As I Lay Frying

by Fay Jacobs

  Here, too, I have a checkered past. I’m just the kind of customer health club accountants love. I’d eagerly join up, go for a few glorious weeks, and thereafter get all my exercise just writing the monthly check to the spa.

  Years ago I joined a trendy city gym to try to lower my cholesterol. After one week in a spandex outfit best viewed on Calista Flockhart, and being snubbed by buffed bodies with attitude, all I lowered was my self-esteem. At Slimnastics I hung out at the back of the room, hugging the mirrored wall for security. I loved finding out it was a one way mirror for thin folks in the sauna to watch my sorry butt.

  Water aerobics was worse. Wading was nice, but when the instructor told us to hoist ourselves onto the side of the pool and bark like seals I wasn’t waiting around for them to toss me a fish.

  A glutton for food and punishment, I eventually bought a life-time gym membership, meaning I could drop out this year, next year, and every one after that, in perpetuity. But moving to Rehoboth turned my Maryland lifetime membership into packing paper.

  So I bought a cheap treadmill. Getting it out of the car and into the house—now that was exercise. Advertised to fold up and practically disappear, it looked dainty in Sears. In my bedroom it could have had Leo DeCaprio hanging off its bow.

  But for now, I seem to be using it. Every morning the dogs watch me walk my twenty minutes. And, until scientists invent something that makes celery taste like fried chicken, sharks prefer low-fat swimmers, or diet pills that won’t turn us into new life forms, I’m logging the miles.

  And it’s a good thing. Bonnie and I just had our 18th anniversary and my sister, bless her heart, finally realized it’s not just a phase. Along with a lovely card, she sent us an entire New York cheesecake. I’m sitting here staring at the thing and already I can hear the theme from Jaws. I’m going to get a fork. Da Dum…Da Dum….

  April 2000

  LIFE, LIBERTY, AND THE PURSUIT

  OF FREE WEEKEND MINUTES

  We’re queer, we’re here and our feet hurt. Bonnie and I got back to Rehoboth Beach late last night from the Millennium March on Washington. I’m trying to figure out how to tell you about all the remarkable things we experienced. So please indulge me. It’s best if I just blurt.

  With Bonnie having attended the 1979 march, and both of us marching in 1987 and 1993, there was so much that was familiar and oh so much that was different.

  Heading to Washington, busses jammed the road, including several lumbering coaches with rainbow flags slapped on their butts. At Dupont Circle, a giant rainbow flag billowed over a luxury hotel, right next to the U.S. flag. The streets around Dupont Circle teemed with gay people.

  Restaurants overflowed with queers from every state in the nation; on the street, conversations erupted, people met, hugged, laughed and hollered. Blocks and blocks of pedestrians reveled in a spontaneous combustion of goodwill toward men, women, and transgendered people.

  On Saturday, the city closed off a hunk of Pennsylvania Avenue for a giant street fair with food and merchandise vendors as far at the eye could see. I’ve been in D.C. over 30 years and had never, ever seen anything like it. Police cars flew rainbow flags; vendors hawked T-shirts, bumper stickers, jewelry, kabobs, hot dogs, ice cream, Internet access, magazines, the gamut of capitalism.

  Favorite bumper sticker: Focus on your own damn family. Best T-shirt: Black, with the Blair Witch logo and the words Queer Bitch Project. Favorite placard: Respect is not an agenda.

  Sunday morning dawned, another gorgeous sunny day (“God must love gay people,” somebody said, ”Look at this weather!”) and we hopped the Metro along with throngs of gays, family and friends. If you’ve never been on an early morning Metro ride, with both station and subway car filled to the gills with coffee-crazed gay, lesbian, bi, trans marchers and their gay-friendly colleagues, you’ve missed the commute of your life.

  Once the queer-filled trains converged at the Smithsonian station, the riders joined thousands of other folks assembling for the March. I wish I could tell you about every second: the energy, creativity, and comedy.

  Cheers for Vermont’s contingent and their just-passed civil union legislation; college groups, high school groups, church after church after synagogue, after ministers and rabbis and parents and children and PFLAG groups and more parents. Then came a bunch of happy dads and cheering kids with the sign Men With Strollers. Next up, the gay pilots, the gay flight attendants (hell, they could have supported an entire march by themselves); gay doctors organizations; Amnesty international; gay legislators; transgender activists, senior citizens, military veterans, gay teachers groups, and more, more, more.

  Stepping to the sidelines, we cheered and applauded the PFLAG parents until our hands stung. The parents marched along, shouting “we love you” to the crowd as arms stretched out from the side lines to the marchers, just to shake their hands.

  With humor and seriousness, the crowd marched for equality and respect. From the laughter at campy drag queens and gutsy bare breasted womyn, to the choke of emotion for the parents with the sign, “We loved our gay son just the way he was” and his photo and the dates of his short life, the parade wound on.

  We mourned for the throngs who marched in ‘79, ‘87 or ‘93 and were no longer with us, felled by the plague. Then we bounced back, cheering twice as hard in their place. Groups marched chanting “Hey, Hey, Ho, Ho, Homophobia’s got to go” “Going to the Chapel and We’re Gonna Get Married.”

  And the signs! Tinky Winky Made Me Do It; We’re Proud of our Straight Parents; Four Out of Five Cats Prefer Lesbians; Protect All Our Families, and on and on.

  Some people pranced, some danced, others rolled their chairs or slowed for their partners walking with canes; children skipped, carriages rolled and some of us dropped out and in, making our way down the Mall, grumbling, limping and laughing that we were too damn old to be marching after all these years.

  With the Washington Monument looming behind and the Capitol steps welcoming ahead it was never more clear that bigotry and a denial of our human rights was just plain un-American.

  After the marching was done, came the rally and speeches. From fiery rhetoric (DC’s Eleanor Holmes Norton—you GO girl!!) to touching pleas for human justice (Matt Shephard’s parents), most called for political action. Tammy Baldwin, the openly gay Congresswoman from Wisconsin had a compelling plan. “You want a world where you can put a picture of your partner on your desk? Put it there and you will have such a world; want a world where you can take your spouse to the company picnic? Take her and you will have such a world. Create this world by coming out!” Idealistic? In many cases, yes. But lots of us here in Rehoboth live just that way and she’s right. We’ve created that world.

  The difference from prior marches? While there’s still plenty of wonderful diversity within diversity, there was far less spectacle. Where once the Park Police wore riot gear and rubber gloves, this time they strolled their steeds through the crowds, chatting and visiting.

  And the most notable difference? Everybody and his gay brother had a cell phone. The Mall was one big wireless ad. You’d hear a ring and thousands of marchers would clutch for their pockets. (“Hello, Fay’s pants….”) We want equality and free air time!

  Well, one thing hasn’t changed. The reporters and camera people trampled over 98 percent of the crowd to get photos and sound bites from only the most scandalously dressed drag queens and leather girls. At least the press is consistent.

  So how many of us marched? The Washington Post guessed 300,000. The organizers figured 750,000, so it’s a safe bet there were at least a half a million marchers and 100,000 cell phones.

  Oh, and from what I could see, there were only about three or four sad-sack clusters of folks shaking Bibles and hollering for us to repent. And frankly, lots of the marchers kept asking them to pose for pictures, thereby confusing the heck out of them.

  And all this happened to music by Melissa Etheridge, the Metropolitan Community Church Choir, and brass
bands.

  As the day ended and the crowd fanned out through town, we really were everywhere. Bonnie and I hobbled back to the Metro escalator, and I turned for a last look at the Mall. The last placard I saw said it best, “We All Matter.”

  We’ve come a long way, baby; we’ve still got a long way to go; which way to the Podiatrist?

  May 2000

  IT’S ENOUGH TO MAKE YOU SICK

  Now that a million moms in sensible shoes marched on the Capitol to support gun control, we may be seeing a re-energized era in democracy. If grass-roots lobbying is back, how about a new American Revolution—one against the mighty HMOs (slogan: Have More Operations).

  Maybe it’s because my move to Rehoboth put me into the HMO system for the very first time, or maybe it’s just my advanced age (My sister just informed me that my old elementary school is now the town Historical Society. Nice.), but I’m fed up with health maintenance organizations.

  I remember when HMOs first appeared on the scene as a choice. They were a lot cheaper than regular insurance and offered scads of preventative care coverage. Now, the only thing they prevent you from is seeing a doctor. Not only have HMOs morphed into regular insurance, but they cost more than our old insurance ever did.

  I’m particularly ticked off today because I just returned from some routine blood tests to measure my donut to vegetable ratio, and I’m exhausted. Not from the tests, but from the staggering effort it took just to find out where I was supposed to go to give blood.

  The prescription ordered tests at a place up the road. I get to the lab and they tell me my HMO doesn’t play on their team. It’s 7:30 in the morning, I haven’t had breakfast, I’m ready to open a vein and nobody will tell me where to go. “Look it up in your HMO List of Providers,” says the clerk.

  I go back to the car, where, by sheer dumb luck, my provider list is still on the back seat with some junk mail. My book says I can go to Lab Corp ten minutes away. Bleary-eyed and hungry as hell, I wend my way to the next lab. After standing in a long line of people checking in for their mandatory drug tests and other humiliations, I hand over my insurance card and the receptionist tells me that Lab Corp no longer takes my particularly odious HMO. She saw the whites of my eyes quiver and said, “Wait a minute, I’ll find where you should go.”

  Wouldn’t it just be easier to use leeches to harvest my blood? Finally, I pull up to Transylvania Express, or whatever this blood collection depot is called, get the deed done and stagger into Wawa for caffeine.

  As frustrating as the experience was, at least I wasn’t sick at the time. Dealing with an HMO when you feel lousy is just sadism.

  Once last winter, after a sleepless night of coughing, I called the doctor to refill my cough medicine prescription. Since HMOs rule that doctors must see patients every seven minutes to be profitable, my doctor was busy sprinting from examining room to examining room making her quota, and couldn’t come to the phone.

  When I finally got through, the doctor agreed I needed more cough syrup, but told me that since the stuff was a narcotic, she couldn’t just call it in to the pharmacy. I had to pick up the prescription in person. Right. Tell the person with Bronchitis to cough their way to the primary care outpost, spreading a swath of infection and good cheer. I gathered up the written word and hacked and horkled my way to the drug store.

  “Sorry,” said the pharmacist, “your HMO won’t approve it. It’s too soon.”

  Excuuuse me????

  “They won’t approve a refill for another two days. The directions said two teaspoons at night and they calculate how many nights that covers and won’t refill it until that time,” explained the weary pharmacist.

  Well here’s the thing. Originally, the doctor prescribed it only at night since it would make me too sleepy to go to work. Once I was too sick to go to work anyway, the doctor told me to take the medicine in the daytime, too. Did the HMO clerk have this information on which to base her decision? Was this all-powerful HMO Pooh-Bah phone operator clairvoyant enough to have seen me hacking away all night?

  Are they afraid I’m going to sell this stuff on the street? Have they ever tasted it? And did you see the size of the bottle? There’s more controlled substance in a Starbucks Cappuccino.

  Now, mind you, the big bad HMO doesn’t say I can’t have it; they just say they won’t pay for it. Suffice it to say I forked over the price of a ritzy dinner for two for the two ounces of orange swill and went home to guzzle my stash.

  These days, when I have nightmares, they’re about HMOs denying coverage.

  I remember when Bonnie went to that very expensive high tech sleep clinic, resulting in her diagnosis of sleep apnea. Fine, the HMO paid for all the tests, the overnight stay, the round the clock monitoring and the apple juice and danish in the morning. Trouble was, after her doctor prescribed a machine to keep her from asphyxiating in the night, the HMO refused to pay for it.

  Sight unseen, not to mention without benefit of hearing the gurgling sounds she can make at night, they decided she didn’t need the machine bad enough for them to pay for it. I wish them the living hell of watching her try to obtain a good night’s sleep.

  Needless to say, we forked over the $1900 for this thing they call durable medical equipment. At that price it sure as hell better be durable.

  The one thing HMOs can do efficiently is bill you. In fact, it appears to be nearly impossible to resign from an HMO. I changed policies at the end of December and I’m still getting bills from my old HMO threatening to cancel my coverage because I haven’t paid my bill. Duh, what did they do with the three (3) letters I wrote canceling my policy? Even though I know that my coverage is in place with my new stinking HMO, it’s still disconcerting to receive these ominous threats from the old stinky one.

  And just try to be self-employed and get coverage. It practically took an Act of Congress for Bonnie and her former business partner to get a policy. She had to provide more ID and paperwork than if she’d been applying for the Witness Protection Program. But just try and take somebody OFF the policy.

  We canceled the partnership when said partner skipped town last fall, and then canned the insurance policy immediately thereafter. For all we know, the jerk really is in the Witness Protection program, but in January they were still billing us for his insurance and still sending his Viagra to wherever he was hiding out.

  It’s enough to make you crazy. Which, by the way, you better not be, because finding a therapist who takes your insurance is much, much harder than healing thyself.

  I feel sorry for the beleaguered doctors and their staffs. I’ve walked into medical offices where everybody’s running around shouting orders and running for equipment. A patient gone code blue? No, they can’t find the right referral forms and the fax is on the fritz. These days, if the office gets high tech medical equipment it’s a new copier.

  And the poor pharmacist. It’s a pitiful night when they have to tell me they’re sorry that my full vial of Prilosec fell in the sink with the Woolite but I’m not due for a refill until July. It’s enough to give you a belly ache.

  That’s that. I’m doomed to indigestion for the rest of the summer. I’m ready to march on Washington again. Hey, Hey, Ho, Ho, HMOs have gotta go….

  June 2000

  SHE’S NOT JUST MY FRIEND,

  SHE’S MY PARTNER

  For the last month, I’ve has been camping out in various hospital rooms keeping my ailing spouse company. It started with a fall she took while painting our rental condo, and turned into a frightening and complicated medical mystery.

  From a relatively simple knee injury, Bonnie developed scary, life-threatening blood clots in her lungs, spleen and kidney. It was a frantic, terrifying few days in the Emergency Room and Intensive Care Unit. She’s recovering now, although she’s lost the use of one kidney. And it’s been suggested that the vitriolic screed I recently penned about the evils of HMOs might have contributed to this mess. It makes as much sense as anything else.

  An
d as I sit in her flower and card filled Annapolis hospital room, Letters deadline hovering ominously and laptop computer screen staring me in the face, I’ve decided to go ahead and write this column—despite the fact that we have yet to find out why Bonnie turned into embolism central, let alone any suggestion of what to do about it or when she might come home.

  Suffice it to say that she’s feeling much better, starting to hobble up and down the halls, and is getting so bored we’re thinking of keeping her in bed with bungee cords. Unfortunately, her team of very smart, very competent, and even prestigious doctors, including several top blood and kidney specialists cannot figure out exactly what happened. I’ve always told her she’s one of a kind, but I really didn’t mean relative to her hematology.

  At any rate, more important than the diagnosis is the fact that the docs have yet to get Miss Bonnie’s blood thin enough to ensure that she won’t be throwing more blood clots when they let her loose. I say let’s keep her here until they’re sure they have a handle on this thing.

  But in the meantime, there are some things I want to say and some things too important NOT to say.

  First, if something like this had to happen, I’m glad it occurred when we were part of the Rehoboth community. I can’t tell you how much it meant to both of us to have the support of our friends and family of affinity. That means you guys, our wonderful buddies, lots of Letters readers, and the folks at our favorite shops and restaurants—although it does give one pause when the most stunning floral arrangements come from drinking establishments….

  Everyone has been just terrific, and the sincerity of the offers of help, and all manner of assistance, has floored us. And made us feel so lucky to be part of that can-do Create a More Positive Rehoboth community.