The Butler

While the cold isn't bothering my newly desensitized self, the arctic wasteland that is the omnipresent vista, the cooped up feeling, is getting to me. Getting to everyone I know, it seems, a pandemic of cabin fever. I went out for dinner with a friend last night, and had a long, tall drink and I needed it, which is uncommon as alcohol doesn't fit with my vision of health, I usually refrain. I've started to think about cocktails every day, I don't have them, I just think about them which seems to do mostly as well. I've been falling off wagons all week... haven't been to the gym in about five days, have been eating chocolate, and now margaritas.

We wanted to see a movie afterwards, I haven't been in an actual movie theater in ages, settling for whatever is on cable for free. Our timing was off, so we went to my house, boys at their dads, I purchased The Butler On Demand, but immediately noticed it was letterboxed. If I'm going to finally watch a recent release, I want it filling my screen god damn it, and I'm perplexed why I had to go to a different section to buy the HD version and yes, pay again. Too many options.

The Butler, was that a drama or a comedy? OK, I know it was a drama and on a fascinating subject, but the way they fictionalized this man and his family to make it a docudrama about the civil rights movement was so absurd I had to laugh. The Butler's eldest son, was a lá Forest Gump, everywhere. He left home for college and wound up at one of the early meetings of the Freedom Riders, he sat at the first lunch counter sit-in, rode in the bus that got bombed, hung out in a hotel room with MLK, was a founding member of the black panthers, ran for congress (and lost) and ultimately wore an African shirt while leading a rally against apartheid. Wow. Everything that happened in this movie we could see coming a mile away. I said "the doorbell's about to ring", meaning, by Army reps bearing bad news and within seconds, ding-dong. We did this through the whole movie, "one of them's about to kick", and Oprah slumps over on cue. No chemistry between this couple with deep and abiding love, no nothing. Great subject, fascinating story, in theory, but eeesh, that was some bad story telling. Poorly shot, paced and edited and most of the character's mumbled and were hard to understand. I don't understand all the good reviews.

Tomorrow is my four-month check up with my oncologist. I graduated from every three, to every four months. I feel comparatively good, I can't possibly imagine getting anything but good news, but then I remember that I felt great when I was first diagnosed. I had my blood work done last week and that looming cancer-marker result is nerve wracking, I'll be glad to get the appointment over with. I feel like I'm living in four month increments. I get the ok from the Onco and I get to assume I'm fine for the next four months, although really, assuming is all we're doing. It's a strange way to live, it makes planning hard, envisioning large life changes impossible, it's like being on a leash, venture too far and it yanks on my neck.

I'm still at PT, or lymphedema therapy three times a week, so I don't feel far from cancertown. But I assume I'm working towards recovery, and higher functionality, quality of life, until these check in's happens and then my mind wanders to places it shouldn't go. If I didn't have my creeping, oh-so-close-on-the-horizon trip to Mexico to focus on, I think I'd lose my mind. I think my medical insurance should pay for twice yearly scuba diving trips because I can't think of better therapy. Physical therapy, psychotherapy, perspective therapy, endorphin therapy to boost my cancer fighting immune system, just therapy for all that ails. Thankfully, I have a plan, plane tickets, reservations, a destination and the best travel buddy, a suitcase waiting to be filled is my current vision of a beautiful thing, yippee, yah, yay. Just need my good news to take with me.