Balls and Walnuts
more than you ever wanted to know
Category Archives: Favorites
She’s baa-ack.
Don’t know for how long.
Bare Rump discovers vibrators. This one may not be work safe.
D.
Local ubermarket caves to International Jewish Conspiracy
The bitch, the absolute, incontrovertible, undeniably heinous bitch of the Atkins Diet is that I can’t eat any of my Yid comfort food. Although Atkins is dead and his company has filed for bankruptcy, I continue to follow a low carb diet because that (and exercise) is the only thing preventing my jelly roll from ruling the world or, barring that, forcing me back into my fat clothes.
Make no mistake about it: Jewish comfort food is not low carb. Here’s a short list of all the things I dearly miss. (more…)
Ends and odds
First the ends,
For my Republican friends,
And now the freakin’ odds.
For we’re moving this weekend
(What a pain in the rear end!)
Not lounging like lazy old sods.
Yes, we’re changing our digs
We’ll be squealing like pigs
Cuz that’s how much we love U-Haul.
That’s a lie actually
I drive trucks into trees
And low-slung concrete garage walls.*
Karen’s learned from experience
To keep me at a distance
From lifting and driving and sharp stuff.**
What I do best is opine
And occasionally whine
While the movers do all the hard puff-puff.
Our first home we’ve remodelled
But we must have been addled
To think we could do it on budget.
No countertops or floor covers
Bathrooms still ugly buggers
And yet we’re near broke. Oh, fudge it!
It tires me to the bone
To abandon this home
Even if it’s to go to one better.
Only one silver lining —
Stopping most of my whining —
We left all of our really good porn there.
D.
*Karen swears I have driven trucks without crashing them into concrete beams or tree branches, but I have no memory of such successes.
**Once, while unpacking, I shaved off half a fingertip on broken glass. Ever hear the saying, “Humans have no memory for pain”? Bullcrap. I remember every second of that experience. My favorite part: the way every last paramedic and nurse had to unwrap my finger to look at the damages. That hurt.
Coitus interruptus
Have any of you ever been in the thick of it with your spouse when all of a sudden the cat started myowrowling outside the window, and you tried to ignore it, but then your son came tap-tapping at the bedroom door, complaining, “I can’t get to sleep with the cat making that racket!” And after putting on your clothes and getting your son back to bed, you let the cat back in, figuring she needed something to eat, but she only wanted to get back outside again, and then she waited just long enough for you and your spouse to get hot and heavy again before myowrowling a second time, so you let her in and figured, “Oh, to hell with it, let her watch,” even though she wouldn’t stop complaining, but still you managed to get the job done (thinking, This is not what I had in mind when I imagined a threesome), and afterwards put the cat out again, only to have her snap up in her jaws the dead mouse which is what she wanted to show you all along, and then she brought it into your bedroom and proceeded to crunch her way through it on your carpet, because, damn it, she wanted an audience, too?
Not that any of this happened. I’m just asking.
D.
Say hello to my little friend
So Candy has a thing for Harry and the Danglers, eh? Candy, I dedicate this one to you.
For the first year or two after we got married, Karen and I lived on campus. I focused on my preclinical course work while Karen built lasers and TA’d undergrad chemistry.
One night, I noticed something new about my nuts.
“Karen. Look at this.”
“What?”
“It’s never done this before.”
“Oh, Christ, Doug. You could have warned me.”
“Now, come on. Look at it. Does this look familiar?”
Teeth clenched, lips not moving: “I don’t know.”
“You’ve looked at it. Doesn’t this look weird? . . . I mean, you have looked at it before, right?”
She made a careful study of my scrotum. Next to my right nad, I had a balloon-like swelling. It didn’t hurt, but it certainly didn’t belong there.
“I think there’s something called a hydrocele,” I said. “Or maybe a spermatocele. Or maybe it’s a hernia. Or a tumor.”
“You’re the medical student. Why are you asking me?”
“I was hoping maybe it had always been there, and I just hadn’t noticed.”
“Doug, your hands are down there a hell of a lot more often than mine are. If anyone would know, you would.”
Good point.
I decided to go to the student health center on campus. There had to be a night nurse there, right? Maybe even a more advanced medical student, someone who had seen a few testes. Maybe even a doctor.
By the time I got there, I was anxious as a tom cat in heat. I charged in, found the nurse, pulled her aside into the hallway. We were all alone, she and I, but I didn’t exactly want to do this in the waiting room.
“Look at this, would you? This just isn’t right.”
I dropped my pants and framed it with my hands, just like this:
Only instead of a smiley hacky sack, I had my hairy nut sack well in hand.
“I was getting ready for bed when I noticed it,” I said. I moved it this way and that, gave it a good going over like I already had a dozen times that night. “It’s never been like this before, I’m sure of it. My wife doesn’t even recognize it. I was getting ready for bed, and, like, I don’t know, maybe I was scratching myself, I mean it’s not like I’m scratching myself all the time, but this time when I did I felt this big swollen thing that had no business being there. I mean, look at it. I’m a medical student, but I don’t know what this is. I dunno, maybe a hydrocele, or a spermatocele, or a hernia, or, oh God, please don’t tell me you think it’s a tumor. You don’t, do you?”
I looked away from my right nut and looked her in the eye for the first time. She kinda looked like this.
“I — I — I’ll get the nurse.”
She was an undergrad, eighteen years old tops. Probably a volunteer.
“Um, sorry,” I said as I stuffed my goods back in my pants. “Busy clinic like this, I’ll bet you see that all the time.”
She backed away, stricken. I never saw her again. She didn’t call, didn’t write. As for me, my little visitor disappeared by the next morning. He never showed up again, either.
***
This is my entry for Demented Michelle‘s Halloween Trick or Treat Prank Contest. It’s not much of a prank, but it’s all I got. And, gee whiz — if I’d been putting her on, it would have been one hell of a trick, eh?
D.
Two penis anecdotes from the hallowed halls
Today, Beth wrote about her new doctor, who sounds like my kinda gal (professionally speaking). I considered blogging on my philosophy of patient care, but then I thought, Naaaw. I’m gonna tell two dick stories.
Both tales come from a year I revisit in nightmares: internship.
The New Good Bad Sex Contest
Props to Gabriele for pointing me to this Guardian Unlimited article on the Bad Sex Award. Pub date may have been December, 2004, but it was news to me.
(Folks who want to cut to the chase (foreplay haters!) scroll down to The Contest in big, bold letters below.)
Here’s a snip from the first place award winner, Tom Wolfe’s I Am Charlotte Simmons:
Slither slither slither slither went the tongue, but the hand that was what she tried to concentrate on, the hand, since it has the entire terrain of her torso to explore and not just the otorhinolaryngological caverns – oh God, it was not just at the border where the flesh of the breast joins the pectoral sheath of the chest – no, the hand was cupping her entire right – Now! She must say “No, Hoyt” and talk to him like a dog. . .
You can read the rest of it (and more!) at the Guardian Unlimited link. For now, I have one comment before I get to the contest.
Otorhinolarynological?
Us ear, nose, and throat doctors don’t even use that word. Even its simpler form, otolaryngologist, is anathema. No one can pronounce it. I had to go through five years of residency to learn to pronounce it. It’s true!
Here’s the deal. We used to be ear, nose, and throat doctors. Then the general surgeons started calling us booger-pickers and snot docs, and we decided a la Rodney Dangerfield that we don’t get no respect, no respect at all. Some wag got out his Greek dictionary and figured out,
oto = ear
rhino = nose
laryng = throat
and we became otorhinolaryngologists.
Instant disaster. The Yellow Pages started charging us for the extra letters. ENTs began committing seppuku because, in addition to “Hey, can you see through to the other side?”* and “Huh?”** we now had to hear “How do you pronounce that?” TWENTY TIMES A DAY.
It didn’t help when we became otolaryngologists. If anything, life became worse. The word was slightly smaller than otorhinolaryngologist, having lost the rhino, and some folks thought perhaps they could pronounce it now. They couldn’t.
Some European dude thought ORL would be better. Catchy, easy to pronounce. Everyone loves acronyms. But then some American dude said, “Hey, wait a second. We do a lot more than ears, nose, and throat. We do cancer surgery, too! We’re head and neck surgeons. We’re ORL-HNS!”
Someone, probably a small town private practice doc like me, had the bright idea of going back to ENT, and we lived happily ever after.
So, what’s up with Tom Wolfe’s use of ‘otorhinolaryngological’? I think Mr. Wolfe is trying to say that sex is an ungainly, awkward, breathless experience, rather like saying otorhinolaryngological. And if we say pseudopseudohypoparathyroidism, we may even need to change our underwear.
Anyway, let’s talk about sex. Let’s do better than talk about it; let’s have a contest! Yes, I’m shamelessly copycatting. The Smart Bitches held one not long ago. Demented Michelle has a cool Halloween contest at her place. Mine, naturally, will be about Le Bad Sex.
A. You don’t even have to write a complete scene. Give me a sentence. A sentence fragment. Like that one. Or this one. Just make it reek to high heaven, okay? It’s like the Bad Hemingway contest without the machisimo. Or maybe with the machisimo, if that’s what floats your boat.
B. Two hundred words or less. Don’t get carried away or I’ll hurt you.
C. Use this post for entries only. I will post a chat thread below this one for comments and questions.
D. The prize: a $20 gift certificate to Barnes & Noble books, BUT: if you promote this contest on your blog or website, AND if you win, I’ll make it a $30 gift certificate. (When you post your entry, tell me where you have posted your promo.)
E. Entries will be judged by my ten-year-old son Jake.
F. Just kidding! Jeez, that would be a total buzz kill, eh? No, we’ll judge this like we do at the Writers BBS. Email me your votes for 1st, 2nd, and 3rd place. You may not vote for yourself. Scoring will be based on a point system: 1st place is 5 points, 2nd is 3 points, and 3rd is one point.
G. Multiple entries are allowed. In fact, multiple entries are usually necessary to achieve optimal results. *um, sorry, couldn’t help myself*
H. Contest begins: NOW!
I. Contest ends: Midnight, Pacific Standard Time, Tuesday, October 18th.
J. Voting begins: immediately after the contest ends.
K. Voting ends: Midnight, Pacific Standard Time, Thursday, October 20th.
L. You must enter the contest to vote. Sorry, but if any of y’all are as Type A as I am, you’ll probably end up paying winos to go to their local libraries, hop on the computer, and vote for you, just so you’ll win some dumb gift certificate. And besides, I’m trying to encourage entries.
New!!! M. You may enter as many times as you like.
Enjoy!
D.
*The ENT looks into his patient’s ear.
“Hey, doc, can you see through to the other side?”
“Ya know, I could, except there are these two walnuts rolling around that are getting in the way.”
**The ENT says, “So, Mr. Patient, how’s your hearing?”
“Huh?” (Followed forthwith by eager I’ll bet you never heard that one smile.)
At least you girls have Fabio
I’m feeling a bit wiped out from my editing work, so I decided to hand today’s blog off to Bare Rump. In case you don’t know her, Bare Rump is a ten-foot-long, eight-legged research scientist from the Tromatopelman planet M833-G1a. Like the rest of her kind, she has a rather odd take on romance which I’m sure you will appreciate. Actually, Bare Rump is an atypical Tromatopelman female; she’s had her share of lovers, but presently enjoys a long term relationship with a Grith Lyssome intelligence officer whom she calls Lord Valor.
As for why Bare Rump is here on Earth, you can read more about that here.
Oof. That’s it for me. Be nice to my favorite girl.
Bare Rump here, y’all. (Ooh, my Texas time is showing!) Doug wanted to take a bit of time off from the blog, and since I have been ever so negligent updating mine, I volunteered. Lord Valor offered, but what could he write about? Poop and software, that’s all my lover knows. Well, he also understands how to show a girl a good time. Dear me yes. If only you could see the way he rolls me onto my dorsum and sets me a-quiver with that magical proboscis of his — but, heck! This isn’t the Epigynum Monologues, for gosh sakes.
Doug has left it up to me to introduce you to my planet’s top-selling Romance novelist, Bronwyn Webweaver. A bit of background: Bronwyn was born the only daughter in an egg sac of eight. She excelled at her schoolwork and rapidly grew big and strong. As an only daughter, she had to skip college and take work as a legal secretary. “I could type fast but couldn’t spell. I was the worst legal secretary ever,” she says now.
She took a mate who survived their first encounter only to get too zealous on the second. Now fat and pregnant, Bronwyn took a job as a botanist’s assistant at the University of South Underland. Her work forced her aboveground on a daily basis, collecting moss and lichen samples for her bosses. The now famous mugwasp storm of 4079 forced her to stick to her tunnels, and out of boredom, she took up a pencil and notepad and wrote out the rough draft for her first novel, Silk Bondage (4080).
Silk Bondage suffers from first novel syndrome, sadly. Way too much angst and not enough sex. For my money, Web of Desire (4081) was her first true hit.
I love this book, but Miss Webweaver, puh-lease, what is up with your cover artist? Start with those silk sheets. Girl, it looks like your red-kneed hobag of a heroine has just worked her way through the entire South Underland Males’ Varsity Yabbaball Team on those very sheets. My advice? Find a good dry cleaner.
And those little black balls. Are those . . . no, please don’t tell me those are thought bubbles. Your heroine apparently fantasizes about beady-eyed males with Fu Manchu pedipalps. And where are the rest of his legs? Good God, girl, have you been snacking?
I have only one word to say about the male on the cover of Bronwyn’s next book:
HAWT.
Take me, take me now, you great savage wonderful hairy bastard you. Burn me with those Palps of Fire. I promise I won’t even snark on that weird-ass floral arrangement you have on the left margin — what is that, Baby’s Breath? — okay, I said I wouldn’t snark. But gaaawd look at those stout glorious pedipalps. You know they don’t make pedipalps that big in nature, so what is this, some sort of cruel photoshopping stunt? Cover artists are mean bitches, I tell ya.
Only one problem. He’s a little too perfect. He’s like, “Look at me, God’s gift to females. You’d be lucky to come within a mile of my sperm web,” and I’d be like, “Dude, if you don’t get over yourself, I’m going to fix those two buttonholes on your thorax,” and he’ll be all, “I don’t have two buttonholes,” and then WHAM! I’d be all, “You do now, dude.”
Um, Doug? Don’t let Lord Valor read those last two paragraphs. He can be awfully possessive.
And now, on to my favorite Bronwyn Webweaver novel:
“I salivated for days!” says Emma Longfang of the Silken Times. Yeah, you would, Emma. You haven’t tasted male-meat in decades, you desiccated skank hobag. (That’ll teach you to snark on my abdominal hair condition on network TV, bitch.)
Damn, she pisses me off. Such a perfect cover, and Emma “Drool Problem” Longass has to ruin it with her stupid witticisms — not. Grrrr.
Okay. Take a deep breath, clear head, concentrate on Sex at Seven, Dinner at Eight. Aaah.
Everything about this book is perfect. Start with the title: why not treat copulatory arachnicide with honesty and a sense of fun? Girls, be honest: who among you hasn’t sucked dry your share of males? The one who says no, she’s an anorexic. You humans aren’t so different than us.
Then there’s that dude on the table. Man, they don’t get more dashing than that. Yeah, he looks like he’s about ready to dash clean off the table before I get my chance to pounce. And the way he’s holding his forelegs, he almost looks intelligent, don’t ya think? Sure, it’s not realistic, since most of our males can’t be trusted to dig a tunnel without burying themselves alive. But a girl can dream.
He sure is one handsome bad-ass brute. Only thing I don’t like about it is the wine glass. If I have to listen to one more “I don’t drink . . . wine” joke, I’m going to barf. And you wouldn’t like me when I barf.
As for the story, here’s the deal. Bawb is a handsome young home-spinner who gets drunk one night with his buddies. One of them, Dood, bets Bawb that he can’t survive six matings in a row with the ladies from the Girls Who Don’t Suck dating service. Bawb takes the bet, figuring he won’t mind too much if he loses since he’ll be dead. Little does he know that Dood has lined up his sister Scythee as Bawb’s last date. Scythee is legendary in their community; no male has ever survived her embrace. Will she be his last date, literally?
WARNING! SPOILERS!
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Bawb’s sister warns Bawb of Dood’s trickery and tells him to tell Scythee that he (Bawb) has a rare blood disease, making him unpalatable. The first five girls learn about Bawb’s supposed blood disease and they are righteously pissed that he didn’t warn them. Comical hijinks follow. Meanwhile, Scythee has little else to do but admire Bawb’s good looks, and, lo and behold, she falls in love with him. She saves Bawb from the other girls’ attacks.
Bawb desperately wants to inseminate Scythee, but Scythee is leery of the blood disease. Bawb gets his sister to explain everything. Scythee falls in love with Bawb’s sister. Together, they eat Bawb and then take a long vacation in the Crystal Caverns.
“Are you spiritual?”
Um. Helloooo, Blogger? Is there a good reason why this post was up for several hours, and then disappeared, only to reappear as an older (AND INCOMPLETE!) draft version on my dashboard?
Or is this post being yanked by an even Higher Authority?
Cue Twilight Zone music.
Damn. I hate telling jokes twice.
At a Christmas party a few years ago, one of the local wives asked Karen, apropos of nothing, “Are you spiritual?”
Here was my wife, a firm atheist, being questioned on faith by someone who could only be described as a true believer. I watched, dumbstruck. I expected blood. But I had underestimated Karen yet again. As an attentive student of Miss Manners, she handled the question with ease.
“What an interesting question,” she said. “And such a good question, too. Isn’t it odd how infrequently folks talk about spirituality with people they hardly know? I wonder why that is?” And so forth. She kept at it until the topic had strayed a safe distance from the hot button of spirituality. The other woman never knew what hit her.
I was relieved — not so much because Karen had handled the question so deftly, but because no one had bothered to ask me.
That might explain how I came up with the Hannukah Lobster.
After that bit of humiliation, I brow-beat my parents into signing me up for Hebrew School. There, Israeli women who pronounced my name Dog taught me to read Hebrew, and later, a tyrannical cantor taught me my cantillation marks so I could belt out Torah lines with the best of ’em. Religious instruction consisted of disjointed Bible stories taught as historical fact with nary a word of moral or ethical analysis. As for Talmud — Talwhat?
Our rabbi fancied himself a comedian, a Jackie Mason in tefillin. What a dick. His whole pre-ceremony interaction with me consisted of a twenty minute interview, during which he badgered me about how baseball was a sport for intellectuals. He got me to cough up some dirt on my family, which he used during my bar mitvah as ‘humorous’ snark. Yeah, that’s right — in front of my friends, family, and the whole congregation.
That ended my schtick with Judaism, at least for a while.
See, it’s this last bit that Blogger keeps eating. Not the whole post, just this last bit. Grrr.
A few days ago, I mentioned Borges’ story, “Pierre Menard, Author of the Quixote”, wherein a little known, marginally successful author sets out to rewrite Don Quixote word for word. I’m beginning to feel like Menard, only it’s not Cervantes I’m struggling to channel. It’s me.
Well, here goes. One more time. This time I’m saving the HTML in a separate text file.
Over the years, my spiritual pendulum has swung from Judaism through Agnosticism to Zen Buddhism. I’m what you call a Jew-Boo (if you’re trying to be nasty, that is) or a Juddhist (my preferred designation). Those of you familiar with Buddhism know that its precepts are compatible with other religions. Zen, especially, is more a philosophy than a network of faith-based beliefs. So it’s not all that weird, despite what some of my tribe might think — the ones who sling the Jew-Boo label, that is.
Now that I’m an adult, I can take charge of my education. I have a halfway decent library on both Zen and Judaism, and I’ve read a fair fraction of it. I’m not an ignoramus. For that matter, I suspect I’ve read more of the New Testament than the average American Christian.
Nevertheless, when it comes to practice, I’m as piss-poor a Buddhist as I am a Jew.
The pendulum tends to take a sharp turn back towards Judaism whenever I’m faced with a pediatric airway emergency. Times like those, the last thing I want to believe is that I’m the one whose solely responsible for the life of this child. Those situations are frightening enough without that kind of load on my shoulders. Yup, that’s when the big time bargaining comes in.
Me: Hey, God? You remember me, the guy who recites his Shema every few years or so and hopes like crazy he’s catching You in a good mood. Well, hey, look. It’s like this. I have this kid here, she’s eighteen months old, and I would really appreciate it if you would help me look after her.
Him: (silence)
Me: Okay. Be that way. How about this: if things work out okay, I’ll start working on my son again. I mean, he’s nine years old. How entrenched could his atheism be? I’ll do my best, Lord, I really really will.
And so forth.
When you get down to it, I want to believe, particularly at times like those. Security, that’s what it’s all about. I don’t believe in an afterlife and I’m not particularly afraid of my own death. I am concerned about the safety and health of my family and my patients, and so I want to think Someone is up there watching over us.
At the same time, I realize no one makes it out of here alive.
That’s why questions like “Are you spiritual?”, “Do you believe in God?”, or even “Have you been saved?” distress me. The answer to all three is the same: It’s complicated.
You know something? For the folks who ask those kinds of questions, “It’s complicated” is the last answer they want to hear.
It’s complicated because I’m not the perfect Vulcan my wife is. It’s complicated because, while I hate blind faith, I’m too attached to my memes to let them go. It’s complicated because, like any true Agnostic, I really don’t know the answers.
I’d like to think my confusion is the hallmark of an intelligent mind, but I know it is nothing more than what it is: confusion.
And it doesn’t help that every time I come within a hair’s breadth of something approaching an epiphany of self-understanding, Blogger eats my column.
Okay. Here goes. Save HTML file. Hit publish button.
D.