Don Chavez

This week’s question comes from the fabulous DonChavez.com reader, Omar.

“So aside from a few changes to your modeling career, and a couple adventures you’ve had, how has having one leg really affected your life so far?”

Well, Omar, it’s more of a question of what in my life hasn’t been affected. Thank God I have a really good and beautifully twisted sense of humor, so I don’t often sulk about my life and how it’s “ruined” and all of that kind of thing. I’m thankful to be here and I love my life, and it’s still packed full of all sorts of possibilities. Besides runway modeling, which quite frankly at 5’7″ I’m probably too short for anyway, and was always told by most of my coaches that my boobs were far too big and that I, quite frankly, wasn’t all that great at it. Now those are some resounding words of encouragement, huh. I mean how often does a girl get told by a man that her boobs are “too big”? That made me chuckle as I thought about that one. Fine, runway Nazi’s, I’ll take my big boobs and go elsewhere.

So back to the question – got distracted by my boobs there, having one leg changes pretty much everything. Without boring you all to death, I basically had to learn to do tons of things differently – the most obvious I suppose was to re-learn how to walk, with a giant piece of foreign material attached to my body (my prosthesis). The most tragic change is probably my inability to wear heels of any decent height – yeah, whatever, I’m a girl so that really does classify as tragic. I gave most of them to charity recently and cried my eyes out on the way home. See? Tears equals proof of an epic tragedy.

At times, it still sort of blows my mind really, when I think about it – and I have those “Shit, I have one leg now” moments often, so don’t get me wrong, it’s not easy. Another change has been with men and dating, and all of that. Now, I have to figure out “the time” where I tell the guy I’m part Borg, assuming he hasn’t figured it out already. That’s not something that I particularly look forward to, and always manages to be really awkward. So, having the twisted sense of humor that I do, I’ve started to embrace that awkwardness. Why not make an already awkward situation more ridiculous? Hmmm. Sounds good to me. My intent being here that if it’s more “out there” we both (the guy and I) can laugh about it and it suddenly isn’t awkward anymore. See the beautiful logic in that twisted path to reach my objective? Shocking people is sort of fun in any respect – okay, really fun.

So this is what happened the first time I tried this approach – my twisted path to reach the nirvana of “unawkwardness” which I don’t think is even a word. I met a guy standing in line at a coffee place, we talked for a long time and got along great. Thought he was gorgeous and smart and funny and on and on. Apparently he didn’t think I was all that bad either, so we exchanged numbers and talked about going for a drink that weekend. He called me, and I told him I had to go get my hair done – kidding, I said let’s go, I’m there. We meet at the bar, spend a bunch of hours there, and have a great time. He asks why I’m limping, and if I hurt my leg – and I tell him “uh, sort of”. Yeah, don’t shoot me for telling a little white lie – it isn’t the time to go down that road yet. This was a Friday night, so as we’re wrapping up, he asks if I wanted to get together the following night. I don’t believe in the whole dating “game” thing, and if I’m interested in someone I’ll be very direct and honest – so I tell him sure, sounds great. Neither of us know what we want to do exactly, so I just tell him that I’ll pick him up at 8:30pm at his place. Yeah, you heard that correctly – I’ll pick him up. Would rather do that, then find out he’s Charles Manson’s twin and know where I live. I don’t mind anyway, it’s fun to see other people’s places.

I don’t know what we’re going to do exactly, so hard to figure out what to wear. Better to over-dress than under, so I put on a black halter top and and this really sexy pair of jeans that I love to death. Since I’m going to try my little “experiment”, Ms. prosthesis is going to stay home. Grabbed the nearest safety pin, pinned-up my pant leg and headed out on my crutches. As I’m almost to his place, I’m starting to wonder a little bit if this is the best idea — after all, he might have a stroke, like the tanning girl in Oregon almost did. Of course the lazy gene I inherited from my great Aunt took over and I wasn’t about to go all the way back home to get my prosthesis – I was going through with it no matter what.

Of course he lives on the third floor of the (really nice) apartment complex – and the elevator has an “Out of Service” sign on it. My luck. I get up what seems like half a million stairs and arrive at his door. Music can be heard and the smell of something amazing cooking. Is this the right door? A man that cooks for a woman? A woman that picks up a man for a date? I knock – no answer, just a voice somewhere inside and that to come in and make myself at home. So I do – killer apartment, and he is cooking! This is really is another reality that I’ve entered. Anyway, still nobody other than a voice telling me to go sit down and that he’d be out in a minute. I plop down on this couch that has like a 1000 pillows on in it. I’m starting to wonder about this guy a little by now. As long as he doesn’t tell me my boobs are “too big” things will be fine. I toss my crutches to the side and bury myself in the luscious pillows.

He comes in soon after, looking really great. He notices my crutches and reminds himself that I “hurt my leg”. Since I’m buried under all the pillows at this point, you can’t really tell if I have one, two, or four legs, so I don’t correct him. We proceed to have a great little talk and suddenly a song comes up on his stereo that he really loves – some dance club tune that I hadn’t heard. I think he may have had a couple of glasses of wine already, so the next thing I know he grabs my hand and pulls me up to dance with him. Not quite the way I envisioned this happening, but next thing I know I’m trying to balance on one leg in the middle of his living room after having been yanked upright. So there I am, in all of my one legged glory, trying to keep myself from falling over in his living room. As he’s laughing, he then says his Uncle is an amputee and figured out that I was too from the night before – by the way I walked. I shit you not, he said he wanted to avoid the whole topic too and figure he’d just get it out of the way right when I got there. Okay, at this point I’m looking for the hidden cameras – as this is too weird to be actually happening.

We ate great food, had too many drinks, and told one legged jokes for like an hour straight – paradise. Then he tells me he’s gay. Okay, I knew it was too good to be true! This man is to this day one of my best friends ever – and I love him dearly. Maybe if I show him my boobs often enough, that ones that are “too big”, I can turn him straight? We always have a good laugh about that one.

Follow Jessica on Twitter @jessicamit

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