"V for Vendetta" Review

While this review may be a few years out of date, I feel it is no less warranted as I have just recently discovered this movie & would like to share it with you, in case you too discounted it for far too long.

Unbelievable as it may be that this comic store geek (me) didn't realize "V for Vendetta" was based on the Vertigo series, and instead mistakenly thought it some horrible movie adaptation by the author Sue Grafton who's books make me shutter with disgust, this sad fact is true.

I am atoning with this review.

If you read George Orwell's "1984" or Ray Bradbury's "Fahrenheit 451" and were angered by the fictional injustice their stories foretold as our possible futures, then this is a movie you cannot pass up.

However, if stories about the "What if..?" of anti-utopian societies are not your cup of tea, there's plenty of things that go boom to suffice.

I really was a good child.. promise.

Since my last update I underwent a minor surgery to repair a right inguinal hernia. This took place last Friday, the 18th of May. I would like to think recovery is going along far more speedily than before, since I was still on meth at this point and unable to walk on my own the last go around, but it sure doesn't feel that way..

Mayhap I am just inpatient?

I stopped taking the Lortab they gave me for pain about a day and a half after the surgery, they weren't helping overly much and only making me quite sick to my stomach. What has helped the most has been ice.. blessed, blessed ice. Standing and sitting are both equally challenging and I regret more and more my choice to live on the 2nd story so that I could keep my windows open safely.

I waited to post again until after my follow up appointment with the surgeon, which was just this past Tuesday, because like last time I had a lot of questions I needed answered. This time however, they were questions that had to wait on results from the biopsy taken during surgery and not negligence on the part of the doctor.

My surgeon is a little perplexed by the results of the biopsy, and we're now following up on that with some more blood tests and an ultrasound. He removed a lump of calcification from the hernia sac, blood tests should help us figure out if it was dystrophic calcification or metastatic calcification. Either way, this is something that should only happen in people far more advanced in age than myself it seems.

I had not made any mention to my surgeon the results of any test showing endometrial cells, which had been causing the cancer scare previously with my GYN. So, I was a little surprised and sad to hear him talk to me about pursuing every other possibility before seriously considering cancer. That too is something I am much too young for, the particular form of cancer in question that is.

It's a relief to know that my surgeon has a better grasp on what endometriosis is and does than my GYN though, he had the foresight not to put a mesh in to repair the hernia as my endo would have reacted badly. As is, he's waiting three months to see how this surgery heals up to decide if it's worth going in to look at my left side which was hurting me worse than the right. Endometriosis it seems is not very fond of being messed with and reacts very strongly to being attacked, even indirectly. (I've taken to talking about it like a poorly behaved pet in need of some serious temperament readjusting.) I think also he's worried about if my body will create more calcifications from the surgery.

I will probably go in for the blood test soon and then wait until a time closer to my appointment with the surgeon again in three months for the ultrasound, I don't want anyone pushing around my stomach area any time soon. I was instructed to start massaging the area around where he operated to help prevent scar tissue build up, something I haven't yet been able to bring myself to actually do..

..but I did promise, so I will.

Tomorrow I go to see another doctor, one I'm a little embarrassed about. I'm going to see this doctor about a colinoscapy to see if the endo is effecting my bowls, something I am not looking forward to at all. I suppose that I have no reason to be embarrassed for the need, but none the less... someone messing with that plumbing and all is enough to make me want to hide.

I am daily reminded of the many blessings that do come into my life, no matter the rest of this mess. The surgeon was going to send me back to work starting next Monday with light hours, but I wanted to start trying yesterday for at least an hour or two. I either started getting sick from the surgery or somehow caught the flu, a hospital is a great place to get sick if you're looking to do something as crazy as that after all. That has set me back which frustrates me to no end of course, and today I didn't make it either because of the pain.. I even resorted to trying one of my Lortabs to no avail. My boss has been incredibly understanding and patient through all of this, he has really been a strong source of advice and encouragement with how much this has been dragging me down. I cannot yet drive myself anywhere and my ride-plans for tomorrow didn't work out as I hoped, so I was very thankful when my boss agreed to take me tomorrow.

I've actually been wanting to post a lot since my surgery, but I was holding off until I could make this post. That being done.. I hope to start talking about some more interesting things here, anything besides just a journal update on my latest catastrophe.

Surgery #2

I went to meet with a general surgeon today, a doctor who's done three previous surgeries on my dad. He was wonderful and extremely friendly. The office was so clean and I was completely comfortable and confident, it was a drastic change to the doctors I had been seeing previously.

Change Is Good!

The surgery will take place this Friday and should not take but an hour, permitting the doctor doesn't find too much new endometriosis growing in the hernia. Recovery should only take a couple days and for that I'm thankful, I've had too much down time this year as is.

I recently joined a very good yahoo group for endometriosis where I have learnt a lot and found other women far more experienced in this than I, women who have many of the answers I seek. A trip to Atlanta may be required later this year or next to see one of the leading specialist in the country. I do not think that the risks of this Lupron shot are worth the minimal chance of it working, that's not even going into the emotional train wreck they have turned me into.

I wanted to write much more than this, but I can feel yet another flood of emotional trauma coming on so I'm going to turn in my chips and head to bed.

Mother's Day @ Arby's

As Mother's Day approached I wanted to do something very special for someone who is very special to me. Her name is Trena and she is Brandon's mom. Last year when the trial began and I had no transportation to get there, she was my hero. Everyday she and her husband, Ron, bared the pain of passing by the exit to Brandon's apartment to come get me so that I could be a part of the trial and have some peace.

Thankfully our relationship did not end with the trial and Trena has become a very dear friend to me, a great role model. I try to be as supportive for her as she has been for me, together we are both learning things about Brandon we didn't know before from one another.

I called Ron earlier this week to see if he thought taking Trena to lunch today would be a good idea, he thought it was a great idea. I waited a few days to call Trena herself because I wanted to make it as much of a surprise as possible, but I still wanted to give her time to be ready for such a big day. I considered all the other moms that would be having lunch with their children though, and knew that would be very hard for Trena.. I didn't want to give up on the idea though, and something Brandon himself once did for me gave me an idea.

When Brandon discovered that I had stopped celebrating my birthdays at the age of twelve he decided to fix that. We had been driving when somehow the conversation came up and immediately he did a U-turn and took us to a grocery store for cake. From there we went to McDonald's where he got me a kids meal so that I could have a toy as a present! There are pictures of this expedition on ADAAT.

www.adaat.deviantart.com

I happen to know that Trena loves the chicken salad sandwich at Arby's, so that was my backup plan & good thing too! I had a day to prepare. Originally I had just planned on a card and lunch but I wanted to make Arby's more special than a chicken salad sandwich, so I had to start thinking..

First I got a pink table cover, just one of those one-use ones you use at birthday parties and the like. I wanted something for the table though and I couldn't make up my mind between flowers, a candle or a wine bottle. I wondered what the alcohol policy was in fast food joints, that was too iffy. When I looked up and saw Brandon's angels I knew it had to be a candle. Trena gave me these angels from Brandon's things and they are a story for another time, but I knew it would be perfect. With tablecloth, angel and a tea light candle in tow I set out to pick up Trena. This was going to be a better Mother's Day lunch than any we could have had at a fancy restraunt.

After we placed our order I asked if she would be okay with the tray while I got us a table, of course she was. I was all kinds of worried that I wouldn't be able to get this tablecloth unfolded and the candle lit in time before she came with the food. But as fate would have it, fast food doesn't always mean it's coming fast. I had enough time to go back and carry the tray for her after all! I was excited about taking Trena to lunch for Mother's Day from the moment the idea entered my head, it was so wonderful to see her so surprised at the sight of the table and the familiar candle.

The hardest part probably was finding a card that fit the situation, that took a little doing and a lot of hunting. Once I found the card I copied over this letter I'd been working on into it and drew a bunch of different bears saying funny/cute things. Brandon had a little bear he drew a lot, they were all stylized after that. I also printed out a few of Brandon's own drawings and slipped those into the cards. All of these little drawings were very much like confetti and it worked like a charm when Trena suddenly had a whole bunch of cute little bears and doodles all over her!

I'm so glad that she said yes, I was very worried that she might not. Trena is a wonderful person and really deserved a good Mother's Day.

Happy Mother's Day

"Grindhouse" Review

If one were to search Google for "Grindhouse" right now, they might come across the following..

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exploitation_film

Exploitation film is a type of film that eschews the expense of "quality" productions in favor of making films on-the-cheap, attracting the public by exciting their more prurient interests. "Exploitation" is the show business term for promotion, and an exploitation film is one which relies heavily on the lurid advertising of its contents, rather than the intrinsic quality of the film.

Exploitation films feature explosions, drug use, scantily clad women, nudity, machismo, forbidden sex, wanton violence, freaks and geeks, gore, monsters, destruction, rebellion and mayhem. Such films have existed since the earliest days of movie making, but they were popularized in the 1960s with the general relaxing of cinematic taboos in the U.S. and Europe. Since the 1990s, this genre has also received attention from academic circles, where it is sometimes called paracinema.

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Well then, let's see to our check list here...

Explosions = Check ("Big, big ba-da Boom"-Leeloo, 5th Element)

Drug Use = Check (Mild)

Scantily Clad Women = Check (You better believe it!)

Nudity = Check (Sort of..)

Machismo = Check (Whoa..)

Forbidden Sex = Check ("Reel Missing")

Wanton Violence = CHECK (CHECK again!)

Freaks and Geeks = (Eh) Check (Not so much..)

Monsters = Check (Purely "sick in the mind" sense of the word.)

Destruction = Check (Definitely)

Rebellion and Mayhem = Check (Oh buddy..!)

Looks to me like Robert Rodriguez and Quentin Tarantino have certainly made this movie fit the bill of an exploitation film. Except that there is an abundance of "intrinsic quality" to the film!

If you like zombies, driving fast and very hot girls.. you will not be let down.

I would describe this movie as an acquired taste. Much like Kung Fu, you will either love & appreciate it or hate it entirely. The segmentation of the movie is brilliant, an original idea!! I'm hard pressed to say whether it was the two feature films I liked best or the 'previews' in between. Each feature film starts off a little slow, but once everything falls into place you find yourself incredibly grateful for the character building.

Especially in response to the zombies, I found myself giddy in amusement at how perfectly each cheesy note was struck. I'd even risk saying that just about any possible cheese factor you could think of, will be presented to you before the end of this film... and that's the best part!

One final note, don't wait for anything special after the credits - I was heartbroken to wait and find nothing to reward my efforts, it was the only cheese factor missing for me.

Good News!

The results of the last biopsy came in today, negativo!

They will continue to monitor it with another one every 6 mo for the next two years though and if nothing shows up in that time I can go to once a year. Because of the type of cells they were finding I'm relieved to know that it'll be monitored, but I'm even more relieved to finally have a definative answer.

Faith in my GYN grows less and less, if such a small number exists. He opens his mouth and I can never believe what's coming out of it. Waiting on one more referral to finalize & then I'll be changing doctors, with any luck it'll be for the better. I've gotten a few recomendations, though there doesn't seem to be any specific doctor with a reputation for treating endometriosis in my city. But, that's okay. I'd just like to find someone capable of telling me what they think, listen to what I think and be willing to help me find the best treatment options instead of being so daft and pushy. Especially not someone who holds the birth of a child in such low reguard as to suggest getting pregnant as a possible solution to my endo, how can they call themselves an OB/GYN when they think so little of the responsibility of child rearing?

Started the Lupron injections today, these shots will put me into a state of menopause for the next 6 mo. In addition to the shot I've got little patches of estrogen to get me through the first month which are pretty interesting. If any of you have ever spent any real time around horses you'll know about a solution used in the winter to keep their blood flowing in their legs at night. This solution is so strong that if you get any on your skin, almost immediately you're tasting it in your mouth. Well, that's what these estrogen patches are like. Bleck! Some women have very mild side effects with this form of treatment, handling it with grace. Then there's some women who's side effects are so sever they suffer from short term memory loss. Let's hope I can handle this with grace, eh? Heaven knows I already know how to be a bitch without the help of zero hormones to help further that flaw in me.

Two bits of good news today though! In addition to good test results, I went and got my hair done before my doctor's appt. So I've been in good spirits today, having done something for myself to start taking steps to reclaiming my life which has seemed to get away from me since the beginging of this year when all of this began to get really bad. You've all be so supportive of me through all of this, I cannot express how grateful I am to be so blessed with wonderful friends such as yourselves.

Pixel hugs from me to you

Post Biopsy Blues

I had another biopsy last Thursday - the fool that I am I didn't accept the numbing medicine once I saw the needle and freaked - I regret that. No good news yet, but I do have an appt. on the 10th to hopefully recieve the results from that. I've been referred to a few other speciallist & I'm going to be changing doctors - I'm very unhappy with the lack of care I've been given with a doctor who won't answer my questions.

I don't know that I'm capable of going into details right now, I'm very upset, but I feel like something inside of me broke when the doctor started cutting out pieces.