Belly Up

Some may raise an eyebrow about my judgment that I've gotten myself in such deep trouble in not one but two marriages.  There is a bright side here.  My second husband put pressure on me for several years to fund a flip house with him as architect and project manager.  He did a master bed/bath on my house in Providence that was always WAY over budget and had to be shut down mid-project repeatedly when I'd run out of cash/over budget. 10 grand become 50 grand by the time it was done.  Needless to say, although the finished project was lovely, it wicked pissed me off.

I could never see the math on a flip house working in my favor or in a way that would keep the family (you know, the kids who need a roof over their heads and college money, me, all the other people who would be at risk including HIM) financially safe and sound, so I declined.  I also can't stand being overextended.  Just because you have immaculate and deep credit doesn't mean you should use it, not even to make your super hot but not so business savvy second husband happy.  The care and feeding of the insecure ego of an ambitious but undertalented man is not more important to me than the care and feeding of his children.  I had ruined credit for 7 years after my first marriage from the foreclosure of a jointly held rental property awarded to first hubby in the divorce, NEVER AGAIN.

Dear second ex-husband started an (overly) ambitious flip project with a financial partner 20 months ago, right as we were separating, made the newspapers when they started and everything.  It is now insolvent/bankrupt/barely under construction and their business has failed to the tune of over 1 million. Someone else, not me,  signed up to have their beautiful family's finances ruined by my undertalented and insecure ex-husband.  I got out of the marriage/any financial entanglement with dear second ex-husband 4 months before this all went South. He made off with 1/3 of my net worth in the divorce, which is very likely now GONE.

So it turns out that I'm neither dumb nor cruelly withholding after all…..I'll suffer unwelcome virally and bacterially contaminated bodily fluids from an insecure immature husband long before I'll share bank accounts, thank you….

Second Husband

Bobby Rayford died at 16 of AIDS in 1969, diagnosed posthumously in 1987 from frozen tissue samples.  He is the first known case of HIV.  He had many tests done at the time, including tests positive for herpes, HPV and Chlamydia while he was still living.  Doctors worked in frustration as he withered away and died inexplicably in spite of their efforts.  Bobby refused to speak of his sexuality, but was presumed to have been a male prostitute.

A year and a half ago, I landed in the ER with a terrible headache and unexplained high fever. I had other bizarre, seemingly unrelated symptoms including rectal pain, loss of sensation in my feet, upper leg weakness, trouble with balance, urine and fecal retention, pain and intractable itching in my back.  Several specialists were consulted and all were stumped.  After a month of tests and uncontrolled ongoing symptoms, I finally got a diagnosis.

My primary care doctor, who was also my then husband's doctor, knew my husband had been having affairs and had tested him for STDs several weeks before I started to become ill.  A married 50-year-old doctor, I was diagnosed with Elsberg syndrome, a 4 in one million complication of primary herpes infection.  I tested positive for herpes, Chlamydia and HPV, exactly like Bobby Rayford.  I also had bacterial vaginitis.  This was my first (only, and certainly last) time with STDs.  It felt like I was in a Matchbox car commercial during Saturday morning cartoons.  STDs! Collect them all!! Green one, yellow one, red one, blue one!!

There but for the grace of God, I managed not to contract Hepatitis C or HIV from my husband and whatever he was doing with his genitals in his free time while I was at work.  I will not die like Bobby Rayford.  I will always have physical and neurological limitations related to having gotten so sick last year, but am blessed every day to be as healthy as I am. If you see me struggling with stairs or sometimes walking with a slight limp, this is why.  I had really smart doctors last year who made great medication and operative choices for me.  Only one of them had ever treated someone with Elsberg syndrome before. I was the healthier case with the better outcome. I've been back at work for a year.  I'm now off all the meds, finally, a year and a half later.

My former husband would tell you the marriage ended because I was a bitch.  He'd say I didn't put out every day like I used to once our daughter was born.  The head I gave him must have become sub par when I was busy making $375 K a year providing our family with a lovely comfortable 1%er lifestyle. We had 2 homes, luxury cars and a vintage car, Rocky Mountain ski and Caribbean vacations every year, but my pussy was loose after the baby.  He could put whatever hard liquor he fancied that week on my credit card, get himself taken into protective custody by the town police, act defiant while drunk to the policemen, and I would pay both the credit card bill and bail him out of jail.  But sometimes I had a 7 am business meeting at work and I'd say no when he felt like sticking his junk up my ass. If only I had just fucked more, fucked harder, never expecting a thing in return, braying like the one dimensional Asian porn chicks he preferred, the marriage would have remained strong.

In case it's at all puzzling to anyone as to why I filed for divorce and continue to  hold my former husband Curtis Boivin in such indignant disdain, you now have your answer.  I'm not bitter but I am certainly angry to have been the collateral damage of his wanton carnality, the poster child for the consequences of unsafe sex on the down low.  I'm not ashamed to have suffered terribly from the illnesses he infected me with, but he should be. Of course, consumed with with male privilege as he is, he is not ashamed.  He thinks I still somehow owe him something.

My husband was with one of his lovers when I called him to tell him the news of my diagnosis of Elsberg syndrome.  He chose to spend the night with the lover rather than comfort, console or stand by the side of the wife who he'd gotten so terribly ill.  When I had emergency surgery from a complication of treatment a month later, rather than care for me when I was discharged but still sick and unable to walk, he moved out.  His priorities were and remain crystal clear.

I'm a retired bike racer and an ER physician, so I can handle a whole lotta of nonsense with aplomb.  But this guy?  Can't wait 'til some dumb idiot splatters him while texting in their a shitbox car while he's out on one of the $5000 bicycles I bought him.

I have several friends living with HIV and even AIDS.  I cannot compare the illness I've had the last year and a half to what they are suffering.  I feel grateful every day that I dodged that bullet, because it was so obviously headed right between my eyes….

Merry Prankster Sign Scrabble: A Photo Essay

This is a small but vital public service that civic-minded, queer, middle-aged, has-been journalists provide for the betterment of society-at-large. You're welcome :)

 What you have here is an abomination against nature, an insult to civility as we know it. Something must be done to put a stop to such heresy before children see it and start accepting it as normal. We usually attack under cover of darkness, but desperate times call for desperate measures. This hostile transgression against all that is right in the world demanded that we throw caution to the wind and take swift and decisive action in broad daylight. There is a culture war, and we're picking sides….. Our calculations determined that I should be the bottom and my co-conspirator the flyer because I outweigh her by 30 pounds. What we overlooked was that….. ….neither one of us was ever a cheerleader, so I promptly dropped her on her ass. This was not part of the plan. I think we accidentally smushed a dormant beach rose, which is a violation of Merry Prankster Environmental Preservation Policy (MPEPP). Yup, that's me rockin' that size 10 badonkadonk, a veritable marvel of gravity defiance, like staring at the sun, and in the twerk ready position, aww yeah….. I finally summoned a surge of Wonder Twins Power/fat ass prime sprinter watts and we got down to business…..and Kim Kardashian can only wish her bootay was that fly….. Girlfriend may be svelte, but in a clutch situation she's no Johnny Manziel, if you catch my drift. When crunch time was upon us, she was laughing so hard she was rendered incapable of spelling any better than the 'roided out bros at the gym, even though she's the one with the overpriced English degree. Not to worry, though, I have surgical precision and laser-like focus…..

. It sure is an awkward way for one of your queer grammar Nazi friends to flush out that you're a top, but like I said, I always step up under pressure….

She didn't drop me either, so mad props for that…..

Merry Pranksters Sign Scrabble: making the world a better place, one grammatical correction at a time. You're welcome, bitches….

my $10,000 blog

I've never really caught fire with Blogger. I was more of a rampant myspace blogger until late August of last year. That's when I got sued by one of my readers. One of my readers decided that my blogs could be used as evidence that I'm a bad parent. My litigious reader is my ex-husband from 17 years ago. My children with him are now 17 and 18.

So far I'm 10 grand and 10 months into defending myself and have yet to have his nuisance suit heard by a judge.

I started magazine writing in 2002. I was pretty active and published frequently from 2003-2007. I realized that I was way more interested in writing fiction than non-fiction, so I started writing blogs for the mental exercise and to put the ideas that often come to me on paper. I usually made 100-200 bucks per magazine article. I probably made 2500-5000 bucks writing professionally.

I heard from one of my readers/cycling buddies yesterday that one of my magazine articles got plagiarized. I recall specifically that I sold it for 100 bucks.

So what I'm wondering is can I break even by suing the person who plagiarized me? Why is my freedom of speech costing me money? Shouldn't I make money expressing my thoughts, and should my thoughts be hijacked to satisfy other people's greed?

spinning class doper

Crap.
Curtis just bought an altitude tent on Ebay wicked cheap for 'cross season.
That sounds like birth control as far as I'm concerned. I don't want to sleep in an effing tent.
I don't race bikes anymore. In 3 weeks when Phoebe starts kindergarten I am planning on getting my fat ass in shape with all that spare time, but within reason. The only thing I plan on racing to is the buffet table.
So my natural hematocrit at sea level when I was training and racing hard was always between 47 and 49, ALWAYS above the legal limit for women.
I'm just freaky that way.
Curtis runs in the high 30's. I always feel like I'm telling him he has cancer when I read him the numbers.
So I'm going to end up as a spinning class doper, rocking the hematocrit of 55.
All you other bitches get outta my way.

Rhode Island is the Belgium of New England

It's really gotten unbearable.
Where to begin.
I've been home for less than 24 hours.
There's a new detour sign off my highway exit that makes absolutely no sense.
I had to tell someone at work today that it wasn't okay to be verbally abusive to me. Hey I'm just the doctor, sorry to bother you with all these pesky questions and interrupt your cell phone call and argument with your family.
My lab coat came out of the dryer wrinkled and I refuse to iron or pay for a dry cleaner out of my own pocket. Someone suggested that I should put it in the hospital laundry. A week has gone by and even the one English speaking person who works in the hospital laundry couldn't tell me where my coat is. A real model of service and efficiency right there. It only has my name and fucking department embroidered on it.
Some creppy looking guy with a clipboard who looks like he is Vice President of the Water Sprinklers keeps writing down my license plate in the patient lot closest to the ER. I think I'm suppoesed to park half a mile away and take a shuttle. I'm trying to fuck with him by switching it up between 3 different cars. There's some really great retention of physicians right there. I can't wait 'til my boss gets their printout on my parking offenses and I get a scolding.
Tonight I took Damian to golf practice. I still can't tell the "normal" people in Pawtucket from the retards.
I cruised around with an open White Ale on the way home from golf-it isn't possible to be pulled over for any traffic offense in Providence no matter how badly you drive. I keep trying and they keep not pulling me over.
We attempted to engage in our favorite low class Rhode Island pasttime tonight-returning 6 months worth of empties to the packy in nearby Massachusetts.
The bottle room had just closed for the night.
Denied.
WTF???
Every time I come home it's more and more like the Bulgarian Embassy around here. The stupid leading the useless.

Dear PMS

What the hell? You again?
My Mirena IUD is clearly ceasing to spit out enough hormones because you're back. Last month about this time my tits felt like they were going to explode. I was so confused that I thought I was pregnant.
Since it's been 10 years since I had PMS I'd forgotten the hell that is you. Then brown gunk started collecting in my underwear. Oh yeah, periods. I forgot about that too. I don't even own tampons it's been so long. I was so slick on the birth control pills for the 5 years before I got knocked up that I hadn't had one of those since 1997.
Ok, it was wimpy, but it still sucked. At least my tits stopped hurting.
PMS, you are my sworn enemy. I remember the lost days when I was a teenager, in bed puking and bleeding through to the mattress, my pelvis in a vise. I remember that bathroom stall in Berlin when I got my first period in 9 months after weighing 95 pounds on the track team, thinking I was bleeding to death. My mother told me it was all in my head.
Funny. My head felt fine.
Even more unwelcome was the day when I was 19 when I puked at work, went home to bed on Motrin and Alice Cooper's "Only Women Bleed" came on the radio.
That was spooky.
Remember that stage when I had cramps on the start line and spent the first 20 miles strongly considering crossing the yellow line just to put myself out of my own misery? Then I bled through my chamois to my white Turbo saddle and still finished in the money? That was a real Uta Pippig moment.
PMS. You are mean. Period. You are gross.
As I type, PMS, my breasts are so engorged and sharp with pain I keep checking them to make sure there are not knitting needles sticking out of them.
I figured out after that BS last month in a couple days I'll get one of those wimpy old lady periods again.
This isn't funny anymore. Knock it off. I'm old.