Slam

When we talk about the future, my boyfriend and I have started saying things like "when we have kids..." or "when junior comes along..."

I don't know exactly when this started, but I suppose that after almost six years of being together, thinking of the future in terms of vacations to take, or appliances to buy, or bankruptcy hearings to attend--it starts getting old, you know?

Both of us have our favorite names for our imaginary kids, of course, who doesn't? For any gay male couple, it's harmless, since it's unlikely that anything would come of it unless we take extraordinary measures to have a kid, like going to boring fundraising dinners and joining political rallies. Boy, I wish all I had to do was to masturbate into a cup.

I mean, when I am at The Gap, I would often 'accidentally' walk into the GapKids section, stage-project my voice, 'oh my! I didn't know it was the kids section!' before looking through all the cute outfits designed to stir your homoternal instincts. I would pick up a cute preppy outfit and think 'this is sooo cute! I have the perfect outfit that will go with this!' and imagine myself holding my little boy's hand walking in the park, playing football or putting together a killer hors d'œuvre tray.

Sometimes, these feelings are so strong that if The Gap had a pet store, I would've walked out with a puppy. I am not kidding. If I were a savvy businessman, I would put a pet store next to a designer kids clothing store because you know, all the gays with their unfulfilled homoternal instincts will walk in and get a new kitten or puppy without even knowing why.

Sometimes (and I know I've said this many times in this blog), I wish I were a lesbian, particularly Kim Stolz from America's Next Top Model. I am actually going through a phase right now where I am copying Kim's cool, casual androgynous style: vests, ties, white shirts, but I digress.

If I were a lesbian with homoternal urges, I would go to a bar when I'm ovulating, challenge a cute guy to a drinking game, coz you know I would need to get drunk to do the deed, and he needs to get drunk so he won't remember my face and my address, and so he won't notice my hairy legs or armpits when I take my shirt off--no way I'm shaving just to please a man--uh-uh. Rinse (my privates), repeat until pregnant.

In the breeding hierarchy, gay men are below straights (obviously) and lesbians, but just above Magic The Gathering tournament players. It's sad, I know, but I've accepted my lot. I've channeled all my energies into my two cats. I can't wait to put them in these cute Holiday outfits I got for our next cocktail party.



All these feelings have come back to the fore as I read Nick Hornby's latest novel Slam. The book is about Sam, a fifteen year-old boy who loves to skate. Sam, in first person, spends a few minutes to tell us, somewhat defensively, that skating means skateboarding, not rollerskating or ice skating, which apparently are lame. He talks about the dangerous stunts that skaters do and about Tony Hawk, his idol, whose biography is alternately Sam's bible and advice column.

Personally, I am not sure why Sam thinks ice skating is so lame. I'd like to see him do a triple lutz or triple salchow and see if he doesn't fall on his ass. As for dangerous, I am not sure if there is anything more dangerous than having to sew your own sequined outfit and wearing it to the local ice skating rink.

Sam lives with his single Mom who got pregnant with him when she was sixteen years old. Sam spends his spare time doing fifteen year-old things, learning new skate tricks until he meets Alicia, a beautiful girl at a party whom he gets pregnant.

The title of the book, getting slammed, refers to a bad spill from doing a skate trick. Metaphor for teen pregnancy, I get it. The book is published by Penguin's Young Readers imprint, which I hope won't prevent adults from reading this excellent novel. I am convinced this is one of Hornby's best novels, possibly just below About A Boy. The voice is that of a teen, but the themes are universal: growing up or coming of age, whatever, this is a lot of book for a slim volume. I was hooked into it fairly quickly and couldn't put it down. If you loved Stephen Chbosky's amazing 'young adult' novel Perks of Being a Wallflower, this book is for you.

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A Long Way Down - Annie and I review Nick Hornby's last novel.

Mind Control

I do have super powers! This year I was able to convince my boyfriend, my friends and family that the most important thing this holiday season was that we share good times together, instead of spending our money on gifts.

Since October I had been focusing all my mental abilities on my friends and family to bend them to my will. Sure, it took a lot of time, skill and effort to collect enough blackmail material to control their minds but it worked! I am buying absolutely no presents this year. None!

It's like a domino effect: no presents means no last minute shopping, no last minute gift wrapping and no last minute visit to my shrink. Black Friday? I spent it at home watching porn. Cyber Monday? Ditto. If everybody doesn't somehow break free of my mind control, 2008 may be the first year that begins with no crushing holiday debt...

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Holiday posts from the archives:

Holiday Mixtape - Cheese rules in the holidays. Pretend Holiday - Remembering the true pronounciation of Hanukkah and Christmas.

Merry War (Christmas Is Over) - The depression that comes after the holidays. Baby's First Christmas - Jordan's nephew Justin becomes a mouthpiece for his disgruntled aunt.

One-Brunch Stand

One always has high hopes when one finds a new restaurant. We do, don't we? I had that feeling when I first walked into Orange in Roscoe Village for brunch.

However, the feeling quickly dissipated when I found that the restaurant is not equipped to seat any party larger than four and we had to wait like 30 to 45 minutes to get seated. I don't know about you, but brunch is not a meal where people like to wait to get seated: they're hung-over, they're starving, they've just got out of bed with a complete stranger. Plus, the hostess told us with her snooty attitude that she won't seat us unless everybody was there, which is understandable, but fuck, brunch is a group thing and gays are almost always running on gay time.

If you're a gay couple, a group of six or more is practically de rigeur. We almost never go out to the bars anymore, so brunch is the only way we get to see our friends. By the time our group of six was ready to be seated, our friendship was hanging by a thread.

The food was supposed to be interesting but poorly executed. If I were a judge on Top Chef, I would say that the flavors weren't balanced and overwhelming in some cases. Sure, a Chai Latte sauce sounds good, but drowning your pancakes in it isn't too appetizing. I love duck as much as the next guy, but duck sausage for breakfast is a bit much. Nothing is simple, everything is exhaustingly complicated. I think it's a case of the menu being in love with itself more than anything else.

Also, on the menu it said something to the effect of "if you're looking to build-your-own-omelette, you should go to somewhere that has 'golden' or 'nugget' in its name." Haughty much? Trust me, I've been to the Golden Nugget many times and their service, attitude and my omelette was better than Orange's Omelette #4. What's that? Omelette #4? I looked for #1 to #3 but apparently the chef is a math retard and doesn't know how to count as it was missing from the menu. I know, I know, there is no Chanel No. 1 to 4 either, but this is brunch, not a perfume campaign ad.

I know that I'm just a stupid blogger, and I don't usually write restaurant rants in my blog--after all, I'm a crazed food-schizo, but as we were leaving, my friend Annie said to me, "I'm saying goodbye to this place because it's the last time I'm coming here." The rest of us agreed, which is really unusual, because we all came to this conclusion separately. So, I guess this is it, this is a one-brunch stand.

I feel dirty. Dirtier than Paris Hilton with a hamburger in her mouth.

I think that I will just stick where I know I will get a great brunch: Kitsch'n which is literally right next door with its friendly atmosphere and fun food, run by my chef-crush Jon Young, who is always down-to-earth and approachable. Plus, they will make your omelette just the way you like it. Word.

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How Does It Work? - A brunch conversation about those mysterious artifacts called 'tampons.'

Finders Keepers - A near brunch catfight averted.

Off The Wagon

While I was off 'pursuing other interests' I was able to completely cut myself off from the blog. I wasn't checking comments, I wasn't looking at my site stats or checking Technorati for updated links. It was a sort of heaven.

One of the things I had planned to do when I came back was to have a more laissez-faire with this and just do the more traditional blogspew that most people do, just to keep up with the habit of writing. I was going to keep any mispelled words, not put any links or add pictures or do any re-writes. I was going to write whatever and publish it and let it be.

But just one week into my supposed new attitude, I've fallen off the wagon and back to my old habits checking comments obsessively and stuff. I would've answered some of your comments sooner but I didn't want to have a reply two seconds after you posted yours, because I was afraid that would seem too needy.

Just this morning I must've checked sitemeter once every hour. And I'm in a training class. I am trying to hide my site-checking activites from my instructor and seatmates, which is pretty hard to do. I feel like I'm back in grade school, hiding a comic book in my textbook.

I'm itching just to go over the site stats for the last 15 minutes, but I gotta go, the instructor is walking around the room. I don't want to get caught.

(But I'll be checking for your comments when I get back in a few minutes)

UPDATE: I knew I couldn't stay away. I updated this post with links and a photo.

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Blog Advice - Advice to a fellow burned out blogger, Jase.

Food Freak-out

Because I'm fucked up, a complete food schizo, with my various food phobias and aversions, I'm literally a nightmare to have dinner with. You would hate to have me as a dinner guest. And much as I try not to get freaked out, the slightest thing would set me off.

This is why I am usually very careful with my food choices. I usually stay away from exotic recipes, unfamiliar ingredients or anything that looks like it could have a creamy base or dairy. I am a creature of habit by need. I eat the same kinds of things all the time and the only way I come upon new cuisine is by grilling the waiter to the nth degree or by stealing morsels from another person's plate. Even then, I am always wary and will order my food explicitly with no cheese or such. This way, I minimize the food tantrums and trips to crazyville.

But inevitably, there are food freak-outs.

In my last food freak-out, I was at Tapas Barcelona, located in Evanston. Spanish food is something I enjoy a lot, particularly because I am very familiar with its cuisine and can predict what dishes I will enjoy and which ones to avoid. This made my last freak-out even more tragic, because it could've been avoided with such ease.

The great thing about tapas is that if you don't like something, it's ok, there's always the next dish. But for me, going to a tapas restaurant gets me going because in my mind, it's like coming home. And coming home isn't complete without an order of paella, a delicious rice dish cooked with saffron, seafood and chicken or chorizo. It takes at least twenty minutes to make, so servers usually warn you about it. In my opinion, it's worth the wait, I love it.

So here I am getting sloshed on sangria, nibbling off the dishes that the others have ordered, saving my appetite for my special dish. When the waiter finally arrived, carrying the large flat iron pan over his shoulder in one hand, my mouth watered like you wouldn't believe. A drop of saliva actually dripped out of my mouth, I kid you not. If somebody invented the pharmaceutical version of paella, menopausal women around the world would make that person the president. Hell, if Clinton became president, she would abdicate for this person.

However, when the waiter set the pan in front of me, I was shocked. In my mind, there was a collective gasp! around the table. But later, I was told it was just me.

The paella was covered with cheese. Now, who the fuck would put cheese in paella? You cannot, cannot put cheese on paella and still call it paella. Ok, I'm tired of italicizing the word paella, so from now on I won't, even though it looks more exotic when I italicize it. Just continue imagining that it is italicized.

I mean, this is like putting pepperoni and mozzarella on a tortilla and calling it a pizza. Plus, nowhere in the menu did the description say that there was cheese in the dish. I think that if you were going to fuck with the traditional paella recipe, you should say so. People expect that there is no turkey in their lasagna, no pineapple in their chili con carne, no crabs in their one night stands. Right?

My dinner was ruined. I picked around the dish the best I could, but it was over. Until we got the check, I couldn't stop complaining about it. My friends commiserated for awhile before finally getting tired of my tirade. It's just food you know. Whatever.

I don't like myself when this happens, but you know, I can't help it. I wish I was the type of person who could take these unexpected events with poise, but I'm not, you know, I'm not.

Writing this post really got me going again. I was planning to just write a couple of sentences about this but the length of this post really shows you how upset I was and what a total freak I am.

Now, would you still want to go to dinner with me?

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Burnt Lunch - A food mishap.

Epilogue

Once upon a time, there was a very very beautiful girl who wanted to kill herself. It wasn't clear why she wanted to do so, but from the outside, she had everything to live for. She was young, beautiful, desireable.

Once, there were three men who were good friends: musicians--no, traveling minstrels. One of them was my friend Doug: thin, with soft brown hair and a goofy grin. We had been talking about work, our favorite bands, the kind of comfortable things people talk about when they're at ease. Just before noon, he took his leave, promising to come back later to continue our discussion.

One beautiful summer day, the girl was driving out her demons at 90 miles an hour, her blonde hair flying. There may have been tears--despair or rage, we will never know. The light burned in her eyes, her mind blank.

The three men were off to lunch, their car at an intersection. The light was red.

Then suddenly, a crash from behind. Their car flew into the air, suspended for a few seconds, just enough time for a sharp intake of breath--life defying gravity.

Metal, plastic, bone crumpled together. The car, a paper ball in the hands of a furious child.

The broken glass turned red, the ground turned red. The stoplight with its red eye, stared at the scene, the strewn bloody bodies, the distraught girl. It hesitated for another second, blinked, then turned a somber green.


It is two years later. Yesterday, the girl was convicted in court for a botched suicide attempt. Her sentence: 8 years for reckless multiple homicide. With time served, she could be out in 18 months.

Anger? Sadness? Indifference? What should I feel?

Numbness. Is that a feeling?


Suicide blonde, got some revelation, put into your hands? Did it save you from your misery?



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Hardly Knew You - The Last Day of Doug.

Break

Rumors of my demise were greatly exaggerated, but I'd like to thank Michael Guy for his concern, but I'm doing well, taking a bit of a break from the blog to focus on other interests.

I finally finished a new remix that I have been working on for a few months. This is a remix to Tracey Thorn's Raise The Roof, which I had started working on when I first bought the CD. Go check it out at the DJ Evil Twin site. I love Tracey's album Out of The Woods, but I almost feel like I need to do a remix project with it like I did with Beth Orton and Sade because I feel that it has the bones for it.

I finished my art class, and I've come to realize that I like to paint more than I like to draw. I've also realized that no matter how I try, all the noses that I draw are reminiscent of Bea Arthur. I am thinking about taking a painting class at Lillstreet Art Center.

I have also finished these books in the past few weeks: Haruki Murakami's Norwegian Wood, John Irving's The Fourth Hand, Meg Gardiner's China Lake, Jonathan Safran Foer's Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close. I am currently reading Nick Hornby's Slam.

Jade Park had inspired me and I am working on an outline for a story I've been thinking about for a while. I also signed up for a writing workshop with the incredible Lynda Barry, author of Cruddy and One! Hundred! Demons! this coming January. So I know I'll be doing some more writing. The question here is, what to do with the blog? I feel that an evolution is coming, though I am unsure of the direction. I guess you'll have to tune in to find out.

One more thing, I have decided to stop sending out e-mail notifications of updates just because I think that it's probably getting annoying and subscribers just don't want to hurt my feelings and tell me to unsubscribe them from the mailing list. You can still subscribe to my RSS feed y'know. :)


Up for a challenge? Read this: Jonathan Safran Foer's "About The Typefaces Not Used in This Edition" (PDF). You can also read "The Sixth Borough" which JSF expanded into Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close.

Exhaustion

Week 5 of Art Class. At this point I am exhausted. Not because I have been painting non-stop or anything like that. I am exhausted of trying to figure out how to tell the art instructor that he and his Badtz-Maru pencil case sucks. Ok, maybe not the pencil case, but he definitely sucks. The pressure of trying to paint or draw something decent, something to bring to class, with his shitty instruction is going to kill me.

The guy is never prepared. I doubt if he even has a lesson plan on what activities we are going to be doing and how to build up our skills for these eight weeks. He never even bothered to give us a list of supplies to bring. On the first class, he came in and said "We're doing collage!" and then looked at us, as if his proclamation is all we need to get started.

All the students, who did not bring ANY kind of supplies: brushes, glue, magazines, looked at each other and knew that it was going to be a long eight weeks. The instructor had two X-acto knives that the class had to share, which he pulled out of the Badtz-Maru pencil case.

The pencil case is basically the only thing that is only thing that is letting him hold on to any sort of good will from me. If he ever comes to class without it...well, let's just say nothing, not his lip piercing, his vintage bowling shoes or his cool hair will save him from my glorious wrath. That pencil case is like the Anti-SeaBear circle protecting him and his skinny Squidward legs.*

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*According to the Spongebob Squarepants mythology, an Anti-SeaBear circle is the only thing that will protect you from a vicious sea bear attack--especially when you are out camping in the backyard of your pineapple.

Wao! Wao! Oscar Wao!

I don’t know about you, but as a reader, I have very high expectations. I expect that a novel have characters that are real, complex, tangible, that they are just one step away from being my own friends. I mean, if I wanted just any friend, I’d go hang out at a gay bar and buy drinks. I’ve never had as many friends as when I’m at a gay bar with an open tab.

If you’re author Junot Díaz, you’ve already gotten this down pat. Your skill as a writer is evidenced by the fact that your characters are not people I would normally associate with, whom I would totally shun, but am somehow drawn to and maybe even hang out with, if they bought me drinks.

Especially if your character is the titular Oscar, an overweight Dominican nerdboy with bad skin, bad hair whose glory days have passed him by at the age of seven, when he had yet to become a torpid teen, when youth was his ally and he had been the smoothest cat on his block. The apex of this period occurred when he had a three-way kiss with two girls at the bus stop, pre-dating The Real World hot tubs. Then it was downhill all the way. There are rumors of a weird curse--a fukú--on him, his family, possibly dating back to his ancient ancestry.

The story is narrated by Yunior--Oscar's sister's ex-boyfriend (wha...?), who tells the story in an epic mash-up gangsta cholo slash Lord of The Rings style, in an effort to divine the source of the curse or ward it off, I'm not sure. Then Oscar's troubled sister Lola jumps in and puts in her two cents into the boiling cauldron. Just when you're ready to write off some evil character, some truth is revealed and you go on hating the character but not without heartache.

Junot Díaz keeps all your senses occupied with his strange patois: a mixture of English, Spanish, Klingon, moving the story forward with an urgency and casualness which would’ve been at odds itself, if it had been written with less skill, throwing in pop culture references at you, like Donkey Kong throwing barrels at a befuddled Mario. At the same time, he peppers the story with footnotes explaining obscure customs or personal histories--short stories really--in three, five or ten sentences.

The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao is Díaz’ first novel, although I had been first introduced to his work by way of Drown, his debut book of short stories in 1997. I normally don’t read short story anthologies because it’s usually one or two great stories, two more middling ones and then filler.* But I bought Drown because as I read the first paragraph at the bookstore, Díaz’ voice grabbed me with both hands and almost like he yelled, "It’s clobberin' time," I was drawn into the melee. Just like that. Check out his books.



Read this: "Homecoming, with Turtle" by Junot Díaz

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*There is only one exception to this rule and that’s Stephen King’s book of novellas Different Seasons, which spawned not one, but three feature films including Shawshank Redemption, Apt Pupil and Stand By Me.To this day, this book rules this category for me.

Other great writers I recommend:

Pulp Fiction - David Schickler is no namby-pamby, sensitive, wryly comic author. I predict he's your new fave author.

Interview with John McNally - If you like 'em rough, troublemakers are his specialty. Check out The Book of Ralph.

Get the books:

Birth

So, I'm sorry that I haven't been around. I have been hiding from you, if you want to know. Part of the reason being that I had been trying to learn how to paint, or more precisely, create Art. Yes, Art with a capital "A." Not some piddling little watercolor of a tidy little cottage, but a grandiose dream of paint smears and wild colors, of Big Statements and Bold Moves.

I'm sad to say that I have always been one of those people that looks at some abstract painting, like maybe a Mark Rothko or the graffiti of Keith Haring and say, that's wonderful, but really, I could do that, even though deep inside I knew that there was something about those works that was elusive, trapped on a canvas--pinned down really, like a butterfly on a collector's board.

I would look at Piet Mondrian's "Broadway Boogie Woogie" and think, I love this painting, how he conveyed the excitement of Broadway, the movement and flashing lights with just lines and squares. I've always thought, hey, I want to do that. I was sure that I could think of some way to distill the essence of a city into a few lines. I was sure I could--all I had to do was to get a paint set and my walls would be dripping with my masterpieces. I really thought I did--just put a brush in my hand.

And because I had this huge, huge feeling, I had attempted to blog about it because I wanted to write about something and it was either this or another post about farting, which would've been appropriate since just before I sat down, I had farted. I'm in fact, still in the midst of its lingering stench.

I had written the following:

Art is daunting. It wills a person to create it, no matter how unsophisticated the hand. And then it is out there, for everyone to judge.

It scares me because sometimes, I feel that there is picture in me that needs to be conceived. I don't know the implement; a brush, a pen or knife. Sometimes, I am overwhelmed by the lines of a bus. Sometimes, I am suffocated by the color of rain, or the look in a man's eye.

I wish, often, forever, I could give birth to an image--a pink squalling babe would spring forth from me--with a moon for an eyebrow, a caterpillar for a finger, a penny for a navel.

At first it sounded good to me. Then it just felt atrocious, so much so that the next word I wrote was "fuck." And then,

fuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuck
fuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuck
fuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuck
fuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuck
fuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuckFUCK

I'm such a fucking tool. I decided not to post it and left it in draft mode.

However, I did go online and signed up for a class at the Evanston Art Center thinking that despite my bravado, I really needed some basic instruction. I wanted to do it right. If one had something important that they wanted to do, ideally one should consult an expert, say an astrologer, you know, to see if the stars are in alignment. I gazed at the night sky looking for signs of a twinkling conga line.

A few days before the class, I checked my blog and revisited what I had written. It had not gotten better and was more and more like the literary version of the guy you brought home at the desperate hour of closing time. Since it had taken me like, over an hour to write this shit, I attempted to salvage what I wrote, sort of like pretending that the whole night never happened, I'd never met that closing time guy even though he won't stop texting me and calling me up crying in the middle of the night.

I deleted the fucks and wrote sort of an apologia for this treacle, an "i'm not taking myself that seriously" bullshit that I am wont to write:

I hired a midwife. I signed up for an art class. For the next 8 weeks I'll find out whether I suck, or I just suck dick.

I am very nervous about it. Eight weeks is a long time, especially if the rest of the class was wildly talented. What if we had to draw from nude male models? I am afraid my drawings would all have beautifully detailed dicks hanging on stick figures.

I am hoping to snag a corner where I can work privately and not draw attention to myself. Do you think wearing a velvet smoking jacket is ok? Or is that not artsy enough? Or maybe an all-black ensemble and a beret? This is just totally freaking me out. I may have to go buy a totally new outfit for the class. I want to make sure, you know, that I fit in.

I'm scared shitless.

I wasn't happy with that either. But the last line was true: I was scared shitless. I clung to that. It's kind of like that moment when you realize, yes, I am gay and I am going to have to take it up the ass. Ouuuuuuuchhhh. I used to think: why couldn't I have been born a lesbian? Until I saw the size of the dildos they used. There was one that was the size and shape of a fist. Lesbians mean business, man. You know that vibrator they call The Rabbit? The lesbian version is a real fucking rabbit, stuffed, with beady glass eyes.

That's how scared I was. What if my masterpieces turned out to be the barbecue sauce kind, you know, from KC? What if my attempts are not even worthy of the bathroom wall at the Sistine Chapel. Can I live with myself? Worse, can I live with myself after I told everyone and you that I am taking the class?

Fuck it then. I have written this post long enough to abandon it forever. You know how it is. You've posted something just for the sake of posting something.

Please don't ask me to post any pictures of my work.



P.S. There is barely any stench left from the fart at the start of this post. But if I concentrate hard enough on the scent, it maybe enough for me to start another blog post...

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The amazing art of Chuck Close.

Books about the artists:

Throw It Away

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Cartoons - The New Yorker cartoons slay me. These are ones which have appeared in this site over the years.

The Deep South - My comic strip blog that rips off works of art. Now on haitus coz I'm lazy.

Scar

This is my scar. It was a result of a surgery performed earlier in March.

It travels down my stomach like train tracks. It starts two inches above my navel, runs down, circles half-way around my navel as if it were a rotunda, then trails away another three inches before ending abruptly, abandoned, just near my treasure trail, as if treasure hunters abandoned the train and set off on foot to find the family jewels.

I rubbed the scar absentmindedly, tracing its rickety path, feeling twinges in spots--ghost pains, particularly in the darker knots. I imagined the sharp scalpel cutting through my skin as I lay unconscious on the operating table. I imagined the skin separating, slowly, like petals blooming open, a bloody rose; the separated flesh revealing the wetness of my organs.

I had never had been cut open before. I thought that all my firsts were over: my first kiss, my first job, my first pre-mature ejaculation. But I realized afterwards that those were the firsts that I had looked forward to--goals to be achieved. I didn’t know that as life went on, there were firsts that would come unbidden, sprouting underground, like sleeping cicadas: my first grey hair, my first lay-off, my first tumor.

In the minutes, the seconds before going under, I told Brian that I was going to be ok. “I’ll see you in a couple of hours,” I said, hoping my voice was confident, even. But I guess it wasn’t, because his eyes watered. And suddenly, I felt my own tears fall, our bodies heaving silently before we calmed ourselves down.

I was afraid. Meredith Grey’s stepmother went in for a routine procedure and died on the operating table, never knowing her own life was ended by Fate and/or the Nielsen ratings. My recent Google Page Rank or Technorati Authority were low enough to not tempt a dramatic turn, but I was nervous nonetheless. If this blog were Pink is The New Blog or Towleroad, I’d be afraid to cross the street. There is an out-of-control bus with their URL on it, waiting to make a sensational story in the blogosphere. My traffic is hopefully small enough not to tempt Fate, even if s/he had a fetish for Asians with lactophobia. Fate is a capricious tranny.


Anesthesia is not sleep. When you sleep, you toss around, your body moves; turning, like fallen leaves. Your body retreats into a nook; you dream, you moan. Anesthesia is blackness; it is nowhere, nowhen. There is no memory of it.

The surgery was exploratory. I was admitted for another bout of small bowel obstruction, something clogging up my plumbing. It was painful. They couldn’t explain why this is happening to a young, healthy guy with such a great manicure. When this happened to me before, they thought it unusual, but a fluke--the human body is mysterious and sometimes, like Fergie’s songs, you don’t need to look too deeply into it. Sometimes, the human body fails, like a celebutante and a breathalyzer test. You stay a few days at the L.A. County jail, you move on, you go on Larry King.

But a second bout in a relatively short time was unusual. They wanted to rule out certain things.

I didn’t want to think about these certain things.

When they cut me open, they found adhesions: strips of fleshy tape, like plastic wrap, that wound itself around my intestines. They told Brian when I went in that the surgery would be a couple of hours. It took twice that amount of time to cut away the adhesions. If I had been Brian, I would’ve been crossing nerves, climbing walls, compiling dust.

I woke up stapled. The skin on my stomach was gathered together, like continents colliding. The staples were uneven all along the incision, as if these train tracks were built in the old Wild West, rickety and precarious. They were the only thing that kept my guts from spilling out. I pictured my innards packed haphazardly, like a suitcase after a vacation, filled with jumbled dirty clothes.

I wondered idly if I they could’ve taken a kidney or half a liver--that would’ve brought me closer to my goal weight of 150 lbs. But it’s too late now, I have to lose weight the normal way, by abusing laxatives.

It’s been six months, the scar is no longer an angry red. It is maybe, just a little sulky maroon. Very slowly, like Pluto contemplating its orbit, the scar is fading away.

I’ll always remember that moment when I was scared and Brian was scared. It’s terrifying, this synchronicity. I always thought that when one of us was scared, the other would be unscared. I place my palm on my stomach, covering the scar.

But the scar peeked out from between my fingers, like flashes of an old memory; the memory of my fear.



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Check these out:

Today I Am Happy - A message for my future self to read. A Sense of Impending Doom - An overwhelming sense of dread engulfs me.

Rollercoaster - My mom warned me that the good times will not last forever. Revisionist History - In this blog post, I am all-powerful, bending the universe to my will.