Forgotten Legacies

There are things I’d forgotten while cohabitating with another. Listening to music when I don’t want to hear it is one. It falls into the camp I really just want silence, or it could be as simple as the tempo, the syncopation, the singer. I never know until there's a pressing of play.

I was once accused of only listening to white music. This was an accusation flung by one of those white girls trying to pull off modified, feminized hip-hop gear. The statement concerned me as much as my inability to fully understand, and when I say understand I really mean appreciate, rap music. I don't want to grow into one of those old crotchety girls that don't understand today's youth. Looking through my music library I understood that it had nothing to do with the colour spectrum. There was plenty of Stevie Wonder and Nina Simone. It was bad music of all denominations that was the issue.

The Applier was telling me about a woman he was seeing more than dating. Dating involves conversation, something he never really encouraged her to do. She's the type of person that calls during business hours, launches a tale mid-stream, yammers non-stop and gives no background on any of her characters. To be fair(ish), she is from Belgium so it could be an issue of cultural differences. My darling Fatty and I will be heading there in the fall, so more to report then.

Belgian Waffler: So I was out wit Carmen and Peetah and they went to the zoo! And who was zere? Frank! Wit Werner! And they all fell down! Hahahahaha!

Okay admittedly that was a bit Lebowskian in description, but it's not that far removed. In addition, it wasn't unusual for her to perform these non sequitur monologues for 3 continuous hours.

So, Issue #1 was constant mind-numbing chatter. Issue #2 was in the wee, small hours of the morning, post reputedly incredible engulfing of bits (apparently she has mastered Kegel to point of conducting lectures), she would dazzle him with her ability to create fruit smoothies of exotica, but annihilate him by cranking Kid Rock. The Issues 1-2 were things he couldn't live with, but tolerated for a spell by reasons of tasty beverages and Super Snatch. In that order.

What my darling Fatty has either induced, introduced or reintroduced are:
John Coltrane
Screamin’ Jay Hawkins
Mr. Bungle
Nina Simone
Ennio Morricone
Pink Floyd

All of which are righteous and good.

What I have to learn now is how to gently express to him that there are many moments that I want to hear nothing more than the flapping of our created nylon canopy which bridges the corporeal from the heavenly.



Why do these things irritate me anyway?
I suspect it’s an issue of an altered landscape, something this production designer (née Control Freak) didn’t envision for herself.

It's been over a year since I self induced a partial media ban. Specially selected movies, yes. Cable television, no. In the removal of excessive noise, I discovered I require quite a bit of silence.

Now the trick for me is to be able to ask for this silence without a feeling of abandonment, selfishness or self-consciousness.
He makes it easy to ask.
It's just me who makes it difficult.

I look at the iced latte that Fatty brought out to me on the deck. It’s a layered confection; cold, dark, sweetened espresso on the bottom. Frothy cream rests as gentle as a seasoned Italian mezzo soprano in this deep, narrow pool destined only for my lips. Perched on the rim is a 1.5” gummy bear whose danger zone has been sliced to accommodate its final balancing act. Its appendages are outstretched to embrace the world. Its head is angled to gaze at me. A fine dusting of sour flavour crystals create the illusion of light and shadow, distinguishing its child’s nighttime sleeping companion’s soft, friendly features. I occasionally pick the bear up by its ears and chewy cranium and lick its wound.

Good God!
It fell in.

[quick change into a lab coat]

Today’s experiment yielded two results:
1. A gummy bear is more dense than an iced latte.
2. Sour flavour crystals do not curdle milk products.

After trying to rescue the drowning bear, I looked at my foot.

If floors had eyes they would recoil in horror from the sight of my one foot. I will not show any other living soul the sole of my left foot. Well... there are exceptions of course.

Exception #1: My non-sadistic, greedy dermatologist who is hellbent on only administering the minimum in liquid nitrogen, thus forcing me to repeatedly wait in his goddamned sardine packed waiting room with other fungal victims.
Exception #2: My male pedicurist.
Exceptions #1-2 have seen worse apparently.

Ack, the ex-husband/ best friend: What the hell is a Planter’s Wart anyway?
The Comrade: It’s a goddamned virus one picks up from other skanky footed girls while having a shower after sweaty yoga sessions.

I learned that the bacteria in urine kills viral fungi that grow à pied. I tend to save any bladder action for the shower as I love peeing while standing up anyway and find it rather messy if I do it with clothes on. Peeing in the shower is natural to me. What is unnatural/ offensive is the dislodging of nasal passage material without the use of paper products. In the streets of Chinatown or in the shower, this is fucking gross. I try to pee prior to communally showering mostly because not everyone goes for the public peeing thing. Some people, I won't name any names, find shower peeing just as offensive as I do paperless nose blowing. In addition, much of what I ingest has highly scented flavour crystals that come out of my urethra. Chiefly: coffee and asparagus. I also tend to forget that I’ve ingested these things, so like in the spirit of eating a lot of beets the night prior, I do my morning business and just before sending my birthed creatures down the waterslide I think I’m dying.

I learned that one of the questions asked, as part of a stringent series of tests to determine one's honesty prior to procuring a police badge, is: Do you look at your poop before you flush?

Fatty asked me.

The Comrade: Every... single... time.

[ring ring]
I often don't answer the phone.
I often retrieve messages, though.

Even though Fatty and I live together now, Fatty's mom called me and left me a message. It completely concerned Fatty, but she addressed me anyway.

[ring ring]
[This is me calling her back]

Fatty had gone over to a birthday party co-hosted by one of his old girlfriends. She is two things: 1) lovely 2) gifted with the biggest set of bajungas I've ever seen. I was invited to go but opted out because I didn't know the guy or girl who was going to be blowing 55 candles out. I may be projecting but who would want someone they don't know or love to commemorate my birth? I mean their birth.

So instead I stayed home, brought my guaranteed for 25 years Sears sewing machine and a 100' extension cord out to the deck to sew long enough to receive a deep mottled tan on my back (a place not prone to strange sun reactive apparitions), then eventually serging by candle and moonlight until the clock struck twelve.

Golly it looks full.
"Two more days," says my lunar calendar.

I talked to Fatty's mom for over 2 hours. We like each other very much.

The Comrade: I didn't think she liked me.
Fatty: She's always liked you.
The Comrade: She didn't seem too pleased when I knew all the family secrets years before we got together.
Fatty: She had to accept you first. They all have.

And now she tells me so much that it kind of makes me uncomfortable at times.

We visited Fatty's familial home yesterday. I wanted to talk to his parents about the legacies they passed onto him.
Daddy gave him subcutaneous fibrous lumps which lie dormant and allegedly harmless beneath every 3rd pass of my opened palm.
Mother gave him night-terrors which leave me almost as shaken and horrified as they do him.

The Comrade: You gave him the night-terrors!
Fatty's very British Mom: Well I also gave him all that hair and I don't hear you complaining about that!

The other thing I had forgotten, which comes along with another person who shares your life, is their family. In this case they are all uniquely individual, thoughtful, hilarious and deeply caring creatures. Along with the lumps, the night-terrors and the hair, they also passed on to their first born child an amazing propensity to love properly.

I always knew I was lucky.