Of Spinach and Brain Aneurysms

6/9/08

I know, I have broken one of the cardinal rules of blogging, and that is to consistently post entries. My last entry was March 27 but surely that many people aren't interested in my blog?

First off, I came up with a fabulous recipe for spinach that I have to share with you. I knew I wanted spinach tonight with dinner and I prefer cooked spinach to just a spinach salad. I don't know what to call this so it's untitled for now. Let me know if you have a good name for it.

1 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
1/4 cup fine balsamic vinegar
1/4 tsp anise seeds
1 tsp dried cilantro
Firm shake of cinnamon
2 cups of baby spinach, with firm stems removed
10 red grapes, halved

In a large, non-stick pan, heat oil and vinegar over medium heat. Add spices and stir. When hot, add spinach and cook, stirring constantly, until just beginning to wilt. Add grapes and cook for one minute longer, or until spinach is wilted. Serve over chicken breast with wild rice. Can also stuff a thick chicken breast by cutting a slit in the middle of the breast and stuffing with half the spinach mixture. Or pound out a chicken breast until 1/4 inch thick, put half the mixture in the middle of the breast; roll shut and pin with toothpicks. Cook until done, approximately 30 minutes.

So, the deal about the aneurysm. Who knows what I have. But this has been a bumpy week for me. After suffering with daily headaches for over three months, I finally made an appointment with a neurologist. She thought it might be a condition called pheochromocytoma. This is where you have a tumor in your adrenal gland, causing an outpouring of stuff like epinephrine, adrenaline and other hormones that cause your blood pressure and heart rate to spike. Oh, my blood pressure on that visit was through the roof. I was sweating a lot, had some hand tremors--basically, I was a mess. So first I was worried about this pheochromocytoma. I did a 24 hour urine collection, and then waited for my PCP to call me back with the results. More on that later.

Then I had an MRI with contrast last Monday, June 2. Pretty standard diagnostic tool for headaches. On Wednesday, my doctor calls and leaves me a message on my work voice mail. Well, I don't check any of my voice mails. Then she called again on Thursday, talked to Reed and left a message on my home voice mail. Finally, I listen to the message on Friday morning, about 2 a.m. She said the radiologist saw a "spot" or an "area" that he was concerned about and wanted another test to help him identify it. So today, Monday, June whatever, 9th, I got a CT angiogram of my brain.

So now, I get to worry if I have a tumor on my adrenal gland, is it malignant, etc. And I get to worry if I have an aneurysm. I think I know enough about neuro now, after marketing them for a few years now, to know that they likely did not see a brain tumor on my MRI. The CT angiogram is better for detecting vascular problems, like aneurysm. The tech at my CT appt today asked me, "So is this a known aneurysm?" Huh?!? "Well, I don't know what I have." Then he backpedals a bit.

So I am wondering if this is how "it" starts, this process of having some serious disease or condition. Right now, I am in the excruciating waiting period, waiting for some confirmation of what the hell is going on with me. I mean, this is never how it is for me. I always think I am extraordinary, then it always turns out I am just ordinary. So based on my history, my neurologist should be calling me Wednesday and saying, "Well, not to worry, it's just stress headaches. Just reduce your stress levels!" And we all laugh and laugh. Of course, I want to be ordinary now. My life is going pretty good. Good job, great boyfriend, nice house, adorable cat, normal friends. Normal life.

Wait, what was that one line? Was it from a Sex and the City episode?? "You can't have a great job, a great boyfriend and a great house all at the same time" Was that the line?

Is this what other people do just before getting a serious diagnosis? Say things like "It can't be possible." "I'm just fine" "There's nothing to be concerned about"? I'm ordinary. Dammit.

And my neurologist did tell me that it might be migraines, my symptoms match with migraines. And that people get migraines later in life. Even if they have never had a migraine in the past or never were bothered by headaches in general.

And truth be told, my blood pressure has run high for years now. I don't eat right, I don't exercise. I am 41. What should I expect? Of course, I have high blood pressure and hypertension can cause headaches. This is my wake up call. God, are you listening? This is my WAKE UP CALL. I get it! I am going to lose weight, go to the gym at least three nights a week. I passed by that giant cookie someone brought into work today. I passed it at least a dozen times and never touched it. Not until I was leaving for the day, and there were only crumbs left. And I picked up the tray and put all the crumbs in my hand and ate them. But I won't do that again. I will bring my Weight Watchers chocolate chip cookies to work and eat one of them if I am tempted again.

Well, shit. It just popped into my head that I may have skipped a few steps in the disease process stages, if it's like Kubler Ross' stages of grief. Am I freaking bargaining now in my blog entry??

And the worst part of all this is the fatigue. When I saw the neurologist, I didn't mark the box asking if I was fatigued. That's not me. That's crawling up the steps to go to the bathroom. I am not fatigued. But dammit if I can't get through the day now without a nap. I had to come home from my CT scan this morning and take a nap before going back to work. I think that is just the stress of waiting and going through all these tests. Once I get a definitive answer, I will be back to normal.

I guess I have yet again broken another cardinal rule of blogging--"Keep it short!" Well, for the love of god, I can't keep any of my writing short. I got a lot on my mind. If you don't want to read this, then stop reading!

But I will try to keep you all posted (you all being all three of you!) on what I find out. And maybe those entries will be shorter, but don't count on it.

Drew

PS: well, I have to do a PS, as I was proofing this (yes, I always proof what I write, at least putting it in Word to do spell check), I realized I didn't tell you about my lab results today. I started calling my doctor's office, my PCP, last Thursday to get the results of the urinalysis. Then again on Friday. No response. They usually send a postcard to your house telling you everything is normal. I don't want a postcard, I want someone to call me, whether it's normal or not. Today I used their online system to send one email, then another at 4:20 when I hadn't heard back from them and they had forwarded their phones before closing time. I told them I would be coming in person the next day to get my lab results. And I was all prepared to do so, ready to cancel a 9AM meeting to wait there as long as I needed to. That is such BS. So Samantha called me at 5:30 to give me my results. So liver is normal. Oh, and my cholesterol was crazy high when my PCP did it in his office so he had me do a fasting cholesterol. My bad cholesterol is normal, my good is low and my triglycerides are high. And the chromo-somethings in my urinalysis were normal. But they were still waiting on the results of the metanephrine and she hoped they had would have these results tomorrow. So I am half okay. I am frustrated that this is taking so freaking long. I want answers so I can go back to normal. I want normal.

dc

It's good to be gay

This is a You Tube video that is guaranteed to make you feel great after watching it. I am posting it here as a testament about what is so freaking fantastic about being gay. It's 11:30 PM on a work night so I am not going to write much but I did want to capture this. Maybe later I will add to this post and discuss my beliefs about how great gay people are, even the ones that embarrass us sometimes. It is this kind of personal freedom that I think most people need to strive for to have a better life and a healthier planet.



Drew

AI

It's American Idol night. It's crazy the things that Reed and I have Tivo'd, but we love them all and TV should be an escape right?

American Idol
America's Next Top Model (current and marathons on MTV)
Project Runway
My Life on the D List (Miss Kathy....Griffin!)
Life in the Fab Lane with Kimora Lee Simmons

You get the idea. Of course, Reed, the smartie, tivos Meet the Press and other political new shows. He is the one who introduced me to The Rachel Maddow Show on Air America Radio. Go to www.maddowonline.com to read her blog or sign up for the podcast on iTunes. Just do a search for Rachel Maddow.


Brooke White, 2008 American Idol

Anyway, AI. We are pulling for Brooke White to win. I voted 27 times tonight. Reed voted less times than that. We just love her. It's a little embarrassing, I admit it. But that's obviously the allure of AI. Brooke, right.

I am also now pulling for David Cook. I really could not stand him before, mostly because of his freakishly large head, especially his forehead. And I hate how his hair barely covered all that head. But he is really brilliant in his arrangements. Tonight the singers has to sing songs from the year they were born. I didn't even recognize David Cook's song until halfway through and that was only because Reed told me what it was: Michael Jackson's Billie Jean. He turned it into a rock anthem. Really a talented guy. I guess this photo of him from Flickr.com is about the best to show how awful this guy's head is (left). Do you agree with me? Or am I being a dick?

The girl I am ready to boot off myself, Ramen-noodle Malubay. Whatever the hell her name is. She is bugging me.

The vote for hottest ass on the show goes to Michael Johns, the hottie from Australia. He is a great performer also.


Michael Johns, smoking hot backside


Michael Johns, smoking hot frontside

The guy I was sad to see go since I thought he was wicked eye candy--Luke Menard. Tell me he isn't the spitting image of Orlando Bloom?


Orlando Bloom


Luke Menard

Faith by Fire

I have to admit that it creeped me out a little bit to get this email message from a work colleague (see the bottom of this post for the message). But as these things always do, it got me to thinking. We keep so much of our true selves hidden from those we are closest to. Our faith, for one. The true essence of our character. Our quirks, our foibles. This blog is a great example of that. Right now, only two people know about this blog: Reed and a work colleague I happen to like very much and respect. I have been hem-hawing about sending the link to the blog to very many people, as I have already written things about myself that I am not sure I am comfortable everyone knowing about and worrying about what they will think of me. When Reed read my blog entry called "Sugar Babies," at the end of it, he just said, "Well, I guess I won't be sending this blog to my mom." And true, I won't send this to my mom either! I mean, I have to have some sense in my head!

But my whole life, I have spent too much time living in fear of what others might think of me. In my early twenties, I really did live a double life. I had "church friends" who were all gay, Christian, well adjusted, not hung up about damnation for living as a gay man or lesbian woman. And part of me was that person too. But then I had another side of myself, the guy who went to the bars most nights of the week, and when they closed, I went to the bathhouses in Indianapolis and had anonymous sex with men. I drank to excess, to vomiting, to blacking out. I did drugs. The people I hung out with were pretty much the same: bars, sex, drinking--just existing. I kept this part of my life hidden from most of the people I knew outside this life, with the exception of my best friend, Ken. God love him, he was right there with me in a lot of these situations!

When I was 26, I finally graduated from college after taking the eight-year plan to the extreme. I had a graduation party. I was pretty drunk that night but in the midst of it all, I was aware of a very surreal feeling--seeing so many very distinct groups of people that I considered "friends" all over the house (for some reason, my parents let me have the party at their house). My wild, drunken bar friends were outside on the patio. Someone found a college fraternity paddle in our house (I am pretty sure it was in a grab box at an auction my parents went to--they likely got the whole box of stuff for $1.00, when my mom probably just wanted one thing in the box!) People were hooting and hollering as they got bare bottom spankings. I have a photo of myself sitting in the lap of a particular leather daddy I had a crush on at the time, David. He had chaps on with boots and a leather vest. I was a skinny thing in my own leather vest and combat boots. My friends and I referred to ourselves during that period at "The Leatherettes." Pretty true statement. The leather for me at that time was more of a way to explore and assert my masculinity....trying out different personas, trying to discover who Drew really was. I was the master for a while, and the slave for a while. I toyed with S&M a little bit. It all scared the hell out of me and for the most part, it wasn't really as much about me being adventurous as it was being curious to try stuff out and find out if it clicked for me and could be integrated into who I was (or as it says in the book, "Conversations with God," Who I Am and Who I Am Meant To Be.)

But again, I digress. I was struck how my wild friends were outside, and just inside the patio door sat a group of my church friends. My college friends were gathered in the kitchen and I was oblivious to people's reactions when a leather daddy in full leather drag came inside to use the bathroom and had to cut through the family room and kitchen to reach the guest bathroom. I know this is true of other gay men based on my readings and my own experiences, but I have felt like a chameleon my whole life, from preschool Drew, to grade school, high school, college and adulthood. I could hang out with any group and blend in. I was an expert at instantly adopting the language, customs, values of any group I was in and could be accepted quickly as part of the group. In high school, I started smoking and drank with the druggie kids. I was in gifted academic programs and hung out with the smart kids, the girls who all looked and acted exactly like Tracy Flick in the movie, "Election." I was in drama club, key club, speech team. And I floated among disparate groups of people with ease.

When I came out at age 17, I started going out to the gay bars in Indianapolis, first hanging out on Monument Circle in downtown Indianapolis on the north steps, informally reserved for the gays who were cruising and hanging out. I remember one of my friends, Patrick, picked up a guy and was going to have sex with him at Union Station, before it was refurbished in the early nineties. It was a dump then and I followed him with a another guy in tow. Patrick and his friend climbed up some rickety stairs to get to a second level that was once the sleeping quarters for the train conductors and operators. For Patrick, it was a dark secluded place to suck someone off. I was waiting for Patrick with this guy I didn't know. I remember he was simply the most beautiful man I had ever met in my life. His name I am not so sure of....Steven Jones? I am pretty sure his last name was Jones. I still have the piece of paper that he wrote his telephone number on and gave to me. It was an awkward time waiting there. I wanted to kiss him but felt inferior to him. He was probably in his twenties, and looked a lot like Scott Baio--I swear! But smaller and skinnier. In my way of thinking, he was an adult and I was a child, a gangly, goofy looking child with frizzy dishwater hair. My striped Generra pants were a hair too short on my 34 inch legs. My arms were about as big around as my wrist is today. Patrick finally finished upstairs and we went back to the "Circle." I never got kissed and I never called the man.

How about a photo to break up this text? We are about 1/3 of the way through! I found this photo of Scott Baio on Flickr.com and this is how I remember that Steven Jones looked liked. I just learned that Scott lost his virginity to his "Joanie Loves Chachi" costar, Erin Moran. I hate her even more now that I know this.



That was such an awkward period in my life. I was so painfully shy and wouldn't talk to anyone. I felt like a sponge, just soaking up everything that was happening around me. I didn't understand why men called each other "girl." I couldn't seem to adopt the mannerisms that others had. I lacked the confidence my friends seemed to have. Where I ended up was as a messed-up kid trying to be everything to everybody. I feel like I lost my true self during that time and thought I had to act a certain way to be gay and be accepted. Honestly, I had never been all that interested in having sex with men. I remmember as a teenager that I just wanted to kiss and hug a man--that was my fantasy I held onto into adulthood. I had no concept of what sex with a man entailed. Most of the time, I just laid perfectly still, let a man do whatever he wanted to do to me, then I would reciprocate. There was never any feeling, never any passion. It was a mechanical act. I became a therapy junkie in my twenties, spending most of the time in therapy with a total of about four different counselors. I would bring up to them that I worried why I was never able to orgasm when I was with a man. Since this was the heyday of HMOs, they never really wanted to delve too deeply into this issue. Their answer was always the same, "When you meet someone that you trust and are comfortable with, I'm sure the problem will work itself out." One therapist gave me a little bit more insight, "If you sleep with strangers, how do you think you'll ever feel comfortable enough with them to reach orgasm? I think you hold back a piece of yourself from all these people, and you objectify that holding back by not being able to ejaculate in front of them." That made a hell of a lot of sense.

My problem has always been that I obtained great insight into myself and my behaviors but was never able to translate this insight into change. I kept doing the same things over and over again, kept choosing the same type of man to date and have sex with. And I remained dissatified with my life. Hmmm, I am thinking about this post, finally. It's a long one. Why did I start it? Okay, faith by fire. Being able to be myself no matter what. Today is Easter and reading over this post, I seem to be telling you about my own Resurrection. I was going to start telling you about the book I read in 1996, "Keeping the Love You Find" by Harville Hendrix. I believe this one book finally allowed me to put the pieces togther, take all that insight and put it to good use. I firmly believe had I not found this book, then entered a therapy model based on this book's teachings, I would never have met Reed. He is the embodiment of much of my learning over the past 12 years since reading that book for the first time.

But I think I have really rambled on long enough. Don't worry, I like to ramble, and I feel safer opening up in this blog. That was another point I made earlier in this post, that only a couple of people know about this blog. Reed asked me how I am going to get the word out about it. I hadn't really wanted other people to know about it, truly. But I think that comes from not wanting people to really know me. When I wrote the Sugar Babies entry, I thought, "Well, I can't send this to any male work friends or any straight guys I know from church or other groups I am in. They would be constantly freaked out about it--is he staring at me, is he thinking about having sex with me?!?" And I thought about some of my other friends, "Oh, she'd freak out if she read this blog. She thinks I am so nice and decent and well-adjusted." And therein lies the problem. I always feel like, even today, that I have to keep up a facade of some type: consumate professional; sweet, nice guy; good, dutiful son; moral, upstanding citizen.

I am all those things, and I am none of those things. Sometimes I want to scream at people I work with and fear it could come out at any moment; I scream at people in traffic, I roll my eyes and mutter like a crazy old man at stupid people at the grocery store who try to maneuver their shopping carts while holding a cell phone to their ear; I want to move far away from Indiana with Reed NEXT WEEK and find a job and new friends and not think about taking care of my parents when they need me most; I still run most every man I meet through a filter where I evaluate him physically and sexually; everyday, I have to tell myself how lucky I am to have Reed, that I would never do anything to hurt him or risk our relationship and the trust he has in me.

I want this last part, especially, to be easier and I beat myself up for why it is so difficult for me. This may very well be its own post. For those of you who watched the television show, Six Feet Under, do you remember the character of Nate's girlfriend, played by Rachel Griffiths? In one episode, she is giving a massage to a man (that's her business, being a massage thearpist), and the man gets an erection and says something about "taking care of it." She proceeds to give him a hand job until he orgasms. Then she just wipes her hand and dismisses him. For me, that was one of the most powerful moments in television and a moment I could relate to so much. I was not with Reed at the time, but I remember having such empathy for the character. She finally got a decent relationship with a man who supported her idiosyncracies and accepted her past, and she fucks it up. Why did she do that?? Why do any of us fuck up the good things in our lives? A great job and you start missing work or deadlines. A great friend and you betray a confidence. A great apartment and you stop paying the rent and get yourself evicted, even though you have plenty of money to pay the rent. I think this is a very powerful topic that should be explored in more depth and I welcome your comments about it.

God, I am getting tired of writing so much. And I want to watch one of the marathon episodes of America's Next Top Model with Reed, and find out if Natasha finally gets her thick-lipped, moon-faced, unibrowed Russian ass kicked off the show.

So I need to write a conclusion that is a few words less than what I have written so far. Oh, and I still have to paste in the damn email that sparked all this revelation tonight. Okay the email is just below. You can read it now or later, but I am going to refer to it now. I guess I felt the strong need to "stand up" for what I believe in. People are afraid to evangelize to people about their faith in God and/or Jesus. People are really afraid to tell people who they really are. To show their complete selves to those around them. If my mom were to read this post, at this point she'd say, "Yes, but why do YOU have to be the one to tell God and everyone who the hell you are??" You know, I have had many experiences in my life where I have shared painful, hidden things about myself only to discover others in the room shared my experiences.

I think any time, any of us feels compelled to share a part of ourselves with one person or a group of people--or for that matter, with the blogosphere!--the reason is becusae the Holy Spirit is calling them to do so. By doing so, they have a chance to make a difference in this world, to let people know that what they feel is normal, that what they are going through is normal and part of the greater human expeirence--after all, look at me! I went through this too.

I am still trying to figure out my place in the world. Damn that Oprah, she is making it so difficult to just coast through life. Now, I have think about "What was I put here to do? What is my purpose in life? How can I fulfill that purpose?" Fuck you, Oprah Winfrey! I for one happened to like being in the dark! I liked being purposeless and wandering. Of COURSE, I am kidding. But I don't see myself writing a book that will get named to Oprah's book club. But I suppose in this blog I am working through some of my issues, trying to figure out what this blog is supposed to be for, what should it achieve. I think I just have to respect my relationship with Reed--respect Reed, period. And not share intimate details of my relationship with Reed in order to make a point. Reed is very private, and I have the feeling his preference would be for me not to post some of the intimate details about my own life in this blog. I hope he understands that part of the reason for this blog may very well be for me to have the effect on the world that I feel called to have.

>>

This is a true story of something that happened just a
few years ago at USC.

There was a professor of philosophy there who was a
deeply committed atheist.

His primary goal for one required class was to spend
the entire semester to prove that God couldn't exist.

His students were always afraid to argue with him
because of his impeccable logic.

Sure, some had argued in class at times, but no one had
ever really gone against him because of his reputation.

At the end of every semester on the last day, he would
say to his class of 300 students, 'If there is anyone here who still
believes in Jesus, stand up!'

In twenty years, no one had ever stood up. They knew
what he was going to do next. He would say, 'Because anyone who
believes in God is a fool'.

If God existed, he could stop this piece of chalk from
hitting the ground and breaking Such a simple task to prove that He is
God, and yet He can't do it.'

And every year, he would drop the chalk onto the tile
floor of the classroom and it would shatter into a hundred pieces.

All of the students would do nothing but stop and
stare.

Most of the students thought that God couldn't exist.
Certainly, a number of Christians had slipped through, but! For 20
years, they had been too afraid to stand up.

Well, a few years ago there was a freshman who happened
to enroll.

He was a Christian, and had heard the stories about his
professor.

He was required to take the class for his major, and he
was afraid. But for three months that semester, he prayed every morning
that he would have the courage to stand up no matter what the professor
said, or what the class thought.

Nothing they said could ever shatter his faith...he
hoped.

Finally, the day came. ! The professor said, 'If there
is anyone here who still believes in God, stand up!' The professor and
the class of 300 people looked at him, shocked, as he stood up at the
back of the classroom.

The professor shouted, 'You FOOL!!!

If God existed, he would keep this piece of chalk from
breaking when it hit the ground!'

He proceeded to drop the chalk, but as he did, it
slipped out of his fingers, off his shirt cuff, onto the pleat of his
pants, down his leg, and off his shoe. As it hit the ground, it simply
rolled away unbroken. The professor's jaw dropped as he stared at the
chalk. He looked up at the young man, and then ran out of the lecture
hall.

The young man who had stood, proceeded to walk to the
front of the room and shared his faith in Jesus for the next half hour.
300 students stayed and listened as he told of God's love for them and
of His power through Jesus.

You have 2 choices:

1. Delete this and never look at it again.

2. Pass this along to your Christian and non-Christian
friends, giving them encouragement we all need every day

When you choose option 2, you have chosen to STAND UP

>>

Drew

Bush, Part 2

Well, shoot. I started this post and just lost everything I wrote. So to keep this short, because it is 3:25 in the morning: Bush is an idiot. I like making fun of him about his man-on-man sex tendencies but he is truly a freaking idiot. Remember the other war we are in? In Afghanistan? We started that war to capture Osama bin Laden, the cause of all the terrorism in the world and Brittany Spears. Then he fell off the radar as Bush orchestrated his move into Iraq, and most Americans were just like sheep to the slaughter. Except of course it wasn't our own slaughter. I recently heard this clip of Bush recently, blowing off Osama bin Laden, the cause of all the crap we are currently in. And Bush's retarded Beavis guffaw in the middle of this makes me want to scream. Who believes that Bush is anything more than a mediocre president? Really? Come on! History will not be kind to this man. I am just sick every time I think about where our society has sunk to under Bush's presidency. A fractured, pessimistic, angry group of people. We are better than this but have been trampled by a tide of flowing crap. So listen to this clip and tell me if you have a different opinion after hearing it:



We need to pray for our country, people. Easter is Sunday and we are in desperate need of a Resurrection!

Drew

P.S. The other thing I remember writing! If you already read my post about Bush's buddy sex relationships previously...please pop back down and see the addendum I posted. I found that freaking sound clip after what seemed like weeks of searching. I won't bore you with my drama getting it. All this stuff is teaching me so much about web publishing. It is far, far more complex and frustrating than I think most people realize. Props to the Clarian Web Team! Kaylene, Kathryn, Steven, and recently departed Gene--still alive but his last day was today.

Lottery Ideas

I was driving up Illinois St. after work the other day. I passed 16th Street and the Indiana Lottery billboard. Powerball was up to $250 million. Ouch. That got me thinking about what I would do with all that money. And I am sure I am just a-conversing in my car with myself. "There is no way on earth to spend that amount of money." I'd buy my parents a house, make sure they were taken care. And I always say this, as though I was being interviewed on the evening news about my windfall:

"What will you do with all that money??"

"Well, I plan to start a Foundation and to support all the great causes that are out there to help people."

"What kinds of causes might those be?"

"Let me put it to you this way. Anybody who wishes to defend the nation against right-wing nutjobs can apply for a grant to my foundation. I will support just about every left wing, liberal, bleeding heart organization that is out there. Let me give you money just so we can piss off George Bush and Karl Rove."

That's how it normally goes in my head. But then I had another idea. I thought about buying up billboards around the city--they are so goddamn expensive. And putting up just outrageous messages and then monitoring the fake web sites I would create that would have just an email function to see what kinds of crap people would send me. So I started a-thinking and a-thinking. And I came up with this idea:



And apologies to all my nursing friends who are trying to demolish that stereotype. Don't worry, no one reads this blog anyway. I have huge respect for nurses and what they do, kind of like Oprah has with teachers and mothers.

What would you do with a lottery windfall? Put your comment in the comment section below!

Sugar Babies

It is so strange how common items can transport you right into the middle of a long-ago memory. I stopped at the Safeway on Illinois St. to pick up two potatoes for dinner, as Reed said last night he wanted a baked potato tonight. I knows my mans and seeing as though he wants a bakked potato, I's better gets him a bakes potato.

But I digress. I bought an Easter egg filled with Sugar Babies candies. I had to turn my car off to use my keys to break open the plastic wrap. I was desperate for food at that moment. As soon as I started eating them, I remember spending summer days at the Knights of Columbus swimming pool as a kid. That was the one candy that I always got there. That and Milk Duds.



God help me if I had a bartender dressed up like this on Halloween. No wonder this lady only has ones in her grubby fist. First bring out the hot guy and make sure he's in a thong. And make sure you have plenty of that Malibu Rum back there. Dammit!

See, this is one of those times that I get nervous posting on a blog. But what fascinates me is how early on my personality and behaviors were ingrained in me. My favorite part of going to the pool was not seeing my friends or splashing in the pool. No, I know what I wanted. I hung around the locker room to see as much dick as I could take in. Now, having sniffed enough amyl nitrate in my lifetime to kill the brain cells of a small African country's entire population, I can tell you accurately that this is the same feeling I got when I spotted dick. I get light headed and euphoric, a little dizzy and weak at the knees. I suppose it's those brain chemicals pumping into my blood.

I was like that at age 8, age 13, 14, 15, 16 and 17. During those years,I had about one experience per year where I got to see some dick. I was like this through my twenties, thirties and I am like this today, at age 41. I have had this conversation with some of my gay male friends, and several of them can't believe I actually look when I am at a urinal. You betcha! These friends swear they don't look anywhere but down, at their own pee escaping down the drain. I don't know if this makes me strange, but man, if a straight guy got a chance to see a woman's breasts, I am sure he would do anything he needed to.

For example, straight guys: if you were in a dressing room shared by both sexes, and you looked at the half door across from you and saw a woman's bare shoulders, would not your first thought be, "She's not wearing a bra!!!!" And if you knew that you could discreetly look over the dressing room door to catch a peek at said breasts, would you not take that chance? See, I think this is a guy thing. Not all guys are wired this way, but I am and I think a lot of other guys are too, gay or straight.

And since it is also a thing about guys that they tend to be more visually oriented (i.e., porn addiction), here is something I found for the het men. Now what if you saw THESE bare shoulders?



So today, I had to be at work by 6AM to make copies of a flyer I needed to take to an event at 7AM. Afterward, I had a breakfast only a hospital can make. I have worked at hospitals my entire adult career. I love hospital cafeteria food. Scrambled eggs made from some non-egg mixture, crisp bacon and this potato stick thing. But as soon as I heard it was a potato thing, I ordered it. And a pint of chocolate milk. I was in heaven. And I also had to pee before driving back to the office.

So I stopped in the bathroom by the coffee stand. I grab one of the higher height urinals and let go. Shoot, all this reminds me of another post I need to do. My brain goes a mile a minute with thoughts that until this blog, I had no way of capturing. So I am at the urinal and a guy in scrubs goes to the urinal next to me. I recognized him from the lecture I was just at. Nothing spectacular, but a cute guy. The partition between us, which hit me just below my shoulder, was no match for me.

Maybe this is how I AM different from other guys. Instead of being discreet, like the straight guy in my dressing room example above, I get determined to get a peek no matter what. As you can imagine, I have many less-than-discreet moves and techniques I use. Today, I determined that the height of the urinal was not so high that I couldn't visually scale it. So I did my "Oh yeah, I am so freaking big that I have flip it off my shoulder to get the last dribble out" manuever. This involves moving forward on the balls of my feet, shaking my right arm to replicate the shaking motion all guys do at the end, and then finally, lifting up about six inches or more and using my God-given gift of keen peripheral vision.

And there I am. Again. In the men's changing room at the Knights of Columbus pool on the hottest day in July, 1977. Since I know my sweetie is reading this and will be thinking, "Oh my god, is there nothing he won't say??" I am going to actually show some decorum and not describe the sight I saw. Again, nothing spectacular. And nevertheless, still stunning and speech-robbing. It was a dick.

Drew

Straight men: post your comments! What would you do if you had the chance to sneak a peek at a topless woman in a dressing room? Would you do it or keep your head and eyes down?