Vanguard: A Miscellany

And...Scene

Hollywood.  It's a little past 7pm in late September.  The last rays of daylight have just retreated up and over the hills to the west, leaving the street bathed in indigo.  The air is nice and crisp and cool.  This is new after the months' long summer heat.  The street itself is dark and empty, lit up on either side from the the random light that spills out of the windows of the millions of dollars estates that line Gardner.  The cars, at this late hour, have taken their cue from the sunset and disappeared minutes ago.  All but the single silver Porsche lit up on the inside by the cabin lights as the two men decide what to do with the blue and white French bulldog.  The doors slam shut and the cabin lights fade out.

"Man, I'm sad that I made plans.  It would've been nice to go grab dinner together."  

He was right.  It would've been nice.  But strangely, I wasn't unhappy with the way we left it.  The Hollywood ending was as perfect as the rest of the afternoon.

We had gotten there just before 6.  At the time Runyon Canyon was still awash with the full light of a beautiful blue skied Sunday afternoon.  The trails were teeming with Angelenos running, hiking, meanering or just sitting to take in the amazing view.

We started at the Gardner entrance, up the western slope when he took a sudden left: "I thought we'd take the advanced course."  I had no idea there was an advanced course.  It took us quite some time to make it up to the summit, especially with the bulldog, but no one seemed to mind. 

Conversation was easy.  We seemed to have similiar interests.  He was impressed that I recognized his Wasilly chairs.  I complimented him on his use of Vitra's algue as a room divider (suspended from his ceiling then backlit, it was brilliant).  We talked about growing up in L.A. as teenagers, and our recent discovery of photography as a hobby. 

Surprisingly, we hardly noticed the violets and reds and pinks that had replaced the blue of the late afternoon sky until we reached the summit. But it was breathtaking, right out of a movie, all of Los Angeles at our feet.  There was a slight mist over the city that made it almost magical (maybe it was smog).  To the left was the Hollywood sign and the Griffith Observatory.  Just south was downtown L.A. and Hollywood proper with the easily recognizable Capitol building.  And off to the right, West L.A.  It was beautiful, and the most I'd seen of Los Angeles at one time.

We continued the conversation on the downhill part of our hike.  At one point, he suggested that maybe we could even do this on a regular basis.

So no, I can't say that I was all that disappointed in not being able to have dinner.  It was perfect just as it was.

(And no, this does not count as a date.  Not exactly sure what it was or what the intentions are, but not a date.)

Week in Review '08.39

9/20 - After the Bali trip and some of the unusual events soon after, I think I'm finally back into the typical daily grind.  I got up early to head out for a full day at Job #2.  We're nearing a year in business--a little daunting, particularly in light of the fact that the services we provide are rather high ticket items which may be the first to go when people are tightening their purse strings in this fucked up economy.

Anyway, after work I got ready for a party thrown by one of my medical school classmates.  She's an orthopedic surgeon who just completed the renovation of her impeccably furnished 3900 sq foot 1960s home in the South Bay.  Oh and her girlfriend is 4 months pregnant, and she just bought herself a Porsche Carrera.  I left dumbfounded, thinking what the fuck have I done with my life.

I needed a drink and fortunately Dutch and his boyfriend were going to Here to help me get liquored up.  Seems as though nowadays on the rare occassions that I go to the Abbey or Here or Eleven, it becomes an exercise in how much I hate going to places like the Abbey or Here or Eleven, especially since I am fast becoming one of "those" guys--you know the old guys who still go to the bars.  Blech!

9/21 - I went to Runyon Canyon.  I wanted to run it.  I wanted to.  Couldn't.  Well not all of it.  I ran downhill, later realizing what a shit idea it was when my shins kept throbbing in pain.  And I only ran uphill maybe a third of the time.  Still can't get over the hotness of some of the people there.

In the early evening, I met up with JewMex, a newish friend (?) who is 50% Jewish, 50% Mexican, and 100% stunning.  We hung out for a bit leisurely talking design and photography while the internal dialogue was going apeshit.  Honestly I don't know what's going on with this guy. 

So, at 8:00 I left JewMex and knowing how much I hate Here, I was surprised to find myself there for a second night in a row.  It wasn't as bad though.  Plus One had called me asking me to go, and when I got there The Mexican, Guess, GoGo Boy and some volleyball guys were there.  So were a bunch of porn star go-go boys.  I swear to god, every other person in this town is a porn star.  It's annoying.

9/22 - Nothing much.  Went to work then trained with my trainer.

9/23 - Smooth came up to Job #2.  Yeah I made a special trip.  Our "relationship" and I use that term rather loosely is a little complicated.  Job #2 actually gets quite a bit of referrals and free advertising at his gym, partly because of our "relationship".  But it's a give and take.  He avails himself of our services (actually my services), and we call it even.  Still, from the very beginning, things were pretty sexually charged.  I still think he's pretty hot, but have come to realize that he's got all the personality of cardboard and frankly, he's about as sharp as a marble.  

So we got a little naked, but nothing happened.  I spent the night frustrated that I had spent so much time letting him get under my skin.  HIM!??!?  I was over it.  And yes nothing happened.

9/24 - Wednesday.  It was beach day, of course.  Only I think I may be over volleyball.  I ran past the courts and instead did a six mile run and called it a day.

9/25 - Got my eyes checked.  Need new contacts/glasses.  Then went to my trainers, finally ending up at O-Bar.  I think I'm over O-Bar too.  Here's the thing.  I'm a good customer.  I'm there regularly.  The bartenders know me by name.   I also tip well.  Really well.  And I'm always really nice to them.  So I don't understand why, when the bar isn't all that full, it takes forever and a day to have one of them come up and take a drink order or have them close out my tab.  The service has just gotten progressively worse, and I think finding a new Thursday locale may be in the cards.

9/26 - Last week I got a voicemail: "Vanny, I miss you!  Miss you!  Seriously, next week we need to have some me and you time."  Since Bali, Razor Burn and I haven't really had much time to hang out.  So this Friday we had Guys' Night.  Nothing big or over the top.  Just me, him and Sunshine hanging out at West for a couple of appetizers and drinks.  It was the perfect way to cap off the week.

Week in Review '08.38

9/13 - 9/14 - I sort of wallowed in the annoyance of not being able to make it back for my reunion.  Kind of lame that that's what I focused on all of the weekend, rather than everyone truly impacted by Ike.  To make matters worse, I went to Burke Williams for a massage.  I have guilt issues sometimes with luxury items...doesn't keep me from getting them.  I just feel guilty about it.  I think it's the Catholic thing and the starving children in Africa my mother kept harping on about when I was a kid.  For real.

9/15 - Speaking of luxury...after beginning week two of three of being one doctor short at the office, I went to my trainer.  Here's the big news.  I'm closer to my goal.  Or at least what I thought my goal was initially.  I'm 5'9".  I had been as heavy as 170 pounds when I first sought out personal trainers, when I was told on more than one occassion by the trainers I interviewed that I was horribly disfigured (at least that's how I interpreted "your arms are not proportionate to the rest of your body").  So I thought 160 pounds would be a good weight for me.  So now at 161 pounds, I still am looking for my six pack.  

So I asked my trainer, "When is this going to go away?"  He told me that I was looking trimmer, that I was looking good, blah, blah, blah, and then he asked me to lift up my shirt.  He then started poking and pinching and at the end of it he said, "Man, you have a really small frame.  I guess I didn't realize you have such a small frame.  Um...so yeah, just keep running some more."

Yeah, so he agreed I was fat...well, gay fat at least.

9/16 - So I ran seven miles.

9/17 - And on Wednesday I played volleyball.

Before being on call.

9/18 - So tired that I did nothing.  No O-Bar for me this week.  

9/19 - And again I ran.  This time only six miles.  And I did it at a faster pace than usual.  My running's definitely improving.  Except I think I pulled something...a hip flexor.  So I hobbled into my shower, got ready, hauled ass back to West Hollywood to make it just in time to meet everyone.  And by "just in time" I mean 15-20 minutes late.

A friend was in from Uruguay.  So Fishering, Dutch, Dutch's new beau, Groeg, and Mercury got together at El Coyote's in celebration of him with Mexican food and margaritas and margaritas and more margaritas.  They're soooo good.

Fringe

I'm trying to like Fringe, the new show by JJ Abrams.  You know the guy who created Alias.  Jennifer Garner Alias.  The show in which I made my prime time nation wide debut as the quiet, but sexy, porn obsessed coroner.  But holy shit!  Pay some money for a medical consultant cause really?  Neurontin was not available 20 years ago.  If you're in a drug induced come, you'd be hooked up to a ventilator.  And you don't start resuscitation at 200 Volts.  It's Joules.  200 Joules!!!!  What kind of writers are these?

Hmm.  I wonder if this is why I'm single?

Eulogy

I received an e-mail the other day.  A very sad e-mail from one of the volleyball guys of which the following is a part: 

"Very sad day for us.  Our dear friend **** took his life the other night and well we are dealing with the aftermath of that.  If you did not meet him he was the short big grey haired daddy that showed up and hung out by the courts with us once in awhile over the years."

Sad.  

Yes, death is always sad, made sadder and more tragic by the fact that the loss was self-inflicted.  

But the fact of the matter is I did not know ****.  I can't say that I feel a profound sadness because I know I will never ever again see a man I've never seen before--at least I don't think I've seen him before.  What I do find saddest is the descriptor which was meant to jog our memory of who this man was, "the short big grey haired daddy that showed up and hung out by the courts with us once in awhile over the years."  

There was no mention of anything of import.  Just that he was a grey haired daddy.  And I think of how I would be similarly eulogized.  "You know, the average-sized, black-haired gaysian."  The summation of a life cut short by size, hair color and subset of a subgroup.  

That to me is the saddest part of the story, and I hope and pray that there were people in ****'s life who knew him better.  But I can't help but think that the e-mail may have given an insight into the roots of the tragedy itself.

Bali: The Friends

 

These are really some of the BEST people in the world.  The BEST!

First Day

It's a beautiful September day, not a cloud in the sky, and there's a nice, crisp 8 a.m. breeze when I set out.  

It's going to suck major balls.  I know it.  One of those Murphy's Law days.  I can feel it in my gut.  It's already a done deal, anyway.  It's the first day after all.  Of course it's going to be shitty.  

I sit on the steps of the two story Tudor where I rent a converted apartment space, backpack strapped to my back as I fasten the clasps of my Roller Blades.  They're still new.  My mom bought them for me.  Some people get cars; I got Roller Blades.  They've been around California for a few years, but I soon find out that here, now, they're still an oddity.  In fact, a few weeks later, standing at a stop sign, a woman without a "hello" or a "hi" remarks, "Those are some new-fangled roller skates, aren't they?"  Yes, apparently Roller Blades are new and "new-fangled" is still en vogue.

I take a deep breath before setting off downhill.  The Tudor sits at the top of a gently sloping hill, and my destination is ten minutes away.  I arrive at the lecture hall twenty minutes later, looking exactly as I had left my apartment--pack on my back and Roller Blades on my feet.  The only difference is the blood that runs down both my knees where I had scraped them falling down on concrete when a car cut me off.  OK, maybe there wasn't a car.  Maybe there was just a rock that tripped me up.  Car, roch, same difference.  Stupid that I didn't wear knee or wrist guards.

Unfortunately, I chose to get off on the wrong floor.  Had I gotten off on the fourth floor, I would have entered the lecture hall from the back.  On the third floor, I find myself, knees bloody at the very front of the room in full view of the students who were to be my classmates for the next four years and many of their parents.  Later that night, at a welcome function, Luke is the first to call me "Tootie".  You know, the girl from the Facts of Life who always wore roller skates.  He's the first, but definitely not the last.

I switch into a pair of shoes and walk up the stairs, up the aisle, and find a less conspicuous seat near the back of the room.  I shimmy past the already seated students, trying not to get blood on them or their chairs, and finally sigh a breath of relief as I remove my back pack, dropping it on the ground, and taking a seat.

"Bzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz."

What the fuck?  I look around trying to find the source of the buzzing, vibrating noise.  The kinder of those around me try in earnest to stifle giggles.  Others are not so kind.  But it is funny.  It sounds like someone brought a vibrator.  Who the fuck?  I try to stifle a giggle as well until Luke taps me on the back, "Dude, sounds like you set your vibrator off when you dropped your backpack."  

Oh my God!  I dig around, and yes it was coming from my backpack.  And no I didn't own a vibrator then.  I fish around and find the electric razor, raising it up in the air to prove that I did not carry an emergency vibrator in my back pack in the event that I should have a sudden need to shove something up my ass in the middle of a medical school lecture.

Beads of sweat run down my forehead, in complete embarrassment and in frustration of what has clearly got to be the shittiest way to start off medical school.  And I know that the next four years are going to suck.  I don't know anyone.  I don't like being in the midwest.  Everyone I love is far, far away.  And I've just made a complete jackass out of myself.

The next four years slowly trudge by, and I finally get my medical degree.  And on that last day, my friends and I say that we are unsure if we'll ever make it back to this city.  We are glad to leave.  

So on Friday, when I am informed at the Continental desk that all flights have been cancelled due to Hurricane Ike, honestly I was ambivalent.  I could have a nice long weekend in Los Angeles.  Who could complain about that?  I was ambivalent...until Brad the E.R. doctor called, "Dude where are you?"  He passed the phone on to Tiffany the orthopedic surgeon, "We'll miss you."  She then passed the phone on to Nicole the rheumatologist, "You were one of the reasons I decided to show up."

It was then that I realized how close I had been to these people, almost from the very beginning.  We saw each other more than they saw their husbands or wives or girlfriends or boyfriends during those four years.  We saw each other at out best and our worst.  And a lot of us grew to really care for each other.  I had forgotten how special these people had been to me for a good portion of my life.  And I realized how much I missed them.  And I spent the weekend kind of bummed.

As for that first day, that Murphy's Law day.  It really didn't turn out that badly.  As I left the morning session, watching as some of my classmates went off with their parents and I left to grab lunch on my own, Luke ran to catch up with me.  "Hey, I'm going off to eat with my parents, but it looks like you work out.  I wanted to know if you wanted to hit the gym later then maybe go over the Biochem stuff.  For some reason my mom thought you looked like a nice guy and told me to come talk to you."  

Maybe I'll make it out for my twenty-year reunion.

Week in Review '08.37

9/6 - I didn't do too much of interest.  I worked at Job #2, first day of work after vacation.  I worked out with my trainer, then met up with a guy I recently met originally from Melbourne.  No love connection, but I'm not really looking for one anyway.  We ended early, but holy crap did jet lag bite me in the ass.  I slept in until 1:00 pm Sunday. 

9/7 - The only thing I could bring myself to do was go out for a run and park my ass in front of the TV before taking a sleeping pill to ensure a good night's sleep before returning to job #1. 

9/8 - Back at job #1, and I am always surprisingly surprised by the amount of shit that piles up after any kind of absence.  I worked like a madman trying to get everything done, a task made even more difficult when I realize I also have to cover for another doctor who has just left for a three week vacation!  But begrudgingly, I got it all done, staying in that night for yet another 5:00 pm jet lag induced bedtime only to wake up at 7:30 for another day of work.

9/9 - Work, work, work.  But fortunately it was only a half day because on the second week of every month, I am supposed to be at a downtown meeting for the Continuing Medication Education committee which I participated in kicking and screaming because they take place on my Thursday half days.  I was finally convinced to do it with the promise of a Tuesday half day on those second weeks.

So I went home, took a few hour nap, waking up in time to see my trainer, then finishing with cocktails with Dutch at Terroni.  

9/10 - Work was again hell. Everyone needed to be seen because they again found out that I was leaving town.  I was too exhausted to even go to the beach for volleyball afterwards and instead spent the evening enjoying a home cooked meal with my sisters and brothers-in-law, arguing politics and why one sister was insistent of voting McCain.  McCain?!?!  I now have only one sister.  The other is dead to me.

9/11 - So I didn't really leave town.  I just figured since I was leaving on Friday, just take the half day on Thursday off as well, meaning I got away with working only 2.5 days this week.

I went for an early morning workout with my trainer.  Ran some errands.  Then had dinner with Sunshine, his wife and Razor Burn at Senor Fred's in the valley.  I hauled ass over the hill to reach destination #2 for the evening--O Bar to meet Dutch and Groeg, also running into Guess Boy and the Mexican.  For a while now I thought O-Bar was sorta dying out on Thursdays, but I realize that it's just because I leave early because I have to work the following day.  The place really gets hopping around 10 o'clock with some really cute guys.

9/12 - So the entire day was a commute day.  I flew back to the midwest for my ten year medical school reunion.  Not sure how I feel about this, but I've figured out my story:

"Hey Van, nice to see you again.  This is my wife Blah Blah."

Nice to meet you.

"So what have you been up to?"

Oh me?  Not that much, really.  The medicine thing.  Oh and I started up a small business last year.  Oh and shortly after graduating, I kind of figured out that I'm kind of a little bisexual...and by "bisexual" I mean I'm sexually attracted to men and women...and by "a little bisexual" I mean except being sexually attracted to women.

Well, at least that's how it's supposed to have gone.  Mother Nature, and more specifically Hurricane Ike, had other ideas.  I couldn't get back to the city of my medical school, so I ended up staying home doing nothing except to finishing off the last season of Buffy.

Bali: The Places

Kintamani

Elephant Safari

Ulu Watu

Ubud

Goa Gajah (Elephant Cave Temple)

Tampaksiring (Holy Springs Temple)

Tanah Lot

Bali: The People