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Sunday, February 22, 2004 Oh, my aching nuts. Now, if someone in the street shouts out, "Hey, numb-nuts," I'll turn around. Actually, it wasn't that bad. I've had worse times at the dentist. But it was the thought of it all... On the way up, I had one very good and very old friend on my cellphone, saying: "Dave, get off the bus right now. Just step off the bus. You're not thinking clearly. Just get off the bus, get a little fresh air, you'll think clearer. It's a big mistake, a big, big mistake. Don't do it, Pam'll get an IUD, and if you get pregnant while she's on an IUD, that child deserves to live! It'll be another Nelson Mandela! Don't deprive the world of Nelson Mandela, Dave!" And so on. I appreciated how personally he took it. It was almost as if it was *his* nutsack coming under the knife (the night before I held a wake of sorts for the passing of my potency, of my ability to impregnate the women of the world with perfect, brilliant, beautiful babies, and he refused to come; furious, and disgusted, he wouldn't show). Then when I got in the room, I was sweating with fear-- the kind of sweat which stinks. Sitting by yourself in a paper gown, staring at a tray of gleaming, medieval surgical instruments, waiting for some quack to start hacking away at your nutsack-- you don't feel much more alone than that. I almost bolted. "What the hell who am I kidding I can't do this..." But ze doctor did a good job. I was all clenched up the whole time (when he paused in his sniping and sewing, to take a break or grab a different instrument, and I relaxed, my body would lower like three inches as I unclenched my buttocks) and it took longer than I thought-- I'd heard it was like five minutes but it was more like half an hour-- but there was no fainting or puking. The doctor and I chatted for a while, I thanked him perhaps a bit more profusely than necessary when it was all over, and it was kind of like: I wanted to go out for a beer with him. I felt like we had been through a profound, intimate, life-changing experience together. But of course only I had. For him it was just...Friday (they only do them on Friday so the patient can spend the weekend recovering.) So now I'm lying around the house, just me and my bags of frozen peas (a good tip from Pam: buy two bags, so you can keep rotating them). Got breakfast in bed Saturday, which was pretty good: bacon and eggs, no toast (Atkins). Watching lots of macho movies like Snatch (which I own, and which has to be one of the most manly movie ever: women don't even enter into it, and all the men do is insult each other, fight each other, and shoot each other; when I think of Guy Ritchie going from that to Swept Away, a crocodile tear trickles down my cheek). But to tell you the truth, my brothers and sisters (but especially my brothers), I'm playing it up a bit. I'm fine. It was nothing. My vas deferens are a little sore, but nothing a Tylenol 3 and numerous shots of whisky (although I found myself hankering for the first time for a nice spritzer or crantini...just kidding) can't handle. I even find myself quite...frisky, lying around all day, Pam playing nurse, "examining" the patient's affected area with a stern-yet-compassionate look on her face, 2 of the three kids elsewhere. Pam has already declared me "sexier than ever," so that ENORMOUS fear-- that she'll look at me and think: "I can't help it, he's just less of a man & I'm less attracted to him"--has been laid to rest (for now: I reserve the right to revisit this fear numerous times throughout my life). All in all, the best thing I ever did. I feel it actually liberated something in me. It may sound like I'm joking, but I'm not: I feel like, if I can do that, I can do anything. Seriously. I faced down a real heavy fear, did something I really, really didn't want to do, that would be very painful, that numerous people advised me not to do, that I didn't *have* to do, all from a sense of duty and higher purpose. One of the few-- maybe the only-- such act in a life otherwise lived in shame, fear, cowardice and self-interest. I don't want to sound like a guy writing a magazine article (and obviously I am workshopping material here) but seriously, honestly, "for real true life," as my kids say: I kind of feel like this is the sort of thing it takes a real man to do. I've never been more frightened to do something, but I did it. It may sound boastful (and perhaps I doth protest too much) but I pat myself on the back and say: that took balls. Now with an even fiercer determination than before, the Capricorn will renew his single-minded assault on the world. Back to work... Sunday, February 15, 2004 Just before I forget, a moment that made me laugh until I thought I was going to throw up, from TV last night. I should say that, yes, I was tragically sitting alone, watching TV by myself, in a big, empty, messy house, drinking wine. All by myself on Valentine's... Pam at her Mom's with the kids. Had some sashimi by myself, came home and cooked up a pork chop, with some salad... I eat about 15 meals a day now, I'm on a high protein, high alcohol diet? Maybe you've heard of it? The Dr. Atkins Merlot-carb diet...anyway, instead of eating a bag of chips in the middle of the afternoon, I eat a bag of porkchops... ANYWAY...so I'm watching Mad TV, which really, really has its moments, I'm 1/2 in the bag, 1.5 sheets to the wind, scarfing up my chop, and none other than Snoop Dog, still one of the coolest guys in the world, is in a skit, so I perk up-- the skit is a talk show called Real Mother****ing Talk, celebrating black history month, and he plays "Back Doe," a guy fresh out of jail, working in a car wash. Everyone on the talk show is black, but they bring in a token white guy-- the whitest guy on Mad TV, anyway at one point the host asks Snoop how he's going to vote in the next election, and he says "I'm a Bush man," and the host says, "Hell, yeah, we all are, but how you gonna VOTE?" And Snoop says well, you know, I'm a Republican. And the white guy says, "Really, you don't strike me as a typical Republican?" and Snoop almost jumps out of his chair as he says, "What the f**k you mean by that, bitch?" I started laughing there, and then the white guy says, "Well, you know, no offense, but you work in a car wash, and you REEK of marijuana," and Snoop looks around guiltily, which is funny, and then the white guy continues, "and I don't know what that thing is on your head, I believe it is called a 'doo rag,'" etc etc. Anyway he goes on for a while longer and then when he finishes they're all staring at him and the host says, "I haven't killed a white boy since 1986..." Obviously you had to be there. Just wanted to share, and to prove that, pace my good friend Livingston's comments, I still have the "vigour and energy" to write this blog-- that the impending fact of my vasectomy has not robbed me, by its mere contemplation, of all energy and drive. Very funny, my good friend, very funny. But you're next, mother****er, and he who laughs last-- even if it be a squealing, high-pitched, girlish giggle-- laughs, um, best? Hardest? Ah, I lack the energy and drive to try to remember which of those is right... Tuesday, February 03, 2004 p.s. the good news is they've established there's no link with prostate cancer nutsack. that's just fun to say. I'm really procrastinating, now. This is sick. The entire Internet is a huge procrastination-device. "Boulevard of blown loads," as one guy I know calls it. No wonder it's so popular. No wonder I love it so much. Saw the doc. I take it all back about him. He's chatty and a good doc, I think. Kinda got a little writer-envy, maybe: showed me a couple of freelance pieces, one about having three kids (damn wish I thought of that) one about his own experience with the big V (he went in a van with 9 guys: 3 backed out, frightened, six got snipped). Well, I've got doctor envy, man. "How was your trip to Italy?" I asked him. "Oh, you should really try to spend a week in Italy without your kids," he said. Yeah, I'll try, I thought. Maybe if I click my heels together and say "There's no place like Italy, there's no place like Italy." (cause otherwise I can't afford it.) (poor Pam, she deserves...so much better). (yet we have fun) (but I've got to sell this script or she will perform a number of medieval operations on my nutsack herself). Anyway, nice guy. I told him I was frightened. "You should be," he said, dead serious. "You have every reason to be." But it turned out he was joking. And sort of not. These doctors are all wise guys (of the non-mob kind). He outlined the "downsides," the most likely of which seemed to me to be "for several weeks you'll feel kind of the way you do half an hour after you've been kicked in the nuts." Then on the other hand some guys feel nothing at all. I listened and squirmed, listened and squirmed... I'm not sure if I can put links on this, but here goes. http://www.improvisation.ws/mb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=4475. Doesn't look like it has code on it, but I guess you can copy it and paste it into your address thingy. A v. funny blog about being a video store clerk. I guess that's still my favorite genre: the smart but underemployed guy/girl. This girl is v. smart & funny & a good observer of...well, her customers. If you've ever wondered what a video clerk is thinking when you rent a porn video, this is it, in excruciating detail. Courtesy of my friend Andrew L.-- who, by sheer coincidence, is at work developing a company called T.U.G. (Toronto Urban Golf.) (I've told him golf is boring, that he should add a few other features and call it RUB & TUG & PUB & GRUB, but does he listen?) He's also brought me more bad news vis-a-vis the big snippy-snip. He has one friend who was so freaked out by all the slicings and monkeyings going on in his testicular region, he pretty much fainted. And then when he came to, he almost barfed. Another guy who went to a hockey game right after "The Procedure", jumped up and down a lot, and had to take to his bed for a week. I am seriously frightened. I go in today for a referral appointment...and I'm even frightened of that. The things I am frightened of are legion. First of all, my father had prostate cancer, and apparently poor saps who get this "procedure" are more prone to prostate cancer. And I'm already prone to it! My dad caught it early, but he is a very methodical guy who goes to the doctor's ever six months. I'm lucky if I can get my shit together to get a haircut every six months. (I'm always in the middle of a heavy project that takes all my attention: I deal with the world using about 3 percent of my brain.) And then, in no particular order, I'm afraid: 1) it will kill my ability to write (oh, where do YOU think inspiration comes from?); 2) Pam will look at me and think "eunuch" and no longer want to have sex with me; 3) I will no longer want to have sex with her, and in general be listless, aimless, lacking in direction and focus; 4) it will hurt. Anyway, I go in to see my doctor today. Dr. Mike. Wish me luck.
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