Professional Scanner of Strangers' Balls

Today, I am sleepy. For nice reasons, actually - I was up until about 1:30am sitting on the couch playing that Minecraft Dungeons game with Cute-Nerdy Teacher over Xbox Live. The game is… fine. A competent ARPG with a Minecraft skin wrapped around it. But after learning that CNT spends time with her brother playing silly games online once in awhile I found a PC/Xbox crossplay game and figured it was worth a shot. A solid 3-4 hours of chatting and joking and whapping zombies with swords and I’d say it was definitely worth a shot. Still good vibes about that girl. Intelligent, silly, attractive, with this unique mix of gamer nerd and dancer that I don’t see often. Not counting any chickens, history has certainly taught me better than that, but if nothing else she’s made that dismal dating site seem like it was worth the effort. Having another friend to goof around with in games is a valuable thing right now.

I am still absolute garbage at drywall repair. The chimney people came out last week to close up the aforementioned AC unit hole in my wall, two weeks before originally scheduled, so I had to scramble to pull the actual AC itself out of there after work last Thursday. Surprise surprise, more mold behind that thing. Apparently it hadn’t been sealed correctly (or at least recently, and I didn’t realize I needed to fix it). I’mma get all the various sources of these allergies sooner or later. Anyway, the brick looks good and now I’m patching up the 2’x3’ hole in the drywall and it’s… not good. There will be lots of sanding to try and even it out. I’ll likely make it passable - I’m thinking about building a floating shelf or two in that spot to store sheet music/cover up my hack job - but a budding career as a drywall repair guy I have not. Rats. There went plan B.

So that allusion to my health still being a problem last entry? I have to note some details there because it’s just too much not to. So after the first couple of days on this new workout plan I started noticing a pain in the right side of my groin. Based on the location and timing of it right after a heavy leg day my first concern was that I had popped a hernia during my workout, but, as I mentioned last time, I’m trying not to flip out at every ache and pain and let it go. Likely just tweaked a muscle or something. It’ll be fine.

By Monday evening of last week the pain was far worse and radiating out from that spot. A dull throb, but enough that falling asleep was getting difficult and trying to find a comfortable position sitting at my desk was almost impossible. On Tuesday my entire lower abdomen cramped up and my lower back was so tender around the lower spine/kidneys that I could barely bend forward. I tried to remain calm until Wednesday night, when I finally broke down and started doing research to see if I could figure out what it might be. Inguinal hernia? Some sort of stone? Possibly an infection of something in my man region? Ugh. This isn’t what I wanted.

So I booked an online appointment with my favorite local urgent care for later that day. The hope was that I could describe the symptoms and he could tell me whether I needed antibiotics or what to look for if it might be something structural. Halfway through the day I realized… am I about to show my junk to some doctor over webcam!?!? Is he possibly going to try and INSPECT the area via telemed? Christ. The appointment comes, I’m sitting at my desk, shades drawn, like a blushing bride on her wedding night, for 30 minutes waiting for this doctor to show. Eventually he comes online, interrupts my description of what I’ve been experiencing a few times, starts making the loud statement over and over “SO YOU’RE HAVING SCROTAL PAINS! SCROTAL PAINS. YOU’RE HAVING SCROTAL PAINS.”, and then jumps right to “It could be anything, you’ve gotta get it imaged I don’t know what to tell ya”.

Fast forward 3 hours. I’m lying on my back on a table in a cramped dark room, $200 poorer than I was when I walked in. It’s my first time in one of those medical gowns where the ass opens up to the world, but in the gown’s current state hiked up to my upper thigh I’m not all that concerned about my ass hanging out. I’ve been instructed to hold the sides of the gown taught against my thighs, presumably to pin my junk up underneath and out of the way. Meanwhile, Linda, the 50 something tech who likely drew the short straw today, is slathering my balls in jelly and prodding them with her metal sonogram probe thing. We’re both avoiding eye contact like the world depends on it for the full 20 minutes or so this is happening, making lots of little “NO, NO YOU’RE DOING THE RIGHT THING, YA KNOW ITS BEST JUST TO GET CHECKED” and “YEAH I’M SURE THIS IS TOTALLY NORMAL FOR YOU SO I JUST NEED TO BE MATURE AND…” blah blah blah. Linda was out of there in a flash once the thing was done. Not even a cuddle. I guess that’s all you can expect for $200.

What on EARTH would possess someone to do that for a living? I know some are much less personal - my various neck ultrasounds were far more tame - but going in knowing full well that you could be slathering jelly on a stranger’s balls at any moment? How much would they have to pay me a year to do that? And lord, I’m in pretty decent shape and I’m clean and maintained - what about when the big fat unwashed slobs show up? Ughhhhhhhh.

What. A. Day. I think there was a bit of personal growth in there NO NOT LIKE THAT. In previous years it would have been really tough to get me to walk into something like that. This time… well it was still hard, but I think I’m getting better at not taking myself so seriously or being so precious about things like this. It is what it is, an awkward social situation, whatever. Not gonna lose sleep thinking about it. I’m sure that seems like a little thing, but it’s a pretty significant thing for me. Silver linings, I guess.

The best part? Doctor called me the next morning. Totally normal. A+ balls rating. Great balls. Ballfection. Had the doctor listened a little better he probably would have heard me say that that wasn’t really where the discomfort was, but whatever. We ruled out a hernia, so I can lift again without fearing making it worse. It’s not some sort of infection. At this point I’m wondering if it’s isn’t just a spasming or tweaked psoas muscle. Would explain the lower back tightness too. Whatever. Nothing to fear, just gotta keep powering through it. That’s worth getting my perfect balls scanned by a 50 something named Linda. Probably.

What else happened? Manifest project at work is finally wrapping up. One or two more weeks of crunch time. Oh! I walked by Fit Brunette’s place over the weekend and saw a “WELCOME BACK MY SOLDIER IM SO PROUD OF YOU” premade sign in front of the house. Now there are two cars parked there. Ohhhhhhhh…. well that suddenly makes a lot of sense. The fact that she didn’t just SAY something about having a boyfriend who is overseas seems… telling. There were plenty of opportunities. But she just spent lots of time chatting with me when we bumped into each other and then avoided any further initiation. No big deal. I’m actually kind of glad to hear it - for all the connection and conversation and that sense of chemistry I wasn’t having any luck trying to take it to even a “let’s be friends” level. Glad it’s circumstantial and not necessarily me or my read on the situation. Also hope he’s a good dude, ‘cause she seems like a good chick. Really, she did me a huge favor just by being her. I was in a state where I didn’t really give a shit how I was presenting myself to the world, and it was leading to me generally not caring for or liking myself much. She woke me up out of that and made me realize that I kind of do, just by being attractive and in great shape and nearby, and it jump started me again. I just need to be working proactively so that, when the moment suddenly appears where I care about how someone sees me, I’m up to it. Thanks, Fit Brunette. You’ll likely never know that you did that for me, but I appreciate ya.

I had a moment today where I was going through my phone’s camera roll and ran into the various photos and videos of Vally’s last couple of days. After much thought and deliberation, I deleted most of them. This…. wasn’t what I had originally intended. I’m doing my absolute best not to hide from her death but to face it and process it and deal with it. I want to be able to think fondly on all the good years and not get too distracted by or hung up on the rough final three days. To that end, I decided it’s not helpful for me to see her breathing heavily and struggling to keep her head up, or leaning so hard against the edge of her bed that the side of her pace pushes up and over her eye and she doesn’t even bother lifting her head to fix it. That’s not…. that’s not how I want to remember her. I don’t want to pretend that it didn’t happen, but I also don’t want to have to watch it over and over. As awful as it feels deleting anything with Vally on it right now, it just seems more respectful to her memory to not get so caught up in that terrible last day or two. I kept some of the ones where she’s laying in bed as we tried to keep her comfortable. And every phone I’ve had for the last 8 years has been nothing but pictures and videos of every single inconsequential moment of her life. Even if I’m still left wishing I would have taken more, I don’t need those last couple of agonized hours preserved beyond just the hopefully fading memory.

Being home completely alone is getting more normal. I don’t notice the silence or stillness nearly as much. I’ve learned to put on music more often. I’m able to start up proper exercising again this week. I didn’t pop an inquinal hernia, and my balls are apparently fucking pristine. On top of it all, I didn’t feel inspired to write some super emotional theme post here today. While that makes for a less interesting entry, I guess it’s also probably a sign of progress. Days are already getting longer, if slowly. The vaccine rollout is slow but picking up. CNT is opening up to me more and more. All things considered, I’m doing ok. With any luck, maybe this hellacious 14 month stretch I’ve had is almost over, and I can start making moves again. I’d like to make moves. Moves are nice.

Off to bed. Miss you Vally. Miss you Linda (call me).

-M