My wrist has throbbed all night (and I won’t have the test results until Monday at the earliest).

Yesterday I learned my job is being restructured. Again.

And today I play the role of mommy-wrangler as I take Lola in for cataract removal.

Things have to get better, right?

Right?

Tap, tap, tap…is this thing on?

Scene 1: A medical clinic. Our hero fidgets as he waits to hear his big gay name.

12-year-old Technician: Dirk…Man-COO-sew?
Dirk: Present.
12-year-old Technician: How are you today?
Dirk: Stressed out over this needle business. I told that lulu on the phone yesterday to get me an IV drug user or some shit for the injection. I don’t want some 12-year-old learnin’ on me. She better’ve wrote that down too.
12-year-old Technician: I was the one that spoke to you yesterday…

* ~* ~ *

Scene 2: A medical clinic Frankenstein torture chamber complete with counter, cotton ball dispenser, generic Pharmaceutical calendar, and Guantanamo Bay confession chair with special wing to extend a victim’s arm while thin metal tubes are inserted into veins.

Dirk (nervously trying to make conversation): Are you a medical student?
12-year-old Technician (bringing Sexy The Ice Age back): Nope. I’m the one behind the needle this morning. Now do you want to know when I’m about to stick you or (smiling) should this lulu  just surprise you?

* ~ * ~ *

Scene 3:  Dirk’s office. Dirk sends The Fella a text message and photo of his bandaged ow-ie. A few moments later his cell phone beeps, signalling a  reply from his furry paramour.

The Fella (via text): Ouch. Did they give you a lollipop?
Dirk (via text): No, but the bear receptionist gave me a wink and a cough drop when he validated my parking.
The Fella (via text): Oh hell no. I will cut a bitch.

Cue Dirk sighing contentedly; his fella loves him.

Today I am having a bone scan on my wrist to see if I broke something when I fell on it eleven days ago.

Being a rather literal kind of fruit, you can imagine my great surprise when the hospital called me yesterday to schedule the bone scan and informed me that it was a two part procedure: part one involved being injected with dye and –

*RECORD SCRATCH*

“I’m sorry,” I interrupted the crazy bitch on the other end of the line, as my stomach dropped and my body was suddenly covered in a fine sheen of cold sweat, “but my doctor must have stupidly glossed over the part where  a bone scan involved an injection…”

Awkward pause. “Um, well…yes, there is an injection with dye 3 hours before the scan.”

“An injection with a needle?” I closed my eyes and began mouthing my mantra “mother humpin’ sons of whores.”

“Yessssss…with a needle.”

“Can you please hold?” Without waiting for a reply, I placed the phone in its cradle and frantically began weighing my options.

I could wait another week and see if the pain abated.

I could continue to live with the pain and if it was a broken bone, let it heal on its own even if that meant a hooked, gnarled hand.

Or I could just suck it up and let the fuckers stick a goddamn needle in my baby soft Oil of Olay-ed to a fare-the-well man flesh.

Just as I had resolved to embark on a life as “Crazy Old Gnarly Hook Hand” my cell phone beeped. It was a text message from Tristan: I’m seriously begging you to go to the doctor. You’ve been in pain for the last week. I will go with you if that’s what it takes.

Dammit. He knows I can’t refuse him anything.

I picked up the phone. “Hello? I can come in tomorrow…but you need to make a note on the chart that I want the best you’ve got with a needle. Get me one of those emergency helicopter rescue guys that bring people back from the brink of death or a nurse with one hell of a heroin addiction — somebody who knows how to find a vein on the first damn try, okay?”

Silence.

“Hello?”

“…yes, sir. I’ll make a notation of that…”

So today I am sucking up my fear and marching my big gay khaki clad ass into that hospital and allowing them to shove a goddamn needle into my frail Broadway musical-lovin’ arm, all because I want to show my hot boyfriend what a man I am.

Pray for my sissy ass, won’t you?

Hello and welcome once again to another installment of “Dirk Mancuso, Big Gay Personal Shopper,” a holiday feature designed to help you find the perfect gift for those hard to please assholes on your gift giving list. With NEW MOON, the next installment in the insipid TWILIGHT series, opening in theaters this Friday, this week yours truly is focusing on what to get the vampire obsessed hoo-hoo’s in your life. 

First up, for the pre-teen adolescent girl and huge flaming ‘mo in your life, Mattel brings us the Edward Cullen and Bella Swan dolls. Standing 12′ and 11 1/2″ respectively and looking nothing like their on-screen counterparts, these dolls are sure delight females on the burdgeoning cusp of womanhood and nellie queens everywhere:

And while he’s not available just yet, fret not Team Jacob members — there will be a 12″ plastic likeness of your favorite lycanthrope/shape shifter/whatever bullshit name he is referred to as come this spring (and just like Edward and Bella, he looks nothing like the actor!)

For the themed-sweater-vest-wearing, mutiple-cat-owning, giggle-snorting old maid with a vampire fixation in your life, you can combine her love of Robert Pattinson (or R-Patts to those in the loop) and provide her nights of endless self pleasure  with The Vamp dildo. Just like Stephanie Meyers’ now (sadly) iconic vampire — and I use that word loosely since I am told her vamps sport no fangs which begs the question how do they drink but I digress — The Vamp is all sparkly just like Edward and his fellow vamps in the sunlight. (Whatever.)

At the opposite end of the (no less disturbing) spectrum, , there’s The Count Cockula Flesh Jack for the undead obsessed chronic masterbater in your life.

  

Of course, the more discerning vamp fan knows that the only real vampire series worth a tinker’s dam is TRUE BLOOD and the folks at HBO have just the thing to help toast in the New Year: True Blood  O-Positive Blood Orange Soda. Tristan and I had a bottle of this and truthfully, it’s not bad. 

Because somebody somewhere (mistakenly) thought it was a clever idea, for the Goths in your life there are vampire condoms. 

And because I strive to leave no stone unturned in fulfilling all your Christmas shopping needs, for the perpetually single penny pinching muumuu clad Pattinson fan on your list I present to you…the reusable  sexy vampire menstrual flow pad. Yeah, you read that right — reusable. Ack.

Well, that wraps this week’s edition so get out those credit cards and let the shopping merriment begin! 

Coming soon: More fantastic gifts to wow the ass-wipes in your life!

Okay, I’m all for honesty and total disclosure in a relationship (except where blogs are concerned because there are some things you have to have that are yours and yours alone if you’re to retain even an ounce of sanity), but there is still one teeny tiny thing that I find myself unable to address or do with Tristan present: in the 1 year, 7 months, and 19 days we’ve been dating I’ve never gone to the bathroom while he’s been around.

Oh sure, I can drain the main vein — no problem. I just can’t…you know, negotiate the release of the chocolate hostage.

If I’m at his place and the need should arise, I simply “remember something I need” at my apartment and dash home to drop the Browns off at the Super Bowl, shower, and then return to his place fresh as a daisy.

On weekend getaways, I either play the “I’m so sleepy from our uber-late 9:45pm evening out last night and I can’t get up this morning” card until he goes out for his morning coffee and then stock the pond with brown trout while he’s out or I just hold it until we get back home.

But if he’s at my place…well, that’s where things get a wee bit trickier.

Take this past weekend for example: about 90 minutes after dinner at a restaurant we’d both been wanting to try, I began to feel the initial rumblings of gastrointestinal distress. Now being in possession of  one hell of a killer sphincter clench, I simply took deep breaths and waited for it to pass.

It didn’t.

So I went to Plan B.

“Hey, that thing you wanted to get for your nephew is totally on sale at Target and we should go get it right now at 7:51pm on a Saturday night before they are all sold out and you are faced with a sad child on Christmas morning. Where’s your shoes? I’ll drive.”

Tristan, of course, was a wee bit confused. “Now? But we’re watching tv…”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah,” I replied, snatching the remote from his hands and hitting record on the dvr. “There. It’s taping. Now put on your shoes and let’s get with the going.”

Brow furrowed, Tristan donned his Sketchers and allowed himself to be given the bum’s rush to my car. Less than 10 minutes later, we were at Target. After rushing him over to the toy department and finding the toy in question, I made my move.

“Hey, I’ma go pee. Be right back,” I hissed through clenched teeth, before turning and dashing for the men’s room.

Ten minutes and a complete bowel evacuation later, I found my man and went back home where I used our crazy impetuous late night foray as an excuse for a shower and a change of clothes. Problem solved.

Unfortunately, these sorts of maneuvers will not always be an option what with the crazy fucking mid-western snow-storms and the fact that Target is not open at 3 in the morning which has me pondering how can I get past this issue. (This is nothing new; I was never been able to dump a stink pickle around either of my other boyfriends.) And it’s not an issue for The Fella: he not only will go number two at my place but will fart and actually acknowledge it. (For the record, I always have a bag of recycling materials on hand to take out if the need to pass gas should arise.) I don’t know if it’s the smell or the possibility there could be sounds or what, but I find myself unable to even conceive of a time I could manufacture a three coil steamer when he’s around.

All of which means should we at some point in time move in together, we’re totally going to need two bathrooms.

And not just because I have a wicked extensive hair care regimen.

NuMac tells The Thunder From Down Under she’s had her box checked out and all systems are go for Operation: Ashby.

Nina and Jill argue about Phillip’s inability to be there for his son. Nina says he’s selfish and hurting Chance, while Jill insists that her son is a good man and they’re lucky to have this second chance with him.

Phillip drops by Paul’s apartment and asks him to go comfort Nina in the way that only a heterosexual private eye with no storyline to speak of can. In other news, Kitty Kitty has really grown.

Amber insists that Daniel marry her in spite of his impending role as cellblock bitch. When he refuses, she gives him his ring back and storms out. Yawn.

Phillip and his tragic hair go to Trumble’s Used Bookstore and runs into Chloe. When he asks how his son is, she suggests he go to the hospital and find out for himself.

Desperate for more airtime, Paul trots his ass over to Memorial to see Nina and tell her that Phillip sent him. Paul bores Nina, Chance, and the viewers with “war” stories of his life in the private eye trenches and all the off-camera injuries he’s sustained in the line of duty. Strangely enough he leaves out the only real injury viewers have ever bore witness to: the impotence he sustained when Phyllis plowed his pecker with her car.

A shitload of time is wasted with Amber on the building rooftop…

subjecting viewers to flashbacks of her and Daniel, including that time Romalotti had the tragic bleach job and looked like a retarded albino in the travelling road company of OLIVER!

Today’s hunk du jour is Matthw Bomer of USA’s WHITE COLLAR. Some of you may remember him from the now defunct TRU CALLING starring Dirk Mancuso fav Eliza Dushku; as Ben Reade on THE GUIDING LIGHT; or as Bryce Larkin on CHUCK. Wherever you’re familiar with him, one thing’s for sure: he’s hawt.

Lily tells her uncle daddy that she and The Thunder From Down Under are ready to try and have that baby I’m so fucking sick and tired of hearing about already. Uncle-daddy is about as thrilled as I with this news.

Neil takes his son-in-law aside to ream him for not discouraging Lily in her pursuit of this baby shit while she is so sick. Do I need to remind you that they harvested a mere two eggs, Neil blusters, adding that there’s also the not so small matter of finding a surrogate to carry the brat. “That’s the easy part,” the imbecile Aussie replies. “NuMac has volunteered…” Neil is all “oh fuck — how much worse can this shit get?” The Thunder From Down Under begs Neil to support Lily in this stupid-ass idea to have Zombie-Girl NuMac carry their spawn.

Nina informs everyone that the assailant’s knife cut Chance’s spleen and he has been taken to surgery where they will remove the organ if they cannot repair the damage. NuMac displays Bad Soap Acting 101 Reaction techniques when she hears the news.

At Newman Enterprises, Shit For Brains and The Red Menace are discussing the company’s decision to reimburse the people hurt by the Bank of Corazol collapse when Jack drops by with a bottle of bubbly to celebrate the hunk’s ascension to the Newman throne.

Phyllis is sportin’ a sassy new doo.

Chloe calls Chance only to have Jill answer and tell her that Chance has been stabbed.

Phillip  stresses out that he may never have a chance to make things right with Chance. Jill comforts her son, telling him that his tendency to build walls and take flight to avoid things is something they both share. Jess Walton is a powerhouse with the right material, but not even she can distract my attention from that pathetic scrub of fuzz on Thom Bierdz’s chin or that mess on his head:

Phyllis gives the men-folk a chance to chat and goes through the mail where she finds a letter addressed to Special Needs Summer.

She opens it and is not pleased by its contents.

Chloe arrives at the hospital where she confides in The Cryptkeeper that she has real feelings for Chance but has made a lot of mistakes where he  is concerned because she doesn’t know what to do with a good man. Chloe says she signed the divorce papers and wanted to tell Chance. “You’ll get the chance,” the crone tells her. (Is it just me, or does anyone else get the feeling that whenever you’re hugging The Cryptkeeper, she smells like cigarettes and Halls cough drops with a splash of Jean Nate?)

Don’t ask me how, but in what was a HUGE snafu on my part I somehow stupidly glossed over today’s date and did NOT schedule myself a vacation day. And since I called in yesterday, I am forced to go in today.

*shiver*

I do not have a good feeling about this, people.

My thumb joint and wrist are so swollen I can”t use them.

Giving in to The Fella”s request to go to the doctor.

More as this develops.

***7 X-rays Later Update:

Doctor thinks it is an extreme flair up of gout but is having 2nd radiologist look at my x-rays to see if there could be a hairline fracture.

And despite his insistence he drive me, I drove myself to the doctor. My boyfriend does not need to be missing work over my stupid ass.