The first time I felt like I had a real connection with another person was sometime in grade school. I remember tentatively bringing up the topic of farts with my friend, Leslie B, and how you don't... you know... ummmm…. like, have to fart out LOUD so that everyone could hear. (?!?)

She quickly followed up with her solution of slowly leaking the fart out so that no noise was made. Voila, no embarrassment.

You have to understand, we were approximately nine years old; embarrassment was a fact of life and something I dearly wanted to avoid. Boys could take the mere mention of a “training bra� and turned it into the story of the girl "making out" with the principal and the janitor - complete with Broadway show tickets and popcorn.

To think that someone else had thought up the same tactic for slowly releasing her farts!
To hang out with someone else who was actually willing to discuss farts with me!

These connections happen few and far between with me in real life. The world seems like one big rush – to everywhere and everybody. When people ask you how you're doing and how your day has been, they don’t really want to know.
Sometimes I believe this is why I write a blog in the first place. I know that I've said in interviews that it had to do with Mother-to-Mother support and keeping in touch with old friends. I remember even pretentiously babbling about a global village raising my family along with me.

However, I'm beginning to think it was/is something a bit more personal.
I just want connections. Of course, I have connection with my spouse, but there is something that I love about that initial connection one can unexpectantly have with someone when he or she tells you personal flatulence strategies.
I've heard of infidelities when a person merely wants to experience that first kiss again; they want those butterflies in their stomach and that electric shock when their skin brushes against the other person. I'm doing wonderfully in that department so I'm not craving electricity. What I actually look for on this blog is that sparkle of recognition in another kindred spirit who also lets out silent, but deadly, gas attacks and could care less if her feet stick all the way to Tibet and beyond.

This is why I write in a blog.
I meet these people and have these strange little sparks almost every time I write here.
It's wonderfully addicting.

Then I think to myself... how did my public space, the place where I meet people and connect with the world, become so isolated?

Now I'm going to bed.

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