04 March 2010

My Broken Leg


On December 7th of last year I broke my leg. Not just a simple break either. I couldn't have surgery on it for two weeks and when I did, it involved pins and metal plates and me in the hospital for Christmas. I couldn't wait to watch A Christmas Story twelve times in a row, which I almost did. And that is the secret of my success: the small joys in life have always been my favorite. I never prepared for something like breaking my leg and being out of work for six months and I am still convinced I am going to outlive almost everyone I care about and maybe dying when I am in my late nineties. Of course no one should live long enough to outlast everyone who cares about them so I'm hoping, since I don't have any kids, that my nephews or nieces or their kids will like me enough to visit me and make sure I don't freeze or starve to death. I keep hearing that I have to learn how to walk again but I think that's BS. I've been testing my leg and I think that I will be able to walk just fine. I don't think the rules that apply to everyone else apply to me. If it usually takes six weeks to heal, I'm convinced I might heal in four. I was told taking the drain out of my leg (really gross, but there is a tube and a sluice pipe the doctors stick in your leg to get all the pus out of there) was really gonna hurt. When the doc came in the room (at four in the morning) to take it out, I said "Go ahead." And that's all there was to it. Wasn't bad at all. What people call pain, no big deal for me. Same goes with speed limits, waiting a half hour after I eat to swim, and petting strange dogs. So, accourdingly, I don't think mortality applies to me either. Sure, I'll probably die eventually, but who knows. Lots of people say to me "You seem to be taking this well." Well, what else am I gonna do. Seriously though, I can read and sit in the sun all day. I have a cocktail around 4 o'clock. My brother and sisters and their kids and other visitors come and go and bring food. I get to be the default babysitter for everyone and when I need a change of scenery I go to my sister's house and sit in the hot tub. More than anything, though, maybe I should thank my lack of ambition. They say Buddha learned everything he needed to know sitting on the banks of a river and watching it go by. When my leg gets healed and I can get around maybe I'll try that.

Random Thoughts On Pop Culture


To Have And Have Not is playing on Turner Classic Movies. It's an old Bogart movie but I guess all Bogart's movies are old now. He plays his usual self, a cynical guy who says he's only looking out for himself but ends up helping people on the run from Nazis/social oppressors/the bad guys, et al. He met Lauren Bacall on the set of this movie and they got married and yada. This is the first time Ive watched this movie in HiDef with the new tvs. It looks awesome. Its almost like watching it for the first time. I certainly don't know this movie by heart. I love the shadows, the setting, and the crisp look in HD. Bogart made alot of good movies. I've never seen Casablanca in HD - I suppose I should get on that.

One of my favorite movies to watch in the summertime is Key Largo. Bogie and Edward G. Robinson face off in the middle of a hurricane. Bogie stands for the American way and Robinson is a Capone-like criminal who Bogie has to outwit. Alot of the movie is the good guys and the bad guys stuck together at a hotel in the Keys during the hurricane. The Seven Year Itch is a fun movie to watch in the summer. It's the middle of summer and Marilyn Monroe has moved in upstairs from a mild-mannered ad man whose wife and kids have gone away for a few weeks. He has fantasies about her that play out in a fantastical way, especially when she tells him she keeps cool by putting her panties in the icebox. And they say things like "icebox" which is a cool sounding word. The two of them go out on a friendly date and Marilyn famously walks over the subway grate and her dress blows up over her head. In the end he runs off to spend the rest of his summer with his family but not until him and Marilyn have a real kiss. It's a sweet movie. Another good summertime flick is Close Encounters of the Third Kind. This one starts out with Richard Dreyfuss chasing a spaceship on a summer night. I like this movie because it inspires a sense of wonder like the one you get from staring at the stars on a summer night. Something about this movie makes me feel like a kid again. A few other movies that are good in the summertime are The Big Lebowski (make sure all the windows are open and you have a white russian in your hand), All The Presidents Men (something about Watergate and August still resonates), and Fast Times at Ridgemont High (did you know there is a band called Vic Damone).

If you haven't done it yet you should read PopCandy. It's a blog about pop culture by Whitney Matheson at the USAToday Life section. She posts about everything from tv to music to comic books. Ok, that's it for now. Ps - Best book to read in the summertime: To Kill A Mockingbird. "And Boo Radley had come out..." Pss - Good summertime tv: The Twilight Zone. The series, not the movie. This show came on at ten o'clock at night in the days before we had cable in the summer between 8th and 9th grade. I'll never forget the creepy dummy who takes control of Cliff Robertson. I gotta say it again - creepy.