THE PASSING OF DAVID

First off, I should note that the titular David is not dead. Sorry if that’s the whole reason you clicked the link to this post. If you feel duped, let me make it up to you by offering further reading on actually dead Davids: an early heartthrob from my childhood, David Cassidy, and a lyricist who helped pen the soundtrack of my youth, Hal David. As a bonus, I’ve dug up a Google Image of Michelangelo’s statue of David. Sure beats a traditional olive branch, don’t you think?

 

Okay, let me get to the living David who is actually the subject of this post. I met him in February 2020. He was the hookup who wasn’t. It’s not that I showed up at his place, he glanced at me up and down and then slammed the door, bolting the chain and sliding a heavy piece of furniture across the floor while saying through the soon-to-be blockaded door, “Go away! Consider yourself blocked.” Plausible, sure, but that’s not how our hookup came to NOT be. David had the sense to suggest we meet in public at a café somewhere between my place and his. Technically, it was closer to his place, but things were ambiguous enough that I had to spend an hour making the bed, dusting and shoving “keepsakes” I should have thrown away years ago in the hall closet. 

 

The story of David and me made the pages of The New York Times. Again, not a murder story. He’s alive, I swear. One of my most satisfying writing feats was getting the newspaper to publish my Modern Love essay. You can read it here if you haven’t already reached your monthly limit of free articles (Is it one article or is it down to zero?), but I’ll condense things for you. We met, we chatted, we got kicked out when the place closed and then we said goodbye on the sidewalk. No hookup. Instead, he made reservations at a trendy Thai spot the next weekend. 

 

The failed hookup turned into default dating. I’d already planned to leave Vancouver in two months and no guy was going to keep me in the place where my social life had long been stagnant. David would be a pleasant distraction between packing boxes and turfing so many of those keepsakes. 

 

Most of my dating experiences that last more than a single meeting involve red flag spotting. There was the guy still shared a bed with his ex. And the one who was getting a divorce from his wife and had never dated men. There was also a guy who mentioned having nasal reconstruction surgery to repair damages from a past addiction to cocaine. All true scenarios. They say the cream rises to the top but, in my dating history, it’s been scum that comes to the surface. 

 

David’s red flags weren’t as alarming. There were no flagrant fouls but there were obvious signs we weren’t a match. I saw them and shrugged. This wasn’t long-term. We were just hanging out.

 

Then the world shut down. My move was off. David and I continued on. He became my COVID bubble. The Modern Love article ended with hope, our bubble intact. I wrote it several months before it was published. By then, we’d broken up. Our differences hadn’t set off alarms, but they were such that I knew I would never fall in love. Five months was a good run.

 

We’d be friends.

 

That’s what people say. Occasionally, it comes to be. 

 

The first couple of times we met, post breakup, we went for a walk or played tennis. It was friendly-ish. The chitchat was stilted, but it always was. One of David’s quirks was that the first ten minutes of conversation was a monologue of everything he’d been doing, every meal he’d eaten, every friend he’d seen. In the past, I’d tried interrupting with a question or by injecting an anecdote related to what he was saying, but he’d bat away my commentary and proceed undeterred with his spiel. It had to come out all at once. I often wondered if he’d even notice if I put on earbuds or stepped away for a minute…or seven. It wasn’t that he cared solely about himself. He'd always get around to asking about me and truly listening. I’d accepted the quirk, but then I’d grown tired of it. I wanted back-and-forth banter, not soliloquy exchanges.

 

In the friend zone, David would try to stretch our time, suggesting dinner. I sensed dinner would muddle his understanding of The New Us. Indeed, he kissed me on the lips the first time I dropped him off after tennis. Another time, while walking, he talked about getting back together. Maybe we couldn’t be friends. Maybe a stab at friendship caused deeper wounds than just walking away.

 

For his birthday, I bought him a coffee. Anything more might have been misread. For mine, I passed on a suggested pizza night. “I’m not big on my birthday,” I said. It was the absolute truth.

 

A chronic wrist injury flared up in David’s right hand so tennis was no longer an option. Our times whittled down to walks. COVID surges had a way of putting more time in between each outing as David was especially fretful about any possible exposure. I found I wasn’t putting any effort into making contact. Eventually, there was nothing more than an occasional Facebook message from him, so rare that I was afraid to click on them. I presumed someone had hijacked his account. When I did click, the message would be a random GIF. “Did you send this?” I asked the first time it happened. Indeed, he had. His explanation didn’t do much in terms of explaining anything. Why would he send it? What did it say about how little he knew of me?

 

I let the next GIF go. I spent a minute trying to think of a reply, but nothing came to mind. A thumbs up or a smiley face felt like too much, like a forced laugh upon hearing an old knock-knock joke, the one about bananas and a late-on-the-scene orange. Wouldn’t a meh emoji be insulting?

 

It’s been at least a year, maybe eighteen months. I’ve moved on. So has he. There’s no animosity, at least on my part. (Maybe he really wanted a smiley emoji.) In some ways, it boggles my mind. I dated David five months. We supported each other in the strangest of times. As with so many things from those COVID days, that relationship is behind us, nothing to revisit.  

 

A friendship was not to be. We were too different to be partners. The friendship felt forced. Sometimes you just have to allow one another to move on. Circumstances change, connections fade. While we now live in a world that makes it easy to keep tabs on almost anyone, sometimes the need isn’t there.  

 

  

A SHIFTING STAR

Thanks, Zac.

 

Every so often, a celebrity gets real. Jamie Lee Curtis poses without makeup and editorial touchups. Selena Gomez shows her “real stomach” on TikTok. Anna Kendrick discusses an abusive relationship. Sometimes these buzzy interviews and articles don’t even coincide with a new movie or album that needs promotion. 

 

Mr. Efron made news last week after CNN lifted a few quotes from a Men’s Health interview. The brief CNN piecenoted that the actor was “currently bulking up for an unnamed role.” If this was supposed to be part of a publicity tour, the producers and his agent must have bruised noggins from repeated head banging. Are readers primed to run out and see Zac Efron in Unnamed Role in an as yet untitled movie/play/TV show/antacid commercial? Even if I were a Zac fan (I’m not, I swear), I wouldn’t have a clue what to input on my phone calendar. Perhaps Mr. Efron had nothing better to do between bulking up tasks than to sit down or Zoom in for a chat with some very persistent reporter. 

 

Efron contends that his ultra-muscled body seen in a “Baywatch” movie from 2017 is unattainable. Technically, it was attainable, at least by Efron, likely with assistance from a full-time personal trainer and perhaps a personal chef. Plus, getting into shape for his role as a studly lifeguard was his job. It was his primary means of preparation. To do so, he got paid more than most of us will earn in a decade or two. Still, he said, "There's just too little water in the skin. Like, it's fake; it looks CGI'd."

 

It didn’t seem that Efron was gloating and doing some version of Superior Dance à la The Church Lady from SNL. The message was that his coveted body came at too great a cost. Efron noted that he ate the same food three times a day. He took diuretics in addition to fitness training and noted that his regimen led to sleep difficulties, depression and other problems that lasted for six months after he let up from his silver screen-primed bod. Technically attainable but ludicrous to strive for. Efron seemed to give the quest a thumbs down. 

 

Cover boy Efron in 2012.

Something told me, as a responsible blogger who nonetheless gets paid nothing for his thoughts, I should go to the original source. I hesitated. Men’s Health is unhealthy for me. The incarnation of the magazine I knew always sported a buff, hypermasculine male model on the cover along with promoted articles about Ten Exercises to Lose the Flab and “easy,” “quick” ways to get washboard abs.  (They’ve apparently changed the cover format in recent years, opting for a celebrity shot of Michael B. Jordan, Kumail Nanjiani or Mark Wahlberg in hopes their fans and oglers will scoop up drugstore copies.) Back in the day, I probably bought an issue a time or two. 

 

Easy abs? I’m in!

 

More often, I’d browse through a copy left behind at the laundromat or sitting on a table at the hair salon as my highlights were setting. (So far from being hypermasculine!) I never subscribed. I really wasn’t the target reader for “5 Ways to Hone Your Triceps While Using a Chainsaw.” But then, was anyone? I suspect guys with chainsaws wouldn’t touch a magazine with a himbo on the cover. Subscribers were probably desperate teen guys in Chess Club while newsstand copies got scooped up by gay men and straight women seeking a little titillation during the flight from Denver to Omaha.

 

I earnestly read/viewed a few of the articles. The thought of getting Popeye biceps from a ten-minute daily routine enticed me. Same with the pitch for defined pecs and deltoids that dazzle. Men’s Health did for me what all those diet books did for women. It appealed to my insecurities. It pestered, beckoned and lured. 

 

Psst. Hey you, flawed person. Sucks, right? 

 

I’ve got a fix for you. Buy me. You gotta invest if you want results. 

 

Might as well have bought snake oil, chucked a couple quarters in the wishing well and rubbed the belly of a Buddha statue. I wasn’t going to get shirtless selfie-worthy abs no matter how many minutes or days I spent doing the five exercises the model demonstrated in the magazine spread. (That’s not how he got them either.) All Men’s Health did for me was reinforce that my body was substandard, that it would always need more work, that I was some outlier who couldn’t achieve results from following a clear routine that was practically GUARANTEED to transform a typical dude. 

 

In offering false hope, the magazine contributed to my eating disorder behaviors—less food, more exercise. No doubt, it has exacerbated other men’s body dysmorphia, too. What you’ve got is never good enough. The body could always use more hulk and bulk, more honing and toning. 

 

Thankfully, I was able to pull the full article online without having to browse the rest of the issue. Efron’s message isn’t as enlightened as CNN led me to believe. He’s still a slave to strict exercise and food intake practices. Even the CNN article hinted at this by including this comment after Efron knocked what he viewed as extreme practices:  "I much prefer to have an extra, you know, 2 to 3 percent body fat." Gosh, three percent body fat. Now that’s attainable!

 

Efron is still a slave to his past image. His pre-production preparation for his unspecified upcoming project consists of “bulking up.” He’s not sitting home and embracing a muffin-top midriff while watching “Real Housewives” marathons as he chows down on packages of Little Debbie’s Mini Donuts and spoon-feeds himself pints of Ben & Jerry’s Chunky Monkey. (Surely, the word “chunky” would scare him off.) He continues to make a living from being buff, most likely continuing to have a personal trainer and answering to a pesky agent and producers who demand to see his daily food and exercise journals. Efron is a commodity to them. 

 

A portion of the interview was conducted at a steakhouse and the writer mentions that Efron split a filet mignon, a “seafood tower” and a “Japanese A5 Wagyu steak.” Sorry, a meal of donuts and ice cream seems more conventional.

 

Efron is not going to ever be a role model for guys battling body dysmorphia.  

 

People online tried to shame Efron 
a couple of years ago for his
supposed "dad bod," seen on 
the right. Utterly ridiculous.

But it’s still something that he admits that his movie-perfect body is both unrealistic and comes with damaging consequences. Maybe that is enough to give a few guys obsessing over their bodies a tiny jolt. Maybe they’ll cut themselves some slack. Have a croissant, take a day off from the gym or at least cut a few sets. Go for dinner with a friend and order something off the menu that sounds tasty even if it isn’t high in protein. Maybe even split an appetizer—fully loaded nachos. 

 

I’m too entrenched with my own unhealthy, extremes ways of exercising, eating and thinking about my body, but there’s hope for vulnerable twenty-somethings who feel inferior from seeing actors like Efron in movies like “Baywatch” and from seeing the stream of shirtless selfies posted by gym rats on Twitter. 

 

Stop sucking in your stomach for photos. Live a little. Let go a little. Just breathe. Just be. 

A COVID POSTMORTEM

I have never been so excited
to see a room full of trash!

It’s over. My days of COVID are behind me. Hello, normal routines. I’ve missed you.

 

There was almost a skip in my step as I walked to the elevator to take my recycling and rubbish to the garbage room in my building. I always delay making that trip, the heft unnecessarily bigger that it should be, but this time all that accumulation simply had to be. It was about being responsible. If there’s a rat or two lurking and feasting behind the food compost container, I’ve spared you from COVID. You’re welcome.

 

After unloading my discards, I detoured to the building’s gym. It’s a small space though well-equipped. You have to sign up. One person per hour. Not sure if that was always the case or if it’s a COVID measure residents decided to keep. Sharing is so overrated. I’m skipping today for good measure, sticking to the cycling routine that’s helped keep my sanity these past ten days. My biceps will feel the burn tomorrow. So happy to return to the familiar nuisance of excessive workout perspiration instead of fever sweats and muscle aches in lieu of headaches.

 

One of the tasks I accomplished during 
my quarantine was organizing my ice
cream? Who even has that as a task?!

I’ve been itching to grocery shop. I tried to tell myself that masking up and buying orange juice was justified in the name of self-care and recovery, but then I kept picturing the super friendly clerk who only works Sundays and, even if she wouldn’t be at the till, I still carry some of that “We appreciate you!” sentiment for service employees from the early days of global lockdown. Later today, I’ll grab a basket and buy fresh produce while restocking my ice cream supply. (My freezer was never in danger of running out of Ben & Jerry’s. I know how to Be Prepared in case of emergency even if I dropped out of Boy Scouts before I got a single badge.) I might buy orange juice and the ingredients to make the cornbread I’ve been craving these past ten days, but suddenly I don’t have the appetite for either. 

 

While I was bummed COVID finally tagged me, I’m glad I outran it for the first two and a half years. This latest strain, while apparently easier to get, is milder—suitable even for wusses like me. My first positive test came just before I went to bed one night last week. It made for a bad sleep, in part due to coughs and sniffles, but more embarrassingly on account of the kind of irrational worries that love to come out and play at three in the morning. 

 

If I have to go to hospital, will I catch something worse. Meningitis? Flesh-eating disease? A missing leg from them amputating the wrong limb from the wrong patient? 

 

Will I freak out if I’m hooked up to an IV? Answer: Obviously. Will they respond by removing my vocal cords? Likely. Healthcare workers have been through enough.

 

What will it be like if I’m put on a ventilator? What if they perform a tracheotomy?!

 

I’m not making any of that up. I should remind you, it was three in the morning. (I shouldn’t share that I can be just as panicked at ten in the morning after a tasty latte and a solid rest.) Once a tracheotomy entered my mind, all sleep was off.

 

In truth, there was never a moment when I came close to calling an ambulance, walking over to the hospital or even calling my doctor’s office. For most people, COVID ain’t what it used to be, thank goodness. The media was moved on, even if I occasionally stumble on reports listing the number of people in intensive care and still too many deaths. Friends didn’t check in after initially responding to my Facebook post with obligatory sad face emojis. My mother only checked in twice, via text. I might have played this song if I’d thrown myself a pity party, but I didn’t think of it. It might have been a nice break from strangely obsessive thoughts about cornbread.

 

Thank you, WestJet.

When you show up late for COVID, everyone’s response is Been There, Done That. And I’m glad about that. I was inconvenienced and I missed out on big, end-of-summer plans. I had to cancel my trip to Ottawa. No family cottage visit again this year. (I’d gone every summer, without fail, my whole life. Haven’t been now since pre-COVID, 2019.) No chance to see my aunt, uncle, cousins and their children who’ve grown so much in my absence. I had to suddenly change my RSVP to one cousin’s wedding. All this had financial implications as well. I’m out hundreds of dollars. WestJet and Hotels.com were good about refunding or crediting otherwise nonrefundable bookings under the circumstances, but I’m still battling a car rental company and Air Canada epically failed in terms of customer service. “People lie about their mothers dying,” the agent said. Um, how does that relate to me?  It seems the company’s default stance is to presume their customers are liars. Nice. You can guess what airline I won’t be flying in the future. Still, my health is most important.

 

My COVID ended with a fizzle. Like a balloon that neither bursts nor gets swept up by the sky but just deflates into a smaller deformed blob and gets tossed in the wastebasket. I’m glad there was no final wheelchair tour of a hospital wing with dedicated nurses and orderlies cheering me on as they mumbled to one another, “So glad that big baby’s gone. Didn’t you just want to unplug his ventilator?” I didn’t even have to part with any precious items in my sticker collection to seal a thank you card to an attending physician. And, yay, I still have my senses intact to smell my scratch ‘n’ sniff ones. (Why do I love the root beer stickers so much and yet never buy the drink?) Instead of any fanfare, I just stuck a Q-tip up my nose for the umpteenth time, set the timer on my phone and read an essay about Ann Patchett’s love of knitting. Not persuasive. I have an intense fear of needles so there’s no way I’d pursue some craft for which that’s basic terminology. Don’t care if they’re not those needles. I’m 100% needle-averse, just as I am to all stings…with or without The Police. 

 

I am a delicate soul.

 

When the timer went off, I knew the result even before I looked. Negative. At last. Thanks, universe, for knowing how little this delicate soul can take. This is good karma for those soda bottles I picked up on the path in Whistler in July, right? Think I’ll keep that up. 

 

I’m celebrating. Might even head to A&W to get me a root beer, frosted mug and all, being as I can dine in again. Ice cream to follow, naturally. Life is good.

IN SICKNESS AND IN HEALTH. OKAY, MAYBE JUST IN HEALTH.

Are there people who truly rock when they’re sick? Do their friends say things like, “Gosh, Fran, you’re funnier and brighter and more delightful than ever. You should get shingles more often!” Let me be clear. I’m never going to be the life of the party while I’m hooked up to an IV, taking a break between hurls into the toilet or nursing an owie from a hangnail I shouldn’t have pulled. I’m like most of us (except for, maybe, extreme hangnail sensitivity). I hate getting sick and, frankly, I suck at it.

 

I remember getting the flu during my first year in law school and my friend, Adrienne, banging on my apartment door, awakening me to check up on me. (Apparently, Adrienne didn’t ascribe to the belief that sleep is part of the healing process.) Naturally, I did not answer. I most likely had vomit remnants on my shirt, perhaps in my hair, and most definitely on and around the toilet. I was in no mood or condition to invite her in for tea and the latest stories about our most notorious ass-kissing classmates. (They were Republicans of a different era.) 

 

To my horror, she let herself in. My surfer dude roomie never locked the damn door. I was lying in a lump on the living room carpet. It was a change of scenery from the past thirty hours moaning and puking in my bedroom. (I get the flu so rarely that each vomiting episode comes as a complete surprise. More? How can there be more? That’s not a kidney, is it?) The sheet that I’d wrapped myself in suddenly enveloped my entire body as if it were an invisibility cloak with a fundamental defect. I was certain she could see me. My frightful state must have been apparent because she was gone in seconds. It’s possible I yelled something nasty. To repeat: I don’t rock it as a sick person. 

 

It's fortunate that I rarely fall ill. Adrienne and every other person who has seen me when I’m sick would tell you I’m a complete wuss. I’m well aware of this. I will never be the guy who wants a little bell by my bedside to ring someone every time I want more veggie broth, some Vicks VapoRub or an extra squeeze of lemon in my ginger tea which, incidentally, could use a little heating up. I will want you to go away as much as I want the sickness to go away. Misery does not always love company.

 

But it’s different when I’m dating. Sorry, Marry Poppins, but a boyfriend is way better than a spoonful of sugar. I don’t have to tone done my level of wuss-ness. My boyfriend should come to expect it. He should find something endearing about it in an absolutely-no-photos sort of way. 

 

I don’t have much to say about John, the first guy I fell in love with. I was devastated when he dumped me—it didn’t help that he wanted to pursue things with a friend of mine and may or may not have already booked that flight to Detroit to meet the parents. (What?!) We weren’t much of a match, but you have to start somewhere, I suppose. Still, one of my fondest memories involved him driving through crawling traffic from Silver Lake to Pacific Palisades in Greater L.A. to see how I was doing when I came down with the flu while studying for the bar exam. 

 

“You came!” Yes, I was thrilled to see him and perhaps a slight fever could explain why I didn’t take cover in a bedsheet as I had with Adrienne. Maybe this was the moment when my soon-to-be ex-friend, Rick, started to look more appealing. John witnessed and/or heard a couple of epic hurls, one spew landing mostly in the soup pot I’d placed on the floor by my bed just in case. He cleaned the pot and the toilet bowl—most likely the surrounding area, too. Add in the obvious risk of him getting sick because of me and I couldn’t shake the one clear thought that emerged from my fogginess, my nausea, my misery: This is love! 

 

Haven't watched in years, I swear.

Yep, forget about the extravagance of some surprise helicopter ride to Catalina Island, the classic simplicity of a dozen red roses or being the second (of three) people to get an overnight Fantasy Suite invitation at a beachside resort in Bali—Why can’t I shake the clichés of “The Bachelor(ette)”? Cleaning up someone else’s vomit without being paid to do so is the ultimate romantic gesture. 

 

Got the shot! But one nudge and
it wouldn't have mattered.

At present, I have COVID. I got it from my boyfriend’s best friend. I keep telling myself not to read anything into that. If he really resented me, he could have “accidentally” slipped and pushed me off St. Mark’s Summit a month ago as I leaned forward at the edge to take a picture of a cluster of black pine cones that appeared as though they’d been sprinkled with sugar. But then it was crowded with other hikers. So many witnesses.

 

Evan and I had spent an extra-long weekend together again, with me showing up at his place in Seattle early Thursday evening and heading back home to Vancouver Tuesday morning. I’d awakened that last morning with a bit of a cough, one that sounded and felt different from my standard cough that always triggers Evan to ask, only half-jokingly, “Do you have COVID?!” He didn’t ask this time. He just pulled his home test kits out of the medicine cabinet and we did that sexy dance of shoving Q-tips up our nasal cavities. I’d done these tests at least a dozen times, as part of requisite travel protocols and from when Evan got COVID from my mother. Not once had I worried about my own results. Even when Evan, my mother and my father all ended up getting COVID from a suddenly too memorable meet-the-parents lunch after their cruise disembarked in Seattle, I’d had full confidence I’d test negative every single time I checked. COVID couldn’t touch me. This was the first time my conviction wavered. Fifteen minutes passed in slow motion. Evan: negative. Me: negative.

 

It was a harder goodbye as I loaded my car. We wouldn’t be seeing each other for a couple of weeks. I was flying from Vancouver to Ottawa the next day to be at the family cottage for the first time in three years, a chance to see my parents again, my aunt, uncle and cousins—one of whom was getting married—and to see how much the youngest ones in the family had grown…walking, talking, reading…the oldest one mastering the art of tuning out every perpetually annoying adult to text SOS messages to friends. Evan was flying to New Mexico two days later to see friends and family. We’re still in the early stages of our relationship so it still feels odd balancing a feeling of looking forward to seeing familiar places and faces while dreading our own time apart. I should replace dreading—such a twenty-something’s overly dramatic word choice—with a healthier, more evolved description such as being inconvenienced. It would have made this paragraph more concise, to boot. Alas, this is me—wordy and not all that evolved.

 

Evan was present when I did test positive. I was holding him in my hand, his voice and image showing up on my phone screen as we FaceTimed. I’d taken too long getting back to him Tuesday evening after I said I was going to take another COVID test. My energy level had dropped significantly during the day, I had a headache and my other symptoms seemed to be spiking. I tried to will positive thoughts about testing negative. I wondered how Evan would respond after he realized what a hypochondriac I was. Who feigns fever sweats? 

 

I delayed the test because one particular sign was especially hard to dismiss: I’d skipped exercising. I have an eating disorder. Exercise, doctors have told me, is my way of purging all the food I tell myself I shouldn’t have eaten on any given day. I have biked, jogged, swam, hiked or gone to the gym six days a week without fail for more than two and a half years. There are never acceptable excuses. Something was definitely up. So, yeah, Evan got on FaceTime and we waited for the timer to go off for me to check the test. I may have said, “Oh, shit,” but there was so much woven into that expression which I use so rarely. No cottage, no visit, no wedding, no gym time, no grocery shopping, no writing in cafés…and all of it without Evan. 

 

Yeah, yeah, we’d still have FaceTime. It was the responsible thing, even if he seemed to have COVID immunity for now since he’d gone through his own recent bout. It was practical since this is another reality of long-distance relationships. It was not sitting well at all.

 

I went decades with an automatic internal messaging system sounding the same embarrassing, wimpy, illogical alarm whenever I got sick: I WANT MY MOMMY! Rationally, I know there is no curative power that comes with either a bowl of chicken noodle soup or regular doses of “You poor thing!” Still, Sick Me secretly likes a little coddling when I’m unwell. As Adrienne learned all those years ago, friends can’t fill that ticket. Let the baton pass from mother to boyfriend. Dammit all, both of them are off enjoying their travels, each duly texting at least once a day: “How are you feeling? What are your symptoms?” The only difference is that my mother’s come with punctuation and emojis and Evan’s include selfies with him in yet another western outfit perfect for his time in New Mexico, his smile both a comfort and a menace.  

    

It’s Day 7 since that first positive test. I pulled out the last kit from box I got for free at the pharmacy and went through the routine yet again. “I’m fine,” I told myself. Symptoms? Not much more than pesky sniffles.

 

Positive again. 

 

All this positivity is 
stirring up negativity!

An hour later, I was sacked out on the couch, covered in a blankie, feeling exhausted while knowing a nap was utterly impossible as it’s been this whole week. (It has to do with my dang antidepressant meds.)

 

“I’m sick.”

 

I could’ve texted Evan but why? He’s hiking today. I’ll be treated to some great pics. Let this latest round of Woe Is Me pass. I may be missing out on one of those perks that’s supposed to come with having a boyfriend, but I’m positive Evan is one extremely lucky guy right now.    

GRINDR GAVE ME COVID

True story. Grindr gave me COVID.

 

Okay, it’s not that simple, like going from Point A to Point B. I’m in a committed relationship. We’re not interested in opening it up to guys with curated dick pic collections. Seriously, is a dick pic enough for a hookup? Not a single face shot or even a pec pic? What happens in such situations? Does one guy head over to another guy’s place, both appearing disoriented when the door opens until the fly unzips? Ah, yes! There you are. 

 

I’m glad I’m not on Grindr. I’ve never set up an account. Still, I’ve learned a thing or two about the app and Grindr “culture” over the years from acquaintances who can’t seem to put their phones away lest some prime uncut specimen be only three hundred feet away. I don’t have a lot of gay friends but, if they’re on Grindr, they don’t talk to me about it. Perhaps they sense that I’d be uncomfortable. I grew up, after all, in a prudish household where repressing things was what made us feel at ease. The only birds-and-the-bees talk I ever had was a quick primer on refilling the hummingbird feeder before my parents went away for a Shakespeare festival weekend. (And, no, there was no wild Saturday night party in their absence. I simply had a few friends over to play Uno while we drank root beer. My friend, Spencer, was the best belcher.)

 

But back to Grindr. Evan’s friends have no problem talking about it. If there are different levels of Grind-ing, I suspect they’ve reached gold status and are hell-bent on achieving platinum. They’re a goal-centered lot. 

 

To be clear, these are guys in their fifties. They seem to have embraced their role as Daddy and get their egos, among other things, stroked by guys at least two decades younger. I presume it’s a quick exit when the young host wants them to linger for a discussion on the transformative powers of “Hannah Montana” or sets up the karaoke machine for a “High School Musical” sing-off. 

 

Evan gets annoyed by how much his friends are drawn to Grindr, but he enjoys the storytelling that comes as his friends run through weekly highlights. I’m mostly quiet, my smile being more about how relieved I am they got the monkeypox vaccine than the play-by-play of a backyard sex incident that required a dog-walking baggy. 

 

I may not understand the intricacies about Grindr, but I didn’t realize that listening to Grindr stories can give you COVID. It happens. I am proof of that.

 

This past weekend was my turn to be on Evan’s turf so I drove down to Seattle. We’d talked about all sorts of road trips that involved renting cabins that were either too expensive or unavailable so we decided to make it a simple Seattle weekend, enjoying his neighborhood by Lake Union, swimming, biking and taking it easy. When I walked into Evan’s apartment, he was on a call with his best friend, Dean, with Evan reading recent reports of people’s hiking experiences on a certain trail. I thought we’d ruled out hikes since Evan said any enjoyable experience required significant driving to avoid trails that were overwhelmed by Seattleites who wanted to update their Instagram accounts. 

 

It took a couple more evening texts before it was decided we’d get up at 5:30, then drive to Dean’s and head to Mount Rainier for our second hike there in the past month. No middle-of-nowhere motel this time, just a two and a half hour drive each way and a four-hour wander along a gorgeous trail.

 

Evan had me sit up front, riding shotgun, as Dean drove. I thought it was part of Evan’s plan to help his best friend and me bond, but then Evan said, “I can’t watch Dean’s driving.” Okay, not a romantic revelation. If someone flew through the windshield, it would be me. I double-checked the seatbelt. Seemingly secure. 

 

I wasn’t awake enough yet to engage in much conversation with Dean. We didn’t make a coffee stop until after the first hour on the road. Who does that? Still, I was indeed getting to know Dean. The guy didn’t require caffeine. Every yes/no question turned into an essay answer with tangents that were hard to track. I tuned out a time or two, visualizing lattes, imagining the aroma, scanning cupholders in Dean’s car. Maybe I could order two for myself. Double shots. Triples! It didn’t matter that we’d reached rural roads where the last sighting of a funky, independent café was twenty minutes behind us. We were in a region where coffee was served at roadside shacks with drive-thru windows and baristas who wore bikinis. I needed a latte even if it came with a cleavage assault.  

 

Dean got on a roll about his Grindr hookups from the week—a guy from the gym, a new twink from Mississippi, even an experience that didn’t have a satisfying ending. Two out of three ain’t bad. One week…Dean had been busy.

 

I got my latte. I showed restraint, keeping it to one. The woman who served us wore a standard t-shirt. Maybe that’s why we were able to drive right up to the window. We got to Mount Rainier and enjoyed the hike, spotting end-of-season wildflowers and lots of mooching chipmunks. No marmots, no bears. A unique cloud topped one side of the star peak. Dean and Evan noted that it looked to be safely covered in a giant condom. It wasn’t an inaccurate observation, but I preferred my more conventional interpretation: a spaceship had arrived for a study of one of Earth’s stunning landscapes. 

 

Dean talked more about sex and perhaps other things on the hike. I wasn’t obviously antisocial, but I often created space as I like hiking to be a quiet experience, taking in the scenery and trying to blot out the impression now that Mount Rainier was covered by a condom.

 

Spaceship.

 

Condom.

 

Spaceship, spaceship.

 

Condom.

Dammit!

 

I’ve gone on a lot of hikes and one of the things that amuses me is how many of them end at a human structure such as the remains of someone’s version of a “castle” or, in this case, a fully intact wooden forest fire lookout station. Yes, the lookout was placed thoughtfully at a high point with sweeping, 360-degree views of mountains all around, but instead of photographing the ridges, near and far, people lined up for selfies and group shots on and around the elevated cabin. As if a standard wooden structure eclipsed all the nature in our presence. Humans are egocentric. And weird. 

 

I snapped away at the mountain views and, yes, got one obligatory pic of The Thing that Man Made. Maybe I’ll give Everest a climb after someone gets around to building a warming hut at the summit or, at the very least, one of those quaint lending library boxes.

 

We walked back, got in the car for the drive home and stopped for lunch at a Mexican restaurant housed in a small-town motel. It’s best that I don’t leave a review on Yelp. When you opt for motel Mexican, the warning signs are implicit.

 

Something about being out of internet range while hiking seemed to have Dean in Grindr withdrawal. He talked more about hookups as I sipped a mediocre margarita—shouldn’t they lose their liquor license?—and watched motorcycles go by. I’m assuming they were in town for the festival set up under tents off the main road, but maybe the town was simply a Harley haven. (Could it have something to do with baristas in bikinis?)

 

On the road again—cuing Willie Nelson here seems apropos—Dean was suffering the equivalent to Grindr DTs. We were two hours out of Seattle, but he propped his phone against the steering wheel and sent emojis or woofs or eggplants or whatever it is people do in the Grindr world to acknowledge someone without saying anything. And, as it turns out, an eggplant (or whatever) was enough. Guys started unlocking their photos. Dicks, butts, sometimes even faces. You’ve reached a kooky corner of the internet when showing your face is more daring than flaunting your penis. Just an observation. Okay, judgy, too. 

 

It was surreal watching Dean at work/play and seeing the way an app for gay men looking for sex can short-circuit regular brain function. Is this what Evan meant when he said, “I can’t watch Dean’s driving”? I was at the ready to yell if Dean swerved or lingered at a green light. To his credit, the guy was a skilled multi-tasker. Even so, I’ll drive next time. My turn, after all. 

 

The next morning, I stepped out to get Evan and me our morning coffees. Snooty café, oh how I missed you! (Have you noticed that servers ignore you until it’s time to pay? “How’s your day going?” is the tired line. “Fine,” I say. They don’t want elaboration. They just want me to press a higher tip percentage on the credit card machine. I still fall for it at least half the time, notably before I’ve had my first coffee.)

 

I got home and handed Evan his almond matcha latte in bed. He cleared his throat and looked at me all too seriously before saying, “Dean texted. He has a sore throat. He took a COVID test. He’s positive.”

 

Wait. What?! 

 

We tested. Both negative. I figured that’s the way it would stay. Evan just had COVID back in June. He got it from my mother after we met my parents for lunch in Seattle after their Alaskan cruise. Mother, father and boyfriend got it; I was apparently immune.

 

By early Tuesday morning, I had a cough and a sore throat. Another test: negative. I drove back to Vancouver, making none of my customary stops in case I was a COVID carrier. By Tuesday night, my list of symptoms had grown. Denial was getting harder to cling to. Still, I have a solid track record of hypochondria so I hoped that ol’ trickster was messing with me again, making me think I felt awful. I tested.  Positive. 

 

I suppose it’s payback. If my cruise-happy mother gave Evan COVID, then let Evan’s cruisy-happy best friend return the favor. Lessons learned: never trust the (future?) mother-in-law and sometimes it’s best not to trust the best friend. Well played, Grindr. You got me.

 

What’s done is done. Let Dean take a break from his app while I catch up on crosswords. Who’s got the upper hand on a good time now?