Luxury

I've come up with a few rules for living this morning:

1.  Coffee should be strong

2.  Whiskey should be smooth

3.  Lovers should leave you feeling restful and at peace

There are plenty more, of course.  This is just a beginning, but it is a good one.

"Oh, Sugar," I said, "I learned a long time ago that I wanted to live, not survive."

That was a good one, too, but it is difficult not feeling guilty living when so many people are struggling to survive.  And I do feel the guilt.  In this case, however, I was talking to someone who lives in one of those overly large and expensive homes that were built at the end of last century in the big, gated-style communities on small, well-regulated lots with a home-owners group that tells you when you need to paint or landscape and how.  2,700 square feet, four bathrooms, beige everywhere, lighter or darker, and that ornate but distinctly not of any period furniture.  They keep the thermostat at 78 in the hot and humid summer because they are shocked by what it costs to cool 2,700 square feet.  The men are fit and good looking and go to the gym and play in soccer leagues and golf tournaments and have that swagger of the Xeroxed wealthy that lets you know they are nouveaux copycats or are existing just on the low edge of the bubble.

"Have you played the course at Sea Island?  That's a great course, right?"

"Oh, we had such a wonderful time, and the kids loved it."

"We're thinking of going to The Grand at Del Mar next year."

"We haven't been, but Bob said it was fantastic."

Excellent.

It is a good life, one to be envied, sure, and almost anyone in the world (maybe not yours but the real world made up of people not in your neighborhood, maybe living on one of those "other" continents where eating is living) would trade places.  So why so often do they have to be such pricks?  Not all of them.  I know some nice working wealthy, but even they become a bit blinded especially when something might challenge their lifestyle.  And I understand that.  We want two things in life, security and comfort.

O.K.  Sex.

And if you are more like me. . . love.

But luxuries are by contrast and so if you live in a tent and everybody else lives in a tent, you just want a good one to be happy.  Some rugs on the floor and some food in your belly and nobody wanting to kill you.

And sex.

And love.

But I've lost my way.  I knew where I was going and then meandered a bit.  I'm back to myself again now, though.

Late yesterday afternoon, I was lying in bed reading and feeling the warm afterglow of a tete-a-tete lunch.  It was too hot to be outside, the air supercharged with humidity and heat, so lying in the semi-dark of the bedroom reading was just the thing to do.  And then the first rumblings of thunder.  I wouldn't be going anywhere, so I thought to pour a small whiskey to make me lazy.  And then the wind and rain and hail and lightening.  I looked out the window and watched the rain dance in circles, tornado fashion.  Old limbs were cracking and littering the ground.  I was comfortable as a cat, but I knew. . . and eventually the power went out.  Shit.  I stayed in bed and waited.  And waited.  The air inside the house became balmy, the light too dim to read.  I went outside to make sure I wasn't the only one to lose power.  Across the street my neighbor's house was all aglow, the sound of his generator humming along.  His neighbor, too.  They automatically come on when the electricity goes out.

Luxury is by contrast.

I walked until I saw a neighbor in his garage.

"Is your power out?"

"It's out all over town.  The traffic lights aren't working.  Traffic is a mess."

I felt better.  It would have made me feel even better to shoot holes into my neighbor's generator.

Eventually I went to an Irish pub and had a pint and some fish and chips.  Assholes filled the bar opining about soccer.

"Why are straight men so loud and take up so much space?"  That is what a gay friend asked me at lunch one day.  He is right.  The pub was full of large men trumpeting and spreading to fill as much of the world as they could.

Thank god, when I got home, the power had come back on.  I got back into bed right where I left it, book in the place I'd left it, a glass of whiskey by the bed.

The thermostat was set to 73.

Luxury.