Vanguard: A Miscellany

The Text

"You're a sweet guy, and obviously I think you're really talented, but I don't think I can give you what you need out of a relationship.  I'd love to hang out, maybe go to the symphony or something, but I don't think we can be anything more than friends."

I thought I was being kind.  It was a good break up...except maybe I should have told him in person.  Maybe even called him instead of...well...texting him on Saturday morning.

Actually, there is no maybe.  It was shitty.  It was gutless.  Especially given the circumstances of those last few days of the relationship.  

I sent the text after receiving and ignoring text after text and phone call after unreturned phone call beginning at midnight as Friday turned into Saturday. 

"Hi."

"Hello."

"Van?"

"Are you there?"

"I just left you a message."

"Why are you ignoring me?"

"Did I do to piss you off?"

It went on and on, but he hadn't pissed me off.  Actually he had scared me.

A few hours before the onslaught of texts, he texted me, asking me to come over--that he just wanted me to hold him as he drifted off to sleep.  I lied...sort of.  I told him I was going to San Diego for the weekend.  I didn't tell him that the San Diego trip was just for a few hours on Sunday; he didn't need to know that.  He didn't need to know that that night I was hosting a small cocktail party for my sister and some of her designer friends who'd been dying to see the condo.  He didn't need to know I needed, at that time, not to be with him.  

But he had scared me; his texts that evening had gotten concerning: "I'm done.  I'm just so tired.  I'm done."

I was worried.  I even called.  His voice was weak and slow and breathy, as though he could get just enough air to pass his vocal cords to squeak out the answers to my questions.

"Yes, there's...still...a...lot...of...blood.  Can...you...just...come...over?"

"No...I don't...want to...go to...the...hospital?"

"No...don't...call...911.  My...friend...is coming...over.  I'll...wait...till...he...gets here...to take me."

"Yes...I promise.  I'll call...when...I get...to the...hospital."

I thought he may have been anemic and there wasn't much that I could do except make sure he went to the hospital.

Thursday night, he texted me that there was still a lot of blood.  He had had some kind of surgery to treat his recently diagnosed rectal cancer.  He wasn't very clear about the details, but he was sent home immediately after. 

I felt so badly for him. It was hard to believe that at thirty-six he'd been through so much already--the seizures that had begun a year before.  I think it was because of the stroke.  His extremely high blood pressure popped a vessel in his head the year before, i.e. the stroke.  And he had had the blood pressure problems ever since the hit and run which also caused so much musculoskeletal injury necessitating four back surgeries and two knee surgeries which also succeeded in ravaging any savings he had.  Of course with the surgeries and the injuries, narcotic analgesics were required--strong ones--that any person regardless of strength of will would be hard pressed not to fall into addiction...and depression.  And the depression caused him to drink, even now, despite the fact that he knew it was bad for him, not in a teetotalling bad for him kind of way, but in the sense that the alcohol makes seizures much easier to come on.

So there he was with his back pain and his cognitive deficit from the stroke and his struggle with addiciton and his depression and his seizures and his alcoholism and his rectum, bleeding from the day's surgery, and I couldn't go to his apartment to give him what comfort I could.

And the worst part of it?  That he was a freaking genius.  Seriously, a genius!  He proved it to me on our first date.  After a drink for me and a non-alcoholic beer for him, he asked me back to his apartment because he wanted to play something on the piano for me.  We got to his apartment in which sat a beautiful grand piano, and as he closed his eyes and swayed his body enraptured by the music he was playing--Rachmaninoff, I think--I was mesmerized.

Even moreso after he played some of his own compositions...and sharing with me his acceptance into a prestigious music conservatory at the age of thirteen...and playing some of the symphony he was writing for a very well known philharmonic.  Then he moved on to share some of his photography--amazing.  I remember being in awe on that first date, in awe of this man's talent.

And yet...I broke up with him...on a text.  And I swear I feel badly.  And I swear I would love to help him.  And I swear I wrestled with how to proceed with this relationship.  But I knew it was too much for me.  It was too much responsibility.  Definitely too much responsibility

Definitely after having only had the one, single date, five days before the text.

Midlife

I shot him a short text: "I'm glad you're still in the hood fwiw"

"Tyme2ttyl"

Time?  Time to?  Tie me?  I got "ttyl", talk to you later.  Not sure how, but I got that at least.  Or maybe it meant something else.  Shit, did I not get any of that?

I was tired.  Maybe that was it.  It had been a long few weeks.  For some reason, I'd been getting up early to get to the gym before work which meant also going to bed early.  I'd been on some crazy mission to get myself in the best shape possible.  I started taking a supplement called NOS which helped my work outs.  I cranked up the weights.  And the cardio.  I went every day. I have to admit, people noticed.  What I noticed is that I was achy.  Lateral epicondylitis.  My fingers felt crampy.  My shoulder wasn't quite right.  It was from volleyball--from a month before!  And my back had been acting up again.

Work didn't help either.  I'd recently been taking on a lot of geriatric patients, many of whom were angry and frustrated.  It was their senescence.  "Don't get old," many of them tell me.  "It's the pits."

And then the text.  "Tyme2ttyl".  Oh God.  There it was--LCD proof staring at me from my iPhone of having reached that stage.  

I flashed back to the times I made fun of my parents for repeated calls to reset the clock on the VCR, for trying to explain for years and years that an answering machine would be easy and helpful before they finally acquiesced.  Or the time my father had me paged overhead at the hospital so I could talk him through the process of turning off the computer.

I had reached "that" stage.  And I texted my 25 year old friend back: "WTF does that mean?"

"thank you, me too, talk to you later."

"OMG I've become "that" generation that doesn't understand newfangled lingo"

Age has never been an issue for me.  I still look young for my age.  At least that's what my lying friends tell me.  And I really am in the best shape of my life.  And I still go out and have an active social life.  So, no it's never been an issue for me.  But the joint pains, and now this?  The inability to stay current?

OK maybe the real issue was the thing that happened to me two weeks ago.  The big sign that my nurses taped on my door.  The funny, yet slightly annoying cards.  It happened a little over two weeks ago.  I turned 40.  Forty.  That's big.  Huge even.  I'm not ashamed of being 40, and I tell anyone who asks me.  But that's a number that no one can spin doctor as being young.  The best one can say is that you're young at heart.  I hate that fucking phrase.

My friend ended our text exchange: "Haha...I wasn't gonna make a comment :) Anyway, I wouldn't have gotten fwiw out of context."

OK maybe text-speak is a bad measure of a life in decline. But forty?

Tatous, Pt. 1

So I was a little drunk.  I'm a fun drunk, or so my friends tell me.  

We were wasting the Sunday away poolside at a great little gem of a hotel in the Hollywood hills, drinking pitchers of sangrias and swaying back and forth to the amazing music the DJ was spinning from his perch above the pool.  Me, nine of my straights, and one gay friend.  

As it turns out two were sober, the girls had one glass at the most, and the rest of the guys opted out of the two pitches and bought bottles of beer instead.  I had no idea that this was the case as I drank glass after glass thinking I was just doing my share to finish what had been purchased. 

I didn't care.  I was having a good time.  Besides, it wasn't as though I'd have to be on my A game.  There was a dearth of gay prospects in that group, and by dearth I mean me, my friend and the mid 30s twink in the ice blue square cut and the Ellen Degeneres hair don't. No thanks.

The remainder of the crowd was comprised of Hollywood hipsters, actresses (although I'd be hard pressed to actually call adult films truly acting), and what appeared to be a crew of L.A.'s version of New York guineas--hair slicked back with a normal man's month supply of hair product, diamond stud earrings, Swarovski crystal encrusted sunglasses, inordinate amounts of time at the gym, and a propensity for using the word (?) "yo" as noun, pronoun, verb, adjective and adverb.  Don't ask me to demonstrate because I don't, for the life of me, know how they did it.  They just did.

Oh, and they were all inked.  That oh so original tribal tattoo which I've recently come to understand is a not too selective tribe of men and women who find solidarity in having no distinct leader, but depend upon each other to make a statement about their individuality.  Or the name over the heart in perfect cursive of someone very important to them...well at least at one time.  Come to think of it, it was really more of an acquaintance...but still, really important.  

And that's when I saw him.  In the middle of the group of guidos that had taken over the shallow end of the gene pool...er, just pool.  They were doing some weird tribal ritual of getting trashed and markind territory or something, weird alpha male bravado bullshit.  

But there he was, in the middle of it all.  Acting like a jackass like the rest of them.  Tatted up like the rest of them.  But I noticed the tattoos were actually a little different, kind of interesting.  Amidst all the text that covered a lot of his chest and back (including his OWN name on his chest in perfect cursive) were two countries' flags, one on each shoulder with names underneath each one.

He swam to the edge of the pool right next to me, pushed himself up and sat there, feet dangling in the water as he refilled his glass.  OK minus the hair product and tats, he was kind of very hot.  But I didn't care.  I was drunk.  He was straight.  And I asked him, "Dude, what's that city under that one flag tattoo."

"Oh, the flag is the country where my mother is born, and under the flag is the name of the city she was born."

Dumb mother fucker!  And in this case, that applies to both me and him.  Me because this was a big, muscular guy who it turns out was a MMA fighter blackbelted in a number of disciplines.  And him because..."You know that that's spelled with a "Qu" and not a "K", right?"

Surprisingly, he didn't kick my ass.  Surprisingly, his response was "Fuck, you mean a misspelled another tattoo?"

I inspected the second tattoo on his right chest one week later, as he sat on my kitchen counter when he asked me, "Wait, are you gay?"

Fuck You, Maine!

That's all I wanted to say.

Cooties

I recoiled.  As the blind patient thrust his right hand forward, expecting me to catch his grip to steady him and prevent his most certain fall, I recoiled.  And not in the way normal people do, backing up ever so discretely.  No.  As his hand came towards me, flailing haphazardly in great arcs through the air in front of him due to lack of visual direction, I recoiled in that exaggerated Matrix kind of way.  My arms circumscribed circles on either side of me, like backstroking standing up while my back arched impossibly backwards before running to the 85 year old patients side and saving myself from, well...cooties.  That's the technical term for it--cooties.

I had walked into the room about thirty minutes prior and greeted both patient and daughter with a hearty handshake and a pleasant, "Hello, what are we doing for you today?"  The visit had proceeded without incident.  It was just a routine check up.  His blood pressure had finally gotten under control.  Cholesterol was a little on the high side, so I increased his statin dose.  But I was pleased with his level of diabetic control.  I listened to his heart and lungs, checked his feet for possible ulcers.  I wrote out the order for a pneumonia vaccination and, in his case, had no need to refer him for an annual diabetic eye check with an ophthalmologist.  The diabetes had taken his vision years before.  

I closed out his chart on the computer and asked, "So have we taken care of everything today?"  I expected nothing more than to set up a follow up appointment in three months, but was surprised to find the patient asking his daughter to excuse herself and wait outside.  He had a "personal question to ask the doctor."

At one point or another, all of my male diabetic, hypertensive and hyperlipidemic patients ask family to excuse themselves.  And as I re-opened the chart and began to type in the prescription for Viagra, I was, once again surprised.  

The complaint wasn't erectile dysfunction.

He stated clearly and without hesitation, "For the last month, every time I scratch my balls, my fingers smell."  And before he had even completed the sentence, he had risen from his wheelchair, dropped his pants, lifted his scrotum, exposing the undersurface with his left hand, and scratching several times with his right hand as though he were playing a skin cello.

And sure enough, after he felt he had performed his mini sack concerto for a sufficient period of time, he brought his fingers to his nose--to his fucking NOSE and said "see."  As though the demonstration was necessary for me to believe his claim.

He extended his hand out to me, and maybe it was because he was blind.  Or maybe it was because of the diabetes associated nerve damage, but he began to lose balance.

And that's how we get to me doing my best Keanu Reeves impression.  

It all happened so quickly that I'm not sure if he was aware of my avoidance.  Of my sudden not being where my voice was only a second ago.  Of the sound of my dress shoes rapidly clip clopping on the hard examination room floor.  Of how I suddenly reappeared right behind him, supporting his back, avoiding his hand, and gently assisting him to his wheelchair. 

I'm not sure what it's like to be blind.  I've heard that all the other senses are augmented to compensate for the loss.  Not in this case!  Man did not take the hint, cause as I wished him and his daughter well at the completion of the visit, he still stuck his hand for a goodbye handshake.

I just patted him on his back.

Shoot

I turned around, and there he was...standing in front of my bedroom window...naked...and fully, fully, well, excited.  

Well this was an unexpected turn of events. 

I honestly hadn't seen it coming.  I mean sure he had been lounging around on my living room couch.  So what if he had done it wearing only low-rise jeans, 2xist briefs and dog tags?  I became slightly more aware of the possibility when he decided to remain on the couch but thought it may be better without the constraint of jeans.  But the naked?  And erect?  I am, as ever, retarded about such things, and I didn't see that coming.

Not even when we moved upstairs to the bedroom.  Just for a change of venue, and the fact that I wanted him to get off the first floor where the floor to ceiling windows that are, as yet, sans window treatments, could have given the new neighbors more to talk about than I am willing, at this point, to allow.  

And it still didn't register when he plopped himself onto my bed, seductively draping himself with my faux fur throw and running his hands over his washboard abs and chest, chiselled and lightly dusted with fine brown hair.  

I had no idea that we were heading down that path.  

But there he was, standing stark naked in front of my bedroom window for any fortunate onlooker down below to see.  And he just stared at me, eyes locked on mine with a seductive gaze, running his hand slowly down his chest and stomach and inner thigh, but purposefully avoiding "it".  Not that "it" needed it.

All I could think to do was to motion for him to sit on the bed next to me which he promptly did.  And as we sat bare shoulder to bare shoulder, faces so close that I felt his warm breath against my cheek, trying desperately not to stare at..."it" as "it" still stood at full mast, I did the only thing I could think to do...I showed him pictures. 

Cause that's how I do.  I'm the guy who can't close the deal when a hot guy is unexpectedly sitting next to me completely naked with raging wood. 

The thing is, even though we had hung out several times before and nothing more than a friendly hug or innocent goodbye kiss on the lips had occurred, today we were photographer and model.  And I couldn't wrap my head around the situation.

And honestly...I was waiting for him to make the first move.

Yes, I know.  Reason number 2,238 why I am still single. 

Head Over Heels

I'm in love.

In. Love.

Yes, people Van is undeniably, incontrovertibly, unapologetically in love.

And it's great.

What can I say?  I've been away from the blogging thing and other things due in no small part to being head over heels in love.  

God!  How mushy is this?

But that's what it is.  All laid on on the table for the one or two of you who may be left out there.  

Details?  Well there really aren't much.  

It isn't Almost Perfect who turned out to be significantly less than. 

It's certainly not Smooth who I found out after our last "date" a few months back had a boyfriend--of 13 years!  And I quote from his non-private, easily stalkable social networking home page, "I have such a beautiful boyfriend!! I'm very lucky and greatfull (sic) for the past 13 years and look forward to many many more!"  Ugh!  The fact that he can't spell or use commas is a total deal breaker...well if the whole boyfriend of 13 years wasn't already.

Well not a total deal breaker, I guess.  As was proven by the twenty-three year old, bisexual, bachelorette party stripper with the two misspelled tattoos.  That didn't work.

None of those.  This one, this one is perfect.  As perfect as perfect can be.  And it was love at first sight.  That crazy, impossible to be true kind of love.  That inability to understand how life could have been without kind of love.  

And it's a she.  

I am officially Uncle Van.  And how could anyone NOT love this?

 

As for the twenty-three year old bisexual bachelorette party stripper?  It's not so much that is didn't work out as much as it isn't working out.  Mental note: I am not Courteney Cox, and my life isn't Cougartown.  Must have "the talk".  And soon.

Besides what am I supposed to tell my true love when she asks what her uncle's special friend does for a living?

Not So Perfect

In my mind's eye, I saw my jaw drop to the floor, my heart sinking in like fashion.  But I knew outwardly, nothing gave the disappointment away.  

Up until then the night had been perfect.  Even with the initial delays, it was perfect.  It provided just that little bit of conflict, that sense that the fates were somehow standing in the way that built up the anticipation.  I was supposed to pick him up at 5:45.  I had given myself a decent amount of time to get from the west side to WeHo, but still with rush hour traffic, I was going to be late.  I was antsy and starting to get pissed.  I just don't get fucking L.A. traffic.  Why can't people all just drive at a normal pace?!  Fuck!

My phone chimed in a text at the height of my frustration: "Sorry can we make 6.  Still stuck in class."

And then the evening just settled into a groove.  I arrived at his home at 6:15.  He rushed out to greet me in jeans and a hoodie with his chest completely exposed, even hotter than I remembered from our first meeting five days before.  "Come into the bedroom," he yelled.  I walked in on him buttoning up a white button up shirt.  He completed the look with dark jeans, dress shoes and a sport coat--definitely hotter than I remembered.  We lingered at his home for a while.  He'd only been there for a few months and was proud of the changes he'd made.  He gave me a tour of the bedrooms and the redone kitchen and the backyard with recently installed jacuzzi before we decided it was time to go.

The drive to Silverlake was, despite the still molasses slow traffic, pleasant, and it had everything to do with the company.  Even after spending four hours together at the previous Saturday night's party, it turned out we still had a lot to talk about, leaving not a minute of uncomfortable silence on the drive.

We arrived at my friend's art gallery show at around 8:00.  My friend was showcasing a collection of paintings that were contemporary interpretations of ancient deities from various pantheons from Greek to Nordic to Native American.  And we both enjoyed it.  We would take turns guessing which god or goddess we thought was depicted, together studying the choice of color, the mood, the expressions before offering our guess.  I found him to be thoughtful and incisive, and I was even more impressed by his ability to jump into any conversation with the other guests and the artist himself.  We said our goodbyes at about 8:45, and the artist whispered in my ear, "Your date is adorable.  Keep him."

I took him to Kitchen 24 for dinner.  It was ideal--hip and trendy with gourmet takes on old American standards for an affordable price; I didn't want to go too extravagant on a first date.  We were seated at a small table for two, but forced to lean into each other because the restaurant does get a little loud.  And over a turkey burger and a monte cristo sandwich both of which we split and shared, we talked about family and friends and coming out.  And how funny it was to think that we had just met a few days before at a random Hollywood party.

We were at the valet by 10:00, late for me, especially with work in the morning.  After the art show and the dinner, I thought it had been a good first date.  

"Hey it's only 10:00.  Do you want to go to O Bar for a drink?"

Apparently, he wanted to hang out some more, and I was not going to turn that down.  Besides, it was O Bar.  On a Thursday.  More than a handful of acquaintances stopped by to say hello, and a few of them without solicitation whispered into my ear that from a distance, it looked as though the date was going well.  And it was...until he said "I just don't understand dating in this country."  

In Europe, people were either one night stands or exclusively dating.  There isn't the American version of dating with its litany of iterations--"seeing each other", friends with benefits, dating, exclusively dating, in a relationship, in an open relationship, etc.  So he wasn't sure what was going on.  Not what was going on with me, but what was going on with this other guy who, for the last few months, he'd been sort of "seeing."

That's when my jaw dropped and my heart sank.

Bail Out

I'm nervous.  And I'm having second thoughts.

Over the last few months, my practice has been busy.  Besides the schedule crammed with patients for management of chronic issues like diabetes and heart disease, there are the typical "need to be seen today" patients complaining of upper respiratory symptoms or burning on urination.  And besides those patients there has been a spike in a growing number of same day patients complaining of anxiety.

I've never seen it this bad.  In the eight or so years of clinical practice, I've never seen it this bad.  Sure there have always been those who suffer from depression or anxiety, but this is insane.  I saw a fifty two year old woman for a follow up from her hospitalization.  She had been doing so well and had been so proud of herself in the last year and a half, but she fell off the wagon.  She'd been on a one and a half week binge, resulting in a hospitalization for delerium tremens, alcohol withdrawal.  "I needed it.  I needed to drink again.  I didn't know what else to do.  Things are bad.  I'm not happy, and it's gotten worse.  My husband lost his job, and I don't know what to do."

And it's not uncommon.  One of my sweet little old 80+ women, generally very happy and very generous with end of visit hugs broke down in tears as she told of how her daughter and son-in-law have had to move in with her, into the small apartment in which she lives or rather has been forced to live since her home burned down in the November fires.  Or the couple who cried as they told me that they both wanted complete physical exams to make sure they were healthy because soon they would have no more health insurance.  I've been doling out Paxil and Prozac and Pristiq like crazy.  

So in the context of all this, yes I'm nervous.  Nervous about having depleted my savings.  Nervous about whether or not I'm getting in over my head with a mortgage payment.  

I Resolve, Pt. 2

Wow, it's only March.  Two and a half months since I posted my resolutions, the first time I actually have them in print or was determined enough to have them in print.  And how have I done?  Let's review.

Well, number one the finances.  Oh the finances.  I haven't been all that bad, but the G-Star sale kind of threw the clothing budget out the window--jeans, corduroy pants, a couple of hoodies, t-shirts and a trench coat.  Yeah that's blown that budget out of the water.  However, I haven't been spending as much money going out either, but that's not entirely my doing.  Friends have also gone on a strict budget, so those evenings at Katsuya or Wilshire are much fewer and further between.

Two.  Not focusing a lot of time and attention on men with no long term potential.  Wow!  Did I really think that was going to happen?  Let me see: 23 year old with an already sort of boyfriend.  That sounds like a lot of potential right?  Not so much.

The third resolution was charitable work.  Aside from helping friends with various issues, I've volunteered to assist Tree People, an organization that "inspires people to take responsibility for the urban forest" by planting trees in the local parks and mountain forests.  I've done that...once.

And finally I had resolved to save up enough money for a down payment on a home or get into one by the end of the year.  That was lofty!  With my budgetary cutbacks (yes that was tongue in cheek), with my 401K tanking by 40% or greater, with L.A. relatively resistant to the massive drops in home prices that the rest of the nation's home buyers seems to be enjoying, lofty is probably a good description, particularly since as of Friday 3/6/09, I've been in escrow for a loft that I fell in love with since I first laid eyes on it.