Women

   I like women. It's almost, like, if I'd lived a former life it might of been as a woman. If I have to hang around with a bunch of people I'd really rather hang around with women. Nothing wrong, though, with occasional groups of guys, especially if you're watching sports (or playing them, for that matter) but if there's a mixed social gathering I tend to gravitate to the women.
   Yes, I know, you're wondering if I'm latently gay. Could be, but I don't think so, because, as I said, I like women!

Diana Rigg-The Avengers

   One of my skills is finding something beautiful about a woman that otherwise may have gone unnoticed. This happened all the time in high school, I'd see a girl who maybe wasn't the blonde cheerleader type and I could always find something attractive about her to focus on. Occasionally, as time went on, other guys might eventually begin to notice some of the same things. At the time, though, it often seemed like I was noticing different women than the guys I was hanging out with.

Elizabeth Montgomery-Bewitched

   Of course, as a high school kid, this did me absolutely no good. I was no more able to approach girls than I was to engage in rope-climbing in the gym. Two totally foreign concepts! I could see other guys performing both, flawlessly, and was in awe. The geeks and I hung out, for sure.
   Oddly enough, in public school, I remember being quite adroit with the ladies. The group of us flirted endlessly, held hands, kissed, and switched allegiances constantly. High school, for whatever reason, ended all of this and there occurred, in Grade Nine, the death of a ladies' man (to borrow from Leonard Cohen).

Stephanie Powers-Girl from U.N.C.L.E.

   Several years passed before I caught my stride a little. I had always been pretty obtuse around women and generally never picked up on any subtle clues that they might actually have been interested in me. As an adult, quite often I would go back and re-live some of those bygone interactions and realize that, indeed, I had been an idiot for not picking up on some of that stuff!
   I've been interspersing some of the above with pictures of several of the women I found most attractive in my adolescent days. This, obviously, was before the internet wherein images of beautiful women are daily at your fingertips. In the olden days, TV was about the only way you were going to find wonderful women actually moving and speaking on screen. And that was generally once a week, so you had to pay attention to the TV guide and make your weekly claim to the boob tube!
   Those were heady times for a young boy in the midst of his own hormonal explosion and I was quite totally in love (lust) with all the pictured women and many more--Jane Fonda, Mary Tyler Moore, Anne Francis, Inger Stevens, Barbara Eden, etc.
   There have been several generations of beautiful women in the intervening years and differing definitions about what constitutes beauty. I am one of the believers of the axiom that "beauty is in the eye of the beholder". This is true of both art and women. My career choice has had me working with a multitude of attractive women over the years and quite often the level of their beauty is intrinsically tied in to the type of women they are. I have watched some of the most beautiful of them walk up to me with almost no effect whatsoever. On the other hand, I can spend time with a woman who may have some stereotypical "flaw" and yet feel a slightly surging pulse rate when they are around.

   So, as I said, I like women. I have not always treated them well, for a variety of reasons in a variety of situations. There are times when I've wanted to go back and fix things, maybe do them differently--all the way from high school to my fifties. I have also seen the way other men treat women and find this deplorable. There have been subtle things--men moving their wives or girlfriends hundreds or thousands of miles away from their loved ones. Men berating their wives in front of company. And less subtle things. I remember being in a hockey dressing room once with a woman who'd been abused by her husband. Her husband was in the arena somewhere but she was the one who had the kids and she was desperately trying not to be the last person left in the dressing room. You could visibly see the panic in her as the other parents started to filter out. Finally, there was just her and her kids and me and mine. The fear she had of being alone in this room with her abusive husband in the vicinity was almost palpable and I told her I would be happy to wait until she was ready to go. The relief on her face was undeniable, and she thanked me profusely. This was as close as I've come to this kind of situation but I understand they exist everywhere and, as a man, it disheartens and sickens me. And will probably be a whole other blog someday...

Lori, my ex-wife, with my sons, Bryant on the left, Ben on the right

   I have been blessed, in many ways, in my relationships with women. I have had the good fortune to have been married to the two most wonderful women I know. There came a point in my life when I had to decide to be with one over the other and, in the process of doing this, caused much pain to many people. I strongly suspect that one of these days I will write about that experience here, if there comes a day when I can finally wrench it out of me. One of the most wonderful things about the both of them is the mothers they are and the fierce, protective love they have for their kids. How lucky those boys are!
   And, as I mentioned, how lucky I've been!

Keenan, Callum, my wife Doralyn and Quinlan

   Women will never be understood, at least not by men. The minefield that is women has been fodder for conjecture, bemusement, anger, confusion and stand-up routines for generations. I tiptoe through it with amazement most of the time. I is a minefield I have misstepped in many times and pieces of me have then been found, scattered all about. Whether I've learned by any of my mistakes is up for conjecture but I do try not to make the same one twice. I guess the trick is to have at least one saving grace. And maybe one more up your sleeve...
   I say this all in praise of women, would that the world was ruled by them. It is hard to picture women constantly sending their children off to fight. It is not hard to see them as the providers we all need them to be. So appreciate them. Guard them. And, while you're at it, just love them!

The only thing better than me liking women is women liking women!

  
  
  

  
  
  

Writer's Block

    Right at the moment, I am having a bit of a case of "writer's block". My principal problem is that I can't think of anything in particular to be writing about. I'm pretty sure that, given a topic, sitting down and whipping something off would be fairly easy. So what I have decided to do is write about "writer's block", in the hopes that something will come to me in the meantime and that, in the meantime, I'll at least be writing!
   As you may have noticed, I blog fairly infrequently. Most of you are my friends so why harass you all with constant blogging!! Apart from that, I usually feel as though I have very little of importance to be imparting to a particular audience on a daily basis, hence the infrequency. Hell, usually I can't even come up with a Facebook status!
   Back almost a year ago when I started all this, it felt as though there were several pressing issues on my mind that I'd been pondering for a long time that really needed expounding on. So I did that. And it's done. And there's nothing else.
   I went through something similar way back when I began writing poetry. At the time, there just seemed so much to be writing about and that's what I did--wrote and wrote and wrote. Much of it was consequential stuff, some of it got published. But I was writing about everything and found, after awhile, that not everything needed to be written about. So I stopped. And this was probably one of the worst decisions of my life.
   I think.
   One thing precipitating that cessation was that I became interested in music, that is making it, and found that suddenly my creative juices had been re-directed. When once there had been a time when I might have wandered off somewhere to write a poem I was now heading down to the "dungeon", my former basement, to create music. I had taught myself how to play a keyboard and ended up purchasing a digital keyboard with which I was able to play many different instruments and then layer them over each other. Often this music reverberated throughout the house and my ex referred to it as my "Phantom" phase.
   So that is how I dealt with that particular writer's block. This one, I'm still working on!
   I have a friend who blogs daily. She is an extremely good and perceptive writer whose blogs I greatly look forward to reading. The fact that she is able to come up with something on a daily basis boggles my mind. I am not sure if she's due to peter out some day soon so time will tell but, right at the moment, I'm quite jealous. If there's one thing I do know, though, it's that writer's block will, at one time or another, affect every writer.
   *there was a typo in that last sentence--when I originally wrote the word "time", I accidentally substituted the letter "o" for the letter "i"--thus making the word "tome"--how Freudian is that*

   So I've had some fun writing about not writing. I'm sure that at some point soon something really worth writing about will pop up and off I will go. I have only been averaging about 1 blog a month since I've started and hope to greatly increase the frequency of this in the future.
   Oh yeah, and I'm gonna write a novel.....
  

  
  

My Yearly Physical

    I had my yearly physical yesterday. I arrived at my doctor's office unusually early only to find out she and the office staff were off on what I presumed was their lunch break (as it was lunch time!) So I had about ten minutes to kill and this gave me ten more minutes to deal with the usual trepidation I have around yearly physicals.
   Now, the only real reason I have for any amount of anxiety over physicals revolves around the old prostate (I suspect several things revolve around my prostate--my anxiety is only one of them...) and my doctor's wish to thoroughly examine it. On a yearly basis he simply refuses to acknowledge my own belief that my prostate's just fine (thank you) and insists on investigating it.
   Okay, I'm pretty sure he could just take a damn x-ray or ultrasound--seems routine procedure for investigating internal organs these days but NO--he actually wants to feel it! Because of this crazy desire of his, my doctor and my ass have been dating for several years now, ever since my mid-forties or so. Their relationship has lasted longer than many marriages, even given the fact that there's a bit of a menage a trois going on--my doctor, my ass and me. The relationship did start off on a bit of a tense note; my ass and I have been together, well, forever and introducing someone else into the mix was tricky, to say the least. But, between the three of us (and some calming words mixed with a dollop of lube) there arrived that point in a relationship where a nice little comfort level had been attained. 

   What added to the trepidation on this visit, however, was the fact that it was not my regular doctor who was going to be administering the physical! My regular doctor is a man, and I've been seeing him for about 25 years now. Quite recently, though, he has had his daughter assisting with his practice. When I called to set up this appointment I was told that I could get in much sooner if I was willing to have his daughter see me. Now, his daughter I assume is probably 25 or so. She, however, looks like she might be 15. My instinct cried out to go for the later appointment but I have dealt with this young lady before and found her to be quite knowledgeable and pretty up-to-date on the latest in the medical world. There was also this feeling that one of these days she was likely going to be my regular family doctor and so why not just jump in now?!

   With this, though, came the realisation that she would also be jumping in and beginning her own likely long-term relationship with my prostate. I have never (in at least a fully conscious state!) been examined by a female medical staff down there. Anywhere down there. From the belly up and the thigh down all sorts of women have had a go at me but that broad expanse in between has been virtually sacrosanct. This, however, was about to change.
   And it was going to change even more than I had imagined!
   After I'd been sitting in the waiting room for about five minutes reading children's books (the adult's books were across the room and if I was in good enough shape to stand and walk then I didn't really need to be seeing a doctor, did I? and, anyway, I was hoping to learn something...) a young lady appeared, with a file, and called my name. She introduced herself and said she was interning with my family doctor. What she wanted to do, prior to my exam, was sit down and ask me some questions. I have been in many similar situations where an intern trying to get his or her feet wet would sit down with a patient and do some interviewing before the REAL doctor got there. I assumed this was what was happening in this case, as well.
   Wrong.
   After going through her questions and asking me what my present concerns were, she asked me to partially disrobe and get up on the exam table.
   At this point, I started to get a little concerned--if I had to be examined by a lady doctor I wanted it to be the lady doctor I was already afraid of! 

   So I did as I was asked, and waited. She returned shortly and, sure enough, began to do my physical. She seemed somewhat tentative and nervous and appeared to want me covered up even more than I wanted me covered up. The basics of the exam went just fine, everything checked out quite okay. The last part of the exam, however, involved her introducing herself to my prostate. The last thing I remember seeing before turning myself toward the wall was a glob of lubricating fluid about the size of a cow patty. Generally when you are meeting someone for the first time, you offer your hand. This is how she proceeded with my prostate. The initial meeting over and done with, it then felt as though she had decided that, as long as she was in there anyway, she might just as well introduce herself to every other organ or anatomical structure within reach up to and including my lower esophagus!
   Finally, this part of the exam was over. Regaining eye contact after something like that was something that appeared I'd had more practice with than her. At long last, though, I was back to fully dressed and we could both just sit there and talk, as if nothing untoward had recently transpired between the two of us. My recent bloodwork had all been normal (I suspect, for a man my age) and we talked briefly about any nagging little concerns I might have had about this and that. Toward the end of it all (pun?) she handed me the envelope containing the fecal occult blood testing paraphernalia. This is what you use when....oh, what the hell, you don't wanna know. I told her I would be happy to add it to the pile of unused test kits I'd accumulated over the years for which I did receive some gentle admonishment on her part. She did ask me, a little bit too eagerly, if I'd ever been "scoped" up in those parts. I replied in the negative. She seemed almost ready to book me a scope appointment but then, I'm sure, remembered that it wouldn't be her doing it, so why bother...?