Fried & True (18 page)

May 2005

LETTERS FROM CAMP REHOBOTH

FORE! PLAY.

I'm on a quest to find my inner dyke.

In contrast to my long-standing and well-deserved reputation as a non-athletic, non-mechanical, non-outdoorsy brand of lesbian, I'm surprised to find myself tackling some of my demons.

It would be a midlife crisis if I was going to live until 114. Suffice it to say that after a winter of losses and stress, I'm following my insightful counselor's advice to “take some time for yourself” and dabbling in new experiences. Herewith is the first.

Golf.

In the cupboard of dykedom, golf is a staple. And with CAMP's Women's League starting for the season, if I wanted to see my friends it would have to be on the fairway. If only I could get that far.

Day One: I rendezvoused with Bonnie and my brave friend Barb at the driving range. Immediately, I broke a strict golf tenet. I parked in the nearest spot I found. “Nooo!” Bonnie hollered, noting that my car was dangerously close to the 9th hole and therefore a candidate for boinking with golf balls the size of hail. I moved the car.

Next, I purchased the storied bucket 'o balls and strode up to the driving range tee for a lesson in swinging the club (“Practice like an elephant swinging its trunk.”). So I stood there in full view of traffic swinging my arms like Babar and fighting the urge to make circus sounds. Then I moved on to aiming for the ball on the tee. Whack. Nice for bocce ball.

From what was, for me, the dribbling range, we proceeded to the Par 3 course. As explained to me, Par 3 meant that I had three chances to humiliate myself before I was technically worse than the median average.

I teed off, but was teed off. I had lost my concentration.

As a wordsmith I was struck by the apparent contradiction in the term par. Why, I wondered, was below par on the course a good thing and feeling below par after a night of Grey Goose on the rocks a bad thing? Conversely, being above par has always meant better than average to me, so why, when I hit the ball 8 times before it reached the green was that not, as Martha Stewart would say, a good thing. You see my point?

Day Two: On my way to the driving range, I stopped at our local golf store, because much like the White House Press Corps and Congressional Democrats, I needed balls.

Ah, so many choices! What's more, here was a whole shopping experience I'd never discovered. Golf shirts, golf shoes, wind pants, gadgets, fuzzy animal golf club covers—I was overwhelmed. Bonnie managed to get me out of the store with a dozen pink golf balls and a rubber suction cup for the end of my putter so she wouldn't have to hear me groan when I reached down to the cup to retrieve my ball. If it should ever land in the cup.

Back at the driving range, I managed to try out most of the borrowed clubs in my bag and actually fire a ball or two briefly into the air. Incoming!

Day Three: Dressed like Nanook of the North and trying to remain upright against a 30mph bluster in the parking lot of the golf course, I wished I'd bought those wind pants. Barb and her partner Evie, organizers of the aforementioned CAMP league showed up with snazzy wind wear and a special clear plastic golf cart cover with zip up windows. I felt like I was riding in
Oklahoma's
Surry with the Fringe on Top—“with isenglas curtains you can roll right down, in case there's a change in the weather.”

A change in the weather I get. But when it starts
out
this bad, I questioned the point of going. But off we went, dressed like Arctic Circle explorers, blowin' in the wind.

Despite the gale force gusts, or perhaps because of them, I overcame my convoluted swing (“You look like you're chopping
wood!” “Wimpy, Wimpy, Wimpy!” “This isn't softball!”) and marched steadily forward on the course, 20 yards or so at a time. Then, occasionally 30-40 yards. One time the wind caught my ball and accidentally tossed it onto the green, where, to my delight, I soon sank a putt, meaning one over par and a bogey. I asked what Humphrey Bogart had to do with it. Nothing.

My self-congratulatory phase ended when I realized that the next hole was three football fields away, around a corner and past the 7-11.

And it was getting colder out. Say, do those little knitted golf club covers double as hats?

Day Four: Barb drops off a copy of
Golf for Dummies
at my office. Should I take this personally?

Facing those demons: League day approached. I was afraid of embarrassing myself. My insecurities reared their little golf club covered heads with flashbacks of my being the last one picked for sixth grade softball and the first double fault in the sleepaway camp tennis match. My athletic prowess can best be summarized by my status on Bonnie's former softball team. I always wore my sneakers to sit on the bench so in case somebody didn't show up, they could send me to right field to avoid forfeiture.

So I was worried. It's not like softball, basketball or volleyball where a klutz like me is never invited on the team. In our Women's League, all levels of players need apply—in fact, it's encouraged. So while that provided some comfort, I still had the pre-tee-off heebie jeebies. I may have had a dozen pink Nike orbs, but did I have the balls to do this?

League Day: I arrived at the course to find a gaggle of golfers ready to set out and golf carts lined up nose to bumper like a Disney World tram.

Off we went in foursomes, with my quartet consisting of Barb, who wanted to keep an eye on me, and two other players. It was sunny and windy, the course looked beautiful, and I hesitantly stepped up to the tee for my first shot. Amazingly, the
ball went up in the air for a short distance.

Since we were playing “best ball” I didn't have to struggle to keep up. Everybody just used the site of the ball that traveled the farthest for the next shot. It was actually fun. And once or twice, the quartet was reduced to using my ball. Of course, theirs went farther than mine, but they had landed in water or sand.

One time, I whacked a shot towards the rough and when it landed, three cute bunnies flew out of the woods, hopping for their lives. They were adorable and I was out in nature. Imagine that.

Our foursome laughed, talked, and scooted along the fairway, leaning out of the carts to retrieve balls like polo players leaning from their horses. I received lots of good advice.

Overall, I made a bunch of crappy shots, dug up an unfortunate amount of sod, whiffed the air instead of the ball a few times and occasionally got a “nice shot!” from my companions.

It goes without saying that I enjoyed the beer and postgame analysis at the 19th hole. At that part of the sport I am above par, meaning good. Or would that be below par, meaning good? I really need an answer on this.

And, prior to next week's League night I intend to do two things: practice a little at the driving range and find some fuzzy golf club hats that look like Schnauzers.

When the going gets tough, the tough go shopping.

May 2005

LETTERS FROM CAMP REHOBOTH

UP YOURS TRULY

It happens to me every few years.

No, not getting a Social Security statement lengthening the time until I can retire with full benefits. But that is a bitch. This is an entirely different kind of getting the shaft.

Eye glass prescription change? Yes, but not as regularly, if you'll excuse the expression.

Guessed yet? It's the every half-decade trip to the doctor for what we shall euphemistically call study hall.

That's right, in the organ recital of life, the colonoscopy is your sonata's fifth movement. Or, as the prep for this procedure goes, probably your fifteenth movement in as many hours.

Ah yes, roto-rooter time.

The reason I'm writing about this scatological subject is that three times in the last month I've heard of people who have been diagnosed with a preventable cancer, all because they were afraid of, or couldn't be bothered, with this test.

And here we are, facing Memorial Day weekend, thinking about fun in the sun and I'm writing about this shitty topic. But let me assure you, it's even crappier to be Queen of Denial about your colon. The damn test is an inconvenience, yes, but not painful at all, and one little rear ender can cure unbelievable future heartache.

I also have it on good authority from the editor of this publication that it's even less of a bother for gay men than for us gals. You figure it out.

So what's the test like? No big deal. But here's some practical advice:

Follow the pre-test directions exactly. If the test is Monday, you are supposed to have only a liquid diet on Sunday. Do it. But on Saturday night you might want to eat enough for the Israeli Army because it will be at least 36 hours before you can
have another morsel. This is the only hard part of the test.

As for the liquid diet, choose Jello and bouillon, not Cosmos and Margaritas. But it's survivable.

Then, around 5 p.m. on Sunday you have to drink a small bottle of liquid that tastes like salt water. Prior to my first exam of this type, my doctor made a terrific suggestion. He told me to get 8 ounces of the strongest (non-alcoholic) liquid I could think of and use it as a chaser for the prep cocktail.

I chose Blue Gatorade, which, if you've never tasted it, can make your ears fold up.

I understand that there are now tablets you can swallow to avoid this liquid loading, but you have to take more pills in an hour than Liza Minelli takes for a whole week, so it may be a bad trade-off.

Still the rear admirals try to make this process as easy as possible. The prep is manageable.

But here's the important part: whatever stuff you swallow, there are immediate consequences. Stay close to home. In fact, stay home. Between 5 p.m. Sunday and Monday morning you will be very, very busy. The company making the prep potion isn't called Fleet for nothing. They should include Reeboks.

Thank god I got that new Comcast digital video service where I could pause
The L Word
every five minutes while I raced to the bathroom. In this case the L in
L Word
stood for Ladies Room. But the truth is, if you stay up until about midnight, you might be finished spring cleaning entirely by that time and can sleep through the night.

And now, one of the most disgusting and shameless promos you've ever heard: since one critic actually said that my book,
As I Lay Frying—a Rehoboth Beach Memoir
made great bathroom reading because it contained short, fun chapters, it might be just the thing to get you through your Colonoscopy prep. Now there's a ringing endorsement if I ever heard one.

Sales pitch aside, my favorite part of this whole medical process happens on the morning of the test, when the doctor's sadistic receptionist says “Good morning!” with a cheery smile
to everybody who walks in. This, to haggard people who she knows have been up all night sprinting to the chamber pot. We're all there for the same tailgate party, and not the kind with beer and pretzels. It's galling.

Meanwhile, a nurse sticks her head out a door and into the waiting room. “Fay Jacobs?” she inquires.

“That's me, I say, “I'm ready for my close-up Mr. DeMille.”

I changed into a paper dress, layed down on my side and waited for them to put the scope where the sun don't shine. The doctor asked if I wanted sedation.

“Do bears poop in the woods?” I answered, realizing my unfortunate choice of clichés.

Ask for a little sedation, but not too much—a 60s era haze, not a falling down drunk. You want to be relaxed but conscious to watch the incredible journey through your intestines on the 25 inch plasma TV in front of you.

Frankly, a few years ago, I would have found this disturbing, but after the oozing, glowing, pumping stuff we see on
CSI
, a clean colon is positively charming.

“Well, you should have no discomfort at all, says the doc, you have a pretty straight colon.”

“Well, if I do, it's the only thing straight about me.”

We laughed and I could see my colon jiggling on TV.

As we viewed the scope rafting its way down the Rio Grande, I'd had enough sedation to start seeing Hans and the Wookie wending their way through space, or Katharine Hepburn and John Wayne rafting towards the waterfall in
Rooster Cogburn
. Or was this
Rear Window
?

Within minutes, the rear guard retreated, the Disneyland ride was over and I got a clean bill of health and a Polaroid photo of my guts as a souvenir.

That was it, nothing to it, over and done for five years.

Starving, I went immediately for a Mumbo Jumbo burger.

So please have it done if you've been stalling. I can't stand to hear any more horror stories that didn't have to happen. With just an ounce of intestinal fortitude, many things are preventable.

Put that Colonoscopy on your to-do list, in your Blackberry, on a note on the refrigerator door or wherever you write things down now that none of us can remember a damn thing.

And here's to one of the very best things we can do for ourselves, our families and our future. A toast to your next colonoscopy! Cheers, L'Chiam, a Votre Santé, or, as Broadway's Sweet Charity used to toast, “Up yours.”