Author Archives: David

Drama Management

24 Thursday Mar 2016

Posted by in Big Business, Health Issues

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My hunch is that we all go through  the same things. I don’t care how you label yourself. You Tough Guys/Bitches can hide behind your personas  for only so long before you break down too.  Our loved ones are our loved ones and we care. Big insensitive and indifferent corporate bureaucracies will always procrastinate in their favor.

Right now, I’m working on one biggie, two medium-sized and and one small nagging chronic dramas.  First, my wife has a hard knot on the right side of her neck, where fluid accumulates when she chews and swallows. I don’t know what the Hell it is but I don’t like it.

“Do you think it’s cancer?” she asked me, as if I were an oncologist. The little voice in the back of my head is saying, “I wouldn’t rule it out”, but I can’t say that. She sees a dentist this afternoon and a doctor tomorrow morning. The dentist can rule out a tooth issue. The doctor can maybe do a needle biopsy and get an answer, but I think he’s going to order a CT scan, which means more worrying. I lost a dear cousin to head and neck cancer four years ago. We shall see.

Dramas #2 and #3 involve those perennial nemeses, insurance companies. We have the health/medical insurer who is denying a claim, pending I show medical necessity for  wisdom tooth extractions done under general anesthesia in a hospital OR.   My oral surgeon, highly respected by his peers, deemed it necessary and I have his notes. I’m waiting for the policy exclusion clause from my dental insurance policy, a group plan to be furnished by my employer, since I don’t have a copy of the policy. Once I get the documentation, the appeal should work in my favor.  It just means the insurance carrier can hold on to the money a little longer, collect interest on the reserve and leave the hospital and anesthesiologist standing there with open palms, as if they have no expenses to pay of their own.

Drama #3 involves the long term disability carrier who hasn’t paid on my disability claim since it began in November. I had been unable to work for the last six months previous to back surgery because I had a rotator cuff repair and my back pain, necessitating the surgery made work impossible.  I can’t work now because I had a spinal fusion the week before Thanksgiving. This procedure has a high probability of failure if it doesn’t heal properly and completely, so I am not rushing back to work where any bend, lift or twist could send me back to where I was before the surgery took place.  Pretending to be a fabulously wealthy billionaire who can live off his investments is fun, but I live in the Real World in Anytown, USA.  I complained to the Bureau of Insurance yesterday and the insurance carrier promised they would deal with my claim today. We shall see.

Drama #4 is the continuing saga of Number Two Son, an Asperger’s syndrome patient, who hasn’t quite figured out that his father wants to know that he is safe, healthy and relatively happy. This would require a regular phone call or text, letting me know where he is and that he’s doing OK.  The Prophet Elijah could fly across the heavens in a chariot of fire before he calls.  So Easter is coming up, a family time and word from him would be nice.

I’m praying my wife’s neck knot is no biggie, the insurance companies will pay their respective claims and my son will call or text or visit.

Stay tuned.

 

Sweating On An (Almost) Spring Day.

10 Thursday Mar 2016

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Today has been one of those days I wouldn’t trade for all the fireworks on the Fourth of July or all the hot dogs at a Labor Day picnic. Here it is, the 9th of March and I gave up checking on how warm it was after I walked outside barefoot at 8:00 AM to fetch the newspaper. It felt just fine.

So the day found me a partial sluggard, tempted to explore my concupiscence, but fully engaged with the glorious experience of being alive and healthy. There are pleasures that don’t get recognition; fresh strawberries for one, kefir, or a  peeled navel orange, sectioned, ready to be savored. What I long for the most is a woman sufficiently indolent to enjoy these delights with me.

There is one activity for which no partner can amplify the pleasure. That is my daily power walk. I stepped off around 4:03, beginning my ten circuit, four mile walk. The groundskeepers had put down hard wood mulch so the walk was filled with that fecund and earthy smell. The pine trees had sap that was running and the piney scent made its presence known too.  I saw my neighbors and my neighbors’ dogs. Sometimes I recognize my neighbors by their dogs on the other end of the leash.

After I finished my first lap, I asked myself if I was having fun. It didn’t feel like fun. It felt like air entering my lungs at a swift rate. and legs straining and stretching with every stride.  Self decided to speak up and give his two cents about the meaning of pleasure.

It doesn’t feel like fun now”, Self says.

“Wait till we’re done, Self, and we can see what we did.”

Self finally agrees to schlep along, promising to be unobtrusive, checking out the women, in case I forget.  Almost Spring means all women are beautiful. We are all attached to the glorious colors that await us, yellow daffodils, and forsythia, purple croci, red tulips, the marvelous pink of quince, and the  burgeoning extravaganza  that are the azaleas. Shucks. I left out the dogwood and the redbud.

Almost Spring has me picking up the pace, to see if I can average below 14 minutes for a mile, maybe hit 13 minutes a mile. When the walk is over, my stopwatch say 52:41.23, an average of 13 min. 10.25 sec per mile, a personal record.

Almost Spring has me motivated to move that much faster, to  feel the breeze blowing on my sweaty body, cooling it. Almost Spring is about that last lap and the cold water waiting in the kitchen. It is a shower , water pouring on my naked body, the smell of peppermint soup, tea tree oil shampoo, and water evaporating  on my naked skin before I  can dry it off with the towel. Almost Spring is taking my time getting dressed, wishing a lover could dawdle and lallygag with me, a lover thrilled to be naked with me,  open to  the dalliance of lust and the call and response of desire.

The Passion of Bertha, Wife of Ed.

07 Monday Mar 2016

Posted by in seduction

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The movie Pleasantville was about two modern teenagers who found themselves transported into a 1950’s sitcom. This is a derivative fantasy, because I have this thing for a certain sidekick of a daffy redhead sitcom star..

I  noticed her the first day I moved into the building. When I knocked on her door to get the keys, she was talking to her friend, the redhead.  Bertha gave me a big smile, handed me the keys, and said  “I’ll come by later to walk through the unit with you. I want you to be happy here.”  The emphasis was on happy.

“And I want to be a tenant that you’re satisfied with,” I answered, emphasis on satisfied.

Good to her word, she came up an hour later, The movers had yet to arrive and we walked through, noting a few plaster cracks, a slow drain, nothing major.

” Somebody needs to tend to that crack.”

“That’s not the only crack that needs attention,”  she casually remarked. I was left wondering about the obvious double entendre, thinking no woman is that obvious unless….

As a matter of course, her husband Ed came up, spackled the cracks, and offered to paint the apartment with a shade of ugly green interior paint, of said paint I suspect he bought massive quantities at a war surplus auction.  The color was both jarringly familiar and deserved to be forgotten.

“Uh, Ed, how about I pick my own color. I’ll even paint the place myself and to top it off, I will buy the paint myself.”  He could not have been happier had I told him the winner of the next race at Hialeah. 

That Saturday, I found myself, roller in hand, painting the apartment a shade of off white, that was easy on the eyes, gave a sense of depth,  and would be a suitable background for the paintings I planned on buying from aspiring, but hungry artists in Greenwich Village.

Around two, with the Metropolitan Opera broadcasting  Carmen  on the radio, I heard a knock on the door. Bertha was here to check things out. She wore perfume today, Chanel No. 5, and her makeup was exquisite, the lipstick a shade of red that Marilyn would envy.

“Nice job. Looks like you can handle your chores  quite, uh, satisfactorily.”

“I’m quite the handy guy.  Look, I was about ready to take a break. There’s some pop in the fridge. Let me clean my hands.”

“I’ll get the drinks.”

Minutes later, she was sitting on the couch, soft drink in hand. I noticed the top two buttons of her shirtwaist were unbuttoned.  I sat in the armchair near her, staring at her cleavage, wishing for the X-ray vision, only Superman possessed . Knowing then and there that her rather overt seduction had worked, I moved to the couch, took the pop bottle from her hand, placed it on the  end table. 

“Ed’s at the hockey game at the Garden. He’ll be gone a while. Rangers vs. Red Wings. He’s a big fan of Gordie Howe.”

“Well I’m a big fan of you. and I was wondering if you were wearing that girdle you had on the first time you were here.”

“Time to find out.”

I took her head in my hands, guided her lips to mine and kissed  her long and deep. My hands then caressed her, found their way to that sweet ass. Lifting the skirt, I found neither girdle, nor panties, for that matter. Somebody came prepared to play.

I reached in my pocket, pulled out a rubber, tore open the package and before I could do another thing, she volunteered to help. Placing the rubber in her mouth, she put the rubber on with lips. The last time I had help like that,  was in Tijuana, fresh from boot camp, and ready to prove to Lourdes, who claimed to be the cleanest whore in Mexico, what kind a swordsman an eighteen year-old Marine could be.

Bertha approached fellatio like a true connoisseur  of cock.  It was a lost-in-the-moment blow job, where only our lust for a fuck prevented a climax, then and there. 

Always a firm believer in reciprocity, I slowly began licking that beautiful vagina offered for my delectation. I took my time, enjoying her smell, her wetness, her  cunt folds, her hard clit, letting her tell me when she wanted more. Grabbing my cock she guided it inside her. I held her close at first, then shifted to put her legs on my shoulders, driving in deep. She would grind into me after every one of my thrusts.

I couldn’t tell which of us came first. I didn’t care.  Afterwards, we just lay still. I slowly stroked her hair, kissed her lips.

“Oh my God, the time!” she cried.  Somebody is expecting a roast tonight and the meat needs to go in the oven.

She bolted up, smoothed her skirt, straightened the seams of her stockings, fixed her hair.

And she was gone.  For a little while anyway. 

 

A Lost Day-Realization Reaffirmed

25 Thursday Feb 2016

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I made the mistake of going on Facebook and looking at political posts from friends, some I agreed with, some I don’t. Politics on Facebook is a game for losers.
Which raises the question, have we forgotten how to think? Do we know how to use facts to forge an argument?

Next comes the realization that I am happier blogging my thoughts on WordPress. I will save Facebook to keep in touch with the nieces and nephews in faraway places or right across town. I will enjoy the pictures of children and pets. I will post an occasional thought-provoking article. The truth is Facebook is the Romper Room of political thought, where adult children of all political stripes can be the immature brats that is consistent with a limited worldview.

Sitting Here, Resting My Bones

23 Tuesday Feb 2016

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After a ten day hiatus, forced by a cold, I went back to power walking. The walk felt so good.  I did the usual four miles, stopping about a mile through to chat with a neighbor I had not seen in a while. Even with a 2 minute interruption I had a good walk.

Right now I’m watching a DVD, Cuba Island of Music. It deals with Cuban music, but kind of preachy and didactic, without the energy of Wim Wenders’ Buena Vista Social Club. Of course, Omara Portuondo, Ibrahim Ferrer, or Compay Segundo have yet to appear in this film.  Bad Cuban music is an impossibility. The Afro-Cubano rhythms are powerful, seductive, erotic, and inviting. One simply needs to dance! They just finished a segment on Santaria, the syncretistic native religion with African indigenous and Catholic elements,

Life without the Brace of Doom, is a delight. I still have some back pain that rears its ugly head when I try to sleep. So I sleep on an odd schedule.  There are times when I lie in bed, wondering if sleep will come. Then I get up and read. Pretty soon it is 2 or 3 AM.

There is another aching pain I have, the longing for sexual intimacy, sexual passion. It cannot be ignored. It is not a “thing to do”, like brushing your teeth or ironing a shirt. It is the consummation of the love I feel for my wife, my partner, and my lover.  Another chance comes to break the logjam.

Timing Is Everything

19 Friday Feb 2016

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Evidently the best time to talk to a claims examiner at an insurance company about a disability claim is Friday afternoon. Imagine my surprise when the claims examiner picked up the phone on the first ring. Fully expecting voice mail, I found myself speaking with Jessica, the claims examiner. I was immediately reminded of a Seinfeld episode where Jerry does a monologue about calling someone, only to be disappointed when the person answers and there is no rollover into voice mail.  We had a brief and friendly conversation. She did have the doctor’s statement and  patient notes. She would review with the appropriate people and get back to me within the hour. We shall see, but my experience with her tells me she does what she says she’s going to do. Soon I will know if the logjam has been breached.

The insurance companies have protocols and procedures to be followed in order to review and pay (or not pay) claims.  I liken it to court etiquette at Versailles in the Eighteenth Century or in Vienna during the waning years of the Austro-Hungarian Empire.  If my “papers are in order” (use your best Major Strasser from Casablanca voice), the claim will be paid.

Stay tuned.

The wheels of fate grind on mercilessly. No word yet. And I’m tired. It will be 1800 Hours Central Time in twentytwo minutes. We ate overpriced food at a swankier restaurant, all the while waiting for The Phone Call. I am going to bed at 1900 Hours Eastern Time for some kind of rest.
Adios, amigos.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Braces, Burgers, Toys

17 Wednesday Feb 2016

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Anyone who has had a spinal fusion/laminactomy  will know whereof I speak. It has been exactly ninety days since my surgery. I had an office visit today. The X-rays were taken. The surgeon came in the room and together we looked at them.  What we were looking at was whether the titanium screws that hold the fused vertebra in place were holding as the bone grafts continue to grow. They are! As a result, my turtle shell brace, called because it looks like a rig the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles would wear, has been put back in the Torturer’s Closet. Now I have a soft brace, which is a smaller, manageable brace, that fits at about the waist. Black, stretchy, with velcro.

I celebrated my liberation by going to McDonald’s and ordering a Big Mac. One practically needs to take out a mortgage to buy one of these now. Sadly, the pickles, special sauce, lettuce, cheese and two all beef patties (so they claim) just doesn’t taste the same as they used to. Kinda dry. Oh well. Most people experience this disillusionment at age 25. I’m 40 years late. The coffee is good though, as well as some of the meal size salads.

I remember a place before McDonald’s came to town, called The Beacon. It had the same stuff hamburgers, fries, shakes that McDonald’s would be selling. Daddy would take us there after Church on Sunday, so Mom didn’t have to cook. We would sit in Daddy’s 1953 Nash Ambassador Super and eat. My parents didn’t complain about the food then; cheap food was a dream come true for them and we children didn’t know any better.  We liked the experience, because as a prize for buying the swill, they gave away little plastic airplanes in primary colors. With the exception of the toy B-36, the planes were jets, Korean War era  jets, the F-80, the F-94, and the legendary F-86.

We accumulated scads of these things.  They were not to the scale of the green plastic army men we had, but we didn’t care. The army men were not to the same scale as the Tonka  Green “Six-by”Army Truck we had either.  Again, we didn’t care. The idea was to have fun. Are children allowed to have fun anymore?

Wrasslin’- Joe Murnick

14 Sunday Feb 2016

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I’m continually amazed at how memories surface. I was thinking about the Donald Trump presidential bid and, in my mind,  I compared Trump to professional wrestler Ric Flair.  I guess because both are flamboyant blowhards who lack the gravitas to be anything other than TV personalities. The memory process, like Proust and his madeleine, brought me back to childhood, when I first began watching professional wrestling or wrasslin’, to use the idiom.

Wrasslin’ showed up on my TV when I was 10 or 11. The stark Good vs. Evil metaphor took command in my head, stayed there for years til I figured out it was all fake.  There were real “characters” parading around in ugly nylon briefs, snug around blocky, bulging torsos, or long spandex tights going to mid-calf. The Good Guys, circa 1962, wore the ugly briefs, the Bad Guys, the more flamboyant get-ups.  The  Good Guys had names like George or Johnny, the Bad Guys were Kurt and Karl, Lars and Gene. Sometimes the Bad guys wore masks and came from “Parts Unknown”. It seemed so real  to my prepubescent mind and sense of justice. The protagonists would have their TV match. The Bad Guys would win through some obvious skulduggery. Between TV bouts, the host, a guy named Bob Caudle would interview the wrestlers. The Bad Guys always seemed  to be yelling, threatening to get the Good Guys at the next fight, which would be announced as taking place at  the Atlantic Rural Exposition Grounds on such and such a Friday night. That was the Fairgrounds, here in Richmond, on Laburnum Avenue. Next, the ring announcer, a man named Joe Murnick, would introduce the, uh, “competitors” for the next bout. The second bout was more of the same, but who cared?

Fast forward seven years. I am 18, a senior at Thomas Jefferson High School, member of the Key Club (affiliated with the service organization Kiwanis International), and participant in the “Little Buddy” program. Now our “Little Buddies” had nothing to do with Gilligan and The Skipper, The Skipper (Alan Hale, Jr.) constantly referring to Gilligan (Bob Denver) as “Little Buddy”. Rather, it was a program, where we would mentor under-privileged children from the poor white neighborhood of Oregon Hill.  We would constantly be having activities with the boys, getting  to know them, hopefully doing some good. One day, somehow, we Key Clubbers got to talking about professional wrestling and Donald B said he could get tickets to the matches from his uncle, Joe Murnick.  It turned out Joe was the promoter behind Mid-Atlantic Championship Wrestling that was based in Raleigh, North Carolina. Richmond was one stop on the circuit. Sure enough, Donald came through with tickets, we picked up our Little Buddies, and drove off to the Fairgrounds. They held the matches in the same building where they judged the livestock at the Fair. This livestock, however, came on two legs, rather than four. There were bleachers set up, and we fans sat and watched the bouts. I don’t remember who the wrestlers were that night. What I do remember is that our little 10 year old charges went nuts over the event, while we super-sophisticated 17 and 18 year old Big Buddies saw through the goings on.  So much for inculcating Middle Class values.

Wrestling went dormant about fifteen years til Vince McMahon cobbled together the World Wrestling Federation (WWF), now World Wrestling Entertainment.  Then Captain Lou Albano, Mr Fuji, Ric Flair, Roddy Piper, Jesse Ventura, and Hulk Hogan took center stage and  wrestling went Big Time.  My cousin Kenny was an avid follower. He could tell you any and everything you ever wanted to know about the sport. I could say, “You know Dusty Rhodes really is The American Dream.”  “Oh he is!” Kenny would enthusiastically concur. Kenny had an inexhaustible sense of fun, true joy.

Now over thirty years has passed. Our much-beloved cousin Kenny succumbed to cancer on his 62nd birthday in 2012. The Fairgrounds were purchased by NASCAR  and the State Fair moved to a new site up  I-95 near Doswell. The WWE, if it still comes to town, is at The Richmond Coliseum, a forty year-old senescent building, home now for an occasional college basketball game, tractor pull, Disney on Ice and The Ringling Brothers Barnum and Bailey Circus.

Sic Transit Gloria Mundi. 

Giving It Up For Lent

11 Thursday Feb 2016

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10 February 2016 Ash Wednesday.  It’s another step in the march toward Easter and the march to Spring.  I had thought about going to Mass and getting ashes, but I did not feel like driving and, with driving, comes getting into and out of the car. That is not fun in a back brace. Instead, I stayed home, went walking, and fixed dinner.  J also informed me that Ash Wednesday is not a Holy Day of Obligation.  So the guilt trip was called off.

“What are you giving up for Lent?”  I am resetting the context of that question.  We love to forgo little pleasures like chocolate or Coca-Cola. This year, I am giving up the idea that I need something I don’t have to make my life complete. In the material and secular sense, scratching the itch of wanting more has us buying more or borrowing to buy more.  On a personal level, I have spent the last nine months buying stuff from Amazon. I have the app on the phone and when I am bored, I am at Amazon instantaneously. And I buy, everything from Portuguese hair tonic to Luis Bunuel’s Un Chien Andalou.  What I buy has value or meaning to me. If I read the books, and watch the videos, my knowledge would increase appreciably. I would be that much more erudite and an improved communicator. My library is well-stocked.  The acquisition phase has ended. The hard work of reading and comprehending must begin.  I will draw on the sufficiency and abundance at hand.

For the next 40 days, I will stop trying to fill The Big Empty. It takes about 40 days, 6 weeks, to ingrain a new habit. My walking since Christmas has again demonstrated that. The 40 days of Lent is about preparation for the central Christian event, The Resurrection of Our Lord.  My preparation is accepting that what I have and who I am are sufficient for Jesus to transform me. Laissez les bon temps rouler!