Farting and Intimacy

I've been home alone a lot lately, and I'm enjoying it so much that I wonder if there's something wrong with me.  Velvet has spent the last two weekends sleeping at Cupcake's or his father's or Hawk-Eye's.  He stayed at Hawk-Eye's in the middle of the week, too.  I don't miss him because the rest of the time, he's been laying on the couch, playing video games or watching TV, sometimes drinking beer but not much.  I imagine that there's endless beer at Hawk-Eye's because of the trust fund.  I shudder to think what will happen if the funds dwindle to the point where Hawk-Eye joins the Nouveau Poor.  I believe his big brother, who got the name Maple Heart one summer up in Vermont when he was out in the woods with a specialized program within the Hippie Dippy Quaker Camp, has lived with Hawk-Eye sometimes.  Maple Heart is an EMT.

Velvet doesn't want to be an EMT, but he's proud to have Wilderness First Responder on his resume.  People don't often realize that sometimes New York City presents extreme conditions - like in Brooklyn last winter when there was that blizzard and Mayor Bloomberg had just privatized the snow removal.  I don't remember how the situation was resolved in the end - if at all - but babies died in Brooklyn due to snow in the street.  Streets were totally clear on the East Side.  If Velvet were out in one of the larger city parks with kids, it's good he already can respond to an avalanche.  You never know.

One of the reasons I'm glad for peace and quiet is that I spent Friday morning at the DMV.  I have no one but myself to blame for not getting to the DMV until 10:00, but two hours later, I emerged with my maiden name restored.  So on Friday night, when I read in Bad Date Great Story, there was no longer any tangible evidence to connect PENolan to Mrs. St%$#lzkq.  I can no longer sully the Buzz Kill family name, even if I get locked up for subversive activities - although I can't imagine I'd really get locked up since I never leave the apartment if I can help it.

It's become my habit lately to stay home and rest all day on Saturdays.  That's the day I take the medicine for the rheumatoid arthritis which I like to refer to as Poison.  This Saturday, it especially suited my mood because, although the reading was fun and a cadre of dear friends came out to support me in this new venue, it was still kind of Sensory Overload. The audience was decidedly younger - no bifocals in sight except for the Menopausal Stoner corner.   I'm glad that I revised the story thanks to some helpful insight in the comments so that the ending was much more suitable for the evening.  The updated version is up at Diane Gee's site The Wild Wild Left.

The fact is that there are a lot of people out there in the world who fully support Barack Obama and still seem to believe he's going to hold Wall Street accountable when he's surrounded himself with Banksters.  But it's like Woody always says, "I understand that some folks will be compelled to select (Obama) . . . but at least have the decency to feel like shit about it" (As the Cookie Crumbles: Two Weevils).  That level of political discourse would have been a downer in the East Village last night, and I'm always glad to stick with The Disney Princesses.  I was tired Saturday.

I haven't seen Mr. Wisdom lately because he's in the fortunate position of having too much work right now.   He's sent an occasional smoke signal, so he's still out there on the periphery taking care of business.  In the Western in my head - the one that seems to be where I get ideas about gender roles and expectations - I feel like a school marm and he is a stranger who was passing through town.

This interlude has given me an opportunity to examine how I feel about intimacy.  Like farting and snoring intimacy.   Once I get used to the idea that I'm emotionally intimate with somebody, I'm all cool with that.  It's shocking to realize at first, but then, emotional intimacy is manageable.  Farts can be more problematic and unpredictable.  Snoring too.

I'm happy to say that my whole digestive system has improved dramatically since I eliminated Dairy and Gluten, for the most part.   Every now and then I have wheat products, but my arm doesn't seem to be effected.   Without the dairy, there's much less farting.  I have no way of knowing about my snoring.  As far as I know, snoring is situational for me and typically has something to do with being congested or snockered.  It's been a very long time since I was disturbed by a noise in my sleep and woke up wondering if there was a goat in the bed - only to discover that noise had come from me.

If Mr. Wisdom weren't working two jobs at once and taking care of his kids, the question of sleeping together might have come up by now.  I figure that if you're still ambivalent about sleeping together, you're not ready to be as intimate as all that with a person no matter how impressive he may be.   I remain impressed with the man, especially now that I've learned a little more about his job and am happy to see he's made a positive contribution to the land of contemporary television.  He's worked on shows that entertain older kids and grown-ups - like those documentaries on Discovery or History or PBS or National Geographic.  Back when Velvet was in middle school, those channels were not totally fucked up by conservatives and Rupert Murdoch, who is such a dickhead he gets a class by himself.  Anyway, TV has gone the way of other industries who got rid of as many full-time employees with benefits as they possibly could, then hired the people who used to work there as freelancers for less money and no benefits.  It's a blessing that Mr. Wisdom has work and can make hay while the sun shines.

I feel kind of like a letter that's been tucked into a cubby hole on a roll top desk.  It's nice to have a little spot, and once he clears off all the other stuff, I hope he has a little energy left for me.