Go Weird, Young Man

I live alone.  I have not always, and I may not always, but I don’t mind it.

And not in that brave, “put a smile on the shit sandwich” way that I think some people live alone. I have had some of my best years living alone, I don’t mind my own company and can see the advantage in it enough that living alone is often a real treat.

Sometimes, as well, you realize it may have gone too far. Back in the good old days, when my late companion Rudy was still with us, I did have one of those moments.

The Man. Rudy.

Rudy and I had had a long day. I was sitting on the floor, watching TV and  eating one of those pre-cooked supermarket chickens straight from its plastic coffin. With my hands. Possibly with a greasy beer on one side, definitely with a opportunistic feeder on the other.  I had some chicken, Rudy had some chicken, I had some chicken, Rudy had some chicken, and so on.  Soon it was nothing but a stripped carcass. Lying there, chicken coffin on my stomach, I contemplated my greasy fingers. I looked at Rudy, and he at me. We both knew the solution. I stuck my hand out and he commenced the, um, cleansing.

Suddenly, as if near death, I was transported from my body, up in the air and I looked down upon myself. My lazy, no-fork using, dog-finger-cleaning self.

I now have strict rules about at least using cutlery with meals.

But there are some real advantages to living alone. Sure you can do all the things you hear people talk about when they tout living alone: You watch whatever you  like and never EVER have to watch NASCAR. You can walk about naked as a jaybird and never hear calls of “whiiiiitte whaaaaaale!!”

But forget about all this. It’s the really weird stuff that you can do when you live alone that is the true liberation here. The thing about the really weird stuff is, however, that you have to figure out for yourself what your weird stuff is. If I were to detail for you my weird stuff, that would just pollute your own stream of ideas.  So I will not go on at length about any lost weekend spent doing nothing but attempting to master the cartwheel, no matter what the cost to me in glassware and drywall. No. But I will give you one visual. From this, I expect you to go forth and find your own weirdness.

Free yourself.