Tuesday, July 22, 2014

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….

Friday, July 11, 2014

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….

Sunday, April 20, 2014

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….