Deadwood v. The Wire=Shakespeare v. Euripides=The Rolling Stones v. The Beatles

Since I had trouble breathing and other telltale symptoms of an allergic reaction, I spent the last few nights at my grandmother's. This should have connoted an earlier, more reasonable, bedtime, but I became enmeshed in an article that I found online. It was a gushing, but not saccharine, and intelligent interview with the great David Simon, creator of The Wire, in Vice Magazine. In it, Simon discusses numerous topics, including politics, and I found myself astonished by his articulateness and trenchant points. In one snippet in particular, though, I couldn't help but feel beleaguered when he extolled the societal attributes of Greek literature and contrasted it with the exultation of the individual in Shakespeare.

I speak English, so I'm incredibly biased about this. When LNE busts out the Greek literature, I cannot believe that she, or anyone, for that matter, can scan what look like pictograms to me and make sense of it. Truthfully, it's quite impressive that she can grasp what is being communicated there. Furthermore, I understand that restricting myself to Latin-based alphabets severely limits my grasp of linguistics. I'm American, though, and branching out culturally is not exactly what the US is known for. So I felt a little uncomfortable when Simon spoke of his appreciation for Greek literature and the huge debt that The Wire owes it. Let me clarify: my ignorance makes me defensive. I can't do, so I disparage. Not brutishly, but primitively and reflexively. I know this. I've read Medea and the four parts of Oresteia, but I only view them in chunks, rather than the minutiae that make up those larger bits. I do, however, love Euripides, and I'm sure this is because I can make out what he means to say.

I understand the full complications of the whole foreign aspect of the language, and have similar difficulties with the screenplays of both Deadwood and The Wire. The former adheres to a loose proliferation of blank verse not unlike Shakespeare's, while the latter uses a vernacular that shouldn't be that difficult for me to understand, but is. Both shows are in English, but the former is easier for me to hear and process than the latter. I know that there may be a racial implication here, and all I can say to refute it is that I know this. Since I'm not a vapid amoeba, the willingness of my brain to process one brand of English much more easily than the other can't be dismissed. It is what it is.

A similar matter of preference applies to music. Well, good music--you can't talk extensively about why Journey is the best band there ever was without sounding like a complete idiot. You can, though, stand in the parallel camps of Beatles' fans and Rolling Stones' fans and see why the other side thinks the way they do. Both are great, iconic bands. The Beatles expanded the impact of the recording studio while The Rolling Stones modernized blues in a way that previously had not been done, and consequently came out with a different version of something familiar--and as a result etched their own stamp on the genre. I appreciate the technical innovations of Sergeant Pepper's, but I thoroughly enjoy the technique of Exile on Main Street. This is not to say that either band didn't cross over and do what the other began (see: the disturbing subject matter of "Happiness Is a Warm Gun" and the expansive rhythms of "Sympathy for the Devil").

Both television shows depict graphic violence and harsh language. It takes some getting used to both, but I appreciate the grandeur more with Deadwood than The Wire. This is probably because I see a standoff as more romantic than a shootoff. One is dramatic, while the other is just scary. What makes Deadwood interesting is that it adds a poetic bent to these things, and The Wire resists being maudlin by crudely recording a devastating act with the flippant realism of a photograph. Deadwood isn't exactly a book, but its rugged formalism comes across as forced, whereas The Wire's apparent slang ethos actually shows the florid grandiloquence and hard truths of the streets.

Some things are a matter of opinion, but I've always said that subjectivity is objective. I love both shows, for different reasons. The reasons that I love each of these separate things invalidates my own opinion, ironically. Somewhat. Neither is According
to Jim.

R

A Night in the ER: Cold or Allergies?

For the past few days, I had a premonition that the sore throat that I had would escalate into something more problematic. I take Zyrtec regularly to stave off allergic reactions to the dogs that my mother has, and until recently it worked without a hitch. About a week ago, though, I had to cease popping it due to strange chest pains I had. I switched to Alavert on the advice of my immunotherapy nurse, and didn't have any problems. Then, last night, I had troublesome asthmatic symptoms when I breathed, and I couldn't simply ignore them.

Earlier that night, I had similar symptoms and acquiesced to an ER visit. I don't like emergency rooms, and have always thought of them, unfairly, as repositories where inexperienced interns cut their teeth. Maybe I've seen "ER" too much, but I envision neophyte doctors, like Noah Wyle's Dr. Carter, dispensing expeditious remedies to problems that can't be treated simply with aspirin and bedrest. I didn't immediately pinpoint my absurdly simple treatment because it made sense. Okay, so I had an allergic reaction, and the treatment for that is, I think, Benadryl and epinephrine. Simple, no?

Quick digression: when the doctor told me that I'd get a shot of adrenaline, I immediately thought of Pulp Fiction. In one particularly "trippy" scene, Uma Thurman's Mia Wallace ODs on heroin and requires an adrenaline shot to her heart to revive her. When I heard that I'd need one, I expected a similarly huge needle and a stabbing motion that would allow it to penetrate my breastplate.

Thankfully, this didn't happen. I received two quick subcutaneous shots in my left tricep, and eventually went on my merry way. I hoped that the ordeal was over, but, alas, it was not.

A few hours passed with nary a hitch. After a while, though, the wheezing returned. I tried to ignore it, as I had the night before, but several hours passed before I admitted this was futile. I don't like emergency rooms because I consider them quick resorts for panicky mothers, old people, and/or drug addicts. No matter how much I loathed the idea, I was headed back there. First, I roused my mother awake and told her the unavoidable truth. Then, I tried to alleviate my symptoms by leaving the house and going outside to the back porch. Admittedly, this was a bad idea since it was cold outside and the bench was covered in snow, but I went nevertheless. I had no other options, so I bided my time and waited for a stronger reaction from my exhausted mother.

This came quickly, and I didn't even try to rationalize my rash behavior. I piled into the car, again, and returned to the ER. Again. This was late, so there was no wait, and minimal other patients to wait behind, so I received my own "room." Previously, I sat on a bed parked in the main hallway. Now, though, I had my own partition!

My breathing had worsened in the interim, and the doctor now there heard this. He gave me a breathing treatment that consisted of a medicinal vapor that helped to clear my airway and steroids, which is also a normal treatment for an MS attack but also helps stifle an allergic pathological reaction. My wheezing abated, but I insisted on going to my grandmother's, which must have been a painstaking but unavoidable annoyance for my mother, who drove me.

Eventually, I fell asleep (around 5 am). Now, though, away from contact with "hypoallergenic" dogs (this is a bit of a misnomer, because it really doesn't exist. There are dogs that don't shed, but you can, and I am, still be allergic to errant dander or contact with their saliva.), I began to consider other possible reasons for my symptoms. The most obvious, of course, is the common cold intermingled with the cold air.

I heard this possible diagnosis before, and disregarded it. It has been several years (I think) since I've had a possible cold, so I don't really know the telltale symptoms. Of course, I've had numerous ones in the past, but the absence of them for the last year or two has totally made me forget what they're like.

I'm pretty sure they're like this though, because I've been away from animals long enough to render them irrelevant. My wheezing remains, and I still reach for the inhaler like a true spaz. Once again, my cane comes in handy because it nullifies such dismissive judgments. I just look like a piqued, enervated shell.

I'm fine with that. I'd rather be seen as an old man than as someone for whom a coma would be a cozy respite. At least, that's how I feel about certain nyerds. Is this wrong?

Probably, but I don't give a shit. Where's my inhaler, anyway?

R

Incremental, Indisciminate Improvement (Is Still Progress)

Like the procedure itself, my own personal improvement will take time. I remember when I first had the stem cell transplant and watched Dr. Burt diagram stairs to illustrate the sort of progress I could expect. The good news is that there are no valleys in the rudimentary drawing. The unfortunate but realistic outlook prepared me for the uphill (no pun intended) slog that lies ahead--for the next few years. Furthermore, I have a sneaking suspicion that the study's early findings, which were culled when some of the older, first patients started, in no way should construe expectations. Patience is both elusive and obnoxious, but a necessity.

Small instances of different behavior creep up every so often. To anyone else, I may appear to be the same as I was before I checked into the hospital. I have not emerged from that exercise in suspended animation as a new person. I still have most of my old symptoms. I still have trouble with fatigue, but apparently this is standard when it comes to this thing. To be more explicit, I still also would rather not walk for an extended period of time, and my poor muscle coordination validates suspicion of something wrong pathologically.

However, I've noticed a few behaviors that my body mechanically does in order to expand its sensory parameters. I am much more willing to perform certain motions than I was before. For instance, here in the Midwest ice is a problem from December through mid-March. (It could be more or less than that, and I'm only guessing as to the length of winter.) I've dealt with enough black ice to know that appearances can be very deceiving when it comes to ice and asphalt. Ice forms on roads, and can be so thin, translucent, and hard that it is impossible to discern. It may show up when you assumed it's not there. At this point, I assume everything is black ice, so I cannot be surprised by its existence anywhere. The other day, prior to occupational therapy (in the same place that I had physical therapy), I rolled my eyes at the blast of cold air that hit me once I stepped outside. There was definitely ice outside, but I would not let apprehension regarding its location keep me sequestered. I had an appointment to keep. So, I stumbled cautiously to the car.

I moved easily to the door, and sat down eventually, having traversed the opposite but equally perilous equivalent of hot coals. It was a bitch, but I have only really contemplated the danger in retrospect. One foot moved (moves) in front of the other, and I did this again and again without contemplating the implications of a traumatic incident. This kind of bold, automatic movement happens at various other times, as well. If I'm brushing my teeth and pitch to one side, I will grab a wall or reach a hand out for an available stationary object that I can clutch. Most of the time, I encounter no problems, but every so often a reference point may move. When this happens, my legs shift quickly to prevent me from falling down. (I've said it before, but I have not fallen, and I get asked that question a lot.)

Some exercises in occupational therapy do this as well. Even though I've only been going for a week now, I do things more effortlessly and easily than even I did a few days prior. One exercise, in particular, drives me nuts but I still do it. For one thing, I figure that I have nothing better to do. For another, it actually helps. There's a plain wooden board, not unlike one for cutting, with holes drilled into it. I have to place three different components into each one. First, there's a long, thin stainless steel (all of these things are stainless steel--which gets annoying with the pragmatic magnet at the bottom of the dish that holds them) rod that I stick in the hole (get your snickers out now). Then, a small, thin washer goes over that, followed by a short tube that goes over everything and is the last component to this stubby construction. I switch fingers for each set of pieces, and then I alternate hands at the end of each row.

There are about 25 holes for each hand, and I then remove each bit individually once I finish. My therapist told me that she caught one of her other patients overturning the board in order to expedite the tedious exercise. I get this--I would be lying if I said that I didn't have the same impulse. At the same time, I feel that I'd be cheating myself. Yes, it's annoying and tedious and all of that, but I still do everything to its full completion. Who would I be kidding if I didn't? It's true that it's a pain in the ass, but I can't fake progress at this stage.

That's not entirely accurate. I can, but what would be the point? She doesn't time me, because it would likely be a futile tactic of intimidation. I don't care about the particulars of my progress, but I know that it's there.

R

We Carry, & Use, A Big Stick Abroad, But Not Here

I saw the great new movie Avatar today, and kept thinking of the travesties that are the Wars in the Middle East.

This came up between stunning displays of CGI that, in the past, have made various movies look comical and completely fake. Both good movies (Minority Report) and bad movies (Armageddon) looked absurd when they tried to show a fantastical image, and Avatar finally found a way to blend technological advancements and film. Nevertheless, the overt theme was the futility of force when placed against a resilient, steadfast society.

It is a fairly explicit theme throughout the movie that outsiders (humans) have no business meddling in another society's civilization. The planet Pandora's Na'vi people share a Native American fondness for beads and loincloths, as well as an ethereal pantheistic understanding. As the big, bad Americans (it's strange to root against America so vociferously) attempt to dominate the society, I was reminded of the violent, ugly plight of Indians. When they were forced to fight for their different civilization, though, in the face of brash American military force, I shifted gears and aligned the Na'vis with Iraqis.

Many people have expressed disgust with the brash entitlement of America, and, therefore, with its politicians. President Bush was perhaps the perfect archetype of an "Ugly American." It never occurred to him to try to empathize with the countries he baited. I am the first person to deride the hypocrisies perpetuated by rulers of a "theocracy," but I also am a staunch proponent of American isolationism. I go as far back as "Common Sense" by Thomas Paine, not merely the Monroe Doctrine that first explicitly advocated a non-interventionist strategy when considering international affairs. Saddam Hussein may have been bad, but it was hardly our concern that he oppressed his own countrymen.

This gave Bush an adequate excuse to invade the country, even though he really wanted to avenge his slighted, but still rich, father. We forgot that Bush, Sr. was a dick, much like Hamlet's father was a violent brute. Both probably deserved the acrimony that came their way, but we could not have surmised that Bush, Jr. could have emulated the vengeful Hamlet. It was a terrible impression that W. put on for our display, and due to his ineptitude thousands of men marched to their deaths.

Now, it is equally discomfiting, in a different way, that Barack Obama insists on throwing more troops into Afghanistan. He has done all of the doleful motions that a President who supports war must do, like honoring dead soldiers' coffins when they land. However, these gestures come across as vacuous, maudlin crocodile tears when he approves an escalation of troop presence in a country whose populace poses a scant threat. Evidently, he has no problem brandishing Theodore Roosevelt's "big stick" when it comes to the Middle East.

What's baffling is that he refuses to engage his own countrymen when it comes to crucial domestic policy. His reticence when it comes to healthcare is frustrating. His attitude of silence when it comes to Congress may be strategic. After all, he doesn't want to do anything that would jeopardize his reelection in 2012. Screw career politicians--by doing everything to cover their own backs, they ironically end up doing nothing. I've got news for Obama, though: treading water may ensure reelection when the opposition looks crazy, but it ultimately puts nothing in your "Win" column. Refusing to play may appear intelligent pragmatically, but it solves nothing.

Legacies of presidents are judged, in retrospect, by what they did. Bush did horrible things--some that are just now coming to light, and doubtless more will surface still--but he DID things. Obama hasn't really done anything. His administration would disagree, I'm sure, and could cite several examples of piecemeal legislation. These are tiny, and everyone craves something substantial when it comes to his mode of laissez-faire governance.

His ardent supporters--myself included--get constantly slapped in the face with his seemingly aloof attitude toward important issues. On the other hand, he has made up his mind to continue fighting a boondoggle of a war whose progress is as unrewarding as someone trapped in quicksand. The US thrashes about in panic and ire, but somehow has forgotten that the primary objective is to leave, and not to get further enmeshed in a suffocating nation-building endeavor that neglects the main target: Osama bin Laden. We hear his name now almost as a trump card that is supposed to nullify any scrutiny.

If we have to hear this load of bullshit when it comes to Afghanistan, Obama should be as fearless when discussing healthcare. Even better still, he should apply the same attitude of determination when it comes to domestic policy. I understand that the President is the "Commander-in-Chief," but this appellation does not apply only to foreign policy.

Obama should step up to the plate and bravely command Congress, and not just the military.

R

Metric at Cubby Bear (Psych!)

In the past, leaving a concert early was a preposterous fantasy. Furthermore, bailing prior to the act taking the stage was unfathomable. There have been various instances of waiting an obscenely long time for the main act to take the stage. Neal and I recounted a few such concerts and marveled at our ability to remain patient. We stayed, thankfully, when Patti Smith took forever to mount the stage outside the Tribune Tower at the "Rock the River" festival. We (along with my brother, who I think also attended the aforementioned Patti Smith show) also stretched when Kinky and, finally, The Flaming Lips waited an eternity to play at the Aragon Ballroom for the "Unlimited Sunshine" show. Now, though, I'm reluctant to wait for an extended period of time.

Part of this has to do with an unchecked rudeness that I won't abide. I can cut the band some slack for not being prompt, but nary a whimper for a 9 PM show at 10:30 is just wrong. And rude. If some extenuating circumstance prevented the band from playing within two hours of the time on the ticket, a rep should at least let the crowd know. Otherwise, their (the crowd's)/our ire will not abate, and only proliferate. At the Chicago Theatre, Leonard Cohen emerged within minutes of the ticket time, and Bob Dylan has likewise decided to begin his concerts promptly. There's a bevy of snickers to be heard with regard to these two (because they're old, and they need to squeeze as much time as they can out of their respective dwindling hourglasses, or they want to finish their shows before their early bedtimes, etc.), but they start within the day on which the ticket promises, at least.

Then there's the MS imposition. I might (might) have waited a bit longer, but I can't stay upright for that long with nothing happening to hold my attention. It feels like blood refuses to remain in my extremities for long. My hands and feet get cold quickly, and stay that way unless I lie down and allow the blood to propagate throughout my body. Without such a reprieve, my head will almost float, and not in a good way. Everything on the periphery of my vision melts together like the cryptic letters in Sneakers that change into readable text. Like when the code gets broken, but in reverse.

After an hour, I wondered how I would make it through the whole main set. It didn't take long, though, for me to forget about that. After an hour, I began to plan my exit. The place was relatively full, but I easily could make out the exits clearly.

One word about the Cubby Bear. I will say that, although the normal clientele and location across from Wrigley Field should place it on my list of disregarded things, it's actually not that bad of a place. Of course, it was a skeletal version of what I know that I abhor, but it didn't bother me so much.

I wonder how much of this was the calm result of deflected anger at Metric for making me wait. No matter, because I got the hell out of there before the band could redeem itself.

At one point, Neal commented on how many concerts I've been to. It's true, and I even make up band names if someone rattles off an obscure punk band. Once, during Spring Break, I dragged my friends to an Eyeliners concert in Orlando. Some kid who was trying to assert his "credibility" went through a litany of bands he had seen at the venue, which I don't even remember. Sick of hearing names that I knew I didn't know and never would, and subsequently didn't care about, I started making up band names. "Oh yeah--they're great. Do you like The Metal Batons?" He admitted that he hadn't heard of them, and neither had I.

I've seen Metric before at Metro (my favorite venue), with my friend Jess. Afterward, we agreed that it was a terrific show. This show, a block away at the unfortunately named Cubby Bear, may have been equally as good, but I didn't see it so I have no idea. Nor do I care.

In five years, I'll probably say that I saw the concert. In my mind, at least. Memory is subjective, anyway. At least so hopes the Catholic Church.

R

Slackers! (not the Jason Biggs movie)

The utter nonchalance of Congress, especially with regard to dismembering Joe Lieberman (who I've never been able to stomach, and who now makes me unremittingly nauseated--which I don't need because MS and chemo aftershocks have taken care of that), is enough to disgust me wholly. It has help, though, in the form of this year's Brief Interviews with Hideous Men and its inescapable forebear, 1991's Slacker.

Richard Linklater wrote and directed Slacker. Then, of course, he went on to such cinematic classics as Before Sunrise (& Before Sunset, which came out nearly ten years later). In case you can't tell, I'll say that, yes, I'm being sarcastic. I can't watch those movies, and bridle whenever I try because of the obscenely pretentious dialogue. Only Waking Life is tolerable, and mostly this can be attributed to interesting animation, which superimposes images onto footage of actors, you know, acting. Nevertheless, I cringe at the mental image I have of Ethan Hawke talking about his dreams to some truly unfortunate woman.

I've said it many times, but nobody--nobody--gives a shit about your dreams. George Carlin, in his last HBO special, It's Bad For Ya, talked about he could not care less when someone talks about his/her kids. Luckily, I've been able to dodge such conversational skids, for the most part, but I have had, mentally, to remind my eyes to water themselves on more than a few occasions when someone has launched into a needlessly long description of a dream. "A gigantic Reese's Peanut Butter Cup?" "Four forks? The hell you say." I've endured my fair share of inane banter--and even produced a ton of it--and not once has a dream been interesting unless A) it involves me or B) there's a ton of blood involved. Those two cross paths more often than I'd care to admit or know, I'm sure.

However, in the hands of Linklater, an interesting exposition ends up mired in pretentious language that is unbelievable. (That is, it is not to be believed.) Nobody talks like one of his characters. Even if someone did, I'd inevitably walk away and refuse to listen to any of the pompous dissertation that always accompanies such bombastic and boring digressions.

Brief Interviews with Hideous Men is a movie directed by John Krasinski (Jim on the US version of The Office, on NBC), based on David Foster Wallace's book of the same name. It's a thoroughly forgettable movie, due in no small part to the turgid dialogue taken from Wallace's stories.

A few years ago, I tried to read Infinite Jest, Wallace's magnum opus and the flagship of his literary output. Of course, I failed. I got a few pages in before I could no longer tolerate his writing. Thankfully, I stopped early because the book is looooong. Writing complicatedly is fine, but there's no excuse for it in dialogue. No one talks like he writes. I've read apologists for the movie explain that Wallace's words were meant for the page and not the screen. This is bullshit, because I've perused his books and I can say, unequivocally, that his words do not become more believable in type. They say never to speak ill of the dead, but I refuse to give Wallace a pass just because he hung himself.

As I watched Krasinski's movie, I kept guffawing to no one in particular. It was a familiar sensation that I last experienced when I tried to watch Linklater's 2006 movie, A Scanner Darkly. It stars, strangely, Keanu Reeves, who I'm sure understood less than half of his lines.

I am not a film scholar, but at least with regard to literature, I can authoritatively say that it's the periphery that counts. Nothing interesting happens on the fringes of the screen of the movie, however. I've seen enough of Wallace's writing to know that the cloying bombast of the movie was the result of a faithful adaptation.

If only Linklater and Wallace spared us their words by being silent, unlike the former's loquacious, effusive, annoying slackers.

R

Indiana, A Firmly (& Infuriatingly) Conservative State

Yesterday I finished Bill Simmons's painstakingly capacious The Book of Basketball. It chronicles the history of the NBA, for the most part. Simmons frequently lapses into long digressions on any topic (& is prone to romanticizing figures associated with Boston, a city I abhor). I appreciate this, because I'm equally prone to switching subjects frequently. Mostly I vacillate between Sylvester Stallone and Patrick Swayze movies, like Simmons, but I also pontificate dismissively at length about politics, other movies (with and without Hulk Hogan--I've seen No Holds Barred, but also The Dark Knight, if we stick only to Tom Lister, Jr. movies) and music, for the most part. However, one sentence in particular troubled me: "The heart of Indiana doubles as the heart of basketball."

Okay, I, like most everyone else, love Hoosiers and A Christmas Story. I, like (sadly) Boston fans and anyone who, like me, grew up in Indiana, also have a tepid fondness for Larry Bird. There, my association with the state stops. Although I admit that I was glad that Indiana voted for Barack Obama, it still houses many legions of racists, which still shocks me as a viable mindset. It may technically be a blue state now, but most of the votes that changed the political affiliation of it came from urban areas that contain most of the black votes. I watched Brian Williams decree that Indiana was a blue state, but in the back of my mind I kept thinking, with more than a modicum of schadenfreude, about the despicable living room that I spent a night in when I was in high school. These morons used horrible, obsolete barbs that they clearly learned from their equally stupid parents, and I had to bite my tongue. Instead, I listened with a huge awareness of the irony that these idiots clearly had no idea that they displayed.

You see, I grew up in a city just south of Gary, which has an enormous black population. My high school was half black, and I'd never felt a twinge of the deep-seeded racism that they unabashedly displayed. Some members of my family would use certain epithets, so I wasn't wholly ignorant of the existence of racism, but generally I ignored these as blind, "experiential," circumstantial instances of unfortunate, learned thinking.

Gary lies at the northwestern corner of the state, next to Chicago. To boot, it was south of the city limits, so I liked the White Sox and not the Cubs. I still think that you can adequately assess someone's racial attitude based on whether or not they rooted for one or the other. At least, this holds when applied to Indiana denizens. In the city itself, it's a little tougher, but not much. There are hardly any black Cubs fans, for good reason.

Everyone agreed, though, that the Bulls were awesome. More accurately, Michael Jordan was amazing, and Chicago was lucky to have such an iconic player. Even when he was still active, Bulls' fans knew that Michael Jordan stood out among anyone in the NBA. He did things on the basketball court that were inexplicable, and everyone nodded proudly and grinned knowingly when he sank six three-pointers in the first half of Game 1 of the 1992 NBA Finals and shrugged sheepishly after draining the last of these.

This is only one snippet of Jordan's reel of captivating moments. We all watched when the Bulls played a Finals game, so it perturbed me that latent racism could hypocritically transmute into similarly ignorant cheerleading when they played in June. It was as if someone had pulled blinders over their stupid eyes. Some people deserved a dismissive wave of the hand when they proclaimed their allegiance to the Bulls while wearing a Cubs hat and living in the 219 area code.

I love it that Indiana is a blue state, but we must remember that its two senators are Richard Lugar and Evan Bayh. They belong to both political parties, sure, but neither could be called "liberal." Lugar is a Republican and Bayh is a conservative Democrat, which, as I've said, should make no sense. There's a picture of me standing next to Bayh when he came to break ground for a municipal lakefront project for my town. I take pride in the fact that I'm wearing a Miami Hurricanes t-shirt (not because I liked the team, but because I liked the design).

I was young and easily ambushed. Also, Bayh was then the governor, so he could never have noticed that I dressed inappropriately because I doubt he then had the savvy to inspect every photograph that he was in. However, I'm convinced his shirt and tie obscured his wolf's exterior.

Indiana is "The Crossroads of America," because, as I like to say, everyone walks all over it. Then, they leave, which is a shrewd move.

R

It's Nice to be Sick

For the past few years, I haven't been sick. Well, I haven't had a typical, run-of-the-mill seasonal cold or flu. Obviously, I had MS, which sucked. Perhaps one of the main advantages to this annoying and cloying malady is that (& I've said this many times) it precludes normal infectious diseases. In the parlance of my beloved football, it's like a wide center who snaps the ball and then stops nearly everything that tries to get through (unless, of course, you're a Chicago Bear, in which case you likely forgot that that's your objective). In addition to attacking anything and everything, including my own body, it staved off the common cold and flu and similar commonplace ailments. Everyone that I knew would catch the flu, but I could shrug at their warnings of "better not get too close."

Actually, I'd use such a warning as an excuse to validate my own reluctance to bask in their company. I still do this, for the most part, but chemotherapy has effectively destroyed my immune system and, thus, my body's main mechanism of defense against pathogens. The other day, I noticed that I had a sore throat--perhaps my first in two years. Or around that. I'm notoriously bad with dates, and this is no exception.

It had been so long since I'd had a cold that I felt surprised when I developed a sore throat a few days ago. "What's this?," I wondered. "Oh, right." It didn't take long for me to recognize the symptoms of illness, but it still shocked me nonetheless. I had grown accustomed not to getting the usual predictable seasonal stuff, so when it happened, albeit routinely, I couldn't comprehend it. With regard to the MS nonsense, I would go for weeks or months with double-vision, unbeknown to anyone else. It wasn't an outward physical manifestation of the internal turmoil that my defectively wild white blood cells (or leukocytes, if you want to get clinical about it) wreaked, so I could get away with acting like nothing was wrong. No one could tell, and since my MS isn't painful, I didn't have to risk displaying a grimace when I'd forget to stifle it.

It still is an uncomfortable feeling to be sick, but at this point I welcome anything that signals a departure from the slog I feel daily and unremittingly. To anyone else, a cold or flu would be a huge drag. For me, though, I'm actually excited to have one, because it means that my autoimmune bullshit has subsided enough to allow my body to be corrupted. I realize that I sound like a psychopath to embrace a cold in such a way, or at least a battered, delusional wife.

"This means he loves me." Actually, it means that he loves himself to an unhealthy degree. Yes, getting sick means some germ has invaded my bloodstream (at least I think that's how this thing works--remember, I was an English major). It also means that my immune system has taken a breather, which is good because it battered me around enough for a good while.

I'm always amazed at the calories burnt by certain despicable people. Why hit when you can nap? I've napped more than enough for this lifetime, though, so I'm content to lie down and get ravaged.

That sounds like a glorification of rape, which disgusts me. One of my favorite songs of the year, by The Raveonettes, decrees that "Boys who rape/Should all be destroyed." I couldn't agree more, but, with regard to commonplace germs, I embrace prosaic disease.

It still sucks to be sick, but this fever means that my body loves me. Ironically.

R

I Radiate & Emanate Stoicism

Every so often, I will do something that causes any witnesses to raise an eyebrow, at the very least. Not "say something," because I do that frequently enough as it is. A breeze might surprise me, or an unexpected shriek from a random source could cause my ears to perk up. At this point (and I've mentioned this before), nearly anything in any forum, and consequently everything, gets disregarded. Unfortunately this fatalism does not apply to emotional ramifications, so I have to be especially vigilant with some bits of my unfiltered internal monologue.

More often than I could exaggerate, I'm sure, I say something that offends somebody who hears it. This doesn't mean that what I say is xenophobic or irrational in any way. If anything, it elucidates the latent caveat that should be inferred, like when I scoff at hair gel. That's about 20% of the time--for the other 80%, I'm probably bitching about the Bears or talking randomly about Nicolas Cage's aimless career, which reads more arbitrarily than a U2 discography (seriously, they all need fearless management to tell them when they have a bad idea).

My bumbling attempts at rudimentary tasks could reduce even the most stone-faced codger to a heap of gasps. In a certain way, my halted actions do just that--they halt--and I/everyone should be grateful for my deliberation in this regard. However, I'm still rash. Don't exaggerate my apparent laziness when it comes to certain things. I refuse to sit still when Fox News lingers on a television screen for too long, and nothing can impede my body as it hurdles toward an untouched remote control if it, or some programming that's similar, stays on the screen.

Sometimes my movements, though, don't go as planned. I could be doing nothing (and anything, again--it's fascinating how one does not abrogate the other) and I could lose my balance. This renders any accusation of inebriation laughable and wholly absurd. I could simply be walking a few dozen feet to a waiting car when I'll begin to pitch to either the left or the right. In this regard, I'm decidedly not partisan.

Rather than emit some form of high-pitched squeal that only dogs can hear, I do nothing. Up to now, nothing unexpected of note has happened. I could imagine that I'd be more skittish if I had something comparable to measure it against, but alas, I have never broken a bone. I have torn my ACL in my left knee, so I recreate the paralyzed feeling of utter abandon that accompanies such a fast traumatic event that a wince is a mere afterthought. All this happens in my head, though. I've never freaked out verbally. At least not by wailing or bursting out.

The fortunate thing about my own personal brand of stoicism is that I can easily separate the voice from the panic. I have dealt with hysterics constantly throughout my life, and so I've learned not to shout or utter a nonsensical emanation. In these situations. Any other time, this could be fair game. When I start to tip and have to summon someone's attention, volume and timbre must be controlled, lest they modulate alarmingly.

This gets transferred. Usually, I'd expect someone to yelp at certain, infrequent, points when my body forgets where it is in space and my brain notices its lapse and reminds the body to compensate. This happens from time to time. I'll be walking simply and then my sense of balance will fail me. I view such instances in a positive light, and think that it's simply an indication of confidence creeping back into my muscle memory. So I've gotten used to occasional moments of faulty movement and see them as a good sign, like my body is trying to recalibrate its place in space. It reminds me of when Robocop had to use his partner's aim to adjust his own. He had to rely on her uncorrupted sight and targeting prowess in order to know where to point, and I do the same thing when it comes to moving. Sometimes I just need a little freedom afforded by relying on someone else's senses.

By doing this, I learn how to move. It feels like I'm taking my first steps sometimes, and in a certain sense I am. It's not as dramatic as a paraplegic standing up, but the sentiment feels similar, although greatly diminished, obviously. You'd never know it, though, because I will never display any sort of satisfactory expression on my face. And when I trip, I won't grimace or pout. The internal frustration suffices. Plus, a tantrum could lead to further abandon, manifested externally and internally.

R

Kitsch Has Its Limits

I am an advocate for kitsch, across various realms. Rocky movies, Gone With The Wind, and several professional sports franchises have attained a sufficient level of broad acclaim, but objectively these should never entice me. They do, though.

Everyone immediately thinks of the first Rocky as the beacon of the franchise. I'll admit it's good. This was, also, reminiscent of a era of yore when Sylvester Stallone did not challenge Mickey Rourke for the mantle of the most absurd, plastic-looking male movie actor. For my money, though, I'll go with Rocky IV as the most enjoyable and watchful of the bunch, of which there are five. (I'm not counting Rocky V as a full addition to the batch, and am grudgingly accepting Rocky Balboa. The absence of Talia Shire is palpable, but she wisely walked away after the street-fight debacle of the fifth movie, with the HIV-positive zephyr Tommy Morrison. Hence, I'm combining the two as a bruised example of the last installment.) A call I can't make, though, is which 80s movie I like better: that or Die Hard.

The first one was an exciting, relatively comical, action movie. Bruce Willis plays John McClane, a NYPD officer who battles a gaggle of thieves (NOT terrorists) that take over the Nakatomi Building, where his wife, from which he is separated, works in LA. It contains numerous bursts of great dialogue--it's hard not to with Alan Rickman, who insists that he is an "exceptional thief." Bonnie Bedelia is his potentially ex wife, and every time I see her I wonder what happened to her. Hopefully at some point she plays herself tongue-in-cheekly, like Elisabeth Shue did in Hamlet
2, which I maintain is underrated (just ignore the cloying presence of the guy who plays the teacher's pet). You can't hate anything with Steve Coogan--he's like the inverse of Matthew McConaughey.

Lest we forget, though, the last one was riddled with insane CGI effects and the third one, even though it had the always-stellar Jeremy Irons, buckled under the histrionic outbursts of Samuel L. Jackson. Dave Chappelle's impression of him is great in that it appears like an exaggeration. In fact, though, it's spot-on, and maybe even a little understated. (I still like him, though, and always watch The Negotiator when it's on. And, of course, Pulp Fiction is astoundingly great.)

The same early appreciation and later mire plagues U2. I frequently double back on myself, so I understand the possible ephemerality of broad proclamations, but I'll say it--U2 sucks now. This wasn't always the case. Their early albums--from Boy to War--had fist-pumping anthemic songs that reached maybe the broadest expression with The Joshua Tree. They also, though, had interesting sonically experimental songs like "An Cat Dubh."

I draw the line, though, at the vapid messes that the band has cranked out over the last few albums. Besides "Vertigo," How To Dismantle An Atomic Bomb was forgettable. Then came whatever the last one was called, and its unlistenable "Kick Off Your Boots" single. That band has wasted my cache of patience, and it would take a great, great release to make me give it anything more than a dismissive shrug. (LNE, an avowed U2 acolyte, won't even try to argue, or validate whatever the band has done in the last five years, and that's a bad sign for them.)

The Harry Potter books and also the Twilight series, likewise, irk me. The series are beyond trite. I won't even cite examples here because I refuse to look them up. One potential validation of them is that "At least they get kids to read." True, but I doubt that adults--parents and teachers included--asserting their aesthetic value bodes well for the child's intellectual development.

I too read crap when I was younger. In grammar school, I loved RL Stine. I was ten, though, and now wouldn't even think of picking up a Fear Street installment without irony. Now, though, mothers proudly clutch the latest Twilight tome. News Flash: that makes you look dumber than the kid next to you.

John Waters may claim that kitsch has an intrinsic, ironic value, but remember: he directed Cry-Baby and, more recently, Cecil B. Demented. Pink Flamingos may have been interesting once, but its time has passed.

R

When Defense Becomes Defensive

Last night I watched Bruno, Sacha Baron Cohen's mockumentary about a flamboyant gay German fashionisto who wants his own television show. All of his characters--Bruno, Borat, Ali G--want their own American show, and they participate in any event that involves them. Each scene that ensues places him and an unknowing celebrity or private citizen in a situation that make all of the active participants look ridiculous. I remember someone taking umbrage with Bruno's homophobia, but that person, along with GLAAD and PETA and the ACLU, doesn't understand the implicit irony of the whole thing. Yes, Bruno is a caricature, but his exaggerated stereotypical attributes are not strictly a homophobic cartoon of homosexuality. His depravity and shamelessness are as much, if not more, statements about Germany. (I've said it before, but that country's due for a roast.) Or, for that matter, the befuddled reactions of American rubes. It doesn't matter, because he doesn't care.

Baron Cohen's brazen shamelessness and chutzpah are trademarks of all of his characters. In the same way, sort of, I do not care about reactions to me or my words. What's the old adage? Sticks and stones? Well, prove it. I've become impermeable to anyone else's criticisms, so I instantly ignore anything hurled at me that I can otherwise ignore. In this respect, I envy the senile (I was repeatedly taught that this means simply "old," but I think everybody now, reluctantly in the case of some editors, accepts the popular definition of "old person plagued by Alzheimer's."), because nothing gets through their cranial shell. Unfortunately, I have to process what enters my head. Then, I disregard it.

I've said it before, but this does not connote or condone rudeness. It may seem like a fine line, but the distinction is important. Once someone reacts in a way that reveals their true core, I see nothing wrong with poking him until this core is visible, if it's rotten. I have been besieged by MS, and there's nobody to blame (unfortunately, MS is not genetic, so my parents are safe, in this regard). I wish I could take the limitless obstacles of the disease out on somebody, but I can't. Hence, it's not really an option. So I concede the reality of the situation, and thus forgo a number of possible rants aimed at someone else.

The embattled target invariably cries that he (or "she" or "they") is being unfairly focused on, like an insect with a magnifying glass poised inches from its body. I grasp this reaction. It turns from justified anger to undeniable insanity, though, when the "target" sees things that aren't there. Isn't that the definition of "crazy"? At one point, a middle-aged man in an orgy becomes incredulous and then indignant at Bruno's contextual advances toward him. If anything, the swinger looks defective by virtue of being a swinger. Bruno only inserts himself into the mix to underline this, as well as to instigate a reaction that reveals the target's true self, which, in this case, is a homophobic hick who is also sexually perverse.

Like Germans. When someone describes something as "German," odds are that they're talking about something prurient. Conversely, they may also be referring to efficiency and precision.

Context means everything.

R

Don't Ask, I Don't Want To Tell

I understand that a menial way to begin a run-of-mill personal interaction is to ask, "How are you?" In my case--even before MS overrode everything--I loathe such ham-handed ice-breakers. The answer used to be bland and innocuous, but now a simple "Fine. You?" does not suffice. First of all, I really don't care how you're doing. I realize that this makes me sound supercilious, but at least I'm halfway honest. Plus, MS has provided all sorts of twists and digressions that a simple and laconic "Fine" won't do. And also, it would generally be a lie. In both senses...

I don't have any pain, luckily, so I'm not susceptible to lashing out just to shut you up. Well, less so... A lot of people assume I'm in pain, but I can assure you that my particular brand of MS does not come with pain. Or cognitive impairment. Mainly it fucks with my equilibrium, makes me lethargic, and attacks my muscles. I can hold a pen, but what forms on paper will likely not be legible. I can walk, but a) I don't want to because I'm too tired, and b) I move like the Tin Man before he gets oiled.

My patience is at an all-time low when it comes to social courtesy. If I don't say "hello," move it along, because nothing can shame me into walking over and shaking a hand. It's not that I despise the act. I do, but that has nothing to do with it. The simplest gesture is difficult, and fraught with potential landmines that could further impair my restricted mobility. So, I have no patience with regard to anything, but manners in particular.

Other people in my position can bore you incessantly with uninterrupted complaining. I may spin verbally into any number of topics, but not about my personal bitching. I could prattle on and on about certain symptoms, but I'm positive that this would get extremely annoying. And depressing. Nobody wants to be stuck with the proverbial stick in the mud. It sounds fatalistic, but the stick eventually drags other people into the mud. Nobody wants to provide the platform that allows someone to springboard from, because eventually the afflicted person burdens the unafflicted and dominates the conversation with personal complaints. I've encountered this phenomenon, and I resolutely refuse to be the one who makes quicksand a, pardon the pun, diffuse disease.

Having said that, I implore you to reciprocate. Leave the flood walls alone. If you provide the smallest opening, I understand why some people jump on the opportunity to unload numerous, and ultimately innumerable, complaints. I understand this more than I'd care to admit. I complain about even the smallest minutiae, but I stay away from MS stuff because I'd rather bitch about the GOP, and its alarmist modus operandi, than my optic neuritis.

Both impulses exist, but I stifle the latter. It's tempting to say that I'm overcompensating for my silent misgivings about my shaky vision, as well as a number of other things, but, as I've said, I'm fine cognitively. Hence I can sense and sympathize with a reluctance to be a mere sounding board.

In exchange for not boring you with an endless diatribe and discourse on my impaired neurological function, I would like not to be bothered with an empty pleasantry. In the words of the idiotic and insultingly homophobic military policy, "Don't Ask, Don't Tell."

Don't ask, because I won't tell. Now that's courteous.

R

Stand by Me, Just in Case

Last week, one of my three weekly sessions of physical therapy ended and I walked out of the building. One of my therapists--whose name I can confidently now say is "Amber," although I'll never say this aloud (I never say anyone's name, and am taken aback when someone else does. Why? Some of the reasons are obvious--"just because" and so on--but I rarely say anyone's name. This is probably a defense mechanism that allows me to continue forgetting/not caring/etc.)--walked next to me on the way out the door. This happens frequently, and I suspect this is because the other patients, for the most part, are boring and/or too dumb to say anything interesting (I have the same relationship with all other vocational professionals, be they doctors, nurses, hairdressers, cooks, priests, and so on.) This easy rapport can be attributed to what one of my ex-girlfriends, somewhat rudely and insultingly, attributed to my sense of entitlement. It's not that I feel superior to anyone. I might, but that is neither here nor there. Actually, I am not intimidated by, well, anything. Who gives a shit if someone has a graduate degree or some other worthless accreditation? Anyways, let's get out of this skid. I steered into it by indulging myself and now it should be safe to proceed.

So I exited the building after another arduous hour of physical therapy and felt myself pitch to the left. Without thinking, I reached over and steadied myself by grabbing my therapist's left arm. I can't confidently say that nothing would have happened if I had done nothing, but she was there so I reached out and defused the situation before it became pitiful. Luckily, she was standing right next to me, so grabbing her arm was as natural to me as "taking the arm of an elm-tree," as Emerson said of walking with Thoreau.

In the glass of the doors through which we were headed, I caught my reflection as we passed through. I was walking fine, and even confidently. I've grown quite accustomed to walking with my arm inside that of another. I even have a joke about this. Once, my brother was walking with me, and I looked at him and said, in a genteel Southern accent that was straight out of Tennessee Wilson, "Do you think we're dressed okay for the cotillion?" Like Blanche DuBois as played by Vivien Leigh, grabbing someone's arm does not bother me.

It might be possible that my reliance on someone's arm for balance is entirely mental, but I don't want to find out. The short walk from the gym to the car could have been disastrous. Theoretically, I could have tumbled over, but nothing this dramatic seems to happen, thankfully. In fact, I get asked this question a lot by medical personnel: "When was the last time you fell?" I have never fallen, although now I may have cursed and doomed myself. In a month, I'll probably be in a cast. However, I have never broken a bone, nor been stung by a bee. Knock on wood.

I'm not worried, though, because I've witnessed innumerable bee stings, or at least heard stories of them, and have yet to be stung. Ditto for breaking a bone. This evens out in the end because of my use of a cane, of which I have six (I think) and also "Preferred Customer" status at FashionableCanes.com. As I've said before, I use one mainly to deflect accusations of drunkenness.

I would love to be tethered to a zip-line that runs over my head wherever I go. Not a leash, mind you. Semantics, you say? Well, I was an English major, so sometimes semantics is all I have.

R

The White Noise of Obstruction

When I finally turn on my iPod in the day, the structures and intangible imaginative variations can influence the way in which I move. A blast of drums or horns can topple me, and a flute can subdue me and render me totally static. These are the extremes, obviously, but they are also perfect examples of what I've found necessary to drown out.

Don't get me wrong--if I have no plans to move (which is generally the case), I can play anything I want. In fact, sometimes the brasher the better. It's weird that I'm more likely to listen to "Jesus," though, than "Sister Ray" when I'm lying down because, confusingly, I'm really trying not to fall asleep when I'm horizontal. Those are both songs by the Velvet Underground, by the way, and if I have to explain the difference between the two, I do so begrudgingly.

"Jesus" is a quiet, minimalist ballad built around two notes, with some, but not much, variation. Lou Reed mimics this melodic figure with his already limited range. It's hard to tell whether he rewrote the song to account for his voice. Four tracks earlier, with "Candy Says," he handed over the lead vocals to the precociously sweet Doug Yule (who unwisely took over the reins when Reed fled to Long Island when he was 28, and continued to tour under the name "The Velvet Underground," with pity from all. But I digress.). Nevertheless, the song stands up strongly today.

I still don't get the song. I mean, Reed is/was not exactly the embodiment of Christian virtue. Thankfully. That would make him boring and, ultimately, stagnant. Instead, he writes atmospheric ambient pieces for, I kid you not, Tai Chi. And this comes after decades of debauchery and then decades of sobriety. His polarity can place him easily on the emblem of any "Yin/Yang" t-shirt or poster.

When I met the man, a few years ago in the Union Square Barnes & Noble upon the release of his album The Raven, I told him how much I appreciated "Fire Music," an extension of his notoriously impermeable Metal Machine Music. There was no way I could have known how prescient I was being.

When I get up and move around, I usually have headphones on. This is not a new phenomenon, and one which is unlikely to go away. If I walk around with Motown playing, though, I'm much more prone to a startled stumble (I still haven't completely fallen yet--knock on wood). At least with drone and ambient feedback (anything eventually becomes a drone, if repeated enough), I know what to expect. It's hard to be startled with something that sounds no different from the previous ten seconds. If I head to the refrigerator at two am, I know when to expect the explosive chorus of "Spiders (Kidsmoke)" by Wilco. This is a skill I learned to hone in college, and, like a high school typing class, it has paid dividends. Three minutes and fifty-seven seconds after I press play, it will kick in. Then again at 7:41 and one last time at 10:09. I think that's right. Before and about twenty seconds after these times, I can do what I want because the song drones. But I'm sure to be seated again when time runs out once more.

To anyone, the initial blasts can be overwhelming. This is especially true of "Fire Music," which is sandwiched between a spoken-word interlude and a quiet, almost silent, acoustic song like "Guardian Angel." After the first shock dissipates, a constancy lulls you in in a way that is salubrious. You get used to the noise, because it keeps you alert but also relaxes you. It is a very different sensation from the unremitting pokes that the latest Flaming Lips album give.

It may seem crazy, but this is my "ambient" music. I don't fall asleep, but can move fluidly (relatively) from the bathroom to the living room. Brian Eno has nothing on Lou Reed when it comes to providing the soundtrack to my treks to the kitchen.

R

Dumb Actors (& Actresses)

This may seem like an excuse for me to be bitter and vindictive. In college and afterward, I dated actresses. I assure you, though, that I'm not trying to slip in a snide barb directed at their pipe dreams. As a matter of fact, I'll focus primarily on male actors and their inferior intellects. Some former girlfriends would take issue with my use of the word "actress" to refer to female actors, but screw it. I hate political correctness when it renders certain subjects objectionable when there is nothing to object to. Hence, female actors are "actresses." Get used to it, even though I'll talk about the other gender.

Everyone mentions Robert DeNiro as one of the great actors of his generation. Fine. I have no issue here, but you must acknowledge that he's also one of the great boneheads of his generation. Thankfully, he doesn't give many interviews. I suspect this is due to his publicist, who understands that you might realize, finally, that he's as dumb as a canary. If you ever watch him in the middle of an interview, you can see the wrinkles of confusion form on his forehead. He doesn't know how to respond to a simple question, and instead recites, by rote, an answer that doesn't really reply to that question.

When politics get involved, watch out. I like Sean Penn, and admit that he has performed remarkably in a few of his movies. However, any cache of credibility that he has built up gets leveled when he opens his mouth. The man cannot give a weighty interview without looking like an idiot. His reticence hides any overt, glaring idiocy that may spill from his lips. Nothing he says about national politics has new insight. He simply recites, by rote, a handful of buzzwords and trite cliches that are meant to whip the crowd into a frenzy. When Bush was president, we heard about Katrina and economic inequality and Iraq. Yes, he was an abysmal president, but you should be able to speak articulately why this is if you're courting the cameras of the national media. When you're Sean Penn, and prone to repeated catchphrases as much as the man you're lambasting, you should at least be able to form a simple declarative sentence and deliver it easily. Without maneuvers of distraction that you're criticizing Bush for.

I had an innocuous exchange with my friend Jess about the true stupidity of actors, which motivated this post, and I felt the need to say, finally, actors are dumb and worthy of mockery, not adulation. They get accolades like Academy Awards &/or some other golden trophy of distinction. My simple rejoinder is that Gary Busey has a Golden Globe. Game, set, and match.

People frequently think about actors as untouchable emblems of art. This is bullshit, and actually insulting to the person who actually wrote the words that the actors are reciting. I constantly hear about Marlon Brando's iconic performance as Stanley Kowalski in Elia Kazan's film adaptation of A Streetcar Named Desire. He did a fine job of delivering Tennessee Williams's words, but we should not neglect the brilliance of the playwright.

This happens all the time whenever I'm forced to suffer through a dramatic production of a Shakespeare play. Any interpretation of his words make them lose some of their impact. The worst unflappable demolition man in this regard is Kenneth Branagh. His glib, over-the-top but still insufficient movies never make you forget that a much better version of the debacle you're watching lies on your bookshelf (if you're halfway literate). I can't watch more than thirty seconds of his Hamlet without jumping for the remote control. Less infuriating, but just as pathetic, is his musical version of Love's Labours Lost. I won't elaborate, but you'll have to take my word for it that it's a steaming pile of shit.

I haven't figured out whether or not this phenomenon applies to actresses. Meryl Streep, for instance, is constantly offered as the high-water mark of acting. This may be true, and this is edified further by her reticence and shyness when it comes to press interviews and, thus, politics. I also don't think she has written a banal children's book, so she may also have dodged that entrapment that has caught so many previously-esteemed actors.

Julianne Moore, I'm looking in your direction.

R

Heathen

I articulated my views on God and other tangential mythologies while I was in rehab in Maryland. There, we had to recognize a "higher power," and I thought this was a stupid, pointless, and ultimately fatalistic exercise. For most people, who, as I petulantly thought, had drunk the Kool-Aid, this was easy. They only had to say "God," and that was that. Unfortunately, I dismissed this as so much insanity that I wouldn't deign to acknowledge. Instead, I kept my mouth shut and let their delusions wash over me.

I say I was "petulant," which connotes childishness, not because I dismissed such ridiculous theology, but because I said nothing to contradict the insanity I faced. Some would probably interpret this as honorable and mature. Let's get serious, though. A few crazy Christians may act okay with non-belief, but really they hide their supercilious air of superiority and privileged absurd "knowledge." It drives me insane when someone looks at me condescendingly and says something like, "You'll come around." No, asshole--you're a mindless sheep without a brain or hint of intellectual curiosity in your sieve-like head. I don't believe in any of your bullshit. I emphatically will not drink the Kool-Aid. Furthermore, they need to be argued with, because a) discourse would confuse them and b) their claim to moral superiority is both arrogant and directly insulting.

Earlier, I was watching The Godfathers, and was struck by the cloying religious overtones. At the same time, such instances were interspersed with episodes of violence and blood. It's important to note that the two episodes had nothing to do with the other, besides the obvious moral hypocrisy constantly voiced by proponents of religion. They then advocate, and have advocated, massive campaigns of subjective (I'm being gracious) totalitarianism. It is such a cliche, but that doesn't mean it's wrong--innumerable deaths can be attributed to a, so I was taught, all-benevolent, all-knowing, infallible, and invisible deity. "That's man, though," might be the objection, with nary a hint of consideration of their beloved Ark. Or the annihilation of the citizens of Sodom & Gomorrah, whose most glaring crime was the objectionable (to them) practice of homosexuality, and who've been caricatured in our minds and the media. Lest we forget, we are the supreme culture that keeps visual lobotomies like Jerry Springer, Two and a Half Men, and Flavor of Love on the air. I watched Idiocracy and thought, "Is this supposed to be a parody?" To me, it looked like more of a documentary.

Before, I've stated that I'm an atheist, but this is not accurate enough. In rehab, I encountered the question of what I believed in constantly. Well, I'll tell you. I believe in what I can see, feel, hear, touch, and smell. That's what I "believe" in. The concept of faith comes up whenever I say this, and I can't help but laugh at the specious untruths of empty platitudes like "Believing is seeing."

However, I'm not simply an atheist. I am more of a non-theist. I'm not so concerned with convincing anyone that there is no "God," because that perpetrates the concept. "God" is such a primitive notion that I cannot even consider it as a valid one. I said then (in Maryland), and I say it now--I don't even think about a "God." There is too much beauty, both in nature and in the minds of others who ironically probably believe(d) in a "God," that to credit an invisible guy in the sky would diminish the accomplishments of the very real human(s) that deserve the attention and recognition.

One thing that drives me nuts is the glib criticism that to contradict religion, one invariably ends up quoting religious "literature." Yes, it's true. Someone could also cite numerous scientific facts, but the most effective way to illustrate absurdity is to use the same blunt tool as the faithful. For Christians, this means the Bible. I guarantee that nobody who takes it seriously even considers how patronizing it is to call the first and second halves "Old" and "New." If I were Jewish, I'd be pissed. I guess, though, that silence is golden, for the most part, for them--not in the Middle East, though.

Another thing that confounds me is the sadistic pleasure that one of the "faithful" feels when confronted with opposition or aversion of any kind. Someone may not say anything, but you can see and feel the smile that they have in the pit of their stomach. (That's if they're polite.) Such a smug provocation would not occur on a darkened street, I'm sure.

I wish that religious fanatics, overt or quiet, would have to deal with an arbitrary spate of violence. Something tells me that martyrdom is a concept that they would not tolerate. They shouldn't, because it is another dumb notion.

Conversely, converting out of fear would make it impossible for me to look in a mirror. I'm not going to convert out of fear, like Constantine did on his deathbed, and hopehopehope for a divine cure for my MS. Shit happens, like the bumper sticker says, and you/I have to roll with the setbacks.

I sure as hell won't be bored weekly for an hour (if you're lucky) in church and hope for a divine resolution that won't come.

R

Between Thought & Expression

One of the frequently cited symptoms of multiple sclerosis is cognitive impairment. I don't have this. I have nearly everything else, so you might think I'd consider this trade-off a push, but I'm relieved that I have none of the cognitive difficulties that many others have. This can manifest itself in various ways, with memory problems, aphasia, and malapropisms being the chief signs. Fortunately, I remember everything, remain articulate, and choose my words deliberately.

Occasionally my memory can be burdensome. Nobody should want to remember half of the nonsense I do. For instance, it must be nearly intolerable to watch Rocky IV with me, because I know and recite the dialogue of the movie while it plays. The same goes for countless other movies, but this is the most humorous example I can think of right now. (This is probably due to Dolph Lundgren's recent cameo on Conan, which I can't seem to expel from my mind.) It's hard not to remember nuggets like "I must break you." Or "If he dies, he dies." Or "You will lose." Or "I cannot be defeated." Okay, I think those are all of his lines as Ivan Drago, in English at least (he also says "I win for me. For me!" and "He is not human. He is a piece of iron," but those lines are in Russian.). That was off the top of my head, by the way, so I think I've proven my memory acuity simply with this little aside.

It may seem at times like I'm stalling while my mind tries to catch up to whatever is being thrown at it. Again, this is not entirely the case. In fact, I'm considering what to say, and scanning my mind for the best words to use to express myself. I understand that, at times, especially in this ADD culture, impatience may set in, but TS--you can wait two seconds while I think of the word that I want to use. Sure, I can call you a "moron," but "dolt" is much more blunt and concrete.

Also, my mouth resists what I want to say. I have to twist my tongue deliberately in order to form the words I want to use. I can still be effusive--don't get me wrong--but I am less prone to rambling. This is a matter of opinion, because I'm still quite prone to ranting. Some may think that my thoughts on the interminability of a baseball game or the whole season, or the utterly boring spectacle of a soccer game, are aimless. Those who would object, though, probably love baseball, so they should be use to enduring pointless acts, like a strikeout in game 53 of 162.

Another aspect of recall comes when I hear a name or see a face. I probably shouldn't disclose this, but it's okay because I can just deny it later. This happens quite frequently with my friend Neal, who I went to high school with. I wish I could forget the bulk of those four years, but the fact is that I remember most everyone he mentions. It may take a few seconds to conjure a face mentally, but often I come up with one. Since I don't want to hear about kids or nuptials, because they are truly, truly boring, I'll furrow my brow and feign aloofness if he or someone else mentions some random former classmate. If I went to college with you, though, I was probably intoxicated with any chemical (this includes, notably, alcohol), so my lack of recognition might be valid. Plus, now with MS, I really don't care.

I say this constantly, but I cannot emphasize enough how little I care about mundane personal anecdotes. I assure you--I'm all there, so any perceived forgetfulness is really indifference. I find that I stop listening to boring stories immediately. Oblivious raconteours even get a chance to develop a soporic story into something interesting if they drag from the outset of their telling, and I see no enticing disclosures on the horizon. I know that this can be interpreted as dick-ish on my part, but again, I must repeat that I don't give a shit what impressions I leave behind. Whereas in the past my eyes might glaze over and maintain eye contact while I would think of an excuse I could use to exit the conversation, now I'll abruptly change the subject to something interesting. I don't care about your phone conversation with your mother, but I absolutely love Neko Case--don't you love this song? That last sentence actually was said by me, I think, like a year ago to my then-girlfriend. Needless to say, that relationship ran its course...

If what I am about to hear could be interesting, I'll gladly wait. My appreciation for words chosen carefully has peaked recently. This may be due to my fascination with oral constructions of language, which I've always had, that I've been allowed to indulge in considerably over the last year, or in my mildly pretentious love of good poetry (no Maya Angelou or Jewel here, in case you were wondering). However, I must reiterate that I've become aware of this just in the last year, because I wouldn't do trade interviews for my awful, debilitating, soul-wasting last job. I might love language, but I don't love it sickly enough for me to take pleasure in some anonymous person's recitations of sales figures of toilet paper or wet dog food. Ugh--whenever I think about that job I shudder. It was insane to me that my company expected me to write eighty or so pages of insipid single-spaced analyses of various sectors of industries in which I had, honestly, no interest.

One good thing about the MS is that it gave me an excuse not to suffer through little bursts of common (see: dull) trifles. Little perks such as this have to come to the forefront of my mind whenever I want to lament the limits that MS has placed on me. Sure, I can't play basketball, but I don't have to work for the man in a job that I would, definitely, resent.

This is where you should envision me weighing invisible scales in either hand, trying to think which one holds what I'd rather have.

R

The Preposterous Health Care Boondoggle

I've tried to contain my urges to scream at the television whenever I see someone opposed to universal health care. For the most part, I've succeeded. Sometimes, though, it's hard to ignore the extreme ignorance and paranoid xenophobia that accompany calls for no-brainer legislation like this. Hearing about nonexistent "death panels" and seeing Sarah Palin add her own two cents (she's so dumb that she probably thinks this is an actual denomination of currency) have riled me up enough to scream, inside my head, at the ease with which these morons eat up television air-time.

It is insane to pay for health care as a US citizen. It has become a cliche, but the notions that we have a middling system as well as one that demands that we pay for it are maddening. But doesn't that sound like socialism? YES. To morons who don't even know who Joseph McCarthy was, this is insidious. To them, they think of scary Russian, Communist leaders. It goes without saying that they could name maybe one--everyone knows Stalin. There's no way these chimps could name Brezhnev, and the ideological spectrum would not register a blip of recognition in their puny minds. That doesn't stop them, though, from defensively slinging barbs that actually make them look even stupider. Case in point: that stupid woman who was against universal health care and wrote a letter to President Obama decrying the socialist bent of government-ru health care and then saying, "And don't touch my Medicare." This woman embodies, in a faceless quote, what people make fun of America for. She's brash, crotchety, and stupid. I refuse to elucidate, again, the reason that she's stupid.

Often, when I think about this issue, I find myself arguing the same point with myself. It's the purest form of tautology: Q. Why are Americans so stupid? A. Because they/we are. I don't even want to devise theories of explanation. We elected Simple Jack twice to the highest office in, arguably, the world. We're not dumb? I can hardly think of George W. Bush without cringing.

So I shouldn't be shocked when mentions of death panels and socialism fail to make me laugh. People believe that nonsense, and freak the fuck out, then stall, if not doom, the entire process. Congress echoes the fecklessness of its constituents, unsurprisingly. Representatives and senators should immediately disregard the paranoia of the populace, but the irony of democracy is that they need to resort to demagoguery in order to rally their respective gaggles of voters. Politicians horde those votes, and court and guard them like an abusive husband who shields his battered wife because he fears that she may wise up and leave the prick. Likewise, we need to abandon elitist Washington politicians. Republicans famously labeled John Kerry as "elitist," with no sense of the old "pot/kettle" joke, nor how it should have been turned inward.

I've mentioned how much I hate the Blue Dog Democrats, and how they call themselves "Democrats" but typify none of the modern attributes of the term. Because of their hesitation, the health care bill now puts forth an "opt out" clause that allows state legislatures to decide whether or not they want to participate in the public option. Really, I should like this stipulation because ultimately it could potentially lead to the deaths of thousands of Republicans. However, I recognize that just as many pragmatists could die with the disposable, stagnant conservatives. Many reasonable people live in treacherous states, for whatever reason. Lest we forget, we are supposed to be "united," no matter what anachronistic secessionists say.

As I've said, universal health care should be a slam-dunk. Since we have to tolerate the intolerant, and intolerable, America deserves the limp bill it will get whenever Congress gets around to voting on it.

I especially don't give a shit now that I'm on the socialist Medicare program for the disabled. Without it, I could never have received the stem cell procedure because of its exorbitantly expensive cost and my former insurance company's repeated refusals to cover it. With it, I can afford not to care as America eats itself, like the proverbial snake that chews its own tail.

Furthermore, who would've thought that Benjamin Franklin's political cartoon from over 200 years ago would still be relevant--acutely literal, in fact--today?

R

Delayed Chemo Effects

I had a massive amount of chemotherapy in a short amount of time. Five infusions of cytoxan coursed through my veins via my PICC line in as many days. Some people on my floor lost their hair or exhibited other expected side effects of chemotherapy. My appetite disappeared, and that's about it for what I felt prior to the stem cell re-infusion. Even in the initial weeks after I left, I didn't display the usual outwardly visible effects like hair loss. The last two weeks, though, have been a different story.

After my first round of chemotherapy, a month before the hospitalization, I saw that my hair had begun to fall out. And onto my pillow. Because I knew that I had a lot more where that came from, with regard to the chemo regiment, I shaved my head prior to my admission. My hair stopped falling out noticeably while I was in the hospital, though.

Before I knew it, my stay ended. I still had much of my closely cropped hair. Recently, however, I've noticed that my hair--on my head and in more "intimate" areas--has started to fall out prodigiously. It's probably good that I shaved my head. It definitely has minimized the squeamishness that I'm sure I'd feel as I looked at my hairy pillow.

Since college, I haven't showered frequently. When I was in college, of course, I started to miss days here and there. Then, I strung along several days. When I was first diagnosed, then, I took it as an excuse not to go through the hassle of bathing. Soon, I cut back considerably, and now back-to-back shower days don't happen. It's too arduous to position the chair that I now use like a feeble old person, and then to fidget with the tap controls until the water is a reasonable temperature. Now, because I have no hair, I find that I don't have to shower ever. I don't smell, and this is both a blessing and a curse. It's nice not to have b.o., but showering is more of a chore than ever before. When the chemo ended, and I was discharged, I was relieved to shower. Since then, though, I've noticed that I emerge from the bathroom with less and less hair. I'm not totally hairless, but I can easily feel my scalp with my fingertips.

Then I have to check my eyes, because generally an eyelash or two has fallen beneath a lid. For the most part, I have my eyebrows (thankfully--that's a hallmark of chemo, and one of the ways in which to discern between chemotherapy and general baldness). Every so often, though, I peel back an eyelid and see a preternaturally long bit of hair there. This is a piece of brow, obviously. While I scoop that out, I make sure to check for other strands of hair. Most likely, this is an eyelash. I've always had long eyelashes, not unlike Dumbo, so I'm used to doing this, but never before has removal of one from underneath my lid been so certain. There's bound to be at least one.

At first, the nausea was manageable. It took a few days--after the re-infusion, really--for the telltale feeling of unease to come up (pardon the pun). When it did, I didn't eat anything for a week. This was normal, I was told. Nevertheless, it was unsettling that, for a week, I ate nothing but Ensure &/or Boost. I felt like Kanye West, without the facial disfigurement. Eventually, my doctor prescribed Marinol--a synthetic form of THC. Or medical, pharmaceutical marijuana. It sucked, and only made me sleepy, a reaction that my friend Sophie warned me about but which I shrugged off more as an extension of her light-weight-ness. Not so, it turned out. Marinol erases any psychoactive or psychotropic side of marijuana, aka the fun of it, and replaces it with Ambien. Or, in my case, Restoril (Ambien does nothing for me). Now, my nausea comes and goes. It's impossible to predict when I'll have that feeling, so I need something close to counter its effects.

What's more troubling is that there seems to be nothing to assuage the dizziness and exhaustion I feel after being upright for an extended amount of time. How can the big bad drug companies not have something that will quell this? I've mentioned this feeling several times to my doctors and my physical therapists, and still they have no response. A simple "Whatreyougonnado?" would suffice, but they seem to dismiss it like they didn't hear me. When I lie down, it goes away. Sitting up for more than half an hour causes it to increase exponentially, it seems.

Hey, Big Pharma--mach schnell! I know you're good for nothing altruistic, for the most part, but make something that will allow me to sit in a chair for more than an hour. You've done the Viagra thing, now do something less comical. Forget about curing cancer and everything else that should have been done already, and just let me sit upright.

R

Near-Perfect Stoicism (Days 2 & 3)

I forgot that I had physical therapy again today. Usually, there's a day off between appointments, but not today. I went on Monday and had a typically uneventful session with my normal guy, whose name I still don't know. Today, though, he switched with another therapist, so today I had her. Her name escapes me, shockingly.

I had the same basic regiment: 10 minutes on the bike to warm up, then exercises on the parallel bars, and then it's over to the table, where I do more exercises. It doesn't vary much, except the speed, ease, and fluidity with which I complete this routine. Since this was only my third proper session, nothing exciting or earth-shattering happened. Except my utter stoicism after groping my trainer.

Over the last year or so, I've almost perfected a look of complete stoicism. Part of this can be attributed to my mind's preoccupied concentration on menial tasks, but now it's my default expression because I simple cannot be shocked, and it's difficult to surprise me with a joke. Most of the time, I see it coming. This is not to say that I have silenced my internal monologue. Often, my face won't move but my head will tumble, either with laughter, appreciation, or even horror, among other things. Today, I realized that I may have broken down that let bit of self-consciousness that causes a face to contort.

When I was between the parallel bars, I grabbed my trainer's boob. I don't mean that this was an incidental brush or run-in. No, I squeezed. In my defense, I was wholly unconscious of this. What happened was that I was in the middle of the bars doing some balance exercises and my eyes were intently fixed on the door in front of me, per her instruction. She told me to try the exercises with my eyes closed, and with my hands off of the bars that I used for balance. I began to do this when I felt my body start to roll to the right, and I reached for the bar in order to right myself. I always scan a room and look things to grab, and I thought I was reaching for part of the steel construct. The thing was, though, that I didn't grab the bar, but her left breast.

It took a good five seconds before my brain fully processed what had happened. Five seconds, as in "One, Two, Three, Four, Five." All I knew was that that was not the bar. She ignored the whole event, thankfully. Then I began to think. Does this happen routinely? This clearly was not the first time that someone had accidentally grabbed her boob. She's not (how you say) mildly chested. (She's not overweight, either.) Did she view this as a hazard of the job? Like, "Yeah, whatreyougonnado? My boob was grabbed again"? Even if this were so, I couldn't imagine getting used to that. If someone accidentally grabbed my crotch, it could never be a run-of-the-mill interaction.

She didn't mention it, but I knew immediately what I had done. And I knew she knew I knew. It wasn't exactly difficult--steel bars and breast tissue are fairly disparate, texturally. Rather than call attention to the awkwardness, I chose to ignore it and proceed with my exercises. It wasn't like she could tell that I was actually cringing, because my face remained still and steady.

I've never had a face of rubber. In the past, though, such an event would cause me to furrow my eyebrows inquiringly, then hoist them in shock and recognition. Not so, today. I kept my eyes focused on the door and calmly removed my hand and resumed the exercise. The incident was over, even though it pierced my thoughts for the next half-hour, and still, obviously, lingers.

So maybe my impassivity is only external, for now. I don't think this is a bad thing, because once it becomes internal I could become really boring. And posts like this wouldn't exist because they wouldn't occur to me.

R

Football Is Absurdly Epic

I'll try not to lament the demise of my beloved Bears too much. I almost can't help it, though, because I can't stand Lovie Smith or his constant quizzical facial expression. No--you're not getting a treat, Lovie, so wipe off the blank hang-dog look. It looks like he's too dumb to feel anything beside carnal pain, which I wish someone would give him unremittingly. But I'll not dwell, other than to say that the Bears need a coach, finally, that is competent. I used to attack quarterbacks and running backs for their seeming ineptitude, but I think now that the problem lies with the coach. Jay Cutler may not be Tom Brady, and Matt Forte not Walter Payton, but they cannot be as disposable as they look in games. Formerly unremarkable Cedric Benson's 188 rushing yards confirmed this today, as the hapless Bears lost to a very beatable Cincinnati Bengals team, who they made look like Super Bowl contenders. I digress, though...

Many people shrug off football as yet another display of machismo and nothing more. They would have a point, but there's no way in hell they could play a game. Neither could I, for that matter. That's what I love about the NFL. I know I could never play in a game. I could step onto baseball field, and most likely could vanish into the periphery. This sentiment goes beyond the obvious MS restrictions. I could hardly play a boring game of European "futbol," aka soccer, and there's no way I could move in shoulder pads, ao clearly I couldn't play football. Even if I wanted to, though, I would have to be a freakish example of anatomy and resiliency. Since I'm not an evolutionary or eugenic marvel (far from it), I could never play professional football, and I'm fine with this. I never have the thought, "I wish I were in this game," or "What I would do is...," because I could never survive a single play in an NFL game.

Nothing else gives you the feeling of pure spectacle like an NFL game. Even the promotional music and that of the programming itself sound like everything belongs in the Roman Coliseum. I cringe when I hear Faith Hill sing the intro for Sunday Night Football, but I love the upright horns that nearly make me stand before a commercial break. Honestly, who okays the intros for this programming? That Faith Hill song is so bad that even wallpaper curls when it plays, and Bocephus's "Are You Ready For Some Football?" on Monday Night Football, before it went to ESPN, induces only feelings of laughter and mild nausea. The brass blasts that signal the end (or maybe the beginning) of a commercial break cut through anything and everything, though, as if to signal the entrance of an emperor.

The idea of 80,000 people, give or take, gathering for a sporting event may seem crazy, especially in this age of HD. I actually prefer to watch a football game on television, but I understand the gratification of physically being present in a stadium. If you watch the crowd, its cheers look like they emanate from an alien civilization. This is more of a phenomenon that's visible during a college game, but I am confident that you can skip this. You don't need to feel the displaced air from thousands of waving tentacles to know that they are there.

Nevertheless, people gather to watch these huge gladiators run into each other. They do a lot more than that, of course, but I'm playing devil's advocate.

I'd pay handsomely to see someone who criticizes football's brutality get on a field, with pads, and wait to get knocked down. You'd have to be insane to endure what these players walk into, voluntarily, each week. This is true, but you also need a little finesse to make it look good. A very tiny number of people can do this for an entire season, and even less for multiple seasons.

This is the reason Brett Favre's decision to shirk retirement only makes me shrug and shake my head in confused admiration. He doesn't have anything else left to accomplish, but still he won't disappear in the entrance tunnel.

As a Bears fan, his indefatigability puzzles me, but I can't turn this into derision. He may be most famous as the leader of the Bears' chief rival, the Green Bay Packers, and now is at the helm of division leader the Minnesota Vikings. He brings it, though, and oddly refuses to fade away.

I wish Lovie Smith would not do the same, however.

R

The Flesh Is Weak (Sort Of--The Mind Gets In The Way)

I had my first appointment of physical therapy earlier this evening, and it went about as I expected it to go. I warmed up on the "bike," and I insist on putting that in quotes because this "bike" is not a true exercise bike. There are no wheels, and the pedals only push down like a StairMaster. In truth, this is what it is: a recumbent StairMaster. The contraption even has metal handlebars that you grasp, and they too go back and forth while you climb fake stairs while you sit. Talk about irony. It was over in ten minutes, though, and then it was on to the parallel bars.

Think of male gymnasts, and how they have to contort and elevate themselves on this thing. Now remove the twisting and contorting, and you have what I had to walk through to complete a series of simple exercises. As I held on to both sides, I worked on coordination and muscle memory by raising alternating legs to a plastic chair. Easy enough, right? Then my therapist, an Indian guy whose name I forget five seconds after it's uttered, let me rest.

This isn't so bad, I thought. Then I fumbled through a batch of exercises that reminded me of how fucked-up my muscles really are. It's hard to ascertain how much of this has to do with MS, and how much can be attributed to the weeks of idleness that my muscles had to, literally, sit through while I lay in the hospital bed. First was an exercise whereby I had to reach, and touch with my toes, for complementary ends of a half-circle made of black tape on the floor. I get distracted easily, and I couldn't help but think that I was reaching for a large protractor. One of those half-ones that come in zippered plastic packages of school supplies. Do they even still have those? Anyway, this was more difficult than I anticipated. My body kept veering off to one side, so I had to clutch my trainer's arm. Then he waved me over to a table, and I breathed a sigh of relief because this meant I could sit.

As I lay flat on my back, I had to thrust my pelvis up and hold that position for five seconds, then lower it back down. I'm good at this, so infer from that what your sick mind will. Then I flipped over and propped myself up by my knees and hands before I stretched out one arm and kicked back the opposite leg. Both extremities would be held aloft for five seconds, and then I would switch sides. I was all right at this, but the narrow table bothered me. I felt like I could fall off either side. Luckily, I didn't, but this unease stayed with me for the next round of exercises. I sat up and faced the opposite wall, and stood up and then sat back down slowly. My trainer has a thing about inhibiting your vision, and he wanted me to do this without looking down (or holding the table for balance). He told me to keep my eyes on a fixed point on the wall.

These exercises are all pretty simple, but I was shocked to feel sweat rolling down my face. Again, I was reminded of how inactive I had been during the hospitalization, and how this idleness had eaten away my muscles. Whenever I'm examined, doctors, and even this therapist, have expressed shock at how strong my muscles are. Yeah yeah, I always think dismissively, and rightly so. The muscles themselves may be strong, but they do not move with ease and grace. Instead, they plod and plop. I struggle to control them, and the stream of sweat conveyed this. Luckily, the trainer noticed, which I'm sure is especially hard to do since I don't breathe with an open mouth, and assured me that I was almost done.

The last exercise was a basic standing push-up against a wall. I think mostly this was supposed to be a stretch, but at this point everything was an exercise.

What I gleaned from the hour was that the strength is there, but I have to learn to ignore any internal monologues of warning or hesitation. I can do these exercises, but my brain keeps getting in the way of their full completion. Don't get me wrong--I still complete them, but I have to silence my own caveats. I feel like a schizophrenic sometimes as I quash voices inside my head before I set out to complete simple tasks.

They get done, and afterward the effort is only an afterthought. The problem is with forethought. I must extinguish doubt before it has a chance to infiltrate my psyche, and subsequently doom whatever it is I want to do.

I detest it whenever someone quotes the Bible, and in this case it's maddening to think of that oft-quoted verse in Matthew: "the spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak." I have to go Zen when doing certain things. Unfortunately, I can't stop objecting to the inaccuracy, or at least incompleteness, of phrases like this.

In my case, the flesh is willing, but the mind gets in the way.

R