Treat Exercise Like A Term Paper....Guilt and Cram

My New Year's challenge to myself was to sign up for a group called CWW or Colorado Wild Women. I am not a joiner, especially of an all women group, (In college, my friends and I saw frats and sororities as something for the deeply uncool and insecure ,well.....that and I couldn't exactly smoke bong hits all day in one of those places now could I) but guilt is a big motivator and if I have to answer to someone for my exercise habits, I am more likely to do the actual exercise.
I have a strange but not uncommon, lingering result of my cancer and that is lymphedema in my arm. Primarily my hand. I had all my lymph nodes removed in my right arm which means that if I get an infection, bug bit, scratch, burn, carry grocery bags, etc, I am apt to have a reaction. The lymph system is not there to drain anything. I am trying to nip it in the bud before I become the person I freaked out on in the medical journals,,,,hellooooo elephantitus? I went to the hospital for my lymphatic massage which is MUCH more pleasant than it sounds. The PT wrapped my arm and I go back twice a week for 3 weeks to see how it works. I am currently attempting to type using my left thumb for the space bar instead of the right one. Doctor's orders.
I am terrified that I am going to go to the first day of training and realize that I am completely out of shape and I am going to get my ass kicked.
So I went to the park, cranked up The Clash on my Ipod and hoofed it for an hour hard in the balmy 7 degrees. Listening to "London's Burning" makes me realize that my youth was most certainly not misspent, but it was completely fantastic and I wouldn't change a thing. I then signed up at the gym and start panic swimming tomorrow.

I have square eyes....

I have become completely obsessed with watching movies online for free. This is my pattern often. I find something and go nuts over it until I burn out and Voila----no mo. When I learned to play Solitaire in 6th grade, I kind of went crazy and played NON-STOP. Before school, after school until soccer, rush home and play until dinner, then play until bed. After 6 days, one of my sisters said she was going to kill me if I shuffled one more time. I was using the felt back of a wooden chess board as my surface and it was really loud but I like the loud drumming sound. Under pain of death from my sisters and brother, and them telling my Mom that I needed to go to the Doctor because clearly something was wrong with me, and parental threats....I just stopped. But I have done the same thing with the NY Times crossword puzzle in high school. And then for Xmas one year, my brother, as sort of a joke, gave me a battery operated little Yatzee with a card saying "Hour and hours of comariffic fun". Yes, I had been through a Yatzee phase at some point but this was just me and the machine, baby.
That thing was my pain and my pleasure. I would dream of dice combos. It was so stupid but I could NOT stop. Well, that thing got me through an 18 hour train ride in Peru, a 22 hour bus/ferry/train combo in Java, and a bone crushing 9 hour car ride on a single track road on the Pakistan/India border. It is like meditation for idiots.

This online movie thing has got me semi-hooked. I can't get that hooked because I do actually have a life AND I would go blind watching the small screen. I watched "Before The Devil Knows You're Dead"...anything with Philip Seymour Hoffman is good with me. I started watching "No Country For Old Men" but Javier in the Dutch Boy hair cut really deserves the big screen. So I have watched a lot of movies and will be back when I refocus.

I have signed up with a group that trains you to do a mini-triathlon in 5 months anad it starts in a week so I that should nip it in the bud. Except that I found a site that has all the West Wing Episodes and I LOVE that show.

I am totally boring but I sort of don't care.

Here are the movie sites:

http://www.66stage.com/
http://ebookwarehouseonline.com/video/movies/
http://www.free-tv-video-online.info/

Christmas and I am bitchy.

The day has arrived. My parents, my brother and his wife, and my nephew and his girlfriend are all coming over at 3ish for the taste bonanza. I am making my shrimp thing that has sauted tomatoes, onions, garlic, red pepper flakes and giant shrimp. Eaten with crusty bread it is a serious flavor buzz. I am also making cheese fondue and assorted dips. I am also having mousse truffle pate. Everyone is bringing their favorite food buzz. Or is supposed to be. My brother informed me yesterday he is making curry......antelope curry. Although it sounds like spiced gristle, it will probably be delicious-he is a very good cook. Which is fortunate since his wife prides herself on the fact that she doesn't cook. This is tatamount to saying "I don't read" as far as I can see. You read the directions, and follow them. Big whoop.

I woke up this morning to 6 inches of snow and it is still coming down. It is a blizzard and the weathermen will probably name it. My nephew called me and informed me that he is bringing a tomato salad. And that is it. A caprese salad, wow, genius. He also told me that he didn't get home until 5 am (he is a bartender) and made $700 last night. Could he not put that towards a better dish? There is only 10 years difference in our ages and since his mother, my sister, passed away 4 years ago, I am his chief nagger.

I had the wild urge to sing Carols this year and that means going to a church. I was raised Episcopal, baptised and confirmed and have taken communion about twice since then. I have my own religion of just try and be a good person. I just can't get behind the Jesus thing. I believe he existed as a person but the rest just doesn't work for me, hence my getting kicked out of Sunday school 8 times for arguing with my teachers. "Ok, I get the Father and the Son but who is the Holy Ghost?" "Where do the dinosaurs come in?" I was prepard to enter the solemn cathedral of Saint John's and suck it up just to belt out some songs. I love the atmosphere and it kind of makes me cry. But as soon as the priest starts talking, I tune out. Luckily, a friend phoned last night and said she is singing with a choir this year and that they were singing at 6:30 pm for 1 hour at The Church Of Scientific Thought. She said it is a mix of all religions and there is no dogma, you can pray to the light if you want. Sounded good. The first speaker gave me the indication that this church was actually The Church of Women Who Used to be Men. I think I went to a transvestitie church. It was excellent people watching. They turned out all the lights and we lit candles and all held them up and they lit the church. And then we sang. It was cool and I was home by 8:00.

They spoke about how whatever God is, it is within you. I couldn't stop thinking: This little light of mine, I'm gonna let it shine. So I called my other sister , that I rarely speak with for a million reasons, and wished her Merry Christmas and that I wished she were here with us. I am going to be Buddhist ish no matter how hard it is, Forgiveness, forgiveness, forgiveness.

Now it itime for Harry Belafonte, Vince Gauraldi, and Billie Holiday. Merry Merry.

Frenzy

It is the Friday before Xmas and the city is FLIPPING out. I just drove past the local mall, Cherry Creek, and there was a line of cars 8 BLOCKS LONG!!!! This is just to enter into the area around the Whole Foods and little boutiques. The day started at a balmy 45 degrees and has dropped down to the 20's and it is snowing....Hard. I am going out at 10 pm to do the grocery shopping because I can't climb into the belly of the beast. I am buying it all tonight and then I am finished. Almost.

My insomnia knows no bounds and I was up until 4:30 last night. I went back to the free bootlleg movie site and watched Lions for Lambs. Tom Cruise just weirds me out. And then I found it.....my childhood revisited......Bugsy Malone. The entire thing Online. And to think the guy who directed it also directed Midnight Express. Scott Baio peaked at 13. The Chachi thing was mortifying and age has not improved his personality. In the early 90's , when I was starting out in film production, I worked on "The Happy Days Reunion" . Henry Winkler= sweet as pie, Scott Baio= mean little macho freak. The Executive Producer was a drug addict and completely insane and our office was over The Cat and the Fiddle on Sunset Blvd. Memories.......I am all over the place due to my lack of sleep so I will cut myself off.

Xmas stress

It happens every year. I have the greatest of intentions when it comes to Xmas and as soon as I see the cheesy decorations up in the stores....the paralysis sets in. All good ideas for presents evacuate and I am left with gift card purchasing. I used to Craft out, and I am not talking about crocheted chatchkes but groovy things like spices I brought back from India and packaged in hip little containers and embroidered things. I can barely summon up the energy to open cards let alone send them out. It is getting worse every year and I am sure there is some deep psychological reason for it but I don't feel like soul-mining presently so I am just avoiding it all. I have turned down 3 party invitations. A couple nice meals with the family and I am ready to move on to 2008.

The small amount of soul mining I have done has given me a little insomnia lately and I have ended up on some strange web sites in the middle of the night. Did you know that the Dalai Lama has a My Space page? And it's really good. And I also ended up on a "FREE" movie site. They had "No Country For Old Men" and it was free. HOWEVER, it was a copy of the film that was taped by some guy who went to an early screening and snuck in a video camera. The screen goes dark a couple times and he actually says "Down in front". You can hear people eating popcorn and taking off their jackets. It's pretty funny. I watched part of "The Secret" in Hebrew with English subtitles. Here's a secret: it may be a life philosophy but it is a bad movie.

So in further avoidance of all things Holiday, and indulging one of my favorite things to do, I went to a matinee today. Elizabeth, the Golden Age. The heater was broken and it was like watching it in someone's garage. To get even with the Heat Miser, I stuck around and slipped into another movie, "The Kingdom". It was escapism, if nothing else. Except that there was something else. There were only about 4 of us in the entire theater and the guy sitting 4 seats away was getting twitchy. He started speaking out loud and was mildly annoying. The movie is about Saudi Arabia and murder. This guy clearly had some issues with the Muslim world or the Armed Forces or something. He got more and more agitated and then gave me a looooooooooooong stare that scared the Hell out of me. I would have left but he was blocking my aisle and I was afraid he would stab me or something. Never sneak into the second movie, this was my lesson. Even though I almost got shivved in a bad movie, it was better than going to Mall at Christmas.

A vent of sorts

When I was newly diagnosed, I heard about a young survivor group---which is very unusual for Breast Cancer and I was in dire need, (see early posts). The girls were fantastic, smart, and advocacy minded. There was also a twice monthly meeting in a room at a local hospital that was guided by a nurse. The other meetings were monthly and consisted of going to a girl's house, drinking a glass of wine, having a little nibble, and discussing issues about BC. The gal who started it is feisty adn SMART and young. She was a real beacon for me, she had navigated the world of cancer uninsured and was on her way to being an advocate (politically correct term for Activist). Young Empowered Survivors-YES was growing and soon she realized it was time to pass the torch so she could get on with tackling the big issues.

Sadly, a year and a half later it has become a twisted form of the Junior League, with censorship and pink ribbons all over the place. Once again proving that: It's not the WHAT, it's the WHO.

Last week, I attended the Colorado Cancer Coalition's yearly conference. We were trying t get everyone on board about the Bill we got passed last year to put a check-off program on the Income tax form for :
The Colorado Breast and Women's Reproductive Cancers Fund. We passed around big cowboy boots to try and get people to donate "Kick-off for the Check-off". We earned $300, which will help with basics, such as making copies, etc...Talk about grassroots, there are about 4 of us trying to make it all fly.

I can't believe that I live in a society that spends the same amount on TWO WEEKS in Iraq fighting as it does for the entire YEAR for cancer reseach.
Shame on you, George Bush.

I realize this is disjointed, but if I have to read my own writing more than once, forget it.

Question Authority

Last week, I attended an award ceremony at the Governor's mansion. The awards were from the Colorado Lawmakers Association and were being given to 3 State Representatives for their work on Health Bills. I belong to a Breast cancer Task Force which joined up with the Ovarian cancer coalition to pass a Bill to put a Check-Off program on the Income Tax form to fund education, screenign and treatment for un and under-insured women in rural areas.

Anywhooooo, I ran into my district Representative and thanked her for her help as she sat on a committee we testified in front of. She was not receiving an award but made sure to tell me, "Well, I sponsored the Breast Cancer license plate." I think she expected me to gush or thank her for the stupidest piece of legislation ever put forth. I acted super naive and said " Oh, does that give funds to breast cancer programs in the state?" She quickly backtracked, " Well...no ....but the parameters were already set when the Bill was brought to me. And people can donate money when they buy the licence plate."
I asked excitedly, as if I didn't know the answer, " And have you tracked how much money has been donated through the plates?"

"No" and off she went, VERY quickly.

All I could think was GREAT, it helps no one, but makes the average joe feel like they are doing something to help end breast cancer. Pink ribbon stupidity, AAAARGH.