February 10, 2009

• I got touched by a man.

  For the first time in my life, The Franksabunch™ was not the boss.  It didn’t matter where I wanted to be, I went where *he* wanted me to be.  Down, up, left, right…I was tossed about like a rag doll in an empty washing machine.  His hands, larger and more powerful than mine, established dominance early and asserted themselves often.  From the wet beginning to the end, he was in control.

  And when it was over, I gave him a $3 tip for my haircut and said to The Wife™, “I just got manhandled!”

  Ever since I got married, out of convenience I have gotten my haircuts at the same places she does so I have been accustomed to delicate, Korean FOB women enhancing my *cough* ruggedly handsome looks *cough*.  They’re all the same—gentle, very nice, sometimes bordering on flirtatious.  So imagine my surprise when The Wife™ took me to her most recent place and amidst a whole gaggle of young and older FOBs stood Kimbo Slice-sized Kimo, with his broad shoulders and Man-of-all-men hands (I swear he could palm a watermelon in each and still have enough space to peel a clementine), sticking out like a sore Republican in the post-Bush Senate.  And, as luck would have it, he was the next available person. 

  Don’t get me wrong, he was a cool guy, very professional and did a good job on my hair, but, boy, was it a different experience.  Instead of caressing hands that reminded me of The Wife™, his Shaq hands dribbled my head as he cut and shaved. 

  During the cut I wondered if my patients ever felt like that.  While I’m not exactly a ginormous former linebacker or anything, I’m still bigger than most people in medicine.  (I figured that out when I was medical student scrubbing in on a surgery and after reaching into the abdomen to hold something, the attending loudly exclaimed, “Damn, Franksabunch™, you have some big ass hands!”)  Though I am always gentle as I can be, there are sometimes in medicine, especially with certain procedures, that you have to, for lack of a better nonsexist term, Man Up and just push (“make haste slowly” is the best way I can describe doing procedures).  Did any of my patients ever feel that I was too rough with them?  Perhaps I could learn a thing or two from those Korean FOB gongjus and ajummas.

  Contrasting Kimo to my prior haircuts, I thought it was a good example of how different men and women are.  But are men and women different like oranges and apples, or is it more accurate to say that we are simply different pieces that fit together, like orange slices and a glass of Blue Moon?  The latter has been more evident to me since The Wife™ left last week to go visit her family.  The feeling I have had since she left is not one of being lonely, as an orange in a fruit basket without apples, but rather being incomplete like a glass of Blue Moon without an orange slice.  So much so that I’ve taken to sleeping on her (left) side of the bed so I can smell her hair as I traverse the hypnagogic bridge into sleep.  Now that she’s gone I realize how little in this world I know how to do except practicing medicine and how to make-money-money, make-money-money-money (well, the latter is due to the former).  She’s the one who knows how to get rid of the irritating pop up on the Blu-Ray player, find things I can’t, nail stuff together, etc.  I guess it’s true what they say: A husband without his wife is powerless…just like Jessica Simpson without her boobs.

  Perhaps if we approached our disagreements and arguments with all that in mind, things would not be so disharmonious at times.  In our relationships, instead of approaching problems as you versus me, perhaps a better way is to approach it as us versus the problem.  We are not different people fighting, but rather people fighting different ideas. 

  I do miss The Wife™ dearly, and now realize that every argument we had in the past is inconsequential compared to the physical distance that is now between us.  The nice thing about this, compared to a big, irreparably damaging fight, is that I know that she’ll come back home to me soon.

  And until then I’ll just have to get used to sleeping on the left side of the bed.

  Have a great week!

  Edit: Thanks OCRosie!  Oops!

  • 11:29 am
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