Racist or Not?

I just got signed up for a new health/dental insurance and am starting to look for new doctors to become my primary physicians.  (The new medical insurance was the whole purpose behind the recent domestic partnership.)

So, I'm pretty much picking doctors based on a list of names only.

Honestly, I caught myself looking for the whitest names possible.  Or, I guess, most European names.  I was half ashamed when I realized what I was doing.  Here's what I found myself thinking as I came across each name:

Changlin Wang?  Not comfortable.
Lucy Kalanithi?  :|  Can't even place the origin of that last name.  Indian?
Nailah Thompson?  I'm liking Thompson, but what's this Nailah about?
Hai-tao Tang?  Fun to say.  Not comfortable.
Safa Magid?  :|
Nardine Riegels?  For some reason I picture a really old, Jewish lady.

Then, I decided to try googling their names, and now I can at least see their pictures and where they graduated from.  Aiming for Michigan grads!

What leads me to this method of picking doctors?  If you ever go in for your high blood pressure (Me) or high cholesterol (Me) or poison ivy penis (Me) or weird rash on your anus that you confuse with a hemorrhoid (Me) or acne all along your legs and ass when you work out (Me), you don't really want to have problems coming from misunderstandings or miscommunication.

That was exactly the problem I had with a doctor in L.A.  He's talking about heart complications, and all I get is slurs and mumbles.  Heck, I ended up getting an unnecessary Hepatitis test at one point.  I avoided him for the whole butthole rash incident.  I actually quit going to the doctor altogether.  So, I guess my subconscious was trying to control this scenario in the future, when the only factor I can influence is which name I pick.

Dentists, though, I guess I'm going more for breath?  I don't really need to understand what the dentist says.  I have amazing, natural teeth.  I found my last dentist the same way, and his name was something like Scott O'Malley.  Too bad it wasn't something solid like Joseph Smith.  (Heck, that name is white enough to base a religion off of.)  White people just don't typically have pungent lunches, I guess?  Maybe Italians...  No, I guess that one's a little bit racist.

♫ Everyone's a little bit racist ♫,
~RoB

Hand Washing

I'm a little confused by society's requirement that I wash my hands after I pee.

Also, furry people with warts must hold hands.

If you've ever taken a shower with me, you know quite well how ritualistically clean my penis is.  It gets washed 2 or 3 times in the course of a single shower.  I can't really say that I take better care of any other part of my body.  Maybe my teeth.

So, why is it that when I walk into a public restroom, after touching the doors and the light switch and any other medium in my way, do I not immediately wash my hands before pulling lil' ~RoB out to pee?  I mean, I have a perfectly good idea of where my penis has been for the past 45 minutes since I last peed.  I don't, however, have any clue what kind of creepy, diseased crackwhore you finger-banged during lunch before coming in here to wash off your hands.  Or, slightly more realistically, if you dragged your ass out of here after pooping without appropriately anti-bacterializing (word?) yourself.  Shouldn't I be worried about me?

Dirty touches door.  I touch door.  I touch penis.  BAM!  Gonorrhea.  Or poison ivy.  Or something else I'd rather not have my penis infected with.

Things would be different if I was serving food or something.  But the average person should feel privileged to touch the hand that touches my pristine penis.  That being said, I always wash my hands.  Always.  Regardless if I'm doing #1, #2, #3, or some sick combination of all the former with extras.  Well, that is unless I'm naked, but then I usually don't use my hands at all during the process of urinating.

So... who wants to shake my hand?
~RoB

Gym Locker Rooms*

For those unawares, I now teach Zumba for a fancy sports club chain throughout the Bay Area.  This provides me a free membership, and I've been trying to take full advantage of it.  It'd be nice if I could get myself all sexy again, like when I graduated from high school.

There are so many things going on in a sports club locker room that life just doesn't prepare you for.  Thinking about watching the baseball game tonight?  Why not sit and watch it in the nude at the entrance to the locker room!  Want to grab a shower after your work out?  Don't be shy, walk up and down the aisles while you're butt naked to get a last few laps in before you wash yourself!  Have a clean towel in your hand?  Good.  Try not to use it to cover you at all, and throw it straight into the dirty pile once you've finished taking it on a tour of the locker room!  I'd love to use the sauna, I'm just not comfortable with sitting there for 15 minutes while you stare at me absolutely naked.  There are millions of clean towels laying around, would you like me to hand you one?

This is what we all imagine.

Though this is much closer to reality. Much closer.

Is it just me, or is there a tad bit too much nakedness going on in there?  Hey, I like to be naked, as we've already learned this week.  Hell, I've watched gay porn.  I have no problems at all with the naked male body.  But don't you think that we could calm down the amount of penis haphazardly loitering around?  Can't we go back to the shy nakedness we all had in middle/high school?

Also, there are things too awkward for me to think about you doing, let alone see you do.  Standing naked in front of a mirror to rub your entire body down with lotion is a bit much.  More than a bit much.  Honestly, I don't even think I'd enjoy seeing a girl do this after 30 seconds or so.  There are places on my body I try to only touch with soap, and lotion shouldn't be applied so vigorously that it starts to lather.

Finally, the naked, elderly male body is scary.  Should I plan on my balls really drooping down that low?  f.m.l.

*Updated
Today there was an absolutely naked man sitting in front of the mirror shaving (his face, thank god) with an electric shaver.  That really necessary?  To top it off, he was on his cell phone (I'm assuming, otherwise he was a lost homeless man) cell yelling about how dark and devastating his current divorce is.  Cover your balls, walk outside, and talk in the lobby so that you aren't interrupting the procession of loitering penises that are tromping around the room.  kthxbye.

Maybe I'm not as comfortable being naked as I thought, or maybe this will make it worse...
~RoB

Naked Roommate

What differentiates a nudist from someone who just likes to be naked?  Anything?

Let's start by clarifying that I don't think I'm physically attractive.  Though I am fairly happy with all parts of my body below my waistline (minus some acne and a few random patches of hair), I feel like my top half really brings down the total value.  I really don't think people should have to look at me naked, nor would I expect anyone to take pleasure in it.  That being said; I am naked all of the time.  Not in a sexual way.  I just like to come home from work, take off the big kid clothes, and walk around in my birthday suit.

This kind of makes me an awful roommate, though I don't think that my 3rd roommate knows.  (She's been unfortunate enough to see me in a towel and maybe my boxers a few times, but no major incidents yet.)  Annie certainly knows, and those close to her should send their condolences.  I feel like if we were ever to break up, the biggest catalyst (or habit she would take pleasure in ridding from her life) would be my almost-constant nudity.  If you have ever been in our apartment, you've stood where naked ~RoB has stood.  If you've ever sat on anything, chances are naked ~RoB has, too (except our dining room table, cuz those chairs aren't comfy for naked peeps).  I cook naked sometimes, I've cleaned the bathroom naked, I've worked out naked, I sleep naked, and I generally loiter around sans clothing.

I rarely think of it, but I've wondered a few times if anyone can ever see me through the windows.  It gets hot in our apartment this time of year, so I'm a big advocate of keeping our windows open for the breeze to flow through.  But is that exposing some of our poor neighbors to naked ~RoB, too?

I know two people from college that were self-proclaimed nudists.  Seriously.  But what is it that pushes you to make that last step and proclamation?  I have no interest in joining a colony.  I love volleyball, but I have no intention of ever playing it naked (my Herbal Essences bottles tell me that is the #1 pastime for nudist colonies).  Aside from some drunken incidents, I don't really have much interest in showing the whole world my penis.  Unless you ask.  Or happen to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.  Or happen to have eyes.

So, am I a nudist, or does everyone do this (except Annie)?
~RoB

Fred Flintstone Poetry

There once was a guy dressed as Fred

whose girlfriend sprayed her hair red.

He thought it'd be fun

if he too sprayed his gun.

So good times were waiting ahead.

The party was Halloween Prog.

There was Spongebob and Scooby the dog.

A drink at each stop,

and you drink 'til you drop,

but the drinking was just a prologue.

They drank and drank and drank some more.

Fred passed out once and b'gan to snore.

It was quite a test

as they all progressed.

Fred managed to follow next door.

Fluorescent: the type of hair dye

Fred made Betty use for her guise.

At the end of the night

the dye glowed in black light.

So Fred decided to flash all nearby.

All near now have PTSD

because Fred flashed his wee-wee.

To the part he held true,

yelling 'yabba-dabba-do!'

Will a night beat this ever? Maybe!

First View of ~RtL

I got an email from a friend who, in trying to kill some time, finally checked out my blog for the first time.  The front page story at that time was... a swollen, poison-ivy penis.  That's the only post she's ever read, and she might be scarred for life.  Unfortunately for her, she's both vegetarian, and she has to see me, in person, regularly.

So, let's say that you had only one post that you had to forward on to someone to give them a good taste of what this blog is about.  Which one would you pick?  Which posts would you avoid?

I know some of you could do without ever having to look at the Kiwis (& Ewoks) post again,
~RoB

Michael & the M-word

I remember sitting on my couch watching the movie Michael, with John Travolta, as a young adolescent.  The word 'adolescent' is the only word I can think that foreshadows this story, since to me, that word means unfortunate-kid-going-through-puberty.

Anybody remember this movie?

I know that I watched this movie.  I can vividly picture the layout of my living room, where I was laying across the couch that was butted up against the long wall.  Pops was in his recliner, and that sums up our living room furniture (as well as the total square footage of 50% of my house back then).  This movie was clearly playing on our TV.  I can remember a few pictures, but the whole story is lost to me.  Traumatic amnesia?  I think so.

I have NO clue what prompted this conversation.  I have NO clue at what point in the movie it happened.  All I know is, one moment I'm into some sappy movie about an archangel, and the next minute I'm getting the M-word speech.

Masturbation.

"It's OK to masturbate.  I used to do it all the time.  I've heard you in the bathroom flipping through pages, early in the morning."  I believe that is all he had to say, yet it feels like I was held down on the couch for days being tortured by awful masturbation conversation.  It was true.  He did have dirty mags in the bathroom, which I took it upon myself to explore.  I also had found a porno tape, which was my first real introduction to 'what everyone was talking about'.  I also have a sneaking suspicion that he caught me workin' it once, but that's never been confirmed.

Regardless, as comfortable as I am with masturbation (as well as everyone else should be), I can't help but feel a little scarred when I think back on this scene.  It certainly hasn't affected my performance as I get older, but it may have something to do with my crippling fear of awkward moments on TV and movies.

This story is trumped only be Granny's crabs story, the bottle of Viagra in our medicine cabinet in the bathroom, Pops' penile medical problems that he drew on a notepad for me, being walked in on Granny while 'watching a movie' with a girl, and seeing my mom and her then-husband doing it doggy-style (standing up, which is damn impressive, Mom) in the middle of the night on the way to the bathroom.

So, yeah, talk to your kids about sex..?
~RoB

T-T-T-Telephone

I share a line at work with a new legal intern.  For the most part, he knows that most calls come for me, cuz I'm the man.  We both have Caller ID, so he should be able to intercept any calls for him.  However, there have been all kinds of wonderful ridiculousness that we've learned so far.

We've learned that only women in prison still use payphones.

We are in different buildings.  So, we can't just wave each other off when calls go astray.  We needed a system.  If we both pick up, there's a dialtone in the background, but we can talk as if we have our own little secret communication line.  We can't transfer calls, and if either of us dials our number, it forwards to the cell phone of a (rumored to be cute) girl that used to work here.  We settled on just keeping gchat open, which doesn't really change anything on my end ;)

On Monday, my phone started ringing while somebody knocked on the door of my building.  It apparently locked itself in being slammed by the wind.  By the time I got to my phone to pick it up, the voicemail was starting.

I actually have to go to this intern's office to get my voicemails, since the lines are all screwy.  Apparently, the message system turns his speakerphone on if a message is being recorded (probably for screeners).  Anyway, his phone turns on automatically.  Here was our gchat, afterward:

12:48 PM intern: when [someone] called you earlier it played on my speaker phone for some reason

 me: awesome

  i picked it up as the voicemail was picking it up

  it was an odd occurrence

  shouldn't happen again

12:49 PM 

intern: i hung up but was contemplating yelling PENIS and then hanging up

12:50 PM me: I probably would have peed myself

12:53 PM intern: should have done it...

12:57 PM me: it would have been too much for Monday morning

Glad to know I'm not the only one who has urges to yell 'penis' at inappropriate times,
~RoB

Poison Ivy (DIETY)

I have a few bug bites that I've been scratching lately.  When things itch, I have a bad habit of just scratching them off, until they bleed, and then I'm happy... enough.  It's simultaneously satisfying and masochistic.  I cannot stand something that itches.  It prompted me to post a Facebook status of "I'd rather bleed than itch".  Subsequent conversation reminded me of my worst poison ivy story.  Enjoy.

DIETY...
...about the summer before I got my driver's license.  It's easy to remember, because I distinctly remember taking a driving lesson in a pair of loose sweatpants.  It was the summer of sweatpants/sweatshorts/mesh.  It was the summer of poison ivy on my penis.

It started on a warm, humid afternoon that I spent most of the day helping Granny garden.  Throughout the day, I sporadically ran inside to pee, since that's what humans do.  I'm a regular hand washer, but my hand-washing program concentrates mostly on a post-peeing regiment.  I probably peed 4-5 times throughout the day, but who really keeps track.

Later that day, I may, or may not, have played with it a little.  It's happened too many times in my life to try and think back to that specific day and weigh rather or not it happened.  Anyway, the rest of the day was uneventful.

In the middle of the night, I woke up with a strange burning/itchy sensation down there, specifically along the ridge of the head.  Best idea I had?  Cup cold water in my hand and dip it in.  I definitely had visions of dipping it in other fluids, as well as covering it in anti-itch cream.  I figured a shower in the morning would fix everything, and I managed to go back to sleep.

The next morning, Granny pointed out a rash on the side of my face.  A rash on my face?  What could that be.  I ran into the bathroom and looked in the mirror.  I immediately put everything together, and I almost started crying.
♪ BUM...Bum...bummmmmm...... ♪

The best description I've came up with over the years to describe the end of my penis is... a portabello mushroom.  That's what it turned into as it started to swell, a reaction to the poison ivy and maybe even all the stuff I put on it to try and cure it.

Why didn't I wear gloves?

It seemed like months of awkward appointments at the public health center (confirming rather or not I was circumcised via hand motions/drawings in the air by an old Filipino woman), shots in my ass, cremes, baths with all kinds of salts/additives, calamine, no workin' it, and fearing it may never return to the size of an average penis... that I'd never be able to use it again.  Hell, maybe all that swelling helped make it bigger...

I have this really vivid memory of taking a bath and looking down at my poor, blushing, portabello mushroom inflatable-toy as it bounced in the water.  It was so sad, yet extremely entertaining to me now.

So... yeah.... no gloves, no love...
~RoB