The Last Big Icky

What was I thinking? That the doctor would just take out the tube and it would be so quick and so easy with no pain at all...Come on, this is, after all, The Year of The Shit and it is not quite over with yet and the crap just keeps on coming. So yesterday I go in to get the tube removed and it took THREE shots IN MY STOMACH to numb my insides enough for him to slowly, VEEEERRRRYYYY slowly cut out the tube. And once the shots wore off IT HURT. Like really hurt. There is a hole in my stomach that I haven't had the nerve to check out but it feels pretty weird but strangely...I miss that little fellow. My last tube friend. Keep feeling around for him. Wonder if he misses me? We were very close for those two months. I can remember the exact day I met him. August 27th. Around three in the afternoon. It was hot outside. We bonded immediately. I had another tube in my nose but we really never hit it off. He left after a week. But two months is a long time to be that close. There's a hole where he used to be. But I am determined that he will be my last big icky.

Last night while trying to find a comfortable position on the couch I watched the movie "Help!" on the Sundance channel. It is such a good movie. So much energy, so much creativity. You almost never see that in the movies anymore. Or in the theater for that matter.

"It's not the Beatle with the ring, he."

I have seen really good plays in the theater, terrific acting, great set, but mind blowing? Something to remember for the rest of your life? That doesn't seem to happen much. Now maybe because I was young when I first saw that movie it made an everlasting impression on me. I don't think I'd seen Help! for thirty five years but I knew every scene, every line. And maybe a twenty year old now would remember every line from...Saw IV...No, I know there are good movies. Once...The Wind That Shakes The Barley...I guess The Beatles WERE amazing. And, of course, you can't help but think about life. That George and John are dead and Paul is being taken to the cleaners (Awwwwww) and Ringo has had his share of depression and alcohol but at that moment when they danced around on a beach in the Bahamas they owned the world and John WAS more famous than Jesus and that must have been awesome to have it all but even so someone shoots you in the prime of your life and if you weren't aware of how lucky you were, than you missed the moment. Like I am waiting to completely heal but I should just "Be Here Now" hole in my stomach and all because you just don't know what's going to happen at two o'clock in the afternoon. There could be a crazy guy reading Salinger just waiting for you with Catcher in one hand and a gun in the other. And then, POOF, it's all over. But who knows what John was thinking at that last moment. Maybe he thought, "Wow, I was a Beatle." And then he could die with a smile in his heart.

Anyway, it is a really good movie.

Tomorrow is November. Only two months of this less than stellar year. I hope this is not all in my head, that January first will roll around and everything will be different. That's what I'm thinking. That I will wake up on the first day of 2008 and all the icky will be gone and I will be full of energy and eating cake and all the wars will be over and CEO's everywhere will be sharing all of their money with their workers and Detroit will again be the number one city for automobile manufacturing. It's all going to happen when the clock strikes twelve, right?

Right?