A Million Little Pieces Of My Mind

I have been thinking of getting a hydrocolonic for some time. (What the heck's that got to do with Ann Coulter, you ask?)

A hydrocolonic (also known as colon hydrotherapy ) might be characterized as a "super enema". Filtered water is injected into the rectum, and then fecal matter removed, in a repetitive process that is supposed to remove the fecal sheath that virtually all adults are said to have lining their intestines. This sheath prevents optimal absorption of nutrients from one's dinner, as well as providing a haven for parasites. So it's a good thing to get it expelled every now and then.

My good friend (and co-writer of The Sun City Cannabis Club ) Jock McNeill used to get hydrocolonics regularly, just because he liked the way he felt afterwards. He described how his stomach would flatten, how his skin would glow with youthful vigor, how he would feel lighter and generally healthier afterwards. It was Jock's enthusiasm regarding the procedure that piqued my own interest in what is, after all, a rather shitty proposition.

Hydrocolonics are considered "alternate healthcare" so you get one from a practitioner rather than a doctor. Jock's practitioner was a woman who eventually moved out of the area; he hasn't yet found a replacement which is the only reason he hasn't continued to get himself flushed out regularly. Besides, he lives on the West side of the Valley while I now live on the East side; so we would have needed different practitioners in any case.

My issue is, if I were going to get a hydrocolonic, I would want a male practitioner. Maybe it's because I'm gay, and maybe it's because my mother got carried away with the whole anal retention thing, but I'm really not comfortable with a woman messing around with my backside or even knowing that I occasionally (shh!) excrete organic waste materials. Guys, I don't care about. (Knowing I have a butt, that is.) So I really wouldn't consider a getting a hydrocolonic unless the practitioner were male.

And there aren't many of those. In fact, for awhile I didn't think there wereany, at least, not in the Valley. I kept checking the Web, searching on terms like "male hydrocolonic", "male butt doctor", and "male ass flusher" that turned up nothing but gay porn sites. Though they provided me with hours of entertainment on end, they supplied no useful information regarding hydrocolonics.

It never occurred to me to look in the phone book, a rather quaint device of ancient technology that was in frequent use before the invention of Google. But Jock's wife, Diane, located an ad for me that looked perfect. Craig Rivers was a male hydrocolonics practitioner who worked in the East Valley. She emailed me a scan of the page and I took down the number and made the appointment with Craig's wife, Veronica, who is also a practitioner. I made it clear I wanted the appointment with Craig and got the price, which was in range for what Wikipedia says such visits cost.

I showed up promptly for my appointment. It was in Craig and Veronica's home, not a mile from where I work. Craig met me at the door. He was maybe ten years older than I and definitely on the heavy side. I found that a little disappointing, because one of the theories regarding hydrocolonics is that, without a fecal sheath to interfere, a person eats less because more of the nutrients get through the intestinal walls and the person is satisfied with less food. Surely, with a wife who was also a hydrocolonics practitioner, Craig got all the hydrocolonics he wanted. Sort of like, "There's nothing good on cable tonight. You wanna flush my butt?" But apparently this availability had not kept him slim and trim.

Craig had me fill out a short questionnaire, similar to one you might find in a doctor's office: Name and address and emergency contact information, list of medical complaints, and so on. It didn't take long to fill out, and Craig returned shortly to accept it. He put it aside and asked, "So, what brings you here to me today?" I explained about Jock and his youthful skin and female practitioner, and added that I had done my homework and knew, in a general way, what to expect. I also tried to explain why I preferred a male practitioner.

Craig maintained a neutral, if patient, expression through all this; then asked, "Do you have any surprises you want to tell me about?"

The question itself was a surprise. I tried to put it in context by imagining what kind of surprises he may have, previously, encountered that motivated him to now ask the question of all new patients. All I could think of was sudden projectile defecation as the speculum was being inserted. Or perhaps an unexpected heart attack or deadly infection. Or maybe a visit from someone without a colon.

"I don't think so," I told him. I'm a reasonably healthy, HIV negative, Earth human."

That seemed to satisfy him, and he led the way into one of the home's bedrooms that had been converted into a treatment room. It had its own bathroom, and a table very much like Michael's massage table, along with a unit that I took to be a water purifier. But, besides all that, there were a few loaded bookshelves, a sofa, a desk, and high shelves filled with knick-knacks: vases, Kachina dolls, small metal statuettes of buffalo and horses. There was also a CD player softly emitting New Age music.

The homey touches failed to dwarf the massage table and water purifier.

One thing I am happy to note is that there was no scent of, well, bowels, moving or otherwise. The room was quite neutral-smelling, neither medicinal nor pukerific.

Craig gave me a towel and asked me to "disrobe" and "void my bladder" in the bathroom, then lie on the table and cover myself "appropriately" with the towel. I noticed he was full of technical, polite terms which avoided the earthy reality of what we were there to do.

When I was ready, he returned and sat on a low swivel chair between the table and the bookshelves, which were located next to the water purifier. He asked me to roll onto my left side, which I did. "This is 'way easier than an enema," he remarked.

"Cool," I replied, since I do not find enemas to be particularly difficult. I intentionally had not inspected the equipment he would be using, so when he inserted the speculum I could only guess at its size. I knew it contained two tubes, one for inserting the water, the other for removing the waste. It was well-lubed and there was no discomfort; as he slipped it into my docking port.

"The water comes from a well," he explained when asked. "It's charcoal purified to remove impurities and exposed to ultra-violet radiation to sterilize it. Then it's heated to about body temperature, so you shouldn't actually feel it." Which was true; I didn't.

After awhile, though, I did begin to experience a fullness in my abdomen. But almost immediately it subsided. "Does that thing suck out the—?" I began to ask. Craig quickly interrupted with the answer before I could utter any inappropriate words. "No," he said. "The colon is too fragile to vacuum. It would collapse. The water is inserted under only a couple of pounds of pressure, and then the voiding tube receives the water and loosened fecal material as it is pushed out by the natural pressure of the abdomen."

The table I was lying on was well-padded and comfortable. In addition, there was a disposable changing pad (plastic on the bottom, absorbent material on the top) directly beneath me. Occasionally I would sense a few drops of water—or something—drip out onto the pad. When that happened, Craig, who was wearing latex gloves, would quickly pat my butt with the pad, then fold the dampened section under. Throughout the whole procedure, I never smelled any poop odors at all. After awhile he had me lie on my back with my feet drawn up and resting on some sort of pillow or foot rest he had set up. He then massaged my stomach while working the water into me, presumably to loosen that dreaded fecal sheath.

He wasn't objectionably chatty, but did remark that he had been doing hydrocolonics full-time since 1978. I mentioned my home life and how I lived with my husband, ex-wife, daughter, grandson, three dogs and a cat. I was surprised to not get a laugh from my line that I was "looking to sell the movie rights." People nearly always chuckle at that. But, in fact, he displayed no reaction at all and I would describe the ensuing silence as being awkward except for the fact that it was actually less awkward than trying to talk while lying naked on a table with two tubes stuck up my butt.

Presently I could sense the water going deeper into my intestine, and I told him I really felt like I could go to the bathroom. He said that was fine, as he was done for that session. He withdrew the speculum and left the room, urging me to take my time in the bathroom.

I was there for a good half-hour. Every time I thought I was done and stood up, my bowels would insist otherwise and I'd have to sit down again. But finally, I was finished for real and able to return to the treatment room to dress.

As I did so, I looked over the Kachina dolls and metal horses. Then I turned toward the bookcase. Michael and I also have books in our bedroom, which doubles as Michael's treatment room. We must have a couple hundred volumes on alternative medicine, massage, mind-body connections, metaphysics and spirituality. We seldom re-read these books, but we like the energy they impart simply by being there. I'm sure it adds, in a subtle and nuanced way, to the experience of his clients and I know it makes the bedroom more profound, which assists in sleeping. I expected that Craig would have a similar set of tomes.

I did not expect to see the title of Ann Coulter's latest book, Godless, to jump out at me.In case you're unaware, Ann Coulter is a right-wing extremist with a newspaper column. Although shecalls herself a "conservative", all the conservatives I know are embarrassed by her. They feel her non-stop barrage of hateful rhetoric gives real conservatives a bad name. She has written that non-conservative Supreme Court judges should be assassinated. In Godless, she referred to four of the widows of the 9/11 attack, saying

These broads are millionaires, lionized on TV and in articles about them, reveling in their status as celebrities and stalked by grief-arazzis. These self-obsessed women seemed genuinely unaware that 9/11 was an attack on our nation and acted as if the terrorist attacks happened only to them. … I've never seen people enjoying their husbands' deaths so much … these Democrat ratpack gals endorsed John Kerry for president … cutting campaign commercials… how do we know their husbands weren't planning to divorce these harpies? Now that their shelf life is dwindling, they'd better hurry up and appear in Playboy."

She's also on record as having said, "My only regret with Timothy McVeigh is he did not go to the New York Times Building." About Muslins, she wrote, "We should invade their countries, kill their leaders and convert them to Christianity." And at the 2007 Conservative Political Action Conference, she used the term "faggot" in reference to presidential candidate John Edwards.

She did not mean it as a compliment.

So, now I found myself totally disconcerted by the presence of this book—and, next to it, Coulter's two previous books—in the room in which I had received my hydrocolonic. I should feel cleaner than when I came in, but I didn't. I felt like I needed a bath, or an absolution, or at least a wooden stake.

When I entered that room, I would have never guessed there would be something in there more full of shit than I was.

Dressed, I found Craig waiting for me with a "write-up" of our little adventure together. He had not encountered any impactions, he said, but had not been able to complete the removal of my fecal sheath, which he added was not unusual for a first visit.

"You should have a follow-up colonic within a few days," he urged. "How does Friday look for you?"

He seems so nice! was all that ran through my head. Why in the world would such a person read not one, but three Ann Coulter books? It's not about her politics; it's about her stridency and violent hatred for anyone who disagrees with her. I was still stunned as I handed Craig the money for the session.

"Friday?" Craig repeated. "Same time?""

Uh, I'm not sure I can make it Friday," I hedged. Coulter hates gay people, too, I thought. How could a person who is accepting of gays, tolerate reading her homophobic rants? And then buy a second book—and a third!—of them?

"Um, my coworker quit Friday, and now I have to do his work and mine both. I almost couldn't get away today."

"Well, let's make the appointment, and you can always cancel if you realize you aren't going to be able to make it."

We shook hands and I left. For the entire ride back to work, all I could think of was that I had been lying for an hour with my bare butt facing three Ann Coulter books. I had, in effect, mooned Ann Coulter. I should be laughing. But I felt as if I had found a copy of Mein Kampf in the practitioner's bookcase. I just couldn't relate the concept of someone reading Ann Coulter for pleasure—enjoying her so much that he would put her books on display in his treatment room—with a person who was a New Age, progressive, alternative health kind of person. And certainly not with a person I wanted messing with my butt.

I cancelled the appointment.

There are also nutritional approaches to expelling one's fecal sheath. I may look into those.

'Cause, if you hear me say that Ann Coulter can just "suck my butt", well, reat assured I don't mean it literally!