farter tender square my butt has its own horn section. i’ve been stuck with the nickname “gassy cassie,” courtesy of my sisters, since i was a kid. i don’t know if it’s some genetic thing i get from my dad but we both are frequent, loud farters. i’m talking so loud that mr. tender square has heard me from a different floor, like i-can’t-even-be-muffled-by-a-cushioned-chair level loud. my ass shakes our house like thunder. back when mr. tender square and i first started courting, i had to sit him down for a serious discussion: “i have something to tell you…” “yeah?” “i’m a human being!!! i’ve been holding in my farts every time we’re together and my stomach is killing me. i have to let them out.” well, the fartgates opened after that, to the point where he said to me not so long thereafter, “i feel like you just said that so you could fart with impunity.” i think he’s gotten used to it, for the most part. now he just shakes his head and says “that’s my wife” whenever it happens (which is a lot). but his favorite farting story of mine has to be from when i was in third grade. mrs. williams was reviewing the fully alive textbook about our changing bodies and for once our class was quiet. try as i might to hold it in, a loud fart slipped out of me. “who did that?” she demanded. “excuse yourself now!” i guess she thought one of the boys did it to be disruptive. mr. tender square can’t believe that i owned up to that one. i can’t believe i did too. 210828 ... epitome of incomprehensibility Me, more in the morning. Or depending on what I eat. Memory of when I visited David was in his old apartment. Early this spring. Afternoon. I was being a couch potato, working on something (course? novel?), but I mentioned I was hungry, so he went and washed a large amount of broccoli for me. I looked at it, thought, "That's a lot of broccoli," but it'd be bit mean to sniff at a gift. So I ate it all. Then, for supper, we had spicy food, eaten fast because of Quebec's then 8PM curfew. Soon after I had painful cramps and went to lie down on the couch for a while. Concern. Are you okay? Do you want something? And I said in a voice of anguish, "No, go away!" David was surprised, but he stayed in the other room. It was because, you guessed it, all that food made me fart out loud and I was embarrassed. But he heard me and started laughing. (By the way, it wasn't a huge problem to get back after the curfew - I did it a few times and was never stopped. And I could blame my lateness on public transport. Or, that time, gassiness - and concern for fellow humans who might not want me constantly farting on the metro. I had options!) 210829 what's it to you? who go blather from