Lately…

Lately I’ve been writing quite a lot, along with my co-writer.  In the last three weeks we finished a full draft of a screenplay, which is faster than I’ve ever written a first draft–but it wasn’t pretty, and honestly neither is the draft.  Which is not to disparage it–you don’t disparage a big lump of clay that vaguely resembles an elephant–it’s not bad, it’s too early for it to be good or bad.  Unless, of course, you put it on display with other people’s more finished elephants, and say it should look like an elephant–which is (of course) what we have done, submitting applications to the Film Independent and Sundance Labs.  Whatever.  The deadlines were helpful in softening the clay and doing the initial elephant, so maybe that is the reward in itself.

The first deadline was May 1st, and the second was May 5th.  Even if you have drafted some of the materials, like artistic statements, synopses, and cover letters, the last days before these deadlines always involve a five and six hours sessions of revising and polishing, so by the evening of the fifth I was pretty fried–getting home a little late to start the prep for my annual round of “medical screenings” on the 6th.  Yes–those screenings.

I arrived at the hospital in my normal state–cleaned out and dehydrated–and realized we were doing an upper endoscopy as well as the colonoscopy, and discovered that since I apparently gagged a little on the tube the last go round, I was getting a deeper general anesthesia this time.

The doctor found a  few things in both stomach and colon to remove–which everyone seems to take in stride, but it’s not my favorite news to get — it makes me feel like there’s some failure in the system.  Either I’ve been laxer in my diet, or my body is just getting old and deteriorating–my telomeres are getting shorter or whatever. I know  it’s  both, though I only have control over one. I’ve been going with the flow, eating meat  just to be agreeable and giving in to my sugar cravings. I have not been juicing vegetables and eating a ton of cabbage.  The thought of re-establishing all sorts of discipline makes me tired, especially when my whole body is bloated from being inflated with air, and sore from being snipped at.

I stayed home from work yesterday and went today.  This afternoon at my desk I was thinking that I feel like my life force is being sucked out of me. Moments after I thought this, the doctor called today to say they need to cut something out that they “couldn’t do on Tuesday,” so it turns out I’ll need to do it the whole song and dance again in a month.

Not to fear, the something they are cutting is “not cancer,” so it’s a high-class problem for someone who is part of a demographic that is highly susceptible to cancer.  Still, I’m throwing myself a very tiny pity party anyway as I am not fond of these tests, and in two weeks I’m also having and MRI and an x-ray to make sure that the back pain I’m been having is also of the “not cancer” variety.

Let’s all pray that I don’t look back and wish for tonight’s problems.  Count your blessings and be grateful for them, otherwise, when there’s fewer blessings to count, you have to look back and feel like an asshole.