**********Incredibly sad synchronicity alert: Pagan
Boy, who was next in line in my ersatz High Fidelity thread, my friend
of 28 years and one of my most formative boyfriends, passed away of
complications from Covid over the weekend. I found out while this draft was on
the desk waiting to be typed. I say synchronicity because The Drummer woke up
such a hankering for chatting through bad movies that I drafted Pagan Boy into
the madness. Before he was gone, I got to mock Dear Christmas (my choice)
and Five-Headed Shark (his) over messenger with him.
The Drummer has gently ghosted by now (Well I HOPE he
ghosted and didn’t, you know, die.) but even aside from the copious cuteness he
provided, I’m so, so grateful he led me to those good hours with Pagan Boy. I
miss them both a bunch and I’m basically pining like Wonder Woman over
here.***********
Back to December:
One of the side effects of being underemployed,
traumatized by America, estranged from part of my family and also possibly being
part bear is that I’ve really ramped up my nap-taking. With that comes a little
bit of nap-guilt, especially while I was in touch with riskily not-underemployed
The Drummer. Ask me about my NAPS FOR ALL platform.
Nap-guilt notwithstanding, I asked The Drummer one
Friday afternoon if I should do something productive (I WAS, despite all of the
above, nonetheless in full Virgo goalsetting/Tidying Up/budgeting mode)
or take a nap.
“Nap! Nap! Nap!” he wrote back right away.
Inspired, I typed “Hot nap pic in the works”
I got into my longjohn-style, vaguely Christmas-themed
pajamas, cocooned in the covers, then set about learning portrait mode. The
blankets were pulled up over my head, you could only see a fraction of my face,
but my vulnerably unglassesed eyes definitely said “Wish you were here.”
Possibly I also typed that.
It was a silly, cute, bundled-up picture, but as I
noted his kiss emojis and headed toward snoozetown, I felt such a warm wave of
joyful desire. It was as if I had just texted him all of the quadrants, naked
outside in the sun. It felt new to be so easily and thoroughly turned on in such
a time of scary touch-desert. It was an EXTREMELY good nap. Might have to stop
writing and go take another.
…
Okay I’m back. That weekend, the weekend before
Christmas, The Drummer and I had our second text-though-a-bad-movie date, this
time with blue speech bubbles instead of Bumble yellow. I thought we had
already agreed on Left Behind (Y’all! It’s so much like The Leftovers
except really bad and boring and with disconcerting references to “globalism”!)
but he seemed taken aback that I was actually willing to go there. This poor
guy, he must’ve felt like dating me was a dare.
For all the fun and happiness and quipping, bad movies
are REALLY LONG without eventually switching to making out. So when he asked me
what my choice was for next time, I said a six-feet-apart walk in the woods.
And so, after the holidays, that would be our plan.