On the night of Saturday, April 21st, 2012, I was riding my motorcycle down Westheimer in Houston. Probably the worst time and place to be on a motorcycle. At the Brazos intersection, heading east, a young woman ran a red light and hit me. I came within inches of being killed or paralyzed, but, aside from what I'm going to talk about here, I'm mostly OK, and still riding motorcycles. I do have a sizable chunk of my right thigh missing though, but I was never an athlete to begin with, so it hasn't held me back from anything.
When I sleep with a new woman for the first time, I'm usually very self-conscious about my body. Especially now since I have this large scar. I'm always upfront about it because it's not pretty, so it's never been an issue, but it's just one more glaring imperfection on top of many, so I think about it. And now, it's going to be the only thing I think about. Because I have seen things that no person should have to see. And through ignorance, I have shown those things to women who didn't deserve it.
You see, I said I was self-conscious about my body when I sleep with someone the first time. But only the first time. Like, immediately after the act is done, I no longer have any inhibitions about being naked in front of her. If I think she'll laugh, I'll do the dick to leg slapping thing from that movie "Kids." Shit, I'll do it even if I don't think she'll laugh, because that'll make me laugh. And then I'll walk away to get us a warm wet towel, and something to drink. I've done that 100 times since the accident. Never again though.
Because...
Last weekend I went to Houston to visit some friends and go to the Weezer concert. One of the friends whose house I stayed at has this bathroom full of mirrors. My current apartment is actually the first one I've ever had where the mirror isn't the first thing you see when you pull back the shower curtain. The bathroom in my friend's house has that, but I'm used to it. However, once you step out of the shower, and then a foot or two to the right, there is also a huge closet with floor-to-ceiling mirrored doors behind you, set at just the right angle to give the appearance that you are standing directly behind yourself when looking into the mirror above the sink. That's when I learned that my ass is now asymmetric. The left cheek is fine. There is the expected crease where the ass ends and the leg begins. Like the divider thing you put on the belt at the grocery store to separate your shit from someone else's shit. Everything is in order. The right cheek? Not so much. There is no crease. There is no grocery divider where there damn well should be one. I don't think it can even be called a cheek anymore. I just have one regular leg, and then one long leg that just kind of swells out at the top and then becomes my lower back.
I was alone in that bathroom, but I was still embarrassed. Not only for myself, but for my ex who saw that shit countless times, and the two lovely ladies who also stayed around long enough to unlock the "extra inch" xBox achievement (zing!). None of them deserved that. From the front, I'm a slightly chubby but still regular looking guy. From the rear, apparently, I'm the worst old naked guy in the public gym locker room. And nobody should have to see that.
This concludes my half-assed story about symmetry.