I am adrift

I am a survivor. I feel like I want a tattoo. But I'm wearing a dogsuit, that'd be silly.

My friends, I have not only not updated, but I've not even updated regularly, for quite some time. Since this past May, I have fought a battle with cancer. It has taken its toll on me mentally and physically. But my friends, I have survived.

I am a changed man. I have newfound respect for myself, my life, my body, and most importantly, My Master. And even, begrudgingly, My Nemesis. I wrote briefly about my surgeries earlier this summer. That was bad enough. I'm still in the prime of my life but I feel like an old man, missing the teeth I'm now missing. The kind of old man who you see on the street and wonder where he should be but isn't. I haven't gone out dancing yet, mostly because Pedro doesn't know I'm done with treatment. Nor did he know I was even in Chicago; I told him I've been away for the entire past month. I just can't deal with that right now. I need to focus on myself.

I've been in a very contemplative mood since I've finished treatment. I wonder if it’s akin to the feeling an addict gets when he or she finally kicks a serious Beggin Strips or Snausages habit. I'm not sure, but I'm resolved to do everything within my power to see that this never happens to me again. I have changed my diet significantly. I've cut back to one small cup of coffee, and have begun juicing every morning. I can feel the results, I think. I've also almost completely removed gluten and grains from my diet. While reading about tumors during treatment, I read that for international men of mystery in dogsuits like me, grain is a sort of anabolic steroid for a tumor. It's safe to say I cut that shit out pronto. I now eat a mixture of vegetable, fruit, and meat. I do occasionally enjoy a apple fritter or hunk of fry bread, but it's a rareity these days. I already feel better, although I'm not going to lie, I miss Doritos, and two Danish morning meetings. A lot.

I have also had the time to sit back and contemplate where I'm going. What I'm really doing with myself. I will obviously keep writing screenplays. My agent called me recently and said someone had shown interest in something that eight months ago he “couldn't pitch to anyone." I don't know if he's been jerking me around the past eight months to milk monthly fees from me, or if he just feels sorry for me. I can tell you though; it's not my best work. But apparently they've spoken with George Clooney and Michael Keaton. No Hanks. Thank God. If Michael Bay is tapped to direct, I WILL kill myself. 

But I'm talking about what I'm really going to do. This experience made me think about my own mortality, seriously, for one of the first times in my life. I have long forged my own trail. I went where other men in dogsuits dared not go, few even dreamed. But I know that. I have thought deeply about where I'm going to go, or if I even want to keep forging this path of mine.

I have the money I need to continue into the future. It's not an issue of money. I have plenty, my cousin Jorge is constantly making me more money with the money I already have. I have more toys and peanut butter chewies than I can count. And the screenplay racket always brings something in. I'm tired of financial work, especially following this Occupy Wall Street movement. It's truly the Will of The People in action. While I was working on The Street in the 90’s, the writing was on the wall. It's time those people give back. I don’t want to be one of them anymore. My Nemesis (ugh) once said he left the mortgage business because he didn’t want to keep selling people loans that they didn’t need, and whose terms they didn’t understand. I feel a bit of the same right now. I’m not sure how I feel about that. 

Thus far I have lived a full life indeed. And I’m happy with where I am right now. I am just wondering, contemplating, what’s next. I don’t want to continue to earn money for its own sake. Screenplay writing is fun, but the quality standards are declining in Hollywood so much that I don’t really see the point anymore, unless I could control the entire creative process.

I’m looking for something that will please me. Make me feel fulfilled and happy. And something that will allow me to give back. I hope to have something soon. I can’t just keep thinking. I am not nor do I want to be a college professor.