MEDICAL ADJUSTMENTS

I just lost my doctor. Again.

 

For more thirty years, I had the same family doctor who saw me through regular exams and a melanoma ordeal, diagnosed when I was thirty-four. I’m supremely grateful I can’t recall any other concerns in terms of physical health—not even some debilitating flu or nasty colds. In many respects, I’m a healthy guy. 

 

But I can’t go without a doctor. Complications may arise. Ones that could jeopardize the “safe, ” manageable lifestyle I’ve carved out for the past nine years.

 

As one may surmise, my cherished, long-term doctor retired. But that was more than a year ago. We said our goodbyes which included tears and hugs and, since I’m a writer, a letter I wrote that conveyed the appreciation I needed to express without it getting muddled or muted due to worries about putting my doctor further behind schedule. He had a reputation of always running late because he never rushed his time with patients. Certainly not with me.

 

Before leaving, he’d arranged for a new doctor to take over the practice. A man half his (and my) age. I knew I would miss my familiar doctor, but I recognized a consolation, knowing in a clear, practical sense The New Guy would oversee my care until I died or moved from Vancouver. This would be a good thing.

 

I freak out before seeing a doctor. I’m a bundle of nerves during medical appointments. Basically, I can be too much. Thirty-four years ago, while living in Santa Monica, California, I went to see a new family doctor and, at the end of the session, he looked at me with disdain and said, “I never want to see you again.” (When did seeing a doctor mirror a coffee date?!) I remember thinking, Can he do that? and then: Why would I push the point? Despite the Hippocratic Oath, sometimes a doctor can indeed do harm.

 

Fourteen months after being assigned The New Guy, I got an email stating he was quitting his practice. While Canada prides itself in low- to no-pay healthcare even as it’s always struggling to deal with systemic flaws, it doesn’t mean all doctors are happy with billing procedures and the amount they are paid. (Back in 1978, my father, an Ontario medical doctor, moved our family to Texas, knowing he’d earn a larger salary under a less just American system.) According to a follow-up email after The New Guy’s announcement, the funding formula for seeing patients with HIV was changing—presumably being reduced. 

 

While I am not HIV+, I know that many of the patients seen by the medical practice which included my beloved, now retired, gay doctor are. When I first saw my doctor in 1995, virtually all his patients were gay men and, on days he wasn’t working in the office, he worked for an AIDS clinic. Lifesaving antiretroviral drugs came on the scene about a year later, but I knew it was important to feel safe, supported and unstigmatized when I went for appointments. All my gay friends felt it was essential to have a gay doctor.

 

Hmm…did my Santa Monica doctor reject me because of my frantic case of the nerves or because I was gay? Maybe it wasn’t an either-or situation.

 

HIV treatments have changed and, I suppose the provincial government decided to reduce funding, concluding rightly or wrongly that HIV patient care is closer to the norm now even though I would surmise that cases are still more complex and visits more costly because they take longer. Whatever the case may be, The New Guy isn’t having it. He’s quitting and most likely exploring a more financially robust area of medicine.

 

Alas, it turns out I will have to get a new doctor before I ever leave Vancouver. How that happens, I’m not so sure. I was directed to online to a site called Request a Doctor or something like that. A five-minute process. Easy-peasy. But the form seemed to indicate I’d be assigned a doctor OR a nurse practitioner. Hmm. Overlap, sure, but not the same. I want a doctor. I need a doctor. 

 

You really, really don't need
to see a photo of my nasty toenail.

I know, I know. I’ve said my physical health is fine. A nurse could probably advise me regarding my infected toenail which seems to be my only current concern. It seems silly to see anyone at all over a heinous looking toenail but over-the-counter treatments haven’t helped and I suspect I’m going to lose the entire nail. (Do they make press-on toenails so I can wear sandals without freaking out people who cast their eyes downward?) Maybe I’ll consult a pharmacist while waiting for a doctor/nurse practitioner.

 

It really needs to be a doctor. While my physical health is fine, my mental health is always vulnerable. That angsty episode with the Santa Monica doctor? In hindsight, I was probably experiencing an episode of anxiety, the kind that would be diagnosed as Generalized Anxiety decades later. That condition, combined with Social Anxiety, Major Depressive Disorder, Bipolar II and Anorexia Nervosa have led to two stints in the psych ward, one stay at a crisis care group home, a hospital admission to the provincial eating disorders ward and a group home sojourn for the same affliction. My file also includes references to Trypanophobia (fear of needles) which makes regular blood tests for my eating disorder something I delay since I seem to make a spectacle of myself each time I go. I’m done with labels—there’s no more room on my trophy shelf—so I’ve shot down other disorders for which I’ve literally ticked all the boxes at my psychiatrist’s office. A two-minute Google this morning had me newly diagnosing myself with Iatrophobia (“extreme, persistent fear of doctors, medical professionals or hospitals”) and Tomophobia (“fear or anxiety caused by forthcoming surgical procedures and/or medical interventions”). Maybe I should just get FEAR tattooed across my forehead.

 

Right now, with a primary doctor in limbo, my most pressing fear pertains to losing my long-term disability status which came into play nine years ago as of next month. Sure, I have a psychiatrist—who casually mentioned his own upcoming retirement(!) during our session two weeks ago—but I’m supposed to have a “medical team” overseeing my mental health care. The family doctor is generally viewed as team captain and, in my case, he’s skipped town, walked the plank or essentially left me in the same place I was after that episode in Santa Monica. 

 

Canada has a decent health care system, I keep telling myself, but I’ve been reading for years about doctor shortages and long wait lists for all-things-medical. Rural areas and smaller towns are impacted more than big cities, but I don’t want to get any personal insights as to how much Vancouver is affected by shortages. I’m learning that fear of not have a doctor can coexist with fear of doctors.  

 

NOTE: No actual moles are harmed
while playing this game!

I’m coping as best I can with my mental health, even as depression and anxiety keep popping up unexpectedly and I try to swat them away. (Think of a mental patient’s version of Whac-A-Mole.) In just the past month, I’ve had several episodes that have been vexing struggles and I’ve come close to loading up my backpack (soap, changes of underwear, books) and heading to Emergency for yet another possible psych ward admission. Even during a “good” month, I know I continue to function at a diminished state from my first psych ward stay in 2014 and even more so since the time of my return visit. If I lose my disability status—

 

Nope, I can’t even go there. I can’t start swirling over that.

 

Come on, Request a Doctor matchmakers! Do your thing. Please let this transition from doctor-less to doctor-assigned be but a blip.

TOO MUCH TRAVEL?

I’ve long said that travel is the best antidote to the up-and-down swirls I feel due to mental health challenges. A quick trip to Whistler or Seattle can calm my nerves, lift my mood or just provide a preventive booster to keep me on track. 

 

I’m not sure how I’d feel about travel as part of work, the kind where you check in to one hotel after another and spend 9 to 5 in one office tower after another, then unwind in a bar seven floors down from your room. That seems like travel without the experiences that make being away from home so special. No matter how luxurious they may be, I don’t want to sign up for what are basically hotel room tours. A successful trip involves as little time in the room as possible (and time in an office cubicle doesn’t count at all). 

 

Still, I’ve often thought that, if I could land a kind of job where I’m paid to venture to cities and countries and hop on trains or roam in a rental car from city to beach from art museum to funky café, I’d have found my sweet spot. Bring on the next destination!

 

Lunenburg, Nova Scotia

But here I am, momentarily between trips, three days at home after being away most of the past month and heading out again for two more months. So far I’ve covered Taos, Denver, Halifax, Prince Edward Island and Cape Breton. Upcoming: Portland, Canyonlands National Park, Denver, New York City, Dallas, Aspen and another stint in New Mexico along with a few places that haven’t been slotted in yet. 

 

To be sure, I am lucky. Privileged, in fact. I’ve loved going to each place up till now and I have no doubt I will thoroughly enjoy the places to come but these three days at home aren’t so much about rest but instead are filled with preparation for the next two months: a bike tune-up, an oil change, a laptop repair, a volunteer shift, a mortgage renewal, medication refills, a library stop, an insurance appointment, a meeting with a writing colleague, unpacking and packing, hotel bookings and loads of laundry among other things. No doubt, there is an item or two I’m forgetting. It feels like a lot.

 

I’d be okay with it—I think—if one item weren’t left off the list: writing. I define myself as a writer. Writing essays, outlining a new story and revising a manuscript bring me joy. I don’t have the time or the focus for these tasks right now and they fell off my radar during the most recent week of travel. As I take to the road for another extended period, I don’t see a time in the near future when I can fit in a few decent writing sessions. 

 

That boost I feel from travel is taking a hit from the absence of writing as my passion. I just can’t balance the two at present. It’s put me in an unfamiliar sort of funk that is clouding the glory of travel adventure.

 

Writing just doesn’t fall off my agenda.

 

Even during my first stint in a psych ward, when they took away all my possessions, including my backpack with a writing notebook, I found the fortitude and the supplies—a single sheet of white paper and one of those teensy pencils they give you at miniature golf—to write. I wrote my ideas in the tiniest print possible, filling up every inch on both sides of the paper. In my deepest ever depression, writing was what gave me hope that I could continue to be something once discharged. 

 

It’s scary to not be writing. What if ideas and inspiration don’t come back when I’m ready to slot in more writing time? What if this unprecedented break just keeps going?  

 

I have four days by myself on the road beginning tomorrow. I have a pad of paper, pens and pencils always placed in the driver’s side door pocket. As I navigate some of the less scenic patches of highway, I hope to be that guy talking aloud to himself as speedier drivers pass. Let the ideas flow again. I don’t care whether they’re about a current project or something entirely new. Let me start thinking like a writer again. Let the ideas feel so urgent and compelling that I find myself pulling over at rest stops or even the road shoulder to scribble my thoughts on that pad of paper. I normally enjoy the quiet time but I’m hoping, as this trip begins, there will be a lot of noise inside my head. The good kind. The kind that affirms that, yes, I am still a writer.

 

     

 

  

THE DOCTOR IS OUT

The doctor-patient relationship comes just after hair stylist relationship for me in terms of familiarity. I guess it’s fortunate that I see my stylist, Melissa, considerably more often than I see my doctor. Let good health keep it that way.

 

But a change is coming. Last Wednesday, I saw my family doctor, Scott, for the last time. (Yes, we’re on a first-name basis. It’s one of the things I like about him.) Scott is retiring. I knew this day was coming. Selfishly, I’d hoped it would be later rather than sooner. Sooner happens to be next month. 

 

I’ve been seeing Scott for thirty years. By comparison, Melissa’s only been cutting my hair for nine. 

 

I have no doubt I present challenges to doctors. Prior to Scott, the last family doctor I saw was in Santa Monica, a name I got from a list provided by the HMO that served my employer. That doctor—let’s just call him Dr. No-Go—said at the end of my (first and last) appointment, “I never want to see you again.”

 

I was startled. Did I hear him right? 

 

What was there to mishear?

 

Clearest, perhaps harshest breakup ever. Was he allowed to do that? What would be the point of asserting, “I’m going to pretend you didn’t say that.” Presumably, those little hammers to test knee reflexes could be weaponized. 

 

Scott knew how to deal with a squeamish, quirky patient like me. As I told him last week, he always regarded me with proper amusement, including the fact I’d show up for appointments in the early years drinking from a bottle of orange juice. “Someone told me it’ll keep me from fainting,” I explained. As he’d ask medical questions or share medical information, I gulped my OJ. 

 

I never fainted in Scott’s office. (Now would be a good time to belatedly apologize to an ophthalmologist and that guy who thought I’d passed out from a seizure during a hearing test.)

 

For at least the first two decades of seeing Scott, I had the biggest crush on him. He had—and has—classic good looks of a quintessential Scotsman: curly auburn hair, freckles, green eyes. My legs would shake; I had a hard time making eye contact. My awkwardness was no doubt seen as squeamishness. Oh, how it was so much more complicated! 

 

Despite the crush, there were a couple of years when I didn’t see Scott. It should come as no surprise that I avoided medical professionals. But then I got melanoma at thirty-four and I’d have to go in for, at the very least, referrals to dermatology specialists to get chunks of skin cut out. Fun times.

 

It wasn’t until 2014 when visits to Scott became considerably more frequent. I fell apart in his office before Easter, dropping from a chair to the floor. It wasn’t on account of fainting and, to this day, I’ve never had a seizure. Instead, I was suicidal. I was having a major mental breakdown. 

 

Scott gave me an Ativan, then asked if I needed to go to the hospital. “Yes,” I said through shakes and tears. His office was only three blocks from St. Paul’s so I did not want to go by ambulance. Instead, he called ahead to alert doctors of my pending arrival and current condition. He had an employee escort me to Emergency. My last words before leaving his office: “Don’t let them send me home.”

 

This week, I had the pleasure of thanking him once again. “You saved my life. I’m certain of that. I have lived eleven years longer—so far—thanks to you. I am immensely grateful for your care that day and since then as well.”

 

Of course, I was crying as I shared this with him. His eyes welled up, too.

 

That was my first stint in the psych ward. I was readmitted in 2017 and I’ve been on long-term disability ever since. In 2019, I was hospitalized for six weeks due to an eating disorder and then spent eight weeks in a group home. In 2021, I had a stay in a crisis care group home. I turned down another eating disorder hospitalization this year. (I’m receiving extensive outpatient support.) 

 

Scott has been the one constant as I’ve navigated my mental health journey since 2014. In that time, I’ve seen a dozen psychiatrists, a half dozen counselors, dietitians, occupational therapists, countless nurses and others in the medical field. So many introductions. But I always had Scott. What will I do without him?

 

Survive. I know that much.

 

“You made a difference,” I repeated several times during my last appointment. “I appreciate you so much. I am full of gratitude and I need to share it.” 

 

I’m guessing Scott is sixty-two. His husband, already retired at seventy, is awaiting full-time experiences together. They are planning a triathlon in the near future…at his husband’s insistence. Scott has always been very active and has gone on many adventure-packed vacations. “I’m so happy for you!” I said, setting aside tears for a joyous laugh. “So many good times are ahead for you. Enjoy retirement!”

 

A final thank you. One long, tight hug. 

 

And with a colonoscopy referral in hand—suddenly much less joy—I said goodbye.

 

Thankfully, there is a new doctor in place to take over the practice. No shoes to fill. Not possible. Just new shoes. I’ll do my best to behave. And, yes, there will be a bottle of orange juice in my backpack. Just in case.

If you are feeling suicidal, there is hope. There is an OTHER SIDE after getting proper support. In Canada and the U.S., the Suicide Crisis Hotline is 9-8-8. Also, 911 is available and medical staff are ready to connect you with support--and care--in hospital emergency rooms. 

 

 

  

NOW PLAYING, CENTER STAGE: AN EATING DISORDER

May is Mental Health Awareness Month. For myself, the awareness is a daily experience. Even on a good day, a worry will pop up—often—that a new chance to unravel could be moments away. The slightest glitch can do it. I hate when I crumble. I fight to be resilient. Sometimes, all I can do is surrender and wait things out. Things do pass.

 

I’m deep into a stint where my eating disorder has taken charge. It’s not altogether unwelcome. I journaled what appears below near the point when it shifted into higher gear. I thought it might have passed by now but this is Day 51. I have reached out for support but there’s a wait list. The thoughts and behaviors go on. I’m okay-ish for now. 

 

I’ve decided to post this because maybe it will help a reader understand what a friend, relative or colleague experiences. Perhaps it helps enlighten someone about the fact older, not-so-thin men can have an eating disorder, too. Maybe someone will recognize their struggle and begin the process for seeking help as well. 

 

To an outsider, the solution is maddeningly simple: eat something. I know this. I can tell myself this. However, it’s like telling someone who is clinically depressed to just smile. Cue Bobby McFerrin: Don’t Worry, Be Happy. Mental health, however, doesn’t correspond with a meme or a Hallmark card. 

 

March 31, 2024

It's another Easter weekend and I'm struggling. Easter is the longest weekend on the Canadian calendar. Things shut down for Good Friday throughout the weekend and for Easter Monday. This was especially problematic a decade ago in 2014 when I found myself admitted to the psych ward at Saint Paul's Hospital on a Thursday afternoon which just so happened to be the day before Good Friday. Ever since, Easter makes me feel uncomfortable. That stint in the psych ward left me with heightened anxiety and PTSD since the only bed they could place me in for that long weekend was in the most severe psych ward. (It had never dawned on me that a hospital would have multiple psych wards.) I was scared, I feared for my safety, I desperately wanted out and, having no control being involuntarily committed, the entire experience spiked my eating disorder behaviors.

 

It's not because it is once again Easter nor is it because this is the decade anniversary, but I am once again in the midst of a spiked eating disorder situation. This is day 7. I didn't plan this, but something about last Monday had me so busy that I missed lunch. I don't eat breakfast. Lunch is when my body finally receives a little fuel—cottage cheese or yogurt; rice cakes. Everything is limited and controlled. But having missed the lunch mark, it became a warped game. It was already 2:00 in the afternoon. I could clearly go without eating lunch. I could wait until 5:00. Dinner. A single meal. 5:00 came and went. I knew if I delayed dinner, I wouldn't have an evening snack as well. There would be a significant drop in my caloric intake for the day. This was victory. I was winning my game.

 

With the win on Monday, I decided to make it a streak. Let's go for Tuesday. Mission accomplished. Same for Wednesday, even though I swam 5 kilometers that morning, my maximum distance in the pool which I hadn't done in over a year. Usually, I am famished after a swim workout. My body craves carbs to restore whatever I swam off. But, no. One meal once again. Thursday, Friday, same.

 

This was easy. If I smiled, the smugness would show. I am in control. Not of life. That's a mess. I am still shocked and saddened by being dumped six weeks ago after a two-year relationship I thought would last. I feel especially alone here in Vancouver. My best friend moved to Montreal four months ago. 

 

I can no longer relate to my closest friend who still lives here. Every time I see him, the experience rings false. He launches into a monologue about a new hobby, a long-winded recitation I sense he has repeated many, many times to other people. It used to be about mushroom videos on YouTube. Zero interest from me. More recently, it became about fermenting onions and other vegetables. Zero interest from me. During our latest catch-up, he arrived uncharacteristically late, hauling a five-pound bag of sugar. His grand new hobby: making vinegar from scratch. Dear God, help me.

 

So, yeah, he is not someone I can lean on. Other friends seem to have disappeared. They have families, one is still dealing with the death of her spouse; another is so passive he never ever is the one to reach out to do something. I am as alone in this city and in this life as I have ever been.

 

I do not know how to change this. I am stuck. I can do nothing to get my relationship back. I don't have any idea how, at 59 years old, I can go out and make new friends. Good friends. People I could lean on. 

 

My immediate family is not helpful. “Get a dog.” That’s their solution to getting over a bad breakup, not that they have any sense of how bad it’s been. There is no depth of conversation about the loss I have experienced. It’s par. They just don't go deep. It does not seem to be within them. They have all been in longstanding relationships, decades and decades of anniversaries celebrated. They understand very little about me being gay—that would require conversations and questions. They understand less about my habitual boomeranging to singlehood.

 

He loves me. He loves me not. 

 

Some poor little flower got all its petals plucked. The City of Vancouver should take out a restraining order, keeping me a hundred meters away from all garden spaces.

 

So yes, hello anorexia nervosa. It has always been there with me. This is one of those times, however, when it is taking centre stage. It has the power. I have given it that power. 

 

Yesterday morning, I was in a different part of the city to get my haircut. I brought my backpack, slipping in my laptop and two canvas bags. A health food grocery store I love is a block away from the salon and I figured I would pick up some of my favorite products while in the area.

 

I entered the grocery store and was immediately confused. I'm not eating much at the moment. Should I even grab a hand basket? I hesitated, then took one. Maybe just holding the basket would encourage me to buy more items. 

 

As I walked down the first aisle, one of the dangling tags indicated a box of wafer crackers was on sale. I buy these crackers on occasion. I stopped and stared at them. It became a dilemma. Do I want these crackers? When would I eat them? My sense was I didn't want them. I certainly didn't need them. I put the box in the basket nonetheless. Let this be the start to my grocery haul. I picked up nothing else from that aisle nor the next. 

 

I glanced in frozen foods windows. Ice cream registered in my brain. Usually, a pint or three of Häagen-Dazs or Ben & Jerry’s become an irresistible temptation. Sometimes, I load up so many, I feel obliged to lie to the checkout clerk. “Having a little ice cream social.” 

 

I had no desire for ice cream. I had no desire for anything. As I reached the last aisle, I stopped again. I stared down a container of non-fat cottage cheese. This is the only store I know in Vancouver that still carries it. I do not like the taste of 1% or 2% fat cottage cheese. It tastes heavy, it tastes gross. This was my chance to get the cottage cheese I like. I checked the expiration date: April 27. It was good for a whole month. Still, I questioned whether I would be able to eat it before then. I put the container in my basket, a companion for the crackers.

 

I perused the fresh vegetables and fruit. Nothing appealed to me. I had gone through the entire store and picked up two items. I had my two canvas bags in my backpack. I suppose that meant one item in each bag. A very balanced walk home. I headed toward the checkout. I glanced down at the two items in my basket. No, I did not want them. I did not need them.

 

I went back to the dairy aisle to return the cottage cheese, then went to the other end of the store to place the box of crackers on the shelf where I had gotten it. I put the basket back in the stack of empty ones by the entrance and left.

 

Grocery stores have given me many problems over the years. I often become anxious in them for reasons I don't fully understand. But this was the first time I walked all the way through a grocery store having planned to buy food and then consciously decided to not buy anything. On the sidewalk, I felt stunned. I knew this was a problem. But nothing was going to change my decision. I walked a couple blocks farther from home, stepped in a favourite café, ordered an oat latte and had a writing session. Keeping with my new routine, coffee with oat milk is all I consume until my evening meal. 

 

Walking home, I passed that grocery store again along with two others where I frequently shop. Generally, I like going into grocery stores farther from home to pick up items on sale, to save a few bucks. I get this from my father. He is a man who glories in a bargain. He stocks up anytime any item he might possibly want to consume in the years ahead is on sale. This is a coup to him.

 

No. Grocery. Shopping. 

 

I realized I had a lot of food at home and I didn't know how I was ever going to eat it all. I passed bakeries, a donut shop, two of my ex’s favorite eating spots, a vegan restaurant I love. When would I ever go into any of these places again? In only one week, food had become the object of my rejection.

 

Still many blocks from home, I felt weak. I felt panicky. I didn't know if I could make it back to my place. I was vaguely aware of an emergency vehicle passing by me in the street. Not a police car; maybe an ambulance, maybe one of those smaller red trucks the fire department uses. It dawned on me after the fact that maybe I should have flagged it down. Maybe I really needed a ride back home. Maybe it was even an emergency. 

 

You can't tell if someone has an ED
just by looking at them or checking
their weight.

Although scared, I knew this would not be enough to change the level of restriction I am on. As I walked, I leaned into one of my regular distractions. I stopped and took a selfie against a background that matched my shirt. Usually, I do this for amusement. In the moment, however, it gave me a chance to pause and also a break from thinking about the struggle the walk was becoming. 

 

I walked down an alley I knew had a great deal of graffiti. I looked for more backgrounds to take more selfies. Then I continued the walk. With only a few blocks left, I was very weak, but I could make it. 

 

Despite this experience, I knew that after sitting on the sofa for a little while, I still had a three-hour workout to do involving ab crunches, time on the exercise bike and using weights to focus on working out my chest. This would not be compromised. In fact, I shortened my rest on the sofa, got up and got started with the workout. I didn't want a delay to make me complacent, to make me back out of the exercise I required of myself. 

 

All this is fucked up. I know it. 

 

I can't stop it.

**

IF YOU NEED HELP...See your doctor. Tell the doctor EVERYTHING. (People with eating disorders tend to minimize things or be secretive.) If the doctor dismisses your concerns (as first happened to me), get a second opinion. Don't settle for or freak out over whatever Google says. Seek actual supports in your community. 

If it feels like an emergency, go to Emergency at your nearest hospital. 

 

KEEPING TWITTER FROM BECOMING "X"

There are many things that make me question why I’m still on Twitter. The new, ridiculous name is just one of them. It’s like the app is going through its awkward Prince/Puff Diddy phase. Just because Facebook is trying on a stupid name change doesn’t mean Twitter should follow. But monkey see, monkey do. These boneheads are billionaires?!

 

In truth, I’ve never really understood Twitter. A tech leader at work talked rhapsodically about it back in 2009. He was connecting with golf lovers in North Carolina and guys who gave insightful critiques on the latest software. Golfers! Techies! It was the pitch from hell. But my first book had been published the year before and I figured I could do some belated promotion or at least build a following for the next book release. (Sigh…still waiting.)

 

The way I remember it, the Twitter stream felt overwhelming. As I’d read tweets, the app would tell me there were 28 new tweets, then 56, then 140. How was I supposed to keep up? I rued dropping out of that speed reading class I took on weekends in high school. (The microfiche slides really did smell like vomit.) When I tried tweeting, I kept being dashed by the character limit. I had to be more concise in sharing my thoughts about the Beijing Olympics, Michael Jackson’s death and Adam Lambert on “American Idol.” When I’d cut things down, I wondered if I was really saying anything. 

 

I’m still wondering. 

 

Maybe that’s the problem. Over time, tweets changed. Influenced by more visual social media like Pinterest, Instagram and TikTok, tweets started including photos, memes and giphy attachments. The images were supposed to draw people to your words but then it got to the point where the words were superfluous. Any aspirations of connecting gave way to accruing likes. 

 

Like the picture of my breakfast. (No, there’s no such thing as too much syrup.)

 

Like the photo of a waterfall from my hike. (Or is it a shot of the leaky faucet in the bathroom?)

 

Like my haircut. (If I were bald, I’d have twenty percent less Twitter content.)

 

Despite all my griping to friends who aren’t on any form of social media, I’ve adapted. If I don’t have a photo for my tweet, I search Google Images to paste something. Notice my tweet! Like it! Comment! Retweet! These are the basic needs we seek to have met on Twitter.

 

There was a time, somewhere around 2015, when I couldn’t check my Twitter account in public. I’d be sitting in a café, taking a quick writing break, checking to see if the Katy Perry-Taylor Swift feud was trending again, and a photo of naked man would pop up…or, more often, a photo of a certain part of a naked man would, yes, pop up. Porn photos, porn clips. Aack! I’d blush and break out in sweat as I flipped my laptop shut or threw my phone into my open backpack.

 

I’d spent considerable time building my Twitter following to prove to literary agents I had a means of promoting my still-unpublished Epic Gay Novel. (It’s hysterical! It’s heartfelt! Unfortunately, it does not include zombies, magical realism or space aliens that fall in love with inflatable Rock Hudson dolls.) I specifically followed gay men, hoping they’d follow back. This is when I realized how much gay men liked gay porn. They posted it. They retweeted it. I blocked the most frequent offenders. It meant a potential loss of buyers for my Epic Gay Novel, but I made a calculated decision that they were too busy watching porn (and ordering inflatable Rock Hudson dolls online) to read my book. Sure, there are references to porn in the book but, without pictures, they would come off as drab as my graphic-free tweets of 2009-2014. 

 

I suspect the Twitter police finally took action. I don’t see porn or any element of nudity anymore. It’s safe to login again at Starbucks or on public transit. I don’t have to wait until I’m home to view snazzy haircuts and yummy brunches (How is there not a world shortage of maple syrup?).

 

But a new, problematic trend emerged. My stream has been increasingly cluttered with guys posting shirtless selfies. 

 

Look at me! I’m at the gym. My bicep grew, didn’t it?

 

I’m cooking. Topless! (Why risk getting marinara sauce on a sweatshirt?)

 

Like my haircut? (I groomed my chest, too.)

 

Sigh. Gays love skin. 

 

That’s okay. I just grew up being told there’s a time and place for everything. I can Google shirtless guys. I’m sure there are sites I can bookmark. I can even make a certain shirtless cover shot of Ryan Reynolds from Entertainment Weekly (June 26/July 3, 2009 double issue) my screensaver. 

 

I don’t log into Twitter to see men flashing pecs and biceps. As regular as it’s become, it’s still annoying. Pec-man, for whatever reason, needs people to like his photo. I suspect he likes his chest. Other people liking it is its own endorphin rush. Is this narcissism? Is it extreme neediness? Is this a brazen If you’ve got it, then flaunt it mindset? Beats me. All I know is I don’t want to see it.

 

It's not healthy for me and I have a hunch it’s not healthy for a lot of people. One person’s body pride can make another person feel envy and even shame. I have lived a lifetime sizing up my body against others…along with my own brutal self-assessments. I’ve worked hard to get close to self-acceptance. Still, every half naked Twitter post tests me. It’s unwelcome. Call it foolish, but I still scroll Twitter in search of people who have something to say or, if nothing else, a cool beach shot that makes me suddenly Google the Whitsunday Islands. Gym selfies irk me. They feel invasive. If I wanted to be immersed with gym bods, I’d get an Anytime Fitness membership instead of working out alone in the tiny but well-equipped fitness center in my building.

 

A month ago, I began blocking Pec-men and Bicep Buds. One of the first things I discovered was that I didn’t actually follow most of these guys. That was, in and of itself, a relief. I’ve tried to be discerning about whom I follow. These posts were Twitter’s doing, coming through on my phone on the stream labelled “For you” which includes some people I follow but also spits out unwanted content arising from the site’s #$%*^ algorithm. Since I identify as gay, Twitter decided I wanted to see shirtless studs…even though my history of likes has never endorsed clothing-minimal posts.

 

(I have another Twitter account (@gregorywalters –Follow me!) that’s more focused on books and writing. It’s also flooded with folks I don’t follow. I don’t mind as much. Mostly it’s meals from vegans and posts from miniature schnauzers who’ve figured out how to create their own accounts. They really are a bright breed.)

 

I blocked body-baring bros ruthlessly. For the first couple of weeks, this meant I was even more focused on such posts. I was stopping on each one, rather than quickly scrolling past. 

 

Block. Ha! 

Another block. Yes! 

 

It felt cathartic. No shirt? No stream for you!

 

Twitter and its cursed algorithm got the message. Guys in my feed are now fully dressed. One has an affinity for bow ties. Another wears different glasses. I like their quirks; I “like” their posts. Twitter no longer makes me feel like I need to squeeze in a longer bike ride or gnaw on celery stalks for dinner. At last, the bare-chested boys are at bay. Let others reinforce their need to be seen. I can scroll without the muscle assault.

 

Now if only more people on Twitter said something. Original thoughts and not lazy retweets. Of course, if that ever came to be, I’d feel less need to head out and have real conversations with people off-screen. I may never figure out the purpose of Twitter. Maybe that’s a good thing.  

 

 

"BARBIE" FATIGUE

So apparently there’s some movie about a doll coming out this week. Seven-year-old me would be very, very excited. Seven-year-old me would have known to suppress that excitement and go back to sorting my hockey cards which I spent all my allowances on—a photo, a bunch of player stats and piece of gum that looked and tasted like pink cardboard. That was the only pink a young boy could indulge in. 

 

For months now, we’ve been inundated with “Barbie” hype, the Warner Bros. marketing team sparing no dime and no tie-in to get us psyched to see it. When the trailer came out, every gay guy I follow on Twitter had to tweet about it. (Likes matter.) I may be confused due to the incessant Barbie blitz, but I think there was a day or two when you could photoshop yourself into a Barbie doll box and/or give your face that coveted, tanned plasticized look. So much cheaper than Botox and facelifts.

 

Don’t mistake me for a sourpuss. I’m fine with a “Barbie” movie. Like most gay men, I’m even finer with Ryan Gosling in a “Barbie” movie. Those abs, that snark. Much better than sitting through his attempts to sing in a musical. I don’t know anyone other than me who was gaga over “La La Land,” but my saying his voice was better than Pierce Brosnan’s in “Mamma Mia” is not high praise. I assume the Barbie movie’s PG-13 rating is artificially inflated from a G rather than edited down from an R so hip Gen Xers and all those gens that follow don’t think it’s kiddie fare for American Girl doll lovers. How much sexual content can there be when neither Barbie nor Ken has private parts?

 

When I was growing up, the closest I got to dolls was eyeing my sister’s collection. Sometimes she’d have a group of girls over and they’d show up with dolls for an afternoon of dolly drama. I was known to spy from the hallway which seemed more fun that taking my baseball glove outside and wondering what I was supposed to do with it. 

Thankfully, whenever I hovered near Barbie base camp, I was constantly told, Don’t touch. Being as I was a middle child who reveled in being a pest, I touched. I took. I didn’t have time to fit Barbie into different dresses or accessorize her with purses and high heels. Sure, I wanted to. I settled for the thrill of hearing my sister and her friends screaming my name. It was their tiresome tactic, designed to get my mother to intervene. Both my sister and brother matched my level of teasing with their reliance on tattle-taling. Just as I learned to hide my gayness—after I learned what that was—I masked my doll envy. I was a terror rather than a Tinker Bell. Just touching Barbie gave me a lift I couldn’t explain; the fact it never evolved to intricate doll play also made me inexplicably sad. I wanted to play with the girls. I wanted to be a girl. But no one talked about that. I was being ridiculous.

 

When Aqua released “Barbie Girl” in the ’90s, it was a huge hit. The dancefloor filled whenever it came on at Odyssey, the Vancouver gay bar I’d go to back in the day. (It’s gone. Same with The Royal, Denman Station and The Dufferin. Thanks, Grindr.) Still, the song did not suddenly make the Barbie doll hip to anyone older than a tween. It was a bouncy novelty, but it wasn’t an overt attempt to assert Barbie’s global domination. In fact, it displeased Barbie’s maker, Mattel, which sued for trademark and copyright infringement in Mattel, Inc. v. MCA Records, Inc. (Mattel even owned a trademark for the color “Barbie pink” (Pantone 219D, color coordinates: #DA1884…the essential sort of gibberish for getting a TM).) Mattel alleged the song damaged Barbie’s reputation since she’s referred to as a blonde bimbo and sexualized (“Kiss me here, touch me there, hanky-panky,” along with other bland, suggestive references, typical of the average pop song). In the typical tit-for-tat arena of legal maneuverings, MCA counterclaimed, contending that Mattel defamed the company by comparing it to a bank robber. Shudders! Ultimately, the case was dismissed, the judge straying from legalese and opining, “The parties are advised to chill.” The decision came almost five years after the song’s release. Like most parodies, it had gone cold by then, relegated to the Land of Forgotten Ditties, bunkmates with Rick Dees’ “Disco Duck” and Weird Al’s “Eat It.”

 

Since I only had fleeting moments of Barbie bonding during my childhood, I resorted to finding my own play figures. There was a small window of time in which Matchbox cars subbed in, but pretending they talked was lamer than an episode of “Knight Rider” or “My Mother the Car.” Enter: Red Rose Tea. No, I didn’t play with tea bags. Let’s not make my youth that tragic. Instead, the tea company included a small ceramic animal figurine in its tea boxes. People started collecting them. I spent hours playing with a zoo’s worth of precious beasts, letting my beaver chat up my giraffe, sometimes using one of my Matchbox cars to transport animals from North America to Africa. That’s right, my cars floated and flew when they weren’t driving off my desk which served as a precarious cliff.

 

So, yeah. Playing with dolls was not okay, but my parents let the figurine fun go. What could they say? They’d fostered it via family viewings of “Mutual of Omaha’s Wild Kingdom” every Sunday night. I honestly think all that play contributed to my becoming a vegetarian years later. I was a veritable Dr. Doolittle. I talked to the animals! How could I turn around and eat them? 

 

I’ve been waiting for some pushback over the “Barbie” movie. Perhaps Warner Bros. has too. Controversy, after all, is good for ticket sales. Maybe they need to YouTube a stage full of drag queens, donning their own interpretations of Barbie. Maybe one queen needs to have a dildo she pulls out of her Barbie pink (TM) purse or read the picture book, William’s Doll, to a four-year-old planted in the audience. That’ll rile the rabid anti-wokers (who fail to see they’re a major cog in the reviled Cancel Culture). “Boycott ‘Barbie’!” Kid Rock will shoot up a pile of dollies. The three people who hadn’t heard of the movie will get their tickets. (Pity the poor theater owner who doesn’t get to screen the film.)

 

Wasn’t there a time when there was a societal Barbie backlash? Didn’t we turn against vapidness and glamorized whiteness? Didn’t we blame that damn doll for helping Paris Hilton rise to fame? That has to be worth at least a few demerits. I haven’t seen any feminist outcry. Part of it is on account the film is directed and co-written by a woman, the accomplished Greta Gerwig. I presume there’s a wink-wink to Barbie’s glamor, a reincarnation of those old Enjoli perfume commercials with a feel-good message about how a woman can have it all (except for equal pay…let’s be reasonable).  

 

I’ll be glad when the movie finally rolls into theaters Friday, Barbie taking her place in Barbie-pink(TM) convertible Corvette, all my gay followers on Twitters rushing to gush or gut the flick based on whichever way the court of popular opinion blows. I’ll watch it at some point. I don’t feel an urgency to be the among the first. Heck, I might even wait until it finally makes it to the only streaming channel I wish to pay for. 

 

Fun fluff, I hope. Perhaps it’ll be filled with stinging barbs about global warming, galoots who salivate over conspiracy theories and America’s devotion to gun culture (a cameo by GI Joe?). Profound “Barbie”? Relax, I didn’t get my hands anywhere near the script. 

 

Frankly, I just want the marketing blitz to stop. I’m passing on Barbie ice cream, a Barbie backpack from The Gap and a possible Airbnb stay at Barbie’s Malibu DreamHouse. I don’t need an Instagram boost that badly. (Follow me @gregoryjameswalters! I’m almost at four dozen followers!) I think the needless Nicki Minaj & Ice Spice song, “Barbie World,” with its heavy sampling of “Barbie Girl” has already fizzled. I suspect Burger King’s Barbie Combo (burger with pink sauce (eww!) and a strawberry milkshake) won’t spread beyond its base in Brazil. 

 

I’ll let “Barbie” be. If anyone wants to get me really excited, tell me there’s a Red Rose Tea animal figurine movie in the works. I see it as a raucous action-adventure film, with compelling commentary on endangered species, veganism and, yes, global warming. I googled and got nothing. Go figure.