Business Casual

Lisa at Nordstrom found a blue oxford shirt in the rack and I held it up to my face. "That looks good on you," she said.
"It's not too dark?"
"The lights will wash it out. And it's a good color for you anyway."
"Okay." I tucked the shirt under my arm and indicated the brown shoes I held--I'd dug them out of my closet an hour earlier. "Brown, or black?" I said.
She stood back, cradling her chin in her hand, looked down at the black shoes I wore. "Brown. It'll soften the look. She looked again at the brown shoes. "You..." she hesitated. "... could get them polished?"
"Oh, of course. Is there a place here?"
She pointed to another department.
"Great." I selected a brown belt to go with the shoes; she helped me find a pair of socks that tied everything together with the khaki slacks. The outfit screamed Business Casual--a look I had Googled before driving to Nordstrom. I headed over to get my shoes polished while she got my new shirt pressed, and a hundred and fifty-nine dollars later ("You get what you pay for," advised Lisa when I saw the $75 price tag on the belt) I was headed over the Bay Bridge.
I parked in an industrial area near AT&T Stadium and walked a couple of blocks to the address I'd been given. I was 45 minutes early, so I went up to the third floor and clicked in my stiff and shiny brown shoes down a long, wide corridor. Around a corner I found the office; a piece of white paper taped to the door said "Casting."
On the ground floor, I found a cafe and while the barista prepared an iced coffee for me, I used the rest room and when I emerged I saw a tell-tell dot of liquid on my pants, right where my... uhh... well, I could have splashed myself while I was washing my hands... couldn't I have?
Whatever the source of the liquid, I held my notebook at waist height as I made my way back to the cafe. Sitting, I crossed my legs as I drank my iced coffee and let the miracle of evaporation take place.
Ten minutes before my appointment I went again to the elevator. Coming through the door from the street was Young Businessman Incarnate: a handsome, dark-skinned guy with a neatly-trimmed three-day growth of chin stubble. I quietly regretted shaving. He wore a medium blue shirt, khakis, brown shoes, and a brown belt. I couldn't see his socks, but I'd wager they were a diamond pattern; tans with a dash of blue, just like mine. I smiled at him as I pressed the elevator button. "I bet we're here for the same thing." He looked at me like the competition I was, and we rode up the elevator together in silence.
Once again I found the office, but now there was a long line snaking out the door.
In the middle stood a stocky,  hispanic-looking man, with a shaved head, and he wore a black suit and a tie. I resisted the urge to shake my head and smirk. He was definitely not dressed in Business Casual. Didn't he read the notice? It explicitly said business casual. Boy, had he shot himself in the foot, I thought. Of course,  my competition was a lot younger than me--probably 42 or 43. And ethnic looks seem to be popular. This was an audition for print advertising for a big financial services company, and it stood to reason they would want to appeal to a wider audience than old white guys like me.
I shook myself out of it. Who knew what demographic the company was trying to appeal to? I certainly didn't--even though in my submission for the part, I had written, "I think I'm perfect for this part!"  
The casting agent was also looking for "Business Woman," and the majority of the people in the line were women in their early thirties to mid-forties. Unlike my elevator companion, they weren't my competition. If I got the part, maybe one of them would be my Business Partner. Or my wife. But given the age gap, probably my nurse. Were they casting nurses? No.
Two harried-looking women sat at a table, laptops open before them, and one of them motioned me forward. I crouched down to hear her as she opened a form on her computer and asked my name, contact information, measurements, and shoe size, entering the information in a form on the screen. Then she wrote my last name and first initial on a small whiteboard and directed me to the back of the line,
I stood behind a woman about 5' 4" tall, with long dark hair. She wore a shoulderless blue dress. "You do this often?" I asked. Only slightly less original than, "Do you come here often?" But I was really asking out of curiosity, and my own anxiety.
"Hmmm. A little. More for my kids."
"Ah. College fund."
"Exactly," she said.
She indicated no curiosity about me, and there seemed to be an unspoken code of silence here anyway, which was  just as well. I didn't particularly want to admit this was my first time.
In the center of the room, a photographer directed one of the women where to stand. First, she held the whiteboard up, chest high. This was more of a mugshot than a portrait. He shot a frame or two, then took the board from her. "Smile," he said, and shot a closeup. Then he stepped back and took a full-length shot. "Turn--face that way," he instructed, and when she was in position he shot a closeup and a full-body shot. Then he had her turn again to face the camera, and did one more full-body shot. "You're done," he said.
Next was a guy who looked like David Beckham: tousled blond hair, tan skin, fashionable stubble. Was that business casual... who could tell? I wondered if I should have shaved. He jutted his jaw forward for the closeup and bared his teeth. I thought, oh, c'mon! They're not looking for a super model, pal! They're looking for a businessman!
But who specifically was this businessman they were looking for? A tech entrepreneur, weeks out of college, launching his billion dollar startup and wanting to invest wisely? An inner-city merchant whose business is growing? A soon-to-retire executive worried about making his nest-egg last? From the group gathered here, it was impossible to tell. The notice said they were seeking "Extras," too, to pose as business people. Maybe David Beckham was auditioning as an Extra... but I doubted it. He seemed to know what he was doing.
My turn came and I stepped into the middle of the room and held the card in front of my chest. "Okay," said the photographer, stepping back.  (Smile. Shoulders back. Gut in. Hips forward. Chin forward.) Click. Click.
"Okay, turn facing here," the photographer ordered. I glanced at the computer monitor that displayed the images he had just captured. Gotta suck in that gut more! I turned. They say the camera adds fifteen pounds. (Shoulders back! Gut IN! Hips FORWARD--man, I'm glad that drop of water on my pants dried. Chin forward. SMILE, because business is BOOMING!). Click. Click. 
"Okay," the photographer said. "One more facing this way..." I turned, silently reciting my posing mantra. Click.
He looked at the computer monitor to make sure the images had recorded, then turned to me. "And you're done," he said.
As I stepped to the side I glanced at the images too. This may be bad luck in the world of advertising; Lot's wife looking back at Sodom and Gomorrah and turning to a pillar of salt--but I couldn't help myself. Well... no one was going to confuse me with David Beckham. And I didn't look like an earnest, upwardly-striving middle-manager, either. I looked... like a sixty-year-old guy--or maybe 58 year-old one--dressed in Business Casual attire, with neat gray hair of medium length, some lines in my face and forehead, a nice, though somewhat crooked smile. In each pose, my head is cocked jauntily to the side; something I was completely unaware I was doing. Business must be really great!
Leaving the office, I picked up the remains of my iced coffee, and the envelope I had brought, containing a couple of head shots, in case they wanted them.
I went down the elevator and as I passed people in the lobby and then on the sidewalk outside, I thought, "To these people, I probably look just look like a businessman, dressed in Business Casual, coming from a meeting. Had I made some different choices long ago, I might very well be that person, instead of pretending to be one for the afternoon.
I found my car and got into it. I'd been so utterly confident when I'd applied for the job, and really pleased when I'd gotten the audition. Now I had no idea whether I'd be cast or not.
But it's okay. I have an important task ahead: growing my beard. I have three and a half days until I go to a shoot, where I'll be an Organic Farmer. They want the stubbly look.

Eternal Damnation for $1.99

In the supermarket, I came across a display of brightly colored silicone spatulas, priced at $1.99. My kitchen gadget assortment is rudimentary at best, and from time to time a spatula might come in handy. In fact, three nights ago--and I know this sounds pathetic--I was mixing up some chocolate chip cookie mix... well, long story short, but it ended up chocolate cookie cake... but I didn't have a spatula to scrape it out of the mixing bowl. Which was actually a salad bowl... but I digress.

I was at the supermarket. I grabbed a spatula and threw it in the cart, then trolled the aisles and got other stuff I needed. After going through the checkout line, I emerged from the store and saw the spatula wedged into the cart. I thought at first that the bag technician had forgotten to put the spatula in the bag, but then I realized I hadn't paid for it.

Here was my internal dialog:
"You should really go in and pay for that."
"I know... but it's a buck ninety-nine. It isn't as though I hid it."
"But you know the checker didn't see it."
"I didn't remember it was in their either!"
"You know now."
"It's a dollar ninety-nine! They won't even notice." I did imagine the item turning up missing in the inventory control database, though.
"So what if they don't notice? You know you took it."
"But I had no intention of leaving without paying."
"Nonetheless, you did leave without paying. And stealing is wrong."
"I didn't mean to steal it."
"Just the same... "
I thought about a time a few weeks ago, when the barista at Trieste Caffe gave me change for a $20, when I had actually given her a $10 bill. I didn't realize it until an hour or so later, and returned to the cafe and told her what I thought had happened. She shrugged and thanked me. But was it my innate virtue that brought me back, or something else? Did I want to be viewed as an honest person, or am I an honest person at heart? Certainly, a part of me was thinking, "Hey, ten bucks is ten bucks. And it isn't as though I won't spend that and a lot more on coffee in the coming weeks. And what does a cup of coffee cost Caffe Trieste? Twenty cents?"
Then, as now, my arguments against doing the right thing were weak and self-serving.
But today I was tired. I didn't want to go back into the store, find the clerk, explain the situation... and it was a dollar ninety-nine! I continued to my car. I put the groceries in the back.
Then I imagined the interview process for Heaven. Now, I can't say I don't have serious questions about the existence of Heaven, let alone the admission requirements. Nonetheless, I imagined an angel going over my life and coming to this exact moment. "Do you remember what happened May seventh, two-thousand-fourteen?"
"Uh... no."
"Remember a bright green spatula? Lucky supermarket..."
"Seriously?" I said. "You're gonna lock the pearly gates on me for a dollar ninety-nine?"
The angel shrugged. "It's a small failing... but a deliberate one. The commandment isn't 'Thou Shalt Not Steal Big, Valuable Things That People Will Notice.' It's 'Thou Shalt Not Steal.' Period. A moral imperative. No qualifications."
He had me there. But the truth is, I've broken other of the Ten Commandments--definitely broke the "Thou Shalt Not Take the Name of Thy Lord God in Vain" about a million times, and I've coveted my neighbor's goat and sometimes his wife, too... so if there's a very, very strict rule about adherence to The Ten Commandments, I'm going to be spending Eternity somewhere other than Heaven anyway.
But taking something that doesn't belong to me; knowingly possessing something that has that questionable moral taint to it... that was a tough one.
One time in college, my roommate, Tom, came home with a rickety rocking chair that he had stolen off of someone's porch. It was weathered and faded, and hardly staying together. The thing was, Tom didn't even know why he'd taken it, and he said he felt bad about it. Like me, he was ready with a rationalization. "But it was just outside. It was falling apart," he said. "They probably don't even care that it's gone."
He didn't convince himself. Over the next several days, he took the chair completely apart, refinished it, and reassembled it. He did a good job, and when he was done it was really a nice chair. Unfortunately, Tom kept it in his room. He would have made a far different impression had he taken the refinished chair and put it back on our neighbor's porch. But he didn't do that. So now, almost forty years later, I relate that story as an example of moral failure, rather than one of realizing one's failings and doing what one can do to make up for them.
Carrying the spatula, I went back in the store. My intention at first was to return to the clerk and explain the circumstances... and I confess that fleetingly I imagined her doing what the barista at Caffe Trieste did: say, "Oh, that is so nice of you!," thus reinforcing my sense of myself as a moral person. But I didn't want to wait for the clerk, so instead I just went to the self-serve checkout, scanned the spatula, and paid for it.
Then I left the store, puffed up by my own virtue and I thought... do I really need a spatula?

Hell's Theme Music

Fifty-five minutes and counting on hold with Blue Shield to appeal a denied claim. When the hold music--a loop of an innocuous hillbilly guitar--comes to an end, there's the scratching noise that one used to hear at the end of a vinyl LP. There's probably some poor clerk in there, flipping the tone arm back to the beginning every minute or so.

Blue Shield probably paid a composer a few hundred dollars to write this obnoxious little ditty, and if it has the same effect on other callers that it's having me, which is to make me want to hang up and scream, it was money well spent. They don't have to answer our pesky questions or to reverse their unwarranted denials. Every now and then, a recorded voice comes on to inform me that they have an unusually high call volume (sure!) and to reassure me that my call is important to them and that my call will be answered in the order it was received... but if I'd like to call back another time, they're less busy early in the day.

Last time I tried calling later in the day, the system just kept me on hold until the end of the business day. So I'm not falling for that again.

I wouldn't subject myself to this torture without good reason, so here are the specifics, without getting too graphic. I have a chronically high PSA level, and six months ago I had a biopsy. My third. It was negative. However, my urologist in southern California recommended that I have PSA levels checked every six months. But I'm up in Oakland now, and don't have a urologist. So, with the six month time nearing, I got my doctor here to make a referral to a urologist I found on the Blue Shield site.

I went for the appointment and filled out a form or two.  I just wanted them to have my name in their patient roster so if I started peeing blood one day I'd have someone to call. But the good doctor--Columbia and Yale, so I think he knows his business--performed a brief examination and ordered a blood test. I didn't ask for any of this, but I suppose if I were in his position (it was more comfortable than the position I was in, let's say) I'd have done the same. All told, it took around 20 minutes. The bill was $1,096 dollars. Blue Shield paid none of it. They don't seem to want to discuss it, though. An hour and fifteen minutes now, and counting.  

I have the phone set on speaker, and the tinny music warbles out; a sound  track to my increasing annoyance. About forty minutes a ago, a human (or a very effective simulation) came on the line. I briefly explained the problem.

"Oh, let me connect you with claims," he said. I'd found the number I'd called on the Blue Shield website, but maybe I'd dialed some general number and not a specific one for claims.

"Am I going to have to wait another 40 minutes?"

"Oh, no. I'll connect you." And a moment later, the same theme music came on. I checked the website and indeed, the number I had called was the number for claims. You'd think Blue Shield could afford to commission another tune just so callers would know they were at least making progress.

So here I remain, having memorized every note, fearing I might have gotten onto a hold system that is eternal. Hells theme music. I've read about savants who can play a piece of classical music after hearing it one time. I'm not a savant, but I've heard this tune so many times now that I think  I could pluck it out. And I don't play guitar.

I took the phone with me into the bathroom when I had to pee, certain that if I left it unattended for more than five seconds another person at Blue Shield would pick up the line, say, "Hello? Hello?" and then hang up.

No reassuring voice comes on the line anymore to tell me that my call is important to them and that my call will be answered in the order it was received.

But the story has a happy ending. After an hour and 25 minutes on hold, Banny came on the line. She corrected the problem, and from $1096, my actual cost will be $62.40. I'm relieved, and I thanked Banny for figuring out the problem: the medical corporation that the doctor is with is "out of network," but the doctor is in it. I'm grateful to Banny, but I wonder how many people in my position--driven mad by hold music--would have just given up and paid the bill.

Old Photos

I returned to Oakland today after a week in Ojai, where I lived with my wife for 20 years. We raised our two children there, and lived in the same house which over those two decades we remodeled and expanded, making it entirely our own.

Now, after almost 30 years of marriage, Stephanie and I are in the midst of a divorce. It was a long time coming, and we both worked very hard to reconcile. At times, it felt like we might succeed. Ultimately, we didn't. That's why I live in Oakland now, 350 miles north.

But I still have close friends in Ojai, and it's a lovely place loaded with good memories for me. The house, too, is loaded with good memories, and also with stuff: everything a family accumulates over a lifetime together. Well, half of a lifetime anyway, at least as far as my life is anyway.

Among all that stuff, of course, are a lot of photographs. In total, I suppose there's a good-sized trunk full of them. On this trip, I brought back a couple of small boxes. When I got "home," (Oakland is, for the time being, "home;" not simply home) I put myself to the task of putting away the photos.

There are a couple of problems with that task. First, compared to the house in Ojai, I have a tiny amount of space. I don't know where I'll put any of it. Second--and this is the larger problem by far--I had to look at the photos. There's one, taken on a camping trip with my son, Drew, who was 4 at the time. We went backpacking in Yosemite with three other dads and their young boys. We're all perched on a huge granite boulder overlooking a pristine alpine lake.

Another photos was taken in Paris. Stephanie and I went there with Drew when he was just 11 month old. He took his first steps in Paris. There's Stephanie, smiling in front of some great stone building, the stroller at her side. She's beautiful, and fit, and happy.

There were other photos of Stephanie. In one, taken in our first house in Santa Monica, her face is covered with white cream--I think this is called a mask among the cosmetically informed--a not-unfriendly "why are you taking this?" smile on her face.

There is a photo of me and Stephanie together, taken when we were both teachers and had chaperoned the prom. We were in formal attire: me in a tux, of course, and her in a slinky black gown with see-through netting about the shoulders. She looks very sexy. As neither of us went to our own proms, we always referred to this as our prom photo, and at the time it was taken I remember thinking that this completed a portion of my life that felt undone. With Stephanie, my life at that time felt complete.

There are many pictures of my daughter, Kelsey. In one of them, taken when she was about two, she wears a little purple dress, and on a chair she is posing her cloth doll, who is wearing a dress that's the same shade of purple. She is every bit as purposeful as the photographer.

Photos of my mother were in the box, too, including her high school graduation photo, taken in 1935. She has short hair in tight curls, and by contemporary standards looks more like someone in her mid-twenties than an 18-year-old. There's a photo of my father, taken when he was perhaps 50; 10 years younger than I am now. The photographer captured a moment when he appeared to be about to break into a laugh.

Sorting through all of these pictures, I couldn't help but be overcome by nostalgia and sadness. My dad died in 1984, my mom in 2007. My son is off in New York. My daughter, who lives in Emeryville--just a couple of miles from me in Oakland--will in September head to France to complete a Master's Degree. Stephanie and I are in the midst of divorce. The house is for sale.

How swiftly things change. How brief is our time in this life. I think and hope that at the times they were taken that I appreciated that moment for all of the richness that it possessed. I hope I looked through the lens when taking a picture of Stephanie holding our infant son, and savored how blessed, how truly and remarkably blessed I was to have such a beautiful wife, and such a beautiful son. But every moment is not captured in a photo, and every moment is equally rich, really; even the most mundane one. This afternoon, rain was pelting down. I stood under an awning, talking with Drew on the phone. He's shopping for an apartment in Brooklyn and wanted my advice on it. As we spoke, there was a flash of lightning, and thunder shook the clouds. "Did you hear that! My god!" I said.

I'll forget that moment in a day, or a week, or a month, or a year, and there is no photo of it, but in its totality, it is magnificent, a moment in which I knew this: I'm close to my son. He seeks my counsel. I desire to help him. I'm proud of him. He has accomplished so much, and has so much to look forward to in his life. The weather holds forth, a glimpse itself of the magnificent forces at work in the world, a backdrop to this small and meaningful exchange between the my son and me, 3000 miles apart.

When my mom was living in Kensington, an assisted living place, I drove up from Ojai to spend a couple of days with her. Neither I, nor anyone else, suspected that she had only a couple of months more to live. She was active, and in good spirits. She had made interesting friends at Kensington. Her apartment was tidy, but small. I slept on the sofa in the living room that looked out into the garden. I remember lying there and reflecting on how grateful I felt to be able to visit her, and how happy it made me that she was doing well, and was at 90 just as bright and good humored as always. I have no photo of that time. Sorting through all of her belongings only a few months later, after she had passed away, I would be almost overcome by the volume of it, by the depth of it, by the time it chronicled which was now, with her loss, all gone.

I have wonderful memories of my life with Stephanie, and of raising my children. We traveled, we had parties, we entertained friends, we helped each other through struggles and sickness, we had setbacks and victories, disappointments and surprises... it was all so beautiful and so much more vast than any collection of photographs could ever capture. These few that I looked at today are hardly a glimpse of what has been a very good life that I'm extremely grateful for and proud of, my many missteps and failures notwithstanding.

Number Four in the Trilogy

I am struggling--struggling, I say!--with the fourth installment of my Chronicles of Huttle trilogy, Huttle on Fire. Yes, I know that when it's done I could call the collection a quartet, but that sounds like it ought to have a standup bass and a snare drum in it, so it will remain a trilogy.

This is humor, people.

Anyway, my struggle is this: I don't know how to define or describe the central conflict of the book! In The Spy Who Loathed Me, FBI Agent Terrence Tillberry is in love with KGB Agent Petra Tarasova. There's lots of intrinsic conflict there, and when you throw in the fact that Petra couldn't care less about him, and that everything he does to get her attention only makes him look like more of a jerk, well, there's plenty of space for humor.

Sometimes, the central drive of the story is apparent from the beginning. Arguably, that's an easier course to take. However, I enjoyed no such luxury with the first two books, In Huttle We Trust, and Huttle to the Rescue. I started with a character, Tom Huttle, who had a quest. In the book In Huttle We Trust, he wanted to complete his first book, titled Garbage.  In Huttle to the Rescue, Tom wanted--and believed he was poised to receive--a prestigious writing award. In both cases, severe and myriad complications arises as Tom sought his goal.

So far, Huttle on Fire has not revealed to me a concrete goal for Tom to seek. I've written fifteen chapters, and Tom done a number of things, and been tested to some degree or another in each chapter... yet the core; the thing that is driving him--remains elusive.

However, without revealing the plot in any way, I have been circling around some tantalizing themes, which I will expand upon at the end of this post. You see, humor is not just pies in the face and slipping on banana peels--though that is a good and worthy brand of it. Humor is also the human condition; sharp truths revealed with wit, so they cut deeper. Ultimately, the humor of a piece has to inform not only the plot, but the theme of the book. So, below are some of the areas I'm touching on. As the character develops and learns, the themes emerge. In the end, if I've done my job correctly, both the character and the reader have a little more knowledge about themselves, and about life.

Here's what I'm playing with.

THREADS & THEMES:

1) TOM BELIEVES HE MUST ENDURE PAIN TO BE A MAN OF VIRTUE. (He learns that sometimes, pain of some type is a consequence of remaining true to yourself and to your aspirations, but that pain itself does not impart virtue.

2) TOM BELIEVES HE IS UNIMPORTANT AND WILL BE IGNORED, EVEN WHEN HE HAS A SOLID CONTRIBUTION TO MAKE. (He learns that he must have faith in his own qualities and step bravely forward day-by-day and hour-by-hour. He will be heard how he’s heard—not exactly as he might like in any given instance—and he must calibrate his actions accordingly, or not. What others think of him is none of his business)

3) TOM BELIEVES THAT THE WORLD IS ONE OF THREAT AND STRUGGLE. (He learns that the world is neutral. There are good people and bad ones; fewer bad than good. Everyone is struggling in some realm or other.)

4) TOM BELIEVES THAT THE ONLY TYPE OF PERSON WHO CAN OVERCOME THE NATURE OF THE WORLD IS REALLY NOT HUMAN AT ALL. (He learns that to be human—experiencing the full range of sorrow and elation available only to people, in the moment and in all its dimensions—makes the world a place to treasure and be grateful for.)

PSA-Not the only way to fly

Until sometime in the late 80s, there was a regional airline in the west called PSA. I don't remember what the letters stood for, but their slogan was, "PSA, the only way to fly."

But there's another PSA that I've been thinking about most recently, which culminated in a biopsy two weeks ago, and I know what those letters stand for: Prostate Specific Antigen. As the song goes, don't know much biology, but I do know this: PSA is specific to the prostate, and it's an antigen, meaning that it's there to do battle with some bad thing in the prostate. That bad thing is sometimes cancer.

My PSA was 13 as of two weeks ago, when I was scheduled for the biopsy at UCSF. And this was no run-of-the-mill biopsy, but one of the "Perineal Anterior" variety, and I'll spare you the anatomical specifics. I just turned 60, but for years--six or seven at least--I've had an elevated PSA level, which hovered around six or seven. In the past couple of years it's climbed to 9 and change, and then spiked to 13. One of the things that doctors look for in PSA is what they call velocity, or the pace at which the PSA level climbs. At my age, I should have a PSA from 0 to, say, 3. Thirteen is quite high, so needles to say I was worried. On a scale of 1 to 10, my worry meter registered 13.

Well, if you'll read the next post you'll see that the biopsy results were all negative, with 32 cores having been taken. My worry, while not unfounded, turned out to have been for nothing (as worry usually is). I asked the nurse, "So, why do I have such a high PSA level?"  She said, "I don't know."

But there is another piece of the puzzle, which is that I (like some 50 percent of men my age, and more who are older) have an enlarged prostate. I'm not sure why, but my urologist tells me that it shows evidence of infection from a long time ago. I think, in fact, that I've probably had some kind of prostate infection for thirty to forty years and that chronic infection--not cancer--is likely the irritant that is making the PSA level spike.

So, take heart, men. PSA was a pretty good airline, but is a notoriously unreliable indicator of cancer, as my case demonstrates.

Negative, in the positive sense.

So, after almost two weeks of anxiety--much of it somewhat beyond my conscious awareness--I got a call today from the urologist's nurse, who had the results of my biopsy. "Everything is negative," she said. No qualifications. No, "howevers," No, "and there's just one more thing."

I'm glad she just spat it out, because any preamble or post script would've only increased my worry because I would have imagined that her next statement would be, "So, we'd like you to come in for a consultation." Nothing good could come from a face-to-face meeting under this circumstance. 

But there is no need for a consultation because all of the poking and prodding--and this was the gold standard of prostate biopsies--has turned up nothing to be alarmed about. As far as I know, there is no more tissue to be jabbed and sampled.

Needless to say I am hugely relieved, and I'm very conscious of that, even though I successfully suppressed the actual anxiety of which I am now relieved. Or, rather, turned it into gloomy and catastrophic pessimism. All of it for nothing. Surely there's a lesson in there of some kind, and eventually I will figure it out. 

For now, all I can say is hooray!