You're Not One of Those Steroid Fags With Bitch Tits and Shrunken Balls...

...but after a two-month doctor prescribed gym hiatus thanks to your Hurtful Hernia, you are feeling a little bit scrawny and a whole lot Gay Fat. And it's just one mere week before Fire Guyland Season begins! So after your morning workout, you actually find yourself wandering into your Gym's Gift Shop and asking the Monosyllabic Muscle Head behind the counter about the Pros vs. Cons (i.e. Muscle Growth vs. Kidney Failure) of Creatine while you swipe your credit card, along with your street cred, as you descend deeper into both financial as well as ethical debt.

As soon as you emerge from your underground Ghetto Gym (which happens to be so far underground that you're more likely to receive a message via semaphore than by cell), your iPhone alerts you to a text from The Ex, “give me a call when you get a chance. the cat is in the hospital with kidney failure - not uncommon for older cats, but the vet isn't optimistic. we'll know more on friday. so sad.” The Ex got the Kitty Cunt in the divorce, but if you could have split him in two, you probably would've. Meanwhile, it's a very strange feeling because you are in NY and the Kitty Cunt is currently in LA with The Ex. Although you inherently broke up with both of them three and a half years ago, you suddenly feel like it was just yesterday as both you and your mood descend into the subway. When you found her fifteen years ago, the Kitty Cunt was just another Pre-Giuliani Homeless New Yorker, abandoned by her owner over a divorce spat. Luckily, your own divorce was much less contentious and the Kitty Cunt remained housed and (over) fed by The Ex until the point of teetering that fine (fe)line between Straight's Fat Cat and Lesbian's Fat Cat. But she was happy. And three and a half years after your divorce, so are you. Or at least you were until you received this bad news.

You call The Ex when you arrive at work in order to get the whole story, and you are surprised at how well he is taking the tragic news because, however much you love that Kitty Cunt, your Ex is way more Pussy-Whipped than your gay ass could ever be. Unfortunately the phone call turns out to be even more upsetting than the text. The Kitty Cunt is currently having her kidney's flushed via IV at the Vet, and they won't know anything until they finish the flush and can conduct some more tests. Your Ex, however, is surprisingly keeping it together even though you expected that he'd be taking blood tests to see if he were a good match to be the Kitty Cunt's kidney donor. You tell him to keep you posted with any news, mostly because you don't want him to go through the horrible situation all alone, but partly because you suddenly feel more alone and single than you have in years. You find yourself wishing you could be in LA with your feline and your fractured former family of three.

Eventually you drown your sorrows in a remarkably tasteless glass of Creatine, and gulp it down while you Procrastinwrite for a bit, but your heart's not really in it. Since you're feeling rather lonely you quickly wind up going online to see if there are any cute boys lurking around on Connexion, and luckily, since it's still relatively early in Sweden, you quickly see that the Swedish Engineer is currently online. Before you know it you're having a chat with your Swedie Pi and you tell him all about your ailing Kitty Cunt's Kidney. Having never had a pet, Swedie Pi is not really all that sympathetic, but honestly you are just looking for nothing more than the potential to not feel so pathetically alone and single. But you are absolutely floored when your Swedie Pi asks for your number because he wants to call. From Sweden. Now you're typically not the kind of fag who likes to put a lot of email/IM/phone energy into any boy that you haven't met offline, but you are feeling particularly vulnerable today so you end up giving Swedie Pi your number. And he calls. Right away. He's got a super sexy voice with a hot accent to boot. For some reason the phone call isn't at all awkward and the two of you instantly develop a quirky rapport and Swedie Pi comes off just as self-assured as he did during your online chat. You like that you can easily notice the integrity behind his playful cockiness. And you really like that your Swedie Pi is confident enough to allow you to see it. But you are absolutely thrilled when Swedie Pi asks you out on a date for the day after he returns from Sweden. You, of course, instantly accept, and decide to figure out the exact date-y details in the next few days.

You don't talk too long, after all it's very late in Sweden, not to mention that it's an expensive international call, so you tell your Swedie Pi to "Sleep tight" before hanging up. Afterwards, you mix up another batch of Creatine and gulp it down while you imagine your kidneys beginning to swell. Eventually, when you return to your laptop you realize that you forgot to sign out of Connexion Chat and notice that a sexy Photo Journalist with a fauxhawk has attempted to initiate a IM with you while you were busy with your Swedish Skype Session. And unlike your Swedie Pi, the Fauxtographer is currently not in Sweden. So you put your Swedie Pi on the back burner (even though, so far, this particular Ikea project has had an extremely easy assembly process) and end up sending the Fauxtographer an email since he has gone offline. Since you and the Fauxtographer are in the same Gay Standard Time Zone, he returns your email in no time and, before you can say, "Say Cheese!" you have plans to grab a drink later this evening. The Fauxtographer definitely doesn't waste any words. Especially not funny ones. He seems as if he may be a bit too intense for you, and after Blonde Beard you could definitely be happy with a little less intensity, but you could also be happy with a little more sex so you decide it couldn't hurt to go out for a quick Fauxto Shoot. You tell the Fauxtographer that you'll be free after 8:30pm and he promises to text you before then so you can make a plan.

After work you head over to Callen-Lorde to get your second of three Hepatitis Vaccination shots. Miss Hot Tranny Meds is, of course, looking fabulous and she seems genuinely happy to see you, but unlike your last visit where you got tested for absolutely everything, this time she just pops a needle in your arm as she quickly goes over all the vital organs that Hepatitis will ruin before sending you on your Mary way. But this is when you realize that, besides your HIV- status, the doctor never called you back with the other results from the various STD tests you took last month. Although you usually consider No News to be Good News, Miss Hot Tranny Meds looks into her database and, as she is telling you that, "Everything is Fi..." she quickly seems to reconsider her words and then promptly leaves both you and your pounding heart to go find the doctor. You, of course, are absolutely positive that you have Herpes, because (although you chose not to write about it in you Blah-Blah-Blog because you eventually began to censor yourself when it came to all things personal with Blonde Beard) during one of your last conversations while he was still your Non-Boyfriend, your follicle faced friend informed you that he had tested positive for Genital Herpes and that his doctor had put him on Valtrex. But now that he dumped you, you have little concern about sharing his messy secrets, so you are completely prepared for the bad herpetic news as Miss Hot Tranny Meds returns to the office. She sits down and looks at you with her heavily made up eyes while she informs you that, "You have tested positive for Herpes Simplex One." You instantly throw your hands up and are absolutely beside yourself. She continues to blah-blah-blah and eventually you return from your narcissistic downward viral spiral, and start listening to Miss Hot Tranny Meds as she explains that you may experience a cold sore around your mouth every now and again. And you definitely shouldn't be kissing any boys during a breakout. "Oh!" you exclaim, relieved. "That's it? I've known about that for years." And you practically skip out of Callen-Lorde, absolutely thrilled to experience your next oral outbreak.

You race home to mix up yet another batch of Creatine and then get primped for your date with the Fauxtographer. However, when 8:30 comes and goes with absolutely no word from your tentative date, you decide that the film in this particular Fauxto-Shoot has obviously been under-developed, so you go ahead and make quite an elaborate dinner for one which consists of Tilapia, grilled vegetables, tomato soup and a big heaping glass of skim milk. And then you eat your three course meal. Leisurely. And then you wash all the dishes. Slowly. And just as you sit down to watch a little TV because you are exhausted and a little sad about your Kitty Cunt, that's when the Fauxtographer texts you, exactly one hour and seven minutes after he said he would. Now there is such a thing as Gay Standard Time and then there is an Hour and Seven Minutes Late for a First Gay Date. You're already over him, but the Fauxtographer informs you that he is actually on your block, “Where u at what u doing, on 1st and 1st. Would be up for 1 very cheap quick drink somewhere if u up 4 it.” Even though u are definitely not up for it, you decide that, between your Herpe scare and your Kitty Cunt's Kaput Kidney, you could really use a drink. So you text him back, "Ok I live right there. Where should I meet you?” but you are annoyed to receive, “U know somewhere cheap and Chill? If so, then there.” The last thing you want to do is put any thought into this outing, because, if you do, you know that you will surely reconsider and quickly blow it off. Not to mention the fact that you also absolutely hate making last minute plans via ten thousand text messages, so you put zero thought into it and give him one option in your terse one-word response, "Urge?"

Five minutes later you are walking West on East 1st Street as some weird guy headed toward you tries to violently jam some flyer into your hand as you pass by, and you sort of jump out of his way while pretending to ignore him because you are absolutely not interested in whatever he's selling. But when you look up you realize that this particular crazy man has a giant cardboard box on his head with two small holes cut out for his eyes. You begin to laugh nervously at the Box Head as he mumbles something about Jesus and the whole bizarre situation actually puts you in a better mood, which is good news for the Fauxtographer because you were really going into this Fauxto-Shoot with all the bad attitude and blank expression of a starving Supermodel.

Although it's dark inside the bar, once you're inside Urge you don't see anybody who's nearly as cute as the Fauxtographer should be, and this is when it hits you. Of course he's going to be cuter in his photos! He's a Fauxtographer! Ugh. So you look around a bit and find an older looking, semi-cute guy, and you say his name in the form of a question as the guy looks at you like you are insane and says, "That's not me," in a high pitched squawk which gives you a short-lived sense of relief until he starts to laugh at his own non-existent joke. You instantly feel like an idiot during the first two seconds of your humorless date, and you just sit down and listen patiently while the Fauxtographer tells you about what a funny guy he is. You hide behind your Absolut Mandarin and Soda and suppress a yawn so big that it almost produces bubbles through your straw. Whatever the reason, you just don't feel at all engaged by any of his stories, however, you suffer through the date like a gentleman and don't even bother answering your cell when a call taunts you by vibrating in your pocket.

After your "1 very cheap quick drink," which, unfortunately, turns out to be a not-so-quick 2-4-1, the Fauxtographer walks you home with the not-so-ulterior motive of going upstairs with you. But you say your goodbyes on the corner and are very vague about which actual corner you live on while being not-so-vague about the fact that your Hobosexual Roommate is waiting for you at home. You reach out your hand for a nice, formal shake, but the Fauxtographer somehow pulls you in and plants one on your unsuspecting lips. During your six-flight ascent to your Home-Sweet-Hovel, your phone vibrates with a text from the Fauxtographer which says, "you, my friend, are the fountain of youth ... was nice getting out and talking about writing and relationships - i had a good time ... thanx - text / call anytime ... xo." Which is nice, but obviously never gonna happen, but that's when you notice the voicemail indicator on your iPhone and dial in to see who called. By the time you reach the top of the stairs you are out of breath and in absolute shock as you unlock the door to your apartment and listen to the dire message from The Ex who wants you to call him back immediately. You instantly know what has happened before he even answers your return phone call, and you are uncharacteristically speechless as The Ex tells you about how he had to put the Kitty Cunt to sleep. He tried to call so as to include you in the difficult decision, but when you didn't answer he had to decide all alone. Both of you are in tears as The Ex explains the sad story of your panting cat, ultimately unable to catch her breath even though she was in an oxygen tank, and The Ex tearfully describes how the Kitty Cunt was licking his forehead as she drifted off peacefully to sleep as the Vet put the shot of drugs into her tiny IV. You're unbelievably sad and feel very, very alone as you lay in bed and listen to the story which sort of sadly signifies the absolute end of the relationship that the three of you started fifteen years ago. And right then, in a sort of bizarre homage to the Kitty Cunt's failed kidney, you decide that you will stop taking the silly Creatine because there is more to life than having big fake muscles on Fire Guyland. However, since it was rather expensive and you hate to waste, you decide that you'll stop taking it after you run out of it. Because, really, how much kidney damage could one little jar cause? Anyway...

You're Not One of Those Fags Who Waits by the Phone for Your Boy to Call...

...but that's mostly because you're much too busy waiting anxiously by your laptop for an apology email from Blonde Beard. The last thing he said to you was that he would contact you on Sunday. And, of course, now it's Monday and not only have you not been contacted, but you have also woken up in severe pain. Heartache would actually be preferable to the excruciating testicular "kick-in-the-balls" kind of pain that you're feeling. At first you were proud of your swollen balls, but now they're seeming a lot less, as Fergie would say, Glamorous. But, since you have your priorities set (for lack of a better word) straight, before calling Dr. Mary-Ann-Not-Ginger to schedule an emergency appointment, you log onto Connexion and change your online profile from "Exclusively Dating" back to, sigh, "Loser Party of One." Oops, excuse the typo, you meant to write "Single."

Dr. Mary-Ann-Not-Ginger barely takes thirty seconds out of her busy day to examine your Balloon Balls (which, given their current size are at least worthy of a two minute gawk, or perhaps even a paparazzi tabloid shot on Gawker), and then she writes you a prescription and sends you downstairs for a, get this, Scrotal Sonogram. You wait and wait and wait for what feels like forever before you are finally taken into a room and informed that you must take all your clothes off and put on a humiliating hospital gown with the opening to the front. Ugh. You do as you're told, however, without the support of your Calvin's, the weight of your pendulous scrotum practically brings you to tears. Although sitting down in a hospital gown that opens to the front happens to be the most disturbingly unbecoming pose you've ever donned (not to mention the most un-lady-like), gravity forces you and your Balloon Balls to take a seat so you don't have to add crying to your list of woes.

Eventually you are called into a little room by an unintelligible Russian Technician who is surrounded by lots of expensive medical equipment whose operating manuals hopefully come in languages other than English. Ms. Gorbachev instructs you to "Move your pen-iss," which takes you a moment to fully understand, but eventually you realize that she needs help with her Soviet Penis-troika so you happily move your junk out of her way. She lubes up your balls with gobs of petroleum jelly while you lay there and try to think about anything less humiliating than this particular experience. So, of course, your mind instantly turns to your recent Non-Break-Up Break-Up with Blonde Beard.

While Ms. Gorbachev rubs her Transducer over your Junk, you mentally escape the humiliation by creating a Pros and Cons list in your head. Although the Cons seem to substantially outweigh the Pros, and even though the two of you were so substantially different that it would have been practically impossible to achieve a long term relationship, you can't help but wonder, "Why the fuck hasn't Blonde Beard called you?" Regardless, you are somewhat relieved that the stressful relationship has ended before you had to come out of your Blah-Blah-Blogger Closet. Your unexpected relief kind of reminds you of the way you felt when you lost contact with your Homophobic Birthfather, even though that troubled relationship ended because you came out of the closet. Anyway. The whole situation is just too confusing and too difficult that it somehow actually seems easier not to have it. So the silver lining of your whole Blah-Blah-Blogged relationship is that you're not really all that broken-up about breaking-up with Blonde Beard. Although you don't feel particularly sad, you definitely feel, particularly and undeniably, confused. You run through the embarrassing chain of events that led to the demise of your Non- Relationship with your Non-Boyfriend and you begin to wonder if perhaps Blonde Beard might somehow be mad at you for ruining his 40th birthday? But all you fucking did was tell him you loved him after paying for everything. Note to self: Next time definitely confess your love before the check comes.

Eventually, Ms. Gorbachev finishes probing your nether regions and runs out of the room as she mutters something gruff and unintelligible which you decipher as, "Get dressed." You stand up, carefully wipe the goop from your throbbing Balloon Balls, get dressed, and when you open the door Ms. Gorbachev is absolutely nowhere to be found. Defeated, you just leave, feeling even more confused than you already do, not to mention slightly defiled (but not in that good gay way that you've become accustomed to).

The hospital ends up sucking a lot of time and energy out of your day that would have been much better spent laying in bed, so when your phone reminds you of an HIV test you made weeks ago when you still had a sex-life, not too mention testes that weren't tortured by even the lightest touch, the last thing you want to do is drag your ailing balls across town to Callen-Lorde to get tested (especially since the prospects of ever having sex again seem to have recently become extremely unlikely). Unfortunately, it's much too late to cancel, so you schlep across town on the M23 bus and wait for your name to be called for your $10 Rapid HIV test at the Community Health Center.

After Miss Hot Tranny Meds pricks your finger for a bit of blood, you habitually get up and start to limp back to the waiting room so you can slowly drive yourself crazy during the twenty minute wait while visions of your accidental Magnum-less P.I. (Penetration Incident) with Blonde Beard dance through your head. You're almost out the door when Miss Hot Tranny Meds asks you in her deepest baritone. "Where do you think you're going? You signed up for a complete set of STD tests." Ugh. Miss Hot Tranny Meds sends you downstairs for a blood test, and when you return, both ends of your digestive system are thoroughly swabbed as if you are one of the Perps on Logo's newest show, CSI: Fire Island. During the commercial break, Miss Hot Tranny Meds informs you that your HIV test came back Negative. Although you should be thrilled, you actually find yourself wondering whether it's possible to have a relationship that will last longer than the six-month gap between your Bi-Annual HIV test?

Anyway. When you get home and drag your aching Balloon Balls up the six flights of stairs to your Home-Sweet-Hovel, you instantly race to your computer to check your email for an apology from Blonde Beard that you're never going to receive. Only when you check your Inbox it actually contains something that proves to be even more ego-stroking: an email from a very, very cute Connexion boy. It says, "hey! i'm a writer, too. what kind you ask? i'm the trying-not-to-be-lazy kind. i'm actually just a playwright, so not a real writer. you can google me, i ain't lyin'." You, of course, instantly Google Mr. Write and are absolutely shocked to find a Wikipedia entry that includes so many credits and prestigious accolades that, one thing's definitely for sure, Mr. Write "ain't lyin'."

Blonde Beard who? Anyway...