1:22
Have started getting back into my normal routine after the holidays, as well as some changes to shake things up a bit (while I find routine and habit helpful for focus, one needs change now and then to avoid getting stale and, as our kids would say, boring ….).
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On the change side, I started yoga this week (beginners Hatha, nice and gentle). Better than I expected, and I can see it helping with some of my stiffness as I continue. A funny reminder of the aging process, not only in terms of stiffness but of my hearing, being hard to follow the soft, calm instructions of the instructor. Pending getting hearing aids, I asked her next time to speak a bit louder.
This was also the week that I shifted from daily posts to a weekly summary. Not sure that this will save me much time – selecting, summarizing and group articles requires thought and attention – but forces me to think about what I read and how I present it in a different manner. A work in progress, and ultimately your feedback and the blog stats will let me know how it is working for readers.
One of the ironies is that as I move to refocus away from my cancer identity, I need to spend more time on marketing my book, Living with Cancer: A Journey. My first review came out this week (here), particularly gratifying as it comes from an oncologist whose writings I respect, Jim Salwitz of Sunrise Rounds. And I have my first TV interview this coming week on our local community cable channel, which will force me to sharpen my message (for those interested and living in Ottawa, Rogers Monday 14 January sometime in the 11-12 Daytime Ottawa show – will provide a link should the segment allow for this). Uncertain whether more interest will materialize but given the modest book sales to date, need to pay some attention to increasing awareness.
From the ‘history movie with a capital H of Lincoln that we saw earlier (here), we went to the pop culture of Tarantino’s Django Unchained. While I often find his movies too clever for their own good (in addition to excessive and gratuitous violence), he depicts slavery in all its horrors and depravities, combined with an almost comic book spaghetti Western frame. His script is extremely funny in parts and Christoph Waltz, as the bounty hunter King Shultz, steals the movie (as he did in Inglourious Basterds). Well worth seeing, as is Lincoln, two different takes, both equally valid, on that period of American history.
On a completely different tack, we also saw Rust and Bone (De Rouille et d’Os), a touching and complex love story between a drifting and struggling boxer (Matthias Schoenaerts) and a whale trainer who lost her legs in an accident on her show (Marion Cotillard). While superb acting by both protagonists, and how each brought out the best in the other, somehow it felt too contrived with too much of a Hollywood ending to be fully convincing. But worth while seeing for the acting alone, along with the exploration of an unlikely romance (no romcom this). My favourite scene, poetic in form, was her reconciliation scene with the whale that crippled her.
Other than that, some nice get togethers with friends and former colleagues to round out the week.
My Lymphoma Journey 