Saturday, April 30, 2011

*gulp*

Doctor Milsten seemed a little too quiet and reserved – like I imagine a serial killer would be. He didn't smile. He sat so close to me that I could see his pulse through a vein pinched in his collar. We had barely exchanged pleasantries when he asked me to stand up and drop my pants.

I didn't hesitate. I stood there with my gentleman sausage on full display - roughly 12 inches from his face. And he did nothing. He just sat there and stared at it. Thinking back, I'm sure he was in awe of my splendor. Who wouldn't be?

Anyway, I'm not sure who won the stare off between the Doc and my meat 'n veg, but after roughly 2 hours of intense concentration the Doc leapt into action. Ok, maybe it was more like 10 seconds… So picture a Praying Mantis eyeing a fat juicy fly. The Mantis sits perfectly still until - like an insect Ninja - it strikes! And the Doc moved so fast that I instinctively twitched. The next thing I knew, the Doc had a vice-like grip on my tenders.

Words fail me here. There is nothing I can write that can help you to understand how utterly shocked / scared / vulnerable I felt standing there. And then it got worse. He proceeded to isolate one of the lifelines connecting left tender to my body. Vas dermis pinched between his thumb and forefinger, he looked up to meet my eyes.

"This is where I'll cut", he says.

I said nothing. Just… *gulp*.

Sunday, April 24, 2011

She is a Jedi Master

Something weird has happened to me. She has trained me. I kid you not. I am now not only 100% fully domesticated. I’m also a robot that reads minds.

Let’s take the other night. She and I are in bed – and she, in a very nonchalant way, comments that it’s a little warm. Before I realized what I was doing, I found myself standing in front of the thermostat. It was like waking from sleepwalking - standing there and staring at the soft green light of 74 degrees... And it happens all the time. Yesterday I found myself emptying the dishwasher when there were still clean plates in the cupboard! I know right... Weird!

She is a Jedi master.

Saturday, April 23, 2011

Culture Peeping

About 2 years ago I started filling out online surveys hosted by RewardsGold. The survey takes a couple of minutes and the magazine subscription that I receive as payment lasts a year. Sounds like a good deal to me!

At first I looked for magazines that interested me like Motor Trend, Car & Driver, Maxim etc. You see for as cultured and educated as I often pretend to be, my #1 interest in magazines was still pretty much exotic ladies and cars. This stage in my subscription habit could be called my “T&A and Car Porn” phase. And what is car porn you ask? Morgan Aero 8 pictured on a winding country road at sunset is 100% pure Car Porn.

Unfortunately there are only so many options for T&A and Car Porn. As time wore on, my options in these categories declined from slim to nil. In fact, more often than not I was forced to pick between magazines like Ebony, Woman’s Day and Home and Gardens. And that presented a dilemma. Neither of those magazines really appealed to me. I’d just slaved over a survey. What was I to do? I didn’t want it to go to waste. So Home and Gardens it was.

After 6 months or so I received Forbes, Maxim, Home and Gardens, Wine Spectator, Men’s Health and a couple of other magazines that I thought I’d probably enjoy. I didn’t. For the most part they ended up in the trash after a quick T&A and Car Porn check. For the most part they were all boring! That’s when I decided to quit choosing them and just pick them at random. The one that was offered first would the one I’d pick. Anything at all, I reasoned, would be better than Home and Gardens.

And I was right. You see on the 8th month, my highly overworked (and likely very confused) mailman delivered a magazine called The Advocate. I quickly flipped through it and decided that it was like GQ only better in every possible way. I left it on the kitchen counter and thought nothing more about it until the following day.

When I arrived home from work the next day, my wife Susan had the magazine splayed out on the counter. In a funny way, it reminded me of when my Mom found my porn stash when I was a teenager. Lots of “what is going on here”, “you’re disgusting” and “why” looks… Eventually Susan settled on a quizzical, yet unmistakably confrontational stance. Hands on hips, she asked why I was reading a gay magazine.

She continued to flap the magazine in the air and shoot confused looks at me. As it became clear to me what I’d done, I started to find the whole situation really quite funny. Never one to miss an opportunity to confuse and frustrate her, I replied that that the magazine “interested me”. Susan slapped the magazine on the counter that sounded like WHATEVER with an exclamation mark.

In truth, had I have realized before Susan had, that The Advocate was a gay magazine, I’d have trashed it. But now I felt pressured into actually reading it!

To my astonishment, I thought The Advocate was a great read (and still do). It reads like GQ or Men’s Health that isn’t trying too hard to be masculine…. Speaking of which, I must digress for a minute to explain my theory about masculinity. I think that too much of it turns one a little queer – like the Village People or the guy in my neighborhood with the massive, noisy, manly full-dresser Harley Davidson with tassels flowing from the handlebars and a studded saddle bag. If that isn’t camp (flamboyantly queer) then I don’t know what is. He’s gone ‘round the bend if you ask me. Take that Men’s Health for example; that’s just Out magazine in drag to me.

Anyway 2 years on and I have broadened my tastes to include a broad swath of culture. Along with my Playboy (only one I actually pay for), I get magazines as diverse as Maxim, Out, Ebony, Town and Country, Metropolitan Home and Conde Nast Traveller. All of which I have found to be insightful in their own ways.

I like to think of my little habit as culture peeping.