Loves' eyes, but I don't…so, in an effort to love my body the way she does and the way I believe we all should love ourselves in order to be happier, well rounded well-grounded and easier to live with, I have come to a decision. ---I am going to embark on a road trip to un-beach the whale- to unwrap the blubber and needless and dangerous flubber…I say this with an empty ice cream container next to the computer on my desk- the empty ice cream container – the last of its kind to sooth my soul – the last of a long line of wonderfully chocolate treats- so long chocolate fudge brownies…. I say this with trepidation and tears in my eyes. I already miss my old friends…and they are still just a sniff away…I say this as we pass through Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New year and wing our way towards Yom Kippur- the Jewish Day of ultimate sacrifice – a fast day – (and I don't mean fast as in the opposite of slow – this day goes by anything but ''fast.''  How fast can a day go when you can't eat or drink anything? Slow, I tell you! Slow!)

Anyway, back to me and my body…I didn't always feel this way- I used to actually be slim…and then when I wasn't slim anymore, I sort of pretended not to notice and not to care- and then I got my eyes lasered…and now I can see myself in the shower. I can see myself in the mirror without looking for my glasses- I am just there- all there…all of a sudden, I am always there in front of myself…it's scary…I didn't realize how my glasses had protected me from having to see me…Oh well… I had an image of me as thin- well, darlin' I have some news for myself – I am babababa booming big…and I don't much like it….and then there was the Spencer Tunick outing of my blubber – there it is out and bouncy for all the world to see…oh yes, that shiny white whale in the front and center – that is me…big bush – that'd be My Love…But big bush is lovely and sexy and healthy and right ----big big me, not so much

So let's see where this goes….how long can I actually do the healthy thing (almost said straight and narrow'', but I am not straight and narrow- well that's never been my thing)

I bought myself a treadmill…and now I tread every day…but apparently this isn't enough. Apparently I must not eat in the late evening – after dinner no more snacks of ice cream and nuts and pizza and hamburgers and and and and stuff…no more stuff…

Again I say- what I am going to do with all that free time left on my hands and mouth…how will I relieve the tension and amuse myself without using any more energy that I don't have--- booze is apparently not good either, except for a glass or two of wine…aha, there it is.. A saving thought or two…I can have wine and boobs…and TV to boot….

Yeha…I may be saved…Love, Love – do we have wine? And is it time for the bosom thing? I do love you…

Posing for Spencer

LesbosOnTheCouch by Beth C, one of the Lesbos

Apparently nothing stops me. Apparently I have finally reached that point in my life when I do what I want to do.  Apparently I really do do what I want. Apparently this can be a good thing – so it is.

A few weeks ago My Love sent me a link. I thought it was clear enough. Spencer Tunick was to be in Israel for a photo shoot on the Dead Sea, the lowest place on earth, an endangered and beautiful biblical area, slowly disappearing – evaporating into space.  His team was looking for about a thousand models to pose for him. I read the article. I signed up… simple.

So what did you think of the article? says my Love.

Oh, I already signed up and sent it in.

What? Really? Okay – let's do it!

And so it began. My adventure as a Spencer Tunick model…

We didn't tell anyone we knew we were to join the shoot. And the organizers didn't tell anyone where at the Dead Sea the shoot was to be.  They didn't want the paparazzi and the politicians to interfere. And we didn't want our friends to influence and comment about our participation before the fact. When we got the directions – where to meet the bus at 11:30 at night, we still hadn't really told anybody we were doing this and the organizers still hadn't told anybody where it was to be…We were in cahoots, the organizers and My Love and I.  Telling somebody would have given somebody the ability to point out to us what we were actually about to do through their eyes. And telling everybody would have compromised the shoot for Spencer Tunick.  

Spencer Tunick's pictures are world famous. He's the 'crazy' artist who photographs hundreds of people nude in very public places…and then his pictures are sold and appear in very public places. But we knew that – one of the reasons we wanted to do it was because those who pose in his pictures get a copy of the real thing! …A real Spencer Tunick picture, with us in it at the Dead Sea, in the nude…of us in the nude at the Dead Sea. The same picture that will appear in people's homes, on line, in museums of us nude in the Dead Sea, the lowest place on earth.

As the day approached, I 'googled' Spencer Tunick and his work.  Lots of people… lots of bodies… lots of butts… And lots of boobs… Butts and boobs… Boobs and butts... lots of them, in lots of vey spectacular places. Wow…I would get to be one of those bodies in a spectacular place… There was something amazing just thinking about it. The oneness of all the nakedness – of all of us being there – just being there and naked for the picture and the art and the cause

And now that I had my own eyes, I thought nobody would really recognize me anyway…right? my eyes, my boobs, my butt, my big jelly belly and all those other people with theirs…at the Dead Sea …alive today once more for a single photo shoot in the year 2011 before it disappears forever…And me and all my parts, am there.

So we got on the bus in the middle of the night…and road to the designated secret beach at the Dead Sea. It was dark and the night was full of stars. People joked. People dozed…we sat and listened and watched the sky and dosed ourselves.

Spencer came and gave directions. We could keep our clothes on until the very last minute. And then we were to go into the sea.  The Dead Sea shoot was actually in the Dead Sea itself. We thought that we would be near the sea, on the dry salty plateaus that have become even drier in the last 2 decades…

At first, for all of the excitement, nobody really heard or paid attention to the directions.  As soon as Spencer said something about clothes – everybody started stripping in the dark… and then pretty much we were all just kind of naked…naked and waiting for the sun to begin to rise…

My love and I thought we would be the last in the water so that we could get out easier and not go in so deep. My love and I thought – but we didn't think it through…

At some point, after we had gotten directions from Spencer, and after we were already in the water lying on our backs, I heard through the bull horn, ''Ma'am…Ma'am, you there... I know this is hard for you – but you are in the first row of my picture – if you can't keep your body still, you can get out of the water. ''

I looked up and saw that Spencer Tunick was indeed talking to me. What, me? Uh oh…didn't think…first row…bobbing boobs, big bobbing belling…first row. Snap Snap…Guess I got my body still…with boobs a bobbing.

And we continued to get directions and we continued to bob in the water. The Dead Sea is denser than any other body of water. It's thick and oily like Grandma's chicken soup…and so in this thick soup you cannot get your buoyant parts to go down. For the entire shoot in the Dead Sea, I felt my buoyance….my old songs --- babababa booby bop…bababab booby bop, took on a whole new meaning…My boobs just bopped and bobbled, too…my jelly belly bopped, my butt bopped…And it was amazing! It was all truly amazing!

The sun rose and shone. Spencer gave us directions: get down on your knees and let the water move you up and down (booby bop), lie this way on the water with your head north and feet south (belly and booby bop), face the Jordanian mountains and stand still (keep from bopping)…walk onto the rise and stand still – ouch those salty dry grounds really hurt…

The beauty was intense. The oneness and the Oneness were even more intense. I was there. We were there. My Love and I, a part of history, a part of art – just us and our bodies and 1000 others ---Posing for Spencer Tunick.

Eye balls and other such weirdnesses

LesbosOnTheCouch by Beth C, one of the Lesbos

So, here I sit, at my computer, writing my blog – glasses less- Yes I did it – The big laser releasing glasses from the eyeballs surgery….Wahoo and yahoo and yeeehaaaaa!

Seriously, that is how I feel. I wake up in the morning, roll over and see the clock on the wall, the trees outside my window and my love clicking away on the computer…But my patient readers, I ask you to humor me – and maybe yourselves and let me begin at the begining …

I have been wearing glasses since the 3^rd grade and probably didn't see very much before that…they weren't too quick and observant of such needs back in the 60's…so I walked into a few walls, never saw a star and didn't recognize anyone on the street – It was New York, kinda…The first real tell it all sign was when I walked in the corner of a bulletin board at school and with blood gushing down my face and my teacher screaming at me for not paying attention to where I was walking (?)Duh, what bulletin board? It must of occurred to somebody that maybe I was having just a bit of a problem seeing where I was going and didn't actually see the bulletin board as it was sitting so close to the wall, it just was actually the wall in my vision!

Anyway, Now MY FACE is NAKED!!! Truly NAKED, NUDE and BARE... I am bare faced…or is that bearfaced?

It all started when I realized that I couldn't read without putting the book up to my nose…and writing – well, let's just say that a candle wouldn't have been much help to me in the dark. And those damn multifocal lenses…I could get them for the price of a kidney or two…

So off we go to get my eyes examined…and what do ya know,  the doc says that I am a 'candidate'  for surgery (the Presidency, I understand is out) …So, it's off to set the appointment…

No makeup for a month…(HEHEH..does she not see me, I am sitting in from of her, maybe she needs the surgery)

No  perfume…. (No smelling pretty, mmmm…good)

No swimming for at least 6 weeks. (Wait, is she talking to me?)

No going to the gym for two weeks (Let's not even go there!)

No this, no that….

And then…No washing your hair for 5 days… (I looked at my Love and said, "Eeeeeeuw  NO WAY!….FORGET IT!")

Obviously she convinced me other wise and the appointment was made…Thursday at 5PM… And we are there…Yes we are –THERE.

They call me in to be prepped…I sign the consent form...I sit wriggling in my seat, they give me a sedative, put a cap and gown on me – As if I'm graduating in to some higher level of something…Beth Cohen, BS in glassless…

And then I am still wriggling in my seat, the nurses and doctors confer-I think they are giggling and whispering about me, I can't see, they've already taken my glasses, they are wearing surgical masks and pill one is beginning to take effect.  I suffer from anxiety attacks, so they give me another bigger and better pill…weeeheee, I am singing and dancing and rocking to the music ( in my head ), play that funky music white boy….play that funky music till you die, till you die…oh.

The doctor comes out with his mask on and I hear, "So you wawawawawa wawawa? And you agree to wawawa? Whaaaa whhaaa? What's the matter with whaaahwhaaa.Waahaaaawahhh?"

HUH?

"So you wawawawawa wawawa? And agree to wawawa?"

OMG---they want to cut my eyeballs out and give it to the guy before me?!!!! I run for the door to the waiting room as the surgical team chases after me in their lovely flowing green gowns and I burst out –"LLLL, come quick, they wanna give my eyeballs away…they want to do an apendectemywwaaaa instead…they…. they……blaaaahhh bllaaaah ooops, don't trip too late, ….Did I agree to that?"

"What? Shhh baby, it's alright, I am here."

Turns out that they just needed my consent to start the procedure and wanted to make sure that I hadn't changed my mind…Well, maybe, just maybe, that was a conversation we should have had before they gave me all of the CALMING pills!

So they lead me into the room and put me on the bed. I am only slightly agitated, so the nurse sits down to hold my hand, which I promptly crush as if it's an empty soda can, or a really written terrible poem I decide to chuck---or as if I've just started to realize that they are about to laser my eyeballs!

So, here I am lying on the table for the world's longest 10 minutes in the world. The nurse leaves, apparently I've crippled her for life and she is now looking for a job as a sales person for prosthetics.

This is really bad for me because I feel a flailing coming on…Yes, I not only have a flailing mouth and incessant noisemaker,  -I am an appendage flailler. ..it is quite obvious to me, even with all the drugs that flailing at this moment is a VERY, VERY Bad Idea.  So, to make up for my 'loss of nurse hands to squeeze to death', I stuff my hands in my pockets and start singing…It really could have been anything – but I believe it was some way down Moses type song…. My doctors, as intelligent as they are, couldn't quite understand what I was doing. Apparently in the 10,000 plus such procedures that they had performed, nobody ever sang. Oh well…I guess, I taught them something!

And we are done! (And just for the record, it did not hurt…) I get my plastic bug eyes put on and my Love gets instructions for putting drops in my eyes and other stuff which I really just couldn't understand…I was too busy looking around through the bug eyes AMAZED! Even with the plastic bug eyes, I COULD ACTUALLY SEE!

Well yes, I can see…but let's face it. I am still me. I can see…as my lunch drops onto my shirt and into the space between my shirt and my boobs. I see as my beer runs down off my chin…I see the crumbs falling onto the floor… I see these things…but they still happen. I still happen.

The other day I was eating a lovely colorful salad that my Love had prepared for my lunch. I could actually see the vegetables and the nuts and the cheese. I also watched as they fell into their spot in my bra. My colleagues laughed as I pulled the sprouts out.

When I got home from work that evening, we ran off to a party…and came home rather late. I stripped down and got into the shower, admiring the shower tiles and my toes, still a new experience for the eyeglassless me.

When I came out, my Love was shrieking, she thought there was a cockroach on the floor…I calmly bent down and picked it up. No cockroach, just a booby nut from lunch, released from the confines of my boob and bra.

Terrific mornings....

LesbosOnTheCouch by Beth C, one of the Lesbos

There are these terrific mornings...I wake up early, my love makes me a cupa and I go off to work – just knowing that she will be there for me when I come home. I get to the office – it’s still quiet.

The thing about the quiet…it doesn’t really last…soon the hustle and bustle begins- mostly in my head – Strangely enough I am focused all day…I mean truly focused.  I make my calls, write my reports and prepare the plans and more reports for the next day, week…I don’t hear the people around me unless they sing my name…and even then they aren’t really there…just movements outside the head….(ok, so I exaggerate…I love these people too….even if I don’t really see them)

And then I go home…If it is not yet dark, the drive is pleasant. I love the drive when the sun is shining and the music is blasting – sometimes I put in an old CD – yes, I am a Joan Baez and John Denver diehard. I love sitting in the car singing the old tunes….Country roads, taking me home to the place I belong…..the night they drove old Dixie down…while I sing low sweet chariot, coming to take Oscar Mayer home…just as Someone Saves my life tonight – right before the Bitch is Back from the boxer and the fighter and a nnnnaaaa by my name I carry a reminder of every,,,blllaala til I cry out –I am leaving I am leaving but the fighter still remains singing la da de dadadada….And then – Daylight Comes and We Are Home…aaayyoh…AAAAAAAAyoooooo! Daylight comes and we are home////

But as soon as I walk in the door – it all changes. My Love envelopes me in her warmth and caring – looks me I the eyes and loves me too.

And then the silly – the Loopy begins…Here I am, loopy again….ah ah…the race to crazy has begun…I don’t even need a beer – and I am rhyming nonsense and speaking the language of the babbling wo-man. Soon the old songs, mostly commercials come in – sometimes with a twist…you know the Oscar Mayer one …the rocking the booty in the bosom of Abraham…or maybe shooting the sheriff, but not the deputy.- I love shooting the sheriff – and did you know that once upon a time they shot a canary? And soon the giggles begin…the giggles can be extremely dangerous…they usually come with some very loud and fragrant booming – (I recently learned the word Dutch Oven – who would have thought? Do you think the Dutch know?)

And who knew about Toe Jam? Not me , we didn’t have Toe Jam growing up – just the regular grape jelly…but Toe is special. Apparently when you get into bed at night the sheets are hungry and the toes so kindly share their jam with the sheets  - And THE BLANKETS.  And watch out – soon the whole bed bottom is covered. This means, no putting your head down there – no twisting the blankets with the toe jam side up to the face – toe jam is ok as long as its by the feet – but watch out – if it hits the face and you get toe jam on the face – or the Nose…well…that is just not ok;..and that brings me to the nose.

Have you ever noticed that noses come in 2 forms; hard and smooshy. I, have the smooshy kind. My nose can be squooshed almost completely flat to my face –Admittedly with some breathing difficulty. My love – her nose is hard. Her nose, doesn’t bend, mush or even move – even when she is laughing hysterically running to the ‘other room’, her nose just get a little crinkle…and that’s it…Who would have thought. I have a theory. I don’t think that smooshy noses can be with other smooshy noses. I think that one nose must be smooshy so that when you kiss the other nose can smoosh it…and the kiss can still be good.

Any way…At some point you must wonder, what exactly did you hear through the grape vine and how? You can no more hear something through a grape vine that I can squoosh my loves nose to her face or get her to agree to put head on the Toe Jam side of the bed even if it is The Midnight Special, while someone saves my life tonight as I roll around the basement floor ----whoo whhooo whooo – Dutch Oven coming, warning warning….woops to late- an oh no we put the fan on – Dutch oven on the face-

What a life.