Shortly after moving in to Stonewall Gardens Assisted Living in 2015, I turned 50. A milestone. Last week, now in my eleventh year here, I turned 60. Another milestone. And thinking that a good idea for a post, I did lots of research on milestones – their origin in, where else but ancient Rome, their use in medieval times to mark trade routes, their metaphorical uses to highlight things like birthdays, graduations, and anniversaries, even their role in corporatespeak, particularly in regard to project management – but the results were as boring as this sentence. Trust me: a thousand words on soil science would have been more exciting; and I wouldn’t do that to you thoughtful reader.
This is the 200th post to this blog – a milestone. So it feels like it should be special, significant, or just memorable. I should probably make some grand point, discuss some salient insight into life I’ve learned, dispel a myth, trace the origin of twine, comment on these early days of world war III started by our dear leader, talk about Timothée Chalamet getting snubbed by the Oscars again this year, or do what I call a “procedural” post where I talk about where I get my ideas, how I research and develop them, the writing process, web site design, color palettes, fonts, and even the technical stuff like web hosting, cacheing, automation, image optimization, and speed benchmarks – the stuff you wouldn’t guess I know about just by looking at me.
But I’m not going to do any of that.
Instead, I’m going to tell a story. It might be a little off color (note to self: post idea – when and how did the phrase “off color” come to mean rude or racy?). But I think off color is at its best when it is alluded to rather than explicitly stated.
So if you’re easily offended by innuendo, you might want to stop reading here, make a cup of tea, and turn on one of those afternoon television shows where a celebrity judge decides small claims disputes like neighbors arguing over whether one’s wisteria vine is encroaching on the other’s property.
Still here? Good. Let’s begin.
Milestones are among the most enduring and quietly influential inventions in human history… no wait, shit!, I scrapped that. Hang on. Um, okay, here goes: being in a wheelchair is not as easy as it looks. Sure, you can’t walk for whatever reason, so someone (or a motor) “pushes” you everywhere you need or want to go while you just sit there. What could be easier?
But it’s the just sitting there that is the problem. After a while, your butt starts to hurt. And if, as is the case with me, you can’t stand up on your own without face-planting into the ground, which is never a good look, it’s not like you could take your weight off your butt by standing up or even shifting significantly while seated. After 20 years in a wheelchair, I’ve started to develop issues with my bottom – and I’ll stop you right there thoughtful reader, this is not the innuendo I referred to above. But yes, as a gay man, I’ve had issues with my bottom for years!
One of the most difficult side effects of a seated life – and I call it that because it’s not just in the wheelchair, it’s all day, from the moment I get out of bed in the morning until I retire for the night that I am sitting down – is muscular. I wasn’t a particularly active person before my disability, nothing like a gym bunny or a health nut, but my muscles got regular use in the normal course of a day, with the standard walking, bending, reaching, and so on. Not so much now. Firstly, walking is out of the question. Bending and reaching could result in the aforementioned date with gravity and attendant face-plant with the ground, so I rely on paid staff called caregivers to do that for me.
Aside…
I used to be in a long-term HIV survivors support group held on Wednesdays at the LGBTQ+ Center of Palm Springs. In one of our generic discussions about meds, or stigma, or humpback whales, I made some comment about how “the staff” did this and “the staff” did that. One of my friends, who knows by “staff” I mean assisted living caregivers said, “Christ on a bike Matt, all this talk of staff makes you sound like Marie Antoinette discussing the palace servants at Versailles.”
The staff (caregivers) help me do things I encounter in the normal course of a day, what are called ADLs or “activities of daily living.” But I’m still seated and sedentary all day, which accounts for my dramatic weight gain. Not much I can do about that short of diet and exercise, and I think we’ve already established that I’m a foodie who loves fine dining, and that I’m lazy.
Enter Tony.
Tony (at left) is a handsome young man who trained to become a masseur. I think there is a societal bias against massage in the United States that it is indulgent, decadent, reserved for the wealthy, or limited to what is called the “happy ending” variety.
On that last point, if that is your thing, I’m not here to judge or to shame. You do you.
I, however, was looking for someone to relax my body which tends to tense up and take on the shape of half a swastika from being seated literally all, the, time. And yes, because I am a very shallow person, I wanted that someone who was going to have their hands all over me to be mildly attractive – I went through a few, before finding Tony, that resembled squad members from the East German Women’s Olympic Rugby Team prior to the fall of the Berlin Wall, and had the personality to match! Tony was (is!) a serious masseur who had worked in some of the high-end spas in town “rubbing down wrinkly old ladies with skin that resembled the sun-worn leather of a 1976 Cadillac Eldorado convertible’s seats” (his words, not mine) and wanted to branch out and start his own business doing sports massage, reflexology, physio rehabilitation, and “massage for the masses” who might not otherwise have the coin or the temperament to book an hour at a spa.
I was fortunate to find him, because while he is easy on the eyes, he’s also very personable and can carry on a conversation about an amazingly wide range of topics. He spends six months of the year, give or take, doing massage here in the Coachella Valley, and the balance of the year traveling to places like Machu Picchu and The Parthenon (sounds like he has a thing for ruins!).
And this is where our story begins.
Shortly after I moved in to Stonewall Gardens, Tony came over for one of our sessions. A nosey neighbor saw him leaving my apartment one day, and commented to me later, “oh, aren’t you a dark horse, and just who was that?” When I responded, “my masseur,” Nosey McNoserson lit up like a Christmas tree and said, “sweet, can I get his number?”
Now, in the interest of full disclosure, I knew exactly what Nosey was assuming and what he was after. Here in Palm Springs, where we combine resorts, people “just in town for the weekend,” and an unusually high gay male population, the gay male escort and gay male masseur industries thrive; I wouldn’t be surprised if the chamber of commerce lists them under “hospitality.” So I gave Tony’s number to Nosey, and sat back to watch the train wreck I knew was coming (no pun intended).
Nosey made his appointment with Tony, and Tony showed up and gave Nosey what I can only imagine was a thorough, relaxing, and rejuvenating massage.
The next day, I arrived in the dining room for breakfast to Nosey giving me the evil eye. I said, “Good morning,” and Nosey snapped, “you can take your good morning and shove it up your ass Matt, I paid Tony $200 for 90 minutes, and he doesn’t do anything!”
Again, I know what Nosey is on about, but I play dumb (some say it’s not “playing”). So I say, “…you mean you didn’t enjoy it? That thing he does with your leg, where he stretches it out then holds it there for about a minute… that just melts me, I feel the tension leave my body like steam rising from a bowl of boiling water… it’s bliss. Did he tell you about his recent trip to see the pyramids in Egypt?”
Nosey has since passed away. I still see Tony regularly. And this is the only “happy ending” you’re going to get out of this milestone, my 200th post.
