Mark Wants a Chapter. He wants to be acknowledged as one of the Men who experienced the Maladies.
There are many reasons why only specific Men made it into the Published Memoir: they were the Men who experienced the Blood, Shit, Anxiety, & Pain of Stage 4 Aggressive Recurring Abdominal, Colorectal, & Pulmonary #Endometriosis up close and personal. They were in the Gynecologist’s Office; they helped me pick up Prescriptions & schedule the Shots; they drove me to, held my hand in, or picked me up from the ER; they waited for me to come out of anesthesia in the ICU.
I should have expected it, obviously, what with the publication of my Memoir. It should be no surprise that Men who did not know about my Illness, or my Enlistment in the Air Force, would reach out in shock “I never knew!”. In any case, Mark Evans sent a Friend Request on January 4, 2018 but it would be mid-February before a Name from 30 years & 3,000 miles appeared in the List above Mark’s Name. In my eagerness, I simply hit Accept to both, still not knowing which Mark Evans I just connected with on Facebook. But I was too focused on connecting with Brian. By the end of the day there was a message, and I clicked on the Profile.
And then it hit me. The entire ordeal of “Knowing Mark”. I guess for those of you reading who have known me for more than a minute, the identity of Mr. Encyclopedia is now confirmed.
(wasn’t he homeless? no he was a Street Performer… no! he was a Street Vendor, right?)
In the Chaos of Sorrow left in the wake of Blood, Danocrine, Surgery, Lupron Depot, my Mother’s Betrayal & the Heartbreak of Robert which included finding then losing my adorable California Spanish Walk Up in Hollywood to the January 1994 Northridge Earthquake, there was Mark’s Chapter. It begins in February of 1994 in a 5th Floor Downtown Los Angeles Conference Room about 3 weeks before I met Uncle Morrie. Knowing Mark spans Los Angeles from Pasadena to Sherman Oaks, and ends in March of 1995 at the One Wilshire Building in the 8th Floor Offices of Nextel Communications.
By the time I met Mark, in just 4 short years I had gone from being one of the most Elite Enlisted Women assigned to a Special Operations Combat Support Group in the US Air Force, to an Office Temp. You know the stereotype, the rotating Nameless Receptionist or Coffee Fetcher in Swanky Downtown Los Angeles Office Buildings. He was a Handwriting Analyst brought in by the Sales Manager and it was my job to greet him, seat him, and escort him to the Conference Room when Called. A far cry from launching $24 million F-16 Combat Aircraft from the end of a Desolate Runway.
When Mark arrived for a Sales Meeting Presentation after hours, everything went according to Corporate Protocol, until he announced he would analyze my Handwriting while he waited to be called “because we are the only people in an empty office”. The Sales Manager & Mark came back to my desk, and the Manager asked me to validate Mr Evans parking, and show him out to the lobby. He then asked how I was getting home after hours. Mark immediately spoke up and told the Manager he would drive me home to ensure my safety. I was paralyzed with indecision between a nearly 2 hour train ride, and a 45 minute carpool.
In that moment of less than a heartbeat, the Manager slipped Mark a $20, shook his hand, and told him what a great thing he was doing. Any discomfort I may have felt in having a complete stranger drive me to my car, completely dissipated in shock & embarrassment as Mark’s broken muffler echoed wildly through the cement parking garage. The next thing I knew, the cacophonous muffler chased us down the Freeway from Downtown Los Angeles, all the way to Van Nuys like a Demon on the Hunt. I gave him my phone number, and promptly began ignoring his calls.
When the messages reached the same level of annoyance as the Muffler I couldn’t take any more, and I finally answered. I still believed he was a Financial Analyst with a hobby in Handwriting Analysis and a muffler as obnoxious as his personality. We met for coffee at a classic 1990’s Ventura Boulevard Coffee Houses on a Wednesday Night. The shop was exactly 1 mile from my Condo, making the entire trip 2 miles, perfect for walking my dog Sebastian.
Mark walked 2 miles at night in the Valley just to get my address. He walked me all the way to my front door, where he did not receive an invitation despite begging. He may have reached his ultimate goal, but it cost him a 2 mile walk in the middle of the night. I was confident I would never hear from him again, but sure enough a few days later there was a message from Mark, asking to see me again.
This would become the pattern of “Knowing Mark”. His constant obsession with Winning at all costs and the one-upmanship bordering on extreme criticism, would become so personal that his words would have me leaving in a rage, followed by several days of desperate messages, me finally answering & agreeing to see him, he would behave, rinse & repeat.
The first time Mark spent the night at my Condo, my dog Sebastian peed on his clothes. That was the first omen, always listen to the dog. What had been a lovely “dating period” between Mark and I ended at 6am on a Tuesday. He could not understand why Sebastian peed on just his shirt and nothing else, while I was trying to figure out why he tossed his clothes on the floor right next to an empty chair (I would get the answer a few weeks later).
For our entire acquaintance, Mark used the 2 mile walk from Ventura Blvd to my apartment on Woodman Ave, and the Dog Pee Incident as the Punctuation in our Relationship Sentence.
Our Weekends centered around playing Cards with two of his friends in Sierra Madre, or sipping late night coffee at Starbucks in Old Town Pasadena. It was in Old Town that I learned of Mark’s affinity for the Homeless. I found it noble that a Wall Street Analyst would be so concerned about Human Beings who had befallen devastating times. After one all too familiar Mark Tirade, I picked up my campaign for an invitation to his apartment, using the argument that Mark had been spending every night with me in Sherman Oaks since we met I even went so far as to suggest Mark was Homeless himself and just using me. He immediately drove me past his apartment in Pasadena, pointing out his window and telling me his apartment number. “There, I showed you”. I realized specificity is key with Mark.
Let me pause a moment and remind everyone that only 6 weeks have passed since I first met Mark Evans in a Downtown Los Angeles 5th floor Conference Room.
I entered Mark’s apartment the last Friday in March, just 9 days before my 27th Birthday. That sentence doesn’t read correctly does it…. Let me try again.
I Entered the Blast Radius, and instantly realized Mark had held true to the specificity with words: he “invited me inside”. There were exactly 2 spaces on the once very nice couch, the rest of it and the surrounding room were buried in… everything. Imagine a very curious family sized storage locker exploding it’s guts into a 1 Room Studio Apartment. He had spent nearly 3 days “cleaning” and the 12-50 gallon trash bags piled on the dumpster managed only to carve out a walking path through the debris to the 2 places on the couch. He did not have plans for me to be there any longer than necessary, up to and including plumbing usage. The bathroom and the kitchen were “Off Limits”. By the smell, they were Toxic Waste Spills and Bio Hazards, yet oddly enough there was no discernible source for the amazing odor.
We left as I said nothing.
On the ride back to Sherman Oaks, I made it clear to Mark that my intentions were to Marry, Have Children, Complain about Childcare & the Financial Burdens of College. His apartment was not ready for a regular full time girlfriend, let alone a child. This was far worse than being 18 years old and getting pregnant on a dingy mattress in your mother in law’s home. No, this was willfully getting pregnant in cess pool. He begged for more time and was on his absolute best behavior until my Birthday Party, kind of.
Within a few days of touring the Toxic Dump of Mark’s Apartment, Mark introduced me to his true love and sole focus of romantic obsession: Nadia. I became the Other Woman to an Invisible Wife living somewhere in a German City of Millions, who would bear Mark’s child. This was Mark’s response to his role in my Life Goals. When Nadia showed up in the bedroom, with Mark describing her aloud as we fucked, I was done.
Only my Grandmother knew I would be bringing Mark to the Peppermill for my 27th Birthday, and she had coordinated a surprise: my pregnant Sister & her Marine husband John, and my mother who of course brought Don. I should have known she would do this, especially after I told her about Nadia and Mark’s intentions to have a child with Nadia, and only Nadia. As soon as Mark sensed the tension between myself, my mother and Don, he turned the dial up on his obnoxiousness. Mark’s obnoxious intelligence collided with Don’s Limited Manual Labor High School Education, and the Party of 7 surrounded by Flowers & Balloons turned into a Passive-Aggressive War Zone.
My Grandmother’s Surprise Birthday Party stunt backfired, when she gossiped to my Mother about Mark, Me, and pregnancy. She told my Mother that I “should just get knocked up and we can raise the baby in the Condo”. Instantly the pressure from both Don and my mother to move back into the Pasadena Condo was daily. My Grandmother and I both had pressing issues to solve, and the solution to both collided at exactly the same moment. I agreed to move to the Pasadena Condo with my Grandmother, and used the opportunity to politely end the relationship with Mark and his Invisible Wife Nadia. Instead, he made himself useful by helping me move to the Pasadena Condo, and cleaning his apartment enough so that I could spend the night with him. I was completely moved in to the Pasadena Condo by the middle of April, spent a few nights with Mark at the tolerable apartment, and then he was gone, disappeared for 10 days.
The next time I heard from Mark was late on a Thursday night the first week of May. Mark asked me to meet him in Old Town Pasadena in front of our favorite shop, Z Gallerie. When I got to the location, Mark was no where to be found. After a few minutes, the Street Vendor behind me began calling my name. When I turned around, there was Mark, sitting at an Old Town Pasadena Street Vendor Table selling Handwriting Analysis to tourists & passersby. As the evening wore on, it became clear the only other “vendors” Mark associated with were the Homeless People who flocked to Pasadena on the weekends to Panhandle. He did no Homeless Advocacy, he simply befriended them and both dressed & acted the part. It was very unnerving to me, to have been dating a Wall Street Analyst who in actuality was a Street Vendor.
The pattern of “Knowing Mark” began anew and this time when I caved into his begging, it took a complaint from the Condo Association about Mark’s Muffler, and a Stern Talking To by my Grandmother before Mark finally stopped coming to the apartment.
By May, I was spending my weekends with my friend Eve attending Swanky Invitation Only Singles Parties in Beverly Hills and Orange County. I began dating Mr Yellow Corvette who was smitten with how an evening gown draped across my ass, all the while fending off phone calls from Mark. I had relegated him to “School Night Coffee”, home and in bed by 10p ready for work at 7am the next morning. Every encounter we had, Mark would laser focus on my Military Service, criticizing and challenging me about Details I Promised Never To Tell. When his attention turned away from me, he would return to obsessing aloud about Nadia, his flight to see Nadia, the hotel where he would fuck Nadia. Often times he would go into fantastical details about Nadia’s Pregnancy. It was so Masochistic, but Nadia, he bought the coffee, I was out of the house with my dog, and killing the time. I was living for the Weekend, when I would put on an evening gown or little black dress, and mingle in a Swanky Restaurant far far away from the Homeless whom Mark surrounded himself with.
The thing which made Mark snap was the affair I had with Mike which began in August. I was still talking with Mark on the phone, meeting him for coffee, and occasionally fucking him. He had no idea I was having an affair with a married man. Fantasizing about being married to another woman while fucking me was perfectly fine with Mark, but actually doing it was just too far outside Mark’s comfort zone.
As the months rolled on, and Mark insisted on being a central figure in my life, I settled him into an uneasy friendship. I would let him ramble on about Nadia until I couldn’t stand it anymore, and politely excuse myself to head home for work in the morning. It was under this umbrella of friendship that Mark ended up traveling with me from LA to San Diego for the birth of my oldest Nephew. Despite all of the access Mark had to me and my life, he simply had no desire to marry or start a family. He could barely pay the rent.
The Holiday Season came with Office Christmas Parties, and Mark refused to wear a suit to Corporate Functions. Our entire acquaintance was reduced to a telephone, and a cup of coffee. I avoided Old Town on the weekends.
The end of Mark’s Chapter is sad and tragic. He continued to call and message well after I moved to Mike’s house just outside LAX. He was calling my family, and showing up at the Pasadena Condo. It took Mike meeting Mark for coffee sometime n 1997 when we moved back to Pasadena, and finally telling Mark to stop.
So that is Mark’s Chapter.
Not a single experience with Endometriosis.
Mark Evans never experienced the Blood during Sex.
He never drove me to or picked me up from the ER.
Mark never even knew I had any Medical Prescriptions besides “Birth Control”.
To this day, until this blog, Mark had no idea I was pregnant with his child, and that Endometriosis strangled the life out of it in May 1994. The horror of that experience haunts me more than the others because it was the first & last time Endometriosis spit out more than just bloody tissue. It was also the incident which first put me on the Hormone Therapy Depot Provera to Control the Endometriosis
#Endometriosis
There are many reasons why only specific Men made it into the Published Memoir: they were the Men who experienced the Blood, Shit, Anxiety, & Pain of Stage 4 Aggressive Recurring Abdominal, Colorectal, & Pulmonary #Endometriosis up close and personal. They were in the Gynecologist’s Office; they helped me pick up Prescriptions & schedule the Shots; they drove me to, held my hand in, or picked me up from the ER; they waited for me to come out of anesthesia in the ICU.
I should have expected it, obviously, what with the publication of my Memoir. It should be no surprise that Men who did not know about my Illness, or my Enlistment in the Air Force, would reach out in shock “I never knew!”. In any case, Mark Evans sent a Friend Request on January 4, 2018 but it would be mid-February before a Name from 30 years & 3,000 miles appeared in the List above Mark’s Name. In my eagerness, I simply hit Accept to both, still not knowing which Mark Evans I just connected with on Facebook. But I was too focused on connecting with Brian. By the end of the day there was a message, and I clicked on the Profile.
(wasn’t he homeless? no he was a Street Performer… no! he was a Street Vendor, right?)
In the Chaos of Sorrow left in the wake of Blood, Danocrine, Surgery, Lupron Depot, my Mother’s Betrayal & the Heartbreak of Robert which included finding then losing my adorable California Spanish Walk Up in Hollywood to the January 1994 Northridge Earthquake, there was Mark’s Chapter. It begins in February of 1994 in a 5th Floor Downtown Los Angeles Conference Room about 3 weeks before I met Uncle Morrie. Knowing Mark spans Los Angeles from Pasadena to Sherman Oaks, and ends in March of 1995 at the One Wilshire Building in the 8th Floor Offices of Nextel Communications.
By the time I met Mark, in just 4 short years I had gone from being one of the most Elite Enlisted Women assigned to a Special Operations Combat Support Group in the US Air Force, to an Office Temp. You know the stereotype, the rotating Nameless Receptionist or Coffee Fetcher in Swanky Downtown Los Angeles Office Buildings. He was a Handwriting Analyst brought in by the Sales Manager and it was my job to greet him, seat him, and escort him to the Conference Room when Called. A far cry from launching $24 million F-16 Combat Aircraft from the end of a Desolate Runway.
When Mark arrived for a Sales Meeting Presentation after hours, everything went according to Corporate Protocol, until he announced he would analyze my Handwriting while he waited to be called “because we are the only people in an empty office”. The Sales Manager & Mark came back to my desk, and the Manager asked me to validate Mr Evans parking, and show him out to the lobby. He then asked how I was getting home after hours. Mark immediately spoke up and told the Manager he would drive me home to ensure my safety. I was paralyzed with indecision between a nearly 2 hour train ride, and a 45 minute carpool.
In that moment of less than a heartbeat, the Manager slipped Mark a $20, shook his hand, and told him what a great thing he was doing. Any discomfort I may have felt in having a complete stranger drive me to my car, completely dissipated in shock & embarrassment as Mark’s broken muffler echoed wildly through the cement parking garage. The next thing I knew, the cacophonous muffler chased us down the Freeway from Downtown Los Angeles, all the way to Van Nuys like a Demon on the Hunt. I gave him my phone number, and promptly began ignoring his calls.
When the messages reached the same level of annoyance as the Muffler I couldn’t take any more, and I finally answered. I still believed he was a Financial Analyst with a hobby in Handwriting Analysis and a muffler as obnoxious as his personality. We met for coffee at a classic 1990’s Ventura Boulevard Coffee Houses on a Wednesday Night. The shop was exactly 1 mile from my Condo, making the entire trip 2 miles, perfect for walking my dog Sebastian.
Mark walked 2 miles at night in the Valley just to get my address. He walked me all the way to my front door, where he did not receive an invitation despite begging. He may have reached his ultimate goal, but it cost him a 2 mile walk in the middle of the night. I was confident I would never hear from him again, but sure enough a few days later there was a message from Mark, asking to see me again.
This would become the pattern of “Knowing Mark”. His constant obsession with Winning at all costs and the one-upmanship bordering on extreme criticism, would become so personal that his words would have me leaving in a rage, followed by several days of desperate messages, me finally answering & agreeing to see him, he would behave, rinse & repeat.
The first time Mark spent the night at my Condo, my dog Sebastian peed on his clothes. That was the first omen, always listen to the dog. What had been a lovely “dating period” between Mark and I ended at 6am on a Tuesday. He could not understand why Sebastian peed on just his shirt and nothing else, while I was trying to figure out why he tossed his clothes on the floor right next to an empty chair (I would get the answer a few weeks later).
For our entire acquaintance, Mark used the 2 mile walk from Ventura Blvd to my apartment on Woodman Ave, and the Dog Pee Incident as the Punctuation in our Relationship Sentence.
Our Weekends centered around playing Cards with two of his friends in Sierra Madre, or sipping late night coffee at Starbucks in Old Town Pasadena. It was in Old Town that I learned of Mark’s affinity for the Homeless. I found it noble that a Wall Street Analyst would be so concerned about Human Beings who had befallen devastating times. After one all too familiar Mark Tirade, I picked up my campaign for an invitation to his apartment, using the argument that Mark had been spending every night with me in Sherman Oaks since we met I even went so far as to suggest Mark was Homeless himself and just using me. He immediately drove me past his apartment in Pasadena, pointing out his window and telling me his apartment number. “There, I showed you”. I realized specificity is key with Mark.
Let me pause a moment and remind everyone that only 6 weeks have passed since I first met Mark Evans in a Downtown Los Angeles 5th floor Conference Room.
I entered Mark’s apartment the last Friday in March, just 9 days before my 27th Birthday. That sentence doesn’t read correctly does it…. Let me try again.I Entered the Blast Radius, and instantly realized Mark had held true to the specificity with words: he “invited me inside”. There were exactly 2 spaces on the once very nice couch, the rest of it and the surrounding room were buried in… everything. Imagine a very curious family sized storage locker exploding it’s guts into a 1 Room Studio Apartment. He had spent nearly 3 days “cleaning” and the 12-50 gallon trash bags piled on the dumpster managed only to carve out a walking path through the debris to the 2 places on the couch. He did not have plans for me to be there any longer than necessary, up to and including plumbing usage. The bathroom and the kitchen were “Off Limits”. By the smell, they were Toxic Waste Spills and Bio Hazards, yet oddly enough there was no discernible source for the amazing odor.
We left as I said nothing.
On the ride back to Sherman Oaks, I made it clear to Mark that my intentions were to Marry, Have Children, Complain about Childcare & the Financial Burdens of College. His apartment was not ready for a regular full time girlfriend, let alone a child. This was far worse than being 18 years old and getting pregnant on a dingy mattress in your mother in law’s home. No, this was willfully getting pregnant in cess pool. He begged for more time and was on his absolute best behavior until my Birthday Party, kind of.
Within a few days of touring the Toxic Dump of Mark’s Apartment, Mark introduced me to his true love and sole focus of romantic obsession: Nadia. I became the Other Woman to an Invisible Wife living somewhere in a German City of Millions, who would bear Mark’s child. This was Mark’s response to his role in my Life Goals. When Nadia showed up in the bedroom, with Mark describing her aloud as we fucked, I was done.
Only my Grandmother knew I would be bringing Mark to the Peppermill for my 27th Birthday, and she had coordinated a surprise: my pregnant Sister & her Marine husband John, and my mother who of course brought Don. I should have known she would do this, especially after I told her about Nadia and Mark’s intentions to have a child with Nadia, and only Nadia. As soon as Mark sensed the tension between myself, my mother and Don, he turned the dial up on his obnoxiousness. Mark’s obnoxious intelligence collided with Don’s Limited Manual Labor High School Education, and the Party of 7 surrounded by Flowers & Balloons turned into a Passive-Aggressive War Zone.
My Grandmother’s Surprise Birthday Party stunt backfired, when she gossiped to my Mother about Mark, Me, and pregnancy. She told my Mother that I “should just get knocked up and we can raise the baby in the Condo”. Instantly the pressure from both Don and my mother to move back into the Pasadena Condo was daily. My Grandmother and I both had pressing issues to solve, and the solution to both collided at exactly the same moment. I agreed to move to the Pasadena Condo with my Grandmother, and used the opportunity to politely end the relationship with Mark and his Invisible Wife Nadia. Instead, he made himself useful by helping me move to the Pasadena Condo, and cleaning his apartment enough so that I could spend the night with him. I was completely moved in to the Pasadena Condo by the middle of April, spent a few nights with Mark at the tolerable apartment, and then he was gone, disappeared for 10 days.
The next time I heard from Mark was late on a Thursday night the first week of May. Mark asked me to meet him in Old Town Pasadena in front of our favorite shop, Z Gallerie. When I got to the location, Mark was no where to be found. After a few minutes, the Street Vendor behind me began calling my name. When I turned around, there was Mark, sitting at an Old Town Pasadena Street Vendor Table selling Handwriting Analysis to tourists & passersby. As the evening wore on, it became clear the only other “vendors” Mark associated with were the Homeless People who flocked to Pasadena on the weekends to Panhandle. He did no Homeless Advocacy, he simply befriended them and both dressed & acted the part. It was very unnerving to me, to have been dating a Wall Street Analyst who in actuality was a Street Vendor.
The pattern of “Knowing Mark” began anew and this time when I caved into his begging, it took a complaint from the Condo Association about Mark’s Muffler, and a Stern Talking To by my Grandmother before Mark finally stopped coming to the apartment.
By May, I was spending my weekends with my friend Eve attending Swanky Invitation Only Singles Parties in Beverly Hills and Orange County. I began dating Mr Yellow Corvette who was smitten with how an evening gown draped across my ass, all the while fending off phone calls from Mark. I had relegated him to “School Night Coffee”, home and in bed by 10p ready for work at 7am the next morning. Every encounter we had, Mark would laser focus on my Military Service, criticizing and challenging me about Details I Promised Never To Tell. When his attention turned away from me, he would return to obsessing aloud about Nadia, his flight to see Nadia, the hotel where he would fuck Nadia. Often times he would go into fantastical details about Nadia’s Pregnancy. It was so Masochistic, but Nadia, he bought the coffee, I was out of the house with my dog, and killing the time. I was living for the Weekend, when I would put on an evening gown or little black dress, and mingle in a Swanky Restaurant far far away from the Homeless whom Mark surrounded himself with.
The thing which made Mark snap was the affair I had with Mike which began in August. I was still talking with Mark on the phone, meeting him for coffee, and occasionally fucking him. He had no idea I was having an affair with a married man. Fantasizing about being married to another woman while fucking me was perfectly fine with Mark, but actually doing it was just too far outside Mark’s comfort zone.As the months rolled on, and Mark insisted on being a central figure in my life, I settled him into an uneasy friendship. I would let him ramble on about Nadia until I couldn’t stand it anymore, and politely excuse myself to head home for work in the morning. It was under this umbrella of friendship that Mark ended up traveling with me from LA to San Diego for the birth of my oldest Nephew. Despite all of the access Mark had to me and my life, he simply had no desire to marry or start a family. He could barely pay the rent.
The Holiday Season came with Office Christmas Parties, and Mark refused to wear a suit to Corporate Functions. Our entire acquaintance was reduced to a telephone, and a cup of coffee. I avoided Old Town on the weekends.
The end of Mark’s Chapter is sad and tragic. He continued to call and message well after I moved to Mike’s house just outside LAX. He was calling my family, and showing up at the Pasadena Condo. It took Mike meeting Mark for coffee sometime n 1997 when we moved back to Pasadena, and finally telling Mark to stop.
So that is Mark’s Chapter.
Not a single experience with Endometriosis.
Mark Evans never experienced the Blood during Sex.
He never drove me to or picked me up from the ER.
Mark never even knew I had any Medical Prescriptions besides “Birth Control”.
To this day, until this blog, Mark had no idea I was pregnant with his child, and that Endometriosis strangled the life out of it in May 1994. The horror of that experience haunts me more than the others because it was the first & last time Endometriosis spit out more than just bloody tissue. It was also the incident which first put me on the Hormone Therapy Depot Provera to Control the Endometriosis
#Endometriosis
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