Post number twenty-five, the Meaning of Life.

Imagine for a second that you can feel the revolution of the earth. Clouds and stars and people spin by in an imperfect circle, like a time-lapse photograph.

Imagine standing in the middle of this chaos, everything spinning and moving around you too fast to keep proper track.

Imagine moving in slow motion through this exaggerated speed world.

This is how cancer---Nodular Sclerosing Hodgkins Lymphoma, to be precise---felt to me.

It sounds crazy, of course. As painful as the experience was, it was ultimately positive and life-transforming. Not only did I survive, I came out the other end a better man. "That which does not kill us makes us stronger" is a cliché, but one-hundred percent Truth.

See, somewhere along the way I cheated death, and in doing so was imbued with a secret power. No metaphor or well-worn phrase will do to explain it. Here’s the best I can do...

(A step-by-step process that feels intensely deep but looks suspiciously simple when written down):

- Cheating death made me realize how fragile life is.
- Realizing how fragile life is made me better appreciate its briefness.
- Appreciating its briefness motivated me to make the most of it.
- Motivation to make the most of it forced me to be more brave.
- Being more brave led to me being more honest with myself (and others).
- Being more honest with myself made me happier.
- Being happier made me fearless.
- Being fearless brought me success.

(Success, by the way, is more than just a nice car and a fancy paycheck. By success, I mean being able to look in the mirror and like who I see; to sleep easy at night, knowing that I made the most of the day’s opportunities.)

Anyway, I wish the process ended there. Happily ever after, the Optimist retires to his castle to stare lovingly at himself in the mirror.

Life doesn’t work that way.

- Success led me to complacency.
- Complacency led to laziness.
- Laziness led to forgetting the lesson that started this chain.
- Forgetting about the fragility of life made me reckless.
- Being reckless made me lose focus.
- Losing focus led to being caught of guard when, after all the years, the night sweats and fatigue returned, and suddenly the world sped up just a little bit.

Tomorrow morning, I report to the doc for a couple of fun radioactive scans. I’m sure I am fine. I’m healthier than I’ve ever been. I’m happier in most ways than ever before. I lost focus only for a second, and now I’m scared.

Part of me is glad to be scared, glad to be reminded of the truth.

The other, bigger part of me is just plain scared.

Nine years ago, the world sped up and my life slowed down. Eight years ago, the world slowed back down so I could catch up, and I haven’t really looked back.

Over the last week, I’ve been thinking of all of the things I’d do and say if I found out I was sick again. Tonight, I’ve been wondering why I have to be sick again to justify doing them.

I’m not sick. The blood tests are fine, the test tomorrow is routine.

I’m not sick, but I’ve been warned.

Post number twenty-four and a half, Sis.

Happy Birthday, Bull. I love you.

Post number twenty-four, Tired.

I’m tired.

The Thursday hangover is long gone, which is cool.

The lingering guilty feelings that accompanied the hangover aren’t gone, which is less cool.

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about identity, the masks we wear and the different personas we all inhabit. Work me. Family me. Different groups of carefully segregated friends me. Me behind closed doors. For the longest time, I’ve been adrift in a sea of Lonely Optimists.

Now, thanks largely to this forum, have I realized that they are all the same me. People from all aspects of my life occasionally stop here and read, and they all find the me that they know. Or at least they find the shades of me that are comfortably familiar.

My secret sociopathic fears may be unfounded, but the fact remains that I’m the only one who has the whole portrait tucked away in the attic.

I’m trying to be the best me possible. The perfect me, far from ideally perfect, strains to evolve. Growing in often painful spurts. Two steps forward, one step back. The man in the mirror can be a real sonofabitch.

Working slowly, trying to be patient with the progress, I remain yours.

Tired.

Post number twenty-three, hungover.

Went to have a drink last night after work with some friends. I came home after two drinks, feeling a slight buzz but nothing serious. The plan was to make dinner and update this. If I count a handful of Coors Lights and a few glasses of whiskey as dinner, at least I made it halfway through the plan.

Yesterday was a bad day. But by boozing too much, I've insured that today will also start on the wrong, wobbly (and slightly guilty) foot. Late for work. Blearly eyed. What a dumbass. I'll write a more cohesive post after work...unless I'm asleep.

In much happier news, I am in the market for a 4 foot stone lawn gnome. Anybody?

Post number twenty-two-pont-five, Technologically Challenged.

I just added a pic to my last post, and the comments (both of 'em) disappeared. Whattup with that? Sorry Alexander and DJD. Your comments were brilliant. Rakim-style flow and buzzing bug background track, classic indeed.

Post number twenty-two, Summer Madness.

Summer is almost here again. OpAdon (see post number six) is still on, and it is increasingly likely that the Lonely Optimist will shed shirt and make a beachside appearance before August. Maybe even July.

Melanoma and Barbeque, here I come.

Keeping with the seasonal theme, Will Smith’s SUMMERTIME recently found its way onto my iPod. I forgot how much I love this song.

A little silly, a tad corny, sexy in a geeky way, the song is a breath of refreshing summer air. It probably isn’t an all-time truly great record, but I love it because it reminds me so strongly of a specific time and place that doesn’t really exist anymore---if it ever existed at all---when life was simpler and everything seemed so easy.

I love how certain songs are even more effective emotional time machines than photographs or videotape, summoning memories and feelings in detail as sharp as when they were new.

That, and Will Smith is hot.

You must have it on a mix tape or CD somewhere. Don’t be embarrassed to pop it in and turn it up, chillin in the car you spent all day waxin…

Better yet, pop in your own favorite summer song, and feel the sun on your face as you smile into the months ahead.

Post number twenty-one, I am a fly gazebo.

Last Tuesday, I presented a lecture and film at UCLA. The students didn’t fall asleep, and at the very least feigned interest in what I had to say. For a guy with a meager bachelor’s degree from Tailback U, it was a real kick to speak to graduate students at the cross-town rival as an authority in my field. FUCLA.

Frat captain glibness aside, it was, as usual, a very rewarding experience to have an academic exchange about the aesthetic choices and technical challenges of movie preservation. I wasn’t going to stay for the screening, but they were having a little coffee and cookie reception afterward, so I felt compelled to do the right thing and stay.

I was glad I did. It was late. I was tired and fidgety from seeing most of the movie for the millionth time. Always the wallflower, I stood coyly by the lobby water fountain as people filed out of the theater, waiting for someone, anyone, to approach. Whether they were genuinely interested, felt bad that I was standing alone, or just thirsty for a drink of water, I don’t know…but I was engaged with questions and comments from students and faculty until the theater manager had to kick everyone out to lock up.

Just when I feel like I’m in the wrong job, stupid, awkward, and ugly, an experience like this comes along and I feel recharged---Superman restored, only without the long flight to the north pole crystal sanctuary.

My least favorite moment of the evening: being cornered by people who wanted to talk at me for half an hour about their deep understanding on mis en scene and how it related to the evening’s show.

My favorite moment: a couple of goofy undergraduates, all elbows and sexual insecurity, who waited patiently for their opportunity to ask me alternatively about digital editing and my opinion on the greatest musical of all time.

SINGIN’ IN THE RAIN, followed closely by WEST SIDE STORY and anything with the Nicholas Brothers.

Duh.

Sorry Rodgers and Hammerstein.