Feed Me Seymour!

Ah, the nervous tick has temporarily subsided. Yesterday found me at forty feet off the deck (carpet?!?) at The Climbing Center in Knoxville, TN. And while it wasn't my home playground, it was certainly a fine venue at which to feed the monster. Much to my amusement, the air conditioner had gone the way of many things (the do-do bird, the federal government - ouch, and my forearms on overhanging sport routes....) and failed, at least for the time being. As the air in the gym thickened with sweat, climbing shoe odor, and the bad breath of at leasts two patrons who'd eaten 'everything' bagels for breakfast, I began to believe the place to be more homey than I initially thought. And through the dense humidity hanging about the holds in much the same way as were the t-shirts hanging from the shoulders of several of the young climbers scaling the walls of the bouldering area, I believe I saw something....something hungry and wild. It was then that I realized I was delirious enough to need something akin to a beer, and that the 'something hungry and wild' - - the something not unlike the plant in "Little Shop of Horrors" - - was actually the need to move, the need to climb, the need to be alive....a need of which I find myself speaking often at present. As I left the gym, I turned once to look back at the holds...the climbers...the walls....and smiled. It was then that I realized that all climbers are both Seymour....and the plant. We are all both hunger and the providers of nourishment for our hunger.

God, this sounds really nutty -- I guess I'd better run. I either need another beer.....or a good 5.10!