Fortune's Fool

Well dear readers, once again I apologize for the delay in updating my blog. It has been a hell of a month. My DVR isn’t working on the weekends now, of course, but other than that my humble abode is doing ok. Oh wait, there is that whole broken window thing. (Another story, another time.)

Today’s blog is a little more personal than most, so if you’re in the mood for a glimpse of the inner workings of Shawn read on. If not, see you next time around. And those of you who keep nagging about the length of my blogs, no one said you had to read it all at once, but there is a certain flow to my stories and I don’t think you really get the full effect unless you commit to reading the whole thing. Just my two cents. And I’ll try to keep em shorter, ok?
Off we go.

Picture it. New York. 2000. Your beloved writer is living in Brooklyn, and had recently broken up with a boyfriend who he had also dated in college. For some reason, I invite this ex – we’ll call him Hank – to come visit me in New York. And for some reason, Hank decided (and I let him) bring the boy he’s seeing at the time, some nubile singer/actor type. Yes, there seem to be a few trends at work here, but I was not entirely over Hank at the time and while I should have never agreed to let twink come to New York, I did because I wanted Hank to be happy.

You can imagine my angst. Here I am longing for Hank, while the hottie boyfriend gets to cuddle with him and make obnoxious lovey dovey noises and all of that crap. In fact, I actually walked in on twink performing an unmentionable act on Hank. (It’s unmentionable because twink’s mouth was full at the time.) That was awkward.

Well, needless to say I was an emotional wreck, and to my friends’ credit they rallied around me in my hour of need so that I wouldn’t have to endure the new lovers’ bliss on my own.

On the final night of Hank’s visit, we all decided to go to a famous Chinese restaurant in the Village. All of my friends volunteered to go with me and support me in my hour of need, so we were a table of ten. I was surrounded by people who loved me, people who I loved and a person who I wanted to love, and it was a beautiful portrait of the infinite varieties of how we can be intertwined with the most amazing of people in the most random of ways.

Everyone but Hank and his twink knew what I was suffering through, so there were constant pats on the my knee, winks and smiles to comfort me, and I felt very touched. Still, I had an absolute volatile pounding in my heart and I had to make frequent bathroom trips to mute the tears (and of course pee.)

The meal came and went, delicious I might add, and along came the standard fortune cookies. Suddenly, for some inexplicable reason (I’m thinking the free wine), the cookies became the most important thing in the world to me. I was convinced that my cookie would contain the answers to my questions about Hank, about how we should be together, and about how we could grow to live in gorgeous harmonic bliss for years to come. (Apparently I was anticipating a novel in my cookie.)

The tray with the cookies was set down in front of us, and I eyed each one carefully, hoping to receive a message or vibe from a specific cookie, saying “I’m the one, pick me.” I decided on the one that spoke to me the most, and my compatriots and I reached in and the unwrapping began.

The usual pithy fortunes ensued. “Love thyself and others will love you,” or “One’s neighbors are not always ones friends,” and so on. I paraphrase of course, but it seemed that night that everyone’s fortune were strangely in sync with where the readers happened to be in their lives. Everyone’s, even Hank’s, whose fortune said “Love blossoms in the most usual of places,” seemed dead on.

I was therefore convinced that my cookie held my entire future in its crispy golden goodness, that the core of my existence was printed on a crappy piece of paper baked into a cookie. It would tell me how to proceed, how to start our lives over, fresh and new, and how to finally move on.

I trembled as I picked it up and slowly tore open the cellophane wrapper. Careful not to break the cookie, I tugged at the seam of the wrapper until it popped open. I held it in my hand, caressing it for a moment longer than what would be considered normal, and thought about what I was holding, what the rest of my life would be like. That cookie contained my destiny and I wanted to cherish the moment. Everyone stared at me as I held my cookie, clearly wondering what the hell I was doing.

“All right,” I thought, “here we go.” I cracked open the cookie, slowly like Charlie with his Wonka Bar, and as it snapped in half I was holding my breath, anxiously awaiting the words that would put me on the path to peace.

The cookie, however, had altogether other plans. Dear readers, the cookie, that tasty treat I had entrusted my future to, was empty. No fortune whatsoever. No words of wisdom, no advice, no answers to anything, not even some lousy lottery numbers.

And suddenly it was clear to me; that WAS my future. Empty.

I excused myself to the restroom and cried and cried and cried. I was so confused and lost and frightened and I had put all my faith in that damn cookie. My friend Beth knocked on the door, clearly clued in to the fact that something was going on, and talked me down from my ridiculous precipice. It didn’t take her too long to convince me that the whole thing was completely, freakishly random, and I went back to that table with my head held high as I possibly could.

Hank and I are still great friends, I’ve gotten some fabulous fortune cookies since then, and I know that I will still be able to approach every table with my head held proudly high, ready to once again rip open that fortune cookie with abandon, no matter what the results may be.

I hope you all internet denizens are well.

Gotta go Gotta go Gotta go Right Now

It’s been way too long since I blogged last, so a quick update. My dvr isn’t working again, my #2 molar hurts and there’s a strange smell coming from the kitchen sink. Everything is normal! Thanks for all the comments on my last post; I love the stories, so keep ‘em coming.

All right campers, when last I left you I had just popped a few vicodin and gone into a haze of blissful oblivion. Despite having to change the gauze every few hours, and practicing a fun game of “put the ice on one side, put the ice on the other side,” I was comfortably ensconced in my cozy living room. John stayed the night, just in case I bled out or something, and he also loaned me a few movies from his absurd dvd collection. (I encourage everyone to take drugs and watch Amalee.) Save for one small problem, I would have had the ideal recuperative rest. But because this is a Shawn Story, you can guess it wasn’t that easy.

As most of you know, I have what can only be described as a minuscule bladder. In college my friend Nina tracked it, and a single can of diet coke led me on 8 trips to the bathroom within an hour. Movies are pretty much a waste of time for me; I have to avoid all liquids for hours before hand or I spend the entire evening climbing over people and running back and forth to the bathroom. During my recuperative period I was told to drink lots of water, so I was already anticipating a few late night emergency trips to the loo. Unfortunately, matters in my nether region became… complicated.

Back in those college days I wasn’t much of a player, despite my devastating good looks. Nonetheless there I was one day standing innocently in front of a urinal when it became painfully clear to me that something was wrong. Peeing felt like razor blades being forced through my unit. (All the boys are cringing right now.) Shocked, I consulted a few of my more experienced friends, whom all agreed that I had managed to contract a “social disease.” Being a college student I had no money, so off to the free clinic I went.

The Dr. assigned to me was a good southern Christian woman, who clearly had decided that I needed to be punished for my sins. She told me that she was going to perform some sort of “test,” and that while we wouldn’t have definitive results for a week, she would assume the test would come back positive and treat me with antibiotics. The “test,” she explained, would be somewhat “painful.” When someone is talking about your johnson, you don’t want to ever hear the word “painful,” especially when that person is a born again Christian who looks forward to the End Of Days. She went on to say that although even some FSU football players had cried during the exam, it would be very quick. She popped on rubber gloves, ordered me to drop my shorts and unveiled the longest Qtip I have ever seen.

“No,” I’m thinking.

Ohhh yes, dear readers, it went… there. And was swirled around a bit for good measure. (Cue the cringing again.) She plopped the swab into a baggie and said I could go. I hobbled home, feeling punished by the universe.

Until, that is, the test came back negative! I didn’t have one of those diseases after all. “But Shawn,” you ask, “what was it then?” Well, the evangelist doctor explained that it could have been some other infection, or even some very acidic juice (as in the orange juice with my vodkas), but that if the symptoms were gone, I shouldn’t worry, and thank god. So I didn’t worry.

In the years since then, the razor blade peeing, accompanied by the constant need to go, has come back to haunt me at least two or three times a year. As an official adult, I have health insurance, so a few years ago I decided to go to a urologist, whom I like to call Dr. PeePee. You could tell this guy was the real deal because he had a really thick Polish accent. I figured if anyone knew about suffering, it was a Pole.

Dr. PeePee felt around… down there, and around… inside there and then he fingered the problem: Acute Prostatitis. (Even my prostate is cute!) Apparently, I have an incurable malady of the prostate that results in painful urination, the constant urge to go followed by extreme bouts of what most of us know to be “pee shyness.” Oh joy. I guess I was happy to have an answer, but I was not so thrilled that it was incurable.

It is possible, Dr. PeePee explained, to treat the symptoms. One method is a medication that makes all those feelings of having to urinate go away, but also happens to turn your pee a delightful shade of rust. The other method is through what the doctor called a “sitzba.” I had never heard of a “sitzba” before, but I told Dr. PeePee I would get one right away. He looked at me strangely, and sent me on my way with a prescription of the rusty pee pill.

As the pharmacist took my scrip, I asked her if she might know where I could get one of these “sitsbas.”

“A sitsba?” she asked.

“Yes, a sitsba.”

“A sitz… bath?” she asked.

“Um, I guess,” I said, resigned to the fact that she had no idea what I was talking about.

She looked at my prescription, looked up and me and started laughing uncontrollably. She explained that “sitba” was Dr. PeePee’s Polish way of saying “Sit Bath,” which meant sitting in a tub of hot water for as long as you can stand it. Who knew? I mean, I wasn’t even aware there were positions other than sitting that one could bathe in, unless there are two people in the tub, and even then your options are limited.

So it was to be a lifetime of funky looking pee and long baths for me. I guess it could be worse right?

Yes, it can. Try a raging flare up of prostatitis during your recuperation from a wisdom tooth extraction. My bladder was already on overdrive from all the water I was drinking; now in my drugged up state, it felt like I had to pee ALL THE TIME. I would wake up from some trippy dream to realize that I seriously had to go, only to stumble to the bathroom and realize I had been tricked by my prostate once again. And when I actually could pee, it felt like my old friend the razor blade.

To make matters worse, as if they could be, I was so loopy I couldn’t really stand to pee like most boys, so I had to sit like a stupid girl. There I would sit, waiting for the razor blades, while holding ice to my face or changing gauze. I definitely fell asleep a few times. Once a bag of ice even slipped out of hand, and fell clumsily onto my boys. Few can imagine the surprise of a heavy bag of ice slamming into your bits and pieces, and I encourage you not to try.

While the holes where my teeth used to be eventually healed, this latest case of prostatitis has been the most stubborn one I’ve had in some time. Dr. PeePee has even gone so far as to prescribe six weeks worth of Cipro to try and nuke whatever infection is going on this time. At least I’m safe if we’re hit with anthrax. Meanwhile, I wait for the day when I can pee normally again. You’ll know it has come when you hear a really loud, long “Aaaaahhh.”

Until then dear readers, take care of your prostates and enjoy your sitbas. I know I will.