THE PORTRAIT OF DORIAN BROWN Part 1

        To dye or not to dye, that is the question. Every two weeks  I have to look in the mirror and decide if the man with the gray beard deserves to stay or the man with the brown beard needs to return. Is dyeing one's beard dishonest, desperate,and superficial, or in fact is it absolutely appropriate for a man like me? It has become my personal "Sophie's Choice". True, having a Nazi make Sophie choose which child she keeps and which child he takes is the worst choice anyone would ever have to make, but at least she only had to make her choice once. I, on the other hand, am going to have to make the decision to re-dye my beard 26 times a year, possibly for the next 30  to 40 years, for a grand total between  780 and 940 times. Even the thought of it is exhausting.
      I went  for advice to the four men who know me best and who once loved me most, my ex-boyfriends. Unfortunately, I forgot they are also the four men who love to make fun of me most. After they were able to stop laughing at me, they each gave me their honest opinion.  Brian, boyfriend number three,  hates beards on anyone no matter what the color because they scratch his asshole. This of course disqualifies his opinion. Grant, boyfriend number four, the youngest one and the one  who is truly most attracted to older men regardless of their graying, thinks dyeing my beard is ridiculous. This disqualifies his opinion as well.  Pepe, boyfriend number two, who I saw in New York after I dyed my beard for the first time last August, didn't  even remember me having a beard, which totally disqualifies him and ends our friendship ( just kidding, honey. Love you).  Scott, my first and longest-lasted boyfriend of nine years and best friend in the world who I have spoken with everyday for 33 years, had his opinion too when I saw him and his boyfriend Jason of 17 years in Upstate New York on the same trip I saw Pepe. He was the only one who thought dyeing my beard was a great idea. But Scott is also the one who has bared witness to and suffered through every subsequent painfully stretched-out, heart-wrenching break-up after ours that I pulled him into with countless late night long-distance calls he and Jason had to listen to as I repeated the same complaints and stories over and over like second-hand smoke coming through the phone receiver into their lungs. Scott is also the one who has to deal with my more recent phone calls over the traffic accidents between my ego, vanity, and aging that are becoming more mangled and bloody. He is at the point that he will agree with anything including my brown beard that stokes my confidence and keeps me from having a mid-life meltdown which he and Jason would have to suffer through with even more phone calls. This disqualifies Scott too. Sorry, Scott.  I can't even trust my new boyfriend Alex's opinion in the matter. Alex is still blissfully blind to my fatal flaws and is at the dreamy stage where he thinks I'm an amazing boyfriend who looks great with my beard gray or brown. This, along with the fact that he himself is graying a little, doubly disqualifies him. A lot of good turning to all of them did.  
      I can't believe I'm going through this dilemma.  I was one of those men who vowed I would never dye my beard. But I also once vowed to never get a cell phone or a computer, which was changed to a vow of never texting on my cellphone or joining a cruising site on my computer, which was then changed to a vow of never sending naked pictures of myself on the cruising site I joined or on my phone, which was then changed to never sending a cock shot, which then had to be changed to never sending a picture of my hard cock. Needless to say, that vow has been broken too.  What is it with me and my vows? I used to be great at sticking to them, when I was younger and more self-righteous, and my stands were more black-and-white. Now it's all about brown-and-gray. I'm not as certain anymore about what is right and what is wrong, nor am I as self-assured. I never thought I would fall victim to this new kind of insecurity. I always thought that my overly abundant confidence in how I look could withstand graying and I wouldn't loose any of my street appeal. It was only a  year ago that I actually became aware  of what I  call 'The March Into Invisibility'. We're all on it, but some marchers are marching faster and some are marching slower; some are digging their heels and being dragged along, and some trying to march backwards. And then there are those who have always been invisible and don't even know the change is happening. That's the overdue reward they get for having to live unnoticed their whole lives.  Ironically, they turn into the lucky ones.
     Dyeing my beard has turned into a slippery slope. It's embarrassing to admit, but I've started to plan my social calendar around it. Even more embarrassing is the fact that I actually have changed plans to go out a few times and rescheduled them for after I re-dyed my beard . I've dealt with addictions before, but who knew that beard dye would be my biggest weakness and greatest challenge.  Heroine addicts chase the 'brown dragon'.  I'm chasing the 'brown dye'. When it wears off and I'm back to gray, I pass by mirrors and don't recognize myself. The last major shift in my appearance happened when i went bald, over 20 years ago, and since that time the same man has stared at me from the mirror until now. 

    What makes it harder is that my face is aging faster than my body. In pictures it looks like someone photo -shopped an older man's head onto me. My body has been exactly the same since I was 20 and I've stayed the same weight since high school (168 lbs, for over thirty years, give or take 1/2 pound. Annoying, isn't it? or even more accurately, aren't I?). I still work-out just as much, but the gym doesn't have any machines for the face. The neck is the closest they get. The face is the thing that shows most and is the thing you can exercise least, yet another example of God's cruelty. 
      When I dye my beard, my face actually matches my body again. We have a reunion every 14 days. I look in the mirror and he smiles back and nods. I go out onto the streets and get looked at the same amount as I did when I was  five, even ten,  years younger  but by day 14 the brown is almost all replaced by gray and  I've turned back into my grandfather again. The first time I dyed it I was both thrilled and appalled at the difference in attention it immediately brought. I couldn't believe it all boiled down to my beard color. Everything else was exactly the same as it was when my beard was gray: same clothes, same smile, same strut, same  friendliness. I seem to be a different man depending on my beard color in the world's eyes, even though I still feel like the same man inside. Occasionally, I  do have moments of clarity and  realize how absurd I'm being and that I had a great time in my younger days and got all the attention I ever wanted and  now it is time for a  different phase, but it's followed by a wave of panic which is then followed by a trip to Walgreen's for more "Just For Men" Medium Brown.

   My  built-in Geiger counter is so fine-tuned  that I immediately feel any shift in the level of attention I am  getting.  The grayer I get, the more invisible I become, especially to young, which there are more and more of every year that I get older. This is a natural process that every person eventually goes through yet there is no rule book to follow or manual to guide us, especially for older gay men. And even more so for older gay men who still want to be noticed. 
     The big questions that have to be asked are, "Why do I need so much attention and how can I get past it?" Well that's a whole other blog, isn't it.

    Move away your left foot, Daniel Day Lewis. Keep your chocolates, Forrest Gump. There's finally a new handicap in town. Stuttering is taking the Oscars by storm. Colin Firth is stuttering his way to an Academy Award. The handicap that is most scared of speaking up has spoken. Come out, come out wherever you are, my fellow stutterers. It is our time to bask in the light. The King's Speech has brought stuttering (or 'stammering' as the English say) to the forefront. The film tells the story of King George VI, who was  forced by circumstances of chance, or some say fate, to become King of England as World War Two was beginning.  Being a stutterer, becoming King was at first more of a dreaded punishment rather than an answered prayer.  The King would have to go head to head against Hitler with his stutter representing an entire nation and the free world. It's exactly my life story, well, minus the King thing, World War 2, the palaces, the money, the crown jewels, and the fame. It is actually the story of every stutterer, or at least every stutterer's fear. A King is as fearful as a commoner when it comes to stuttering. If there was one thing more menacing than Hitler it was the radio microphone that King George had to speak into to address the millions of people hanging on his every word. To help get through this most trying of times, he kept by his side his own personal speech therapist, which isn't in the budget of most other stutterers.  The relationship these two men formed was one of the most enduring and historically significant of the twentieth century yet before this movie, little has ever been made public. The whole matter of The Stuttering King  seemed to be  buried in history books, overshadowed  by the scandal of his brother abdicating the thrown to marry an American divorcee named Wallis Simpson, better known as the  title reluctantly bestowed on her, the Duchess of Windsor. Why was there so much written about The Duke and Duchess of Windsor and so little about King George V!? Growing up stuttering, I could have used a kingly role model. He could have been to me what Helen Keller was to the blind and deaf. 
        I didn't know what to expect going in to the movie. My dear friends Graham, Lizzy and Ron came with me for moral support just incase it, like  a regressive therapy session, triggered deep-seeded, untapped emotions that would leave me curled up in a fetal position in my movie seat or running naked out of the  theater screaming. Was I going to be disappointed, uplifted, angry, thrilled, frustrated, inspired? Fortunately for everyone, what I felt most was pride. Colin Firth as The King gave such dignity and gravitas to stuttering that for the first time I wasn't embarrassed seeing someone stutter on a movie screen. It reminded me of the pride I felt way back when as a young gay man I watched Harry Hamlin French kiss Michael Ontkean in "Making Love". That was 1982, when me and my first boyfriend Scott stood up in our seats at the end of the movie and in an act of pride and solidarity French kissed each other for what seemed an eternity but was actually only around five seconds before we panicked and ran out the emergency fire exit.
         At the  end of the "Kings Speech" I wanted to stand up again and announce to the audience that I too am a stutterer and get the applause that Scott and I were robbed of 29 years ago. I couldn't help but feel special coming out of "The King's Speech", almost like a celebrity of sorts. I could tell even my friends were feeling kind of special, proud of themselves for having a real-life stutterer in their lives.
        Graham, who just got his duel citizenship and became a US citizen last year, was feeling  a touch of extra pride in his British roots after seeing a royal actually depicted in an admirable light. He wanted people to hear his English accent coming out of the theater as much as I wanted everyone to hear my stutter. "Did you think his stutter was authentic? It sounded spot-on,” Graham asked me.
         "More authentic than your English accent right now."
         "It always gets stronger after I see a British movie, especially a good one. And don't go ragging on how other people speak. You should be proud of how I talk, just like I'm proud of you," he put his hand around my shoulder and gave me a kiss on the forehead, his version of knighting me. "Sir Puss of the Stutter."
        Lizzy was still dabbing the tears in her eyes. She is so compassionate and giving of her emotions that she did me the favor of crying through half the film for me so I didn't have to. She experienced all my emotions with me during the film, and even some that weren't mine. "I don't know how you made it through the whole film," she said, hugging me.  "Liz I don't know how I made it through my whole life so far." Ron interrupted and broke up our hug. " Liz, don’t feel bad for him. He's the height of hip now. It’s StutterChic. Now Madonna is going to be speaking with an English accent and stuttering too. Everyone is going to want to stutter. A dinner party won't be complete without one." With that said Ron declared he would be stuttering from now on too.  He did his best impersonation of me and asked me if it sounded real. " It needs work," I waved him off. " You have to do the  head bob, and  the flickering eyelids and contorted mouth. And some foot stomping and thigh punching is good too." Ron loved me too much to do a more accurate stutter. The only ones who would imitate my  stutter full-on in all its horrifying glory in front of me( God knows what goes on behind my back)  is a nurse I work with named Brendan, one of the funniest guys I've ever met, and a straight Chinese co-worker named Eddy Lu who works as an O.T. in our department, who is never uneasy about the gayness around him, and loves to play along with us. They actually have contests right in front of me and  I get to judge whose is the best after one practice round  and then a second round that counts.
    I'm gearing up for all the attention stuttering is bound to get in just a week from now when the Academy Awards airs on Sunday the 27th.  The odds-makers are predicting Colin Firth and of course I am rooting  for him. I'm even more excited about this then I was about "Brokeback Mountain " being nominated for Best Picture a few years ago and late, great Heath Ledger almost winning. Up to now, I always identified myself as  gay first, Jewish second, and white third.  But if I really think about it, I have to say I am a stutterer first and foremost. If Colin does win, what will it mean for  stutters all over the world. Will there be a national dialog over it, specials on CNN,  and medical programs with the latest breakthroughs and treatments. I just hope there won't be the interviews with  "reformed" stutters, which is as annoying to me as seeing "reformed" homosexuals interviewed. There was nothing more humiliating and annoying as hearing Vice President  Biden  explain in a T.V. interview how he overcame stuttering in young adulthood with will-power and determination because he was too ambitious to let it get in his way. I guess my total lack of will-power, determination and ambition must be why I still stutter and he doesn't. My fantasy would be for him to start stuttering during the next major speech he makes and for all the "reformed" homosexuals to start blowing each other during the panel discussion on  live T.V. Then I will be redeemed.
    If Colin does win, I will be listening closely to what he says. I would like him to personally mention me, but I would settle for him mentioning stuttering in general He better not forget that without our handicap, he would have played just another old, stuffy, British King.

    Last Sunday, I partook in an annual ritual that most gay men I know do religiously. This yearly thing we feel compelled to do is the one thing most straight men would never dream of doing. This subversive act that we participate in every year is the Official Turning Off of The Super Bowl. It's an act of defiance, a declaration of our gay rights that we fought so hard for.    

    I have found a kindred spirit in my new boyfriend Alex over our mutual hatred of sports. Alex would rather watch gangrene grow than watch the Super bowl and I'd rather spend an afternoon at Auschwitz. It's reassuring to find someone who understands what being 'gay' still means.  It means 'sports hates me and I hate sports'. I've have lived by this motto for decades. I haven't hated anything for as long as I have hated baseball and football and basketball:  The Holy Trinity of Homosexual Hell.  (Soccer was the only exception because I could give a 'Batgirl" kick to a ball and make it go pretty far)

    I might even hate sports more than Republicans and Religion. Sports has always betrayed me, double-crossed me. Sports gave me away; let the other kids know that something was different, something was wrong. Terribly wrong.  No matter how hard I tried and how hard I prayed, I could not catch a ball. A ball is the single most terrifying object I can think of. In it's small round shape is embodied all the fear, pain, anxiety, embarrassment, cruelty, torture, and unpopularity that a child can experience. Personally, I'd rather have a lion coming towards me than a ball. I stand a better chance with the lion.  Having terrible eyesight my entire life has not helped. I was born with cataracts, and when they were removed the lens of each eye had to be removed too. This left me without full depth perception, which the 3/4 inch glasses I had to wear did not correct. Even contact lenses designed by NASA didn't help me. The doctor explained this is why I can't catch a ball, but I knew there was more to it. I had seen the curse too many times in other boys who didn't have bad eyes. Even with depth perception, some boys couldn't catch to save their lives. It was usually proportionate to how gay you acted. A strange math equation that almost seemed to follow a law of Physics that Sir Isaac Newton didn't discover: Airborne Ball + Gay Boy= Ball On Ground.   Some straight boys suffered from the same curse too but in a totally disproportionate number.

  The Ball-Catchers, as they are called, always know where the ball-droppers are, and unfortunately we always knew they knew. The Ball-Droppers were all part of a team that no one wanted to be part of.  But what exactly is it that makes gay boys so challenged? What is the physiological basis, the origin of this lack of coordination, the retardation of our hands that makes gay boys so bad at sports? 

   To my chagrin, it appears that all gay boys aren't bad at sports. As I got older I started coming across gay guys who actually like sports.  Liked watching them and playing them. These were gay guys who can actually punt footballs, hit baseballs, do lay-ups, better than a lot of straight guys. Entire leagues being formed of gay men playing sports!     

   Still to this day I cannot catch anything. I have this great body with all my muscles that actually can't do anything. It's like a hologram. The only thing my muscles are good for is helping friends on moving day lifting heavy objects and helping the stroke patients I treat walk again. I warn my friends and co-workers but they sometimes forget and throw things towards me. A pen becomes a missile, a banana becomes a torpedo, an apple becomes a grenade and a Hershey’s kiss wrapped in foil becomes a bullet. Occasionally, I put my hands up and the object somehow lands in them, which always shocks and thrills me, and fills me with an amazing yet temporary sense of pride that I actually caught something.

  This is why Alex and I ended up at the beach. It is the furthest thing from watching the Super Bowl that one can do. Typical of San Francisco's unique climate and politics, the temperature was 75. That's tanable temperature.  I was not only not watching the Super Bowl but I was getting color too. What a perfect day. Alex's friend Chance joined us along with Alex's tiny black Chiwawa-like mutt, Doug. Chance is an edgy gay Irish 29 year-old who is unfancy until he gets in the kitchen, where he turns into a tyrant.  What the love-child of Julia Child and Hitler would be like. Only he wears the apron. He was a child prodigy, almost burning down his house at three by trying to make French Toast for himself by putting all the ingredients into the toaster. He gets all his power, and ego,frorm the kitchen. He 's entertained by me but looks down on my cooking skills, which I have none of, and my unsophisticated palate. He prepared a meal for us, which I made the mistake of not eating a meal in preparation for the meal I would be served.  It was the first time I had foie gras.  I ate my entire portion in one fork-full. I thought the entree of 2 mini kobi beef burgers was an appetizer. As delicious as it was was as fast as it was gone off my plate. I acted very appreciative and complimented Chance on the sublime smallness of the meal. Then told Alex I would burn down his condo if he didn't get me more food. Luckily there was no kitchen at the beach so Chance was more relaxed and a lot of fun to be around, even though he wouldn't drink the Orangina I offered him. He, Alex, Doug and me were pretty much there by ourselves on the entire beach. There were a few gay Super Bowl protesters there with us, but it was empty compared to what Black Sands Beach would normally be on such a beautiful Sunday. For me, there is nothing more boring then an empty gay beach. I go to be seen, not to relax. The only real attention I was getting was from Doug who kept running towards me then back to Alex on his towel. After two hours we decided we had enough sun, especially Chance who is as white as French Bread. It was 4:30 in the afternoon already and  we still had the long schelp back up the steep path, so we didn't get back to Alex's place until almost six. By that time, I figured the Super Bowl was over and it was safe to call my friend Ron who had been watching the game at my ex-boyfriend Grant's apartment. They told me the game had just finished, and that it was safe for me to come over so we could hang-out and play some episodes of Dexter. When Alex dropped me off at Grant's and I came into the downstairs entrance, I could hear screaming coming from upstairs.  I ran upstairs to see what was wrong and those bastards were yelling at the T.V. at a play  from the Super Bowl that was still going on!

    " You told me it was over!"

    "Gotcha !" they both pointed at me at  the same time. "Hope you brought your pom-poms" Grant said. Ron pulled out a short  blue skirt he had bought for a dollar at GoodWill.  "I think this will fit. Put it on fast so you can start the cheers."

       I grabbed the skirt and put it over my head instead to shield my eyes from the T.V and wouldn't take it off.  It was in the fourth quarter so at least it was almost over.  I lifted the skirt from my face only to eat the seven-layer dip Grant made.  After a few minutes, Grant told me if I wanted, I could bring out his dog, Oliver, a beauitful black German Shepard that at 10 months is already a giant. Ron had his little dog there too, a great mutt named Bubba, who holds his own against Oliver. I take care of the dogs whenever Grant and his new boyfriend Mark needs me to, just like I do for Ron with Bubba.  So, I was more than happy to have something to do besides sitting there behind my skirt-veil. The thought of cleaning up dog poop was much more appealing than watching the SuperBowl. When I got the dogs outside, it was as if an atomic bomb had exploded and mankind was wiped out.  The streets were empty except for me and the dogs. everyone else was indoors watching the last minutes of the game.  By the time I got back upstairs, the game had just ended and Ron was jumping up and down and pointed his finger at Grant "In your face, in your face!"  I joined in the chorus and we both jumped up and down " In your face! In your face!"  I didn't even know who won or who each was rooting for or even what teams were playing, but it is always fun teaming up with Ron against Grant, just because Grant is so tall and good-looking and has a boyfriend who is even more handsome than me who he lives with in that 2 bedroom rent-controlled apartment we were jumping up and down in.

    Ron hugged me in solidarity and faked crying.  "We won, we won".               

    I faked crying too and hugged him back. "I know it's amazing.  All the sportscasters  said they didn't stand a chance but those Mets showed everyone."

                         

     The man who we thought would never die has died. Jack Lalanne is  finally gone, but he lasted 96 years. I always imagined  he would meet his end in poetic justice, either having a barbell crush his head or being turned into juice by one of his giant turbo-engine juicers. Instead, he died  peacefully of pneumonia in his Los Angeles home this week. He is now in Public Broadcasting Heaven  joining Julia Child who also lasted into her nineties.  Jack was to exercise what Julia was to food.  Whatever weight Julia helped us gain, Jack helped us loose. They were the first of their kind, coming into the homes of millions Americans when  television was still black and  white, to show us how to cook and exercise for the first time, back when working -out  was called calisthenics and Ripped Bod  was called a Physique.
  One of the millions of homes Jack  was invited into every morning was mine. I'm not sure in how many other of those millions of  homes was there a mother who was exercising naked in front of the T.V. as her eight year-old son counted reps for her. I would watch from her huge antique four-post bed as my mother Priscilla huffed and puffed.
      "Down to floor for bicycle kicks!" Jack ordered.
    She dropped to the carpet with hands behind her head, legs up and knees bent.
      "And kick, and kick, and kick!" he  ordered on.
      I counted  "... 29, 30, 31..."  as she peddled into the air.
      " Up for Jumping Jacks!" he switched commands.
      She shot up from the floor and started jumping up and down.  She did her best to follow the cues but her arms and legs and boobs and hair all moved at different speeds every time she tried them.  She just wasn't good at following directions, for either exercising or motherhood. She did perfect the bicycle kicks though, able to do them fully clothed in the front seat of our Cadillac turned towards my father as he was driving the whole family on an icy road one of many stormy winters.
      Her morning naked calisthenics were the last time I saw a vagina, or The Bermuda Triangle as I had named it. If one single thing  turned me gay AND made me stutter, that could have definitely done it. Unfortunately I stuttered already so I can't pin that on her, but as far as the gay thing goes, her naked bicycle kicks certainly didn't help me turn any straighter. 
      Ten years ago, when I described this to my ex-boyfriend Brian, he  pointed out that I did my ab work-out naked in front of him. I argued it was not the same, that my naked ab routine wasn't half as traumatizing as hers, but he still called me Priscilla every time I did them.  I realized  I had been doing naked abs in front my second ex-boyfriend Pepe before Brian and my first ex-boyfriend Scott before Pepe.
       It's scary to think that I have naked exercising in common with my mother. Not to the mention the fact that out of three children, I'm the one who looks most like her. Put a wig on me at Halloween and the similarity is frightening, especially to me. How much do you have to look like a person to start acting like them too? Is there a science behind it, and a pill to prevent it?
      My mother still exercises but now its in a gym, and I assume she's at least wearing a leotard. All that exercising back in her twenties in front of the TV has kept her in remarkable shape, along with plastic surgery and the boob- job she had in her 50's. She's 71 and is showing no sign of slowing down. I guess I have Jack Lalanne to thank for this. But let me tell you, if she's going to live to 96 too, just please drop a barbell on my head right now.  

I have to explain the name 'Stutterpuss' in case people who don't know me actually read this blog. Stuttering is what I do, and puss, or face,  is where it comes out of.  This  is the first time in my life I have to prove I stutter without it being very apparent to anyone who is hearing me. But because you are readers instead of  listeners you will never have the pleasure of hearing my stutter, unless for some reason I am forced to do a 'books on tape' version of my blogs, which would be a stuttering nightmare. Stutterers  have a lot of nightmares and unfortunately they all occur when we're awake. It's what any interaction can instantly turn into. All it takes is that first stutter and the avalanche begins. Something as simple as calling the operator for a phone number, giving a cab driver an address, giving  directions to a lost person, being lost and having to ask for directions, a stranger asking me for the time on my watch, ordering a sandwich over a counter in a deli, trying to ask a conductor something before the train doors close, being stopped to sign a petition, having to identify myself over an intercom, asking a stewardess for  a pillow,  telling a person he is in your seat, choosing paper or plastic at the checkout isle, describing my coat to the coat-check girl who can't find it, leaving a message on a voicemail, having to make a toast, complaining to a waiter, or whatever you, The Fluent, think is easy to do can be monumental for a stutterer. In the course of a day I go from one verbally hazardous situation to the next,  a stuttering minefield that could blow at any time. 

         Yesterday, during lunch, a car filled with passengers stopped in the street and rolled down the window to ask me for complicated directions. "I'm from out of town too," I apologized and shrugged my shoulders, just to avoid the guaranteed stutter on the deadly 'D' of Duboce Park and the treacherous 'S' of Safeway Supermarket.  The fact that I was wearing my hospital scrubs and obviously work at the huge hospital behind me only occurred to me after they pulled away. There have been times when I did offer my help that cars have pulled away from me before I could get out  the word I was stuck on, and other times when strangers on foot have moved away quickly after making the mistake of coming up to me for a question. I can promise you that an unintended encounter with a stutterer is amongst the most socially awkward and uncomfortable moments you will ever experience, if you haven't experienced one already, depending on how long the stutter lasts. I've seen some stutters so long at Stuttering Conventions that The Guinness Book of Records should be notified. There's kind of a Kinsey Scale of Stuttering, but instead of being a zero and totally straight or a 10 and incredibly gay, you are perfectly fluent or  it takes you five minutes to say your name. I rate myself a 3-3.5. Being part of a continuum,  I might sound less fluent than a 1.-1.5, but compared to an 8.5, I sound more eloquent of an orator than Barack Obama. 

       My longest stutter happened six years ago in  front of my ex-boyfriend Grant. I was able to clock it on my watch at one minute 20 seconds give or take a few. I was  trying to say the words "medically necessary" over the phone to an insurance agent. Try doing anything that's not enjoyable for one minute and 20 seconds and you'll see just how long it actually is.  All Grant could do was helplessly watch as I did a convulsive rain-dance around the bedroom with my head bobbing up and down like a sewing machine on high speed trying to force the words out. It became a game between us for him to time business calls I made to strangers. We would see if I could beat my personal best and stutter even longer, but 80 seconds still remains the record four years after Grant and I broke up. 

     Now Grant and our friend Ron make me order the food whenever we're hanging out and calling for delivery. The worst is when its Chinese because  the woman answering at Hunan Palace has a  hard time understanding even when someone who doesn't have a speech problem orders. As I order the appetizers and soups and entrees and give the address and my charge card number, Grant sits in front of me and Ron sits on the side, both holding their IPhones switched to video to capture my stuttering at different angles in hopes of putting it on YouTube and, if the stuttering is bad enough, it going viral.  But so far the plan has backfired and I haven't stuttered enough for it to be worthwhile. That's what makes stuttering a particularly spiteful handicap. It will always do what it wants to do, appearing when you don't want it to and disappearing when you try to make it appear.  I can't coax it out on cue no matter how hard I try. It comes when it comes. We'll just have to keep on ordering Chinese delivery, and if you ever see someone taking much too long to say Mongolian Beef and Won Ton War Soup on YouTube, you'll know it's me.    

STUTTERPUSS

Appproaching 50,
 fully dressed with all my hair.

    Me,  I’m a Mediterranean with a shaved head. Alright fine, a bald Jew. But that doesn’t mean I’m not hot. I’m the hottest a Jew can be without being put in an oven.
   Exactly what do you think is more offensive about that last sentence, the oven or my vanity?  You might think it’s the oven, but trust me, my vanity will offend you again and again.

        Part of my hotness is my hairiness.  God taketh and God giveth.  Gone from my head but bountiful on my body. God spareth me back hair though, which my straight brother Mitchell doesn’t understand or think is fair. Mitchell is two years older  than me, forty pounds heavier, as bald, but is as hairy in back as in front. And his body hair is patchy, like a frequently pissed- on lawn. “ How the hell do you only have a little bit of hair on your back? Is it in the gay gene?”  I told him I simply refused to let my back grow it. “Willpower. The same way that some people fight off cancer with their mind, that’s how I fought off back hair.” That’s what I would like to think but I was just follicularly luckier than him. My body hair always has gotten me attention ever since it came into bloom in my late teens. Long ago I learned people either like it or they don’t. There is no middle ground when you are as hairy as me. Some people are even disgusted by it. Repulsed, revolted. But let me tell you, when people do like it, they really like it. They can’t stop stroking it when I have my shirt off. I have become a walking petting zoo. People think it just grows wild and does what it wants. If my body hair isn’t trimmed occasionally I would start to look like I am wearing a Persian rug. Trimming it is tricky because it has to look like it hasn’t been trimmed, or else it winds up looking like short manicured gay porno star body hair. My entire body takes around an hour and a fully charged buzzer for it to be professionally coiffed. Luckily I have found a man named Anthony, the Leonardo DaVinci of manscaping, who is up for the task. I also have to do is make sure I am tan.  My hairy forearms look like long dark opera gloves on my skin if  I stay out of the sun for too long. Luckily I come from a long line of tanners so sunning myself is something that comes naturally.  My mother tanned, and her mother before her, back in the days of baby oil and aluminum reflectors.  Since high school I have had a tan. But I swear I  know when enough is enough. Thank God  I don’t suffer from the dreaded disease Tanorexia. Not knowing when you’re tan enough is a terrible thing.  And now there’s Smilirexia, not knowing when your teeth are  white enough. Having both at the same time is especially dangerous because they play off each other. That’s when Jewish housewives start looking like their black housekeepers.

      As part of my master plan to be just tan enough, I have given up  all outdoor sunbathing and allow myself only one 18 minute high pressure tanning booth visit every four weeks, or maybe three and a half weeks.  Tanning in public is just too embarrassing now.  It should be done clandestinely, out of  people’s view, late at night or very early in the morning before everyone else is awake. The worst part  is leaving the salon when you’re done, especially when its on a busy street. The only other time I experience the same shame is coming out of sex shops or drug paraphernalia stores. I feel safe when I’m inside amongst my fellow tanners, the only ones who I can trust to understand and not judge me.

    The reason why I bring all this up is that I just got back from the dermatologist. It seems that God not only finds it necessary to make me bald, but to also give me pre-cancerous spots on the top of that bald head. They are called Actinic Keratosis, or AK’s for short, and grow into cancer 2% of the time.

  “The chances are still enough to make me concerned, and hopefully to make you concerned. Having no hair makes you much more susceptible to cancer there.”

  “ Oh that’s fair, “ I said, annoyed at the injustice.

He asked me how much sun I normally get. There are certain things people will over-estimate, such as how strict they are about recycling and how much they still have sex with their significant others, and there are things they will under-estimate, such as how much alcohol and drugs they have a month and how often they cheat on their significant others. I tried to play down my UV exposure,  only admitting to tanning in a booth once every 2 months.

     “Nothing is worse than doing that”.  

“ How about using my cell phone while I’m in the booth. Then I get brain cancer too. That’s worse,” I said.

Dermatologists have no sense of humor when it comes to tanning.  He was proudly pale and didn’t understand why I would even think of tanning with the writing so clearly on the wall, or in this case my bald head.

 He took out small sample tubes of moisturizer with an SPF of 30. “You’ll be wanting to put this on your scalp and face in the mornings before you go out.”

   “ But I work six days a week inside the hospital. I’m hardly ever outside during the day.”

   “ You can get damage from the sun from just your walk to work,” he said ominously, the same way a shark expert says you can get attacked by a Great White in three feet of water.

   I started to panic, envisioning a life wearing long black opera gloves. I started deal-making. As a middle child, that’s how I have gotten through life. You make me happy, I’ll make you happy.

  “ I’ll put it on if I eat lunch outside but not in the morning. How’s that? And I’ll only do 14 minutes in the booth instead of 18.”

  “Anytime in a tanning booth is too much time”.

  “How about I wear a hat in the summer and never tan outside again?“

  “ Listen.  It’s all up to you, Gary. This is the only kind of cancer that we actually choose to get or not get. Let me at least take care of these for you right now before they grow into anything worse“ He left the room for a minute and came back with his liquid nitrogen canister, which looks like a blowtorch without the torch. “ This might sting a little, and the spots will get red then scab, but the marks should be totally gone in a few weeks.”

   “So wait a minute, you’re telling me that all I have to do is come here and have you burn them off and they wouldn’t turn cancerous?”

    “In theory, but…”

     I interrupted him before he could finish. “ That’s a theory I like. Let’s go with it, “   I smiled, leaning my head towards his blowtorch. “ Freeze away.”  

    Suddenly the world was bright and sunny again knowing that I could continue tanning as long as I keep coming back and having the AK‘s zapped off.  This will of course someday catch up with me, but at least for now I wouldn’t be going to the opera.