The Dude Abides

Yesterday was the 6-month anniversary of my surgery. I didn't even think about it until late last night because of everything that's been going on with everyone else: family births and deaths, relocations, broken hearts on the mend, and a bout with what might have been the flu.

So last night I was at a seedy bar with my seedy friends, drinking and 2nd-hand smoking, when I remembered that it was the anniversary. I had to repeat "dirty cop" several times to be understood and Gary and Chuck started making off-hand comments on how my conversations are a lot more interesting since I got my funny accent. I forget how it devolved into a Marlboro Country joke, but the increasing amount of tasteless (but damn funny) mouth cancer jokes officially got out of hand last night. If your definition of "normal" is drunken hilarity at my expense, I'd say things are definitely back to normal. I couldn't be happier.

Currently, all my friends are in relationships. But their girlfriends either live out of town or work crazy hours. So I've been scoring dinners and free drinks by default. It's like having a bunch of high school boyfriends; no sex but lots of cocktails.

I read somewhere that loving someone in the past is a memory, loving someone in the future is a fantasy, and that the only place one can truly love is in the present. A year ago I was spending too much time in the past and the future. And that didn't make me very happy.

I guess what I'm trying to say is the cancer helped me follow through with my intention to live more in the present. In the way that a hungry person walking down the street only sees restaurants, I could be the single person who only sees couples. But if I did, I'd be ignoring the best part of my life.

And when I hear yet another woman complain about how there are no nice guys in Los Angeles, I can smile and wonder where the hell they've been looking.