I must be going crazy. I think I’m getting sentimental in my old age. Seems like I cry or almost cry at nearly every movie I watch. Even the action movies. I watched Lethal Weapon the other night and found myself tearing up at Mel Gibson’s solo moment with his gun and photo of his dead wife. Don’t even talk to me about Saving Private Ryan or Last of the Mohicans. Those endings ruin me. So what’s with this newfound respect for sentimentality? Am I going insane? Have I lost my last shreds of dignity and animatronic poise? Has Los Angeles given me an extra dose of eyeball fluid? Who knows. I’m pretty sure I’m still me. But something’s different.
I think I’m a sucker for something that oozes pathos. Maybe I’m just a little too wired up on movies. I dunno. Real life hardly ever gets me the way movies do. I find myself saying things that I don’t mean, just to fit in with everyone else who seem to have no trouble feeling the aches and heartbreaks of this world. Me, I’m no more or less affected by an earthquake in Southeast Asia than I am by the sound of sirens that scream past my door every twenty minutes. Dime a dozen, and more coming every day. And what’s the world come to when the compassionate lose their compassion? I suppose I’m not alone. But I sure hope I’m not the majority. If I am, then the world isn’t running on goodwill and charity, that’s for sure.
Then movies. What is this about movies? A good movie can cut me like a guillotine. I can feel it. Of course, it’s only temporary, but it’s a heck of a lot more than just faking my way through feeling sorry for tsunami victims or those poor people who were left in the path of Katrina. What’s that, anyway? It’s not charity.
Whatever my affliction, I need to examine it. See what it is that has my circuitry wired up all wrong. Get a firmware upgrade. Put a note in my inbox about it, action item number 43. And that’s on the short end of a very long list.
What a world. What a day. What a way to live.
I injured my elbow helping someone move. Pulled a tendon or something. My elbow swelled up bigger than a full moon on St. Crispin’s Day, felt like a thousand hammers were banging into it one after another, no let up, no reprieve. I spent the first night with my elbow enveloped in ice from the freezer. My elbow was so inflamed the ice melted within ten minutes. The next day I bought an IcyHot sleeve and some aspirin. That helped, but I was feverish, burning up and feeling like death warmed over. My stomach was jumping, I was nauseous and couldn’t hear right. Went to bed early that night and woke up the next day. The fever had passed, and my elbow on the mend. I can understand now why gunshot victims so often become the victims of fevers, their bodies wracked by chills both hot and cold. Something about an intense trauma in one small part of the body giving rise to infection and increased vulnerability to the unseen elements.
I was somewhere between miserable and resigned that first night. The next day I was cogent but irritable, dismally aware of my condition, ambivalently ignorant of anything else outside the sphere of fire that enveloped my left elbow. I’m nearly back to normal, though swelling and aching still punctuates every movement of my arm. I think one or two days more will find total healing. Perhaps I’ve gained a superpower, like Hand of the Infinite Punch or Elite Fist of Fury.
Or I might be just tired. It’s hard to tell these days.