My Drug Free Days or How I Escaped the Prescription Mill

Well, after a two year silence, where I was condemned to spend my time in a permanent haze to work while in pain, I have come back to tell the tale.

It's a sad tale, one fraught with confusion, neurological degradation and a landscape littered with upset friends and family.  Associated characters include a somewhat schizo part time contractor, an art collecting gay doctor, two bumbling attorneys and a whole host of pain clinics and treatments.

I begin slowly, as typing appears to not be a great thing to do when not medicated.  My neck has seen many days of pain and abuse, including multiple years of martial arts sparring and at the least, six separate whiplash injuries.  At this time in my life, my spine doesn't have one disk that isn't herniated, from the top of my neck to the base of my tailbone.  As one might imagine, this creates an untenable situation for a person who earns money via a keyboard.  Now to be honest, they are truly paying for my brain power, however it is all delivered on a keyboard and a conference phone.  I spend ALL day instant messaging in a company of a quarter of a million people, answering an average of 250-300 emails daily, writing software development estimates, texting, talking on conference calls, managing an inbox constantly so it doesn't blow up, assisting in debugging software failures and defects and filling out forms, surveys and taking online courses; to name some of my daily activities.  And, of course, it truly doesn't stop when the work bell rings to a close; I continue to text, play scrabble, use my smart phone to look things up I want to know instantly, and manage the work for two college courses.  Typing is non stop from morning till night.

Enter the pain and general anxiety.

It began slowly and then rapidly ramped up to take over every thought and every waking moment of my day.  Rapidly, I felt out of control and incapable of functioning in the way I required to accomplish all the things I do daily.  I went from my normally matter of fact self to a lunatic who couldn't type without excruciating pain and subsequently ceased to be able to think while the pain slowly took me over.  I ended every day, as Pink Floyd would say, tight as a funeral drum, and in tears.  I was so wound up, I couldn't sleep, my activities were all infringed upon and generally I was a pretty sad person.

And onto the stage steps the schizo contractor and quasi friend.  He decides my life would improve if I adopted HIS doctor as mine.  I knew he had an endless supply of pain medication, which I would avail myself of every so often to take the edge off this spiraling condition, so I reasoned, why not?  It would be less expensive than plumping up his SSI budget by paying him for pain meds, so off I went to the doctor in question.  So, that introduces the doctor to this story.  I went to consult with him, and almost immediately ended up on a pain management program administered through his office.  And I was sent to the first of a collection of pain clinics, where I was racking up a pile of bills and spending three days a week getting physical therapy and chiropractic care (my chiropractor didn't want to work with me after the MRI's of my spine appeared) and a pile of exercises and home exercise equipment, blah blah blah.

On this continued, for over two years, until one day, I realized I was taking enough drugs to kill a racehorse on a daily basis, and my mind had melted into a puddle.  I had a massive falling out with the doctor and left his practice.  I was calling around to find someone to take his place, when I had an epiphany.  I didn't want a doctor to hold power over me with a prescription pad, and I truly wanted my mind back.

So I abruptly stopped taking five separate, mind bending, body destroying drugs and entered a month of hell.  Withdrawal was a complete nightmare; I was unable to work, ended up with two in completes for my school semester and dropped 10 pounds in 3 weeks, unable to eat or digest food.  I averaged two hours sleep for a month, until I was about ready to rave myself into insanity.

Then, it started to get better.  I could think, read a novel for the first time in many many moons, my friends were all delighted to be able to actually talk to me, I could stay awake in a movie, and my sleep pattern finally adjusted itself.  I can eat, but here we are 8 weeks later, and it's still a sketchy thing.  I trust it will improve.

The pain?  Oddly enough, it's way better than it was in the beginning of this saga, but I am well aware that it lurks there in the background.  I opted for the month of hell rather than checking into a detox clinic because I didn't want any palliative treatment for the withdrawal symptoms but rather wanted to feel every bit of the agony it took to cease that treatment.  So I am not inclined to take anything more than an aspirin to deal with the pain, and when it gets to be too much, I just take a nap.  I won't go back down that road unless I am in an end of life situation; I will just deal with this and alleviate as best I can with exercise and stretching.

So I'm back assembling the broken pieces I created while dealing with this train wreck.  I feel reasonably positive and actually happy and content sometimes, and I am ready to take on new challenges while I clear the decks of the things I left behind while fixing this mess.

Time to publish this.  I hope someone benefits from this story.

Contemplation of mortality - Dedicated to Christopher

It has been awhile since I wrote a blog here - I've been insanely work busy and there have been so many losses and difficulties in my life; I honestly didn't have anything to say about them.

But now I do have something to say. This blog subject brings to mind my sweet business partner and close friend, with whom I spent an inordinate amount of time discussing the subject of the purpose of life quite a few years ago. He was younger and struggling with the concept of why he was on the planet and we talked and talked about this for many hours.

So I address these thoughts to him in a way, at least our discussions are on my mind while I write this.

Whomever knows me knows that I have been struggling for about two years now with medical issues, mostly ones that create a great deal of physical pain. I am not one to give up easily, so I have been stubbornly working on these issues; sometimes accepting assistance from the medical community and sometimes ignoring their advice and following my gut as to what I should do to recover from all this pain.

Now I am faced with a new medical challenge; one that may just end my life. So the idea of mortality is certainly in the forefront of my mind and I have given a lot of thought to my purpose and what I should do now. I have not shared this situation with too many people since it is so inconclusive at this point, and I cannot handle people's reactions to it, nor do I have any clear answers as to what is going to happen next. Diagnosis is unclear so far, so I feel no need to tell this to many people.

I find, facing this situation, that my view of life is different now. The things I thought were important may not necessarily be all that important at all, and there are clearly different things that are most definitely of great importance to me.

First of all, what is of least importance are things, stuff, possessions - the things I have accumulated over a lifetime hold little significance to me at this point. It's not that I ceased loving to read, watch films or listen to my beloved music - but the acquisition of things just isn't all that important. I find myself wanting to just pile up all the things and disburse them to people who may need them or may find these miscellaneous things to be of importance to them. I want to be surrounded with simplicity and beauty more than anything. My love for awesome natural beauty has become even stronger than it ever was; I want to hear the ocean crashing on the shore, sit by Sunset Lake and just listen to the birds singing while watching the beautiful expanse of water. I want to smell salt water and the fragrance of flowers; I want to watch the sunset over the ocean. I want to see the black sky filled with all the stars while sitting on a mountaintop in Vermont, where all one can hear are the night sounds there; wind rustling the leaves on the trees, tiny critters scrambling about on the forest floor, the hooting of the owls and the sounds the insects make at night. I want to see the mountain lit up by a full moon, so bright that one needs no extra light to be able to navigate around in the woods. I want to sit and watch the day fade and be in that beautiful dusk time, where the sky is a stunning color of dusky blue and see all the trees in sharp contrast to the sky. I want to sit in Stickney Brook, watching the water moving down the stepped rocks. I want to look at the sun shining on the trees after an ice storm, where the branches glisten with the reflected light.

I want to see places I have never seen before - the stark landscape of the Southwest, the Great Barrier Reef in Australia, the palm trees waving in the breeze in Hawaii and the amazing antiquities of ancient Peruvian architecture, built by a mysterious civilization oh so many years ago.

Setting aside for a moment the things that I want to see and do, what is more urgent to me right now is understanding what is really important about life and the purpose of my existence. It seems that one gets really wrapped up in the everyday minutia of life; survival on the basic level, earning a living, providing oneself with shelter, food, clothing and all that stuff that is needed to exist. While being wrapped up in the details, it seems to me that the larger picture is often missed, since the details are so time consuming. What have I contributed to this planet during my time here?

Immediately what comes to my mind is that I am leaving behind a legacy; my daughter. She is the best and sometimes the worst of me; I put in an inordinate amount of my time and energy and resources to raise her to become the articulate, intelligent and capable adult that she has grown to be. Her existence is because of me, so whatever she gives back to the planet, in an oddly indirect way, I have given to the planet. This strangely comforts me somewhat.

Setting that aside, what exactly is my purpose here? Life is, you aren't exactly asked to be born, you don't stand up and volunteer to become; one day you are born and you are a citizen of the planet automatically.

What have I done to give back to the planet any thanks for the things I have enjoyed in my time here; that awesome natural beauty that I love so dearly, the delight I take in the sounds of music or the well written words of a good book. I think back over my years and try to determine what precisely have I done here of value?

I am known to be way too altruistic; it has taken all of my 57 years to obtain the ability to say no and I have been systematically eliminating all the users out of my life. This is recognized as growth apparently - although the altruist in me still rebels against it inside strongly. I do see that it is better to surround yourself with people that aren't just taking things from you, but rather to cherish the ones that love you and give you things back as well. I am also known to be very generous and I will give things to people without thought of the effects it might have on me long term.

So, ok, I have given a lot of people stuff - what kind of a contribution is that really? How have I contributed value to the planet at all? I diligently donate money to charitable organizations that have as a mission something I view to be of value; either enabling people to help themselves change their situations or groups that help animals or help to preserve the planet. Was that my purpose in life? My daughter calls me a patron of the arts, as I will frequently help artists and musicians in many ways. Was that what I was supposed to give to the planet? I view culture and arts as valuable things; they enrich people's lives and enable people to express their ideas and feelings. However, in the long run, what kind of contribution is that really? Does it have any meaning or any lasting value? I have spent a bunch of time over my life teaching and tutoring people in various subjects; was that what I was supposed to be doing to help? Was I supposed to help develop other people's abilities to advance their lives? I have loved people in my life and we were happy together, was I just meant to contribute happiness to someone's life? Somehow these things, while not trivial, don't really feel like a large contribution to the world.

Looking at the big picture, what really is important and is it really necessary for me to be concerned that I made any contribution at all? Was it a responsibility of mine to change the world in some way? Was I just supposed to be here, working, paying taxes, helping a small child become a contributing adult, giving people love or money or gifts, what exactly am I supposed to have done to justify my existence?

This is the puzzle, the conundrum that my friend and I debated for a long period of time. At that time, I was concerned about his well being and the struggle he was facing more than I was concerned about my own world view honestly. Now it has a relevance to me that I couldn't have imagined I would be here facing right now, struggling to find the same answer for myself. I feel a responsibility somehow, a strong idea that I should have been contributing something to the world community and that somehow I have not done that. It's not that I feel as if I am a complete failure, it's more that I sense that I have missed something in the big picture and while I still have breath in my body, I should work to rectify whatever it was that I have missed.


Here again, a blog I wrote a year ago and didn't publish.  The life threatening illness is no longer, and I have found a purpose to focus on - food politics.  So this self examination was good and my mind is stronger and I move forward.  Hope I will have company on this journey.

Learning how to say no

SO, my mom passed away this year, as anyone who knows me would be aware of...when this occurred, I engaged a grief counselor to help me cope with overwhelming feelings of fury that I could not identify.

So we are past that - months have passed and I clearly understand the basis of my feelings regarding this situation. I can't claim to have fully integrated everything that I have lost this year and all the resultant feelings, however I have a fairly firm handle on why I feel what I am feeling, and a growing acceptance that this particular loss in my life has created a hole that will never really be filled by a different thing than a mother.

However, I have continued to consult with the therapist, because, somehow, cosmically, I ended up with a grief counselor that specializes in relationships. Again, for those who know me, they know full well what a disaster I am when it comes to intimacy and love type relationships. Or, as my friend Linda is fond of saying, "my picker is broken".

So this very expensive therapist is attempting to work with me on something my daughter has been trying to get me to do for years, to say NO to people. I am the ultimate altruist and a premier nurturer, again, trying to fill holes in my life that exist, that cannot really be filled in the way I try to - you just don't get a simple do over in your life...you try to reconcile what has occurred in your life and try to make a life that works for you, based on what you learn and know about yourself. This is what I am now trying to do. Unfortunately, it involves shedding people like dry skin in winter and, after all the losses I have already had this year, this is not an easy task for me. But I am doing it - with thought and purpose, I am shaking off the myriad of dependencies people have placed on me and learning how to be free and happy with myself.

So....eliminating this behavior pattern and the people that feed from me leaves yet another hole in my life - one that I haven't quite figured out how to fill yet. I am considering many ways to do this, but I'm not entirely certain I am ready to fill up the holes quite yet. This type of change and growth isn't a simple thing, and I can't pull the answer off a shelf and voila, magically have everything be fine. I am spending an inordinate amount of time thinking and not doing much yet - except for the sedate walks I am allowed by my gigantic pile of medical professionals, another thing one tends to inherit with the delight of aging. I am working out in my mind where I want to be, what I want to be doing and what process I am going to go through to get all this to happen.

Someone used to frequently tell me that happiness is optional - I think everyone should get to have some happiness in their lives, the pursuit of happiness shouldn't be fruitless and is, oddly enough, one of our constitutional rights.

OK - I read this 2 years later in draft form and decide I should post it - I have not only shed a gigantic pie of people in my life; I have also shed the medical machine for the most part and regained some sanity and extra money in the process.   I still suck at relationships, but I don't have all that many of them currently, and the ones I have seem to have some staying power and understanding.

Jury is out on all of this - I press on.

What's on my mind today is aging

Aging is another of life's processes. It's one that you get to have a slight amount of control over, but, generally speaking, there are inevitable things that begin to occur as the body and the cells degrade, without human growth hormone to bring them back.

I have an incredibly detailed, high pressure job; one where I must remember many details every hour. Unfortunately, one of the first manifestations of aging for me has been memory loss. Now, I NEVER had good short term memory, essentially because I had a serious accident with carbon monoxide when I was in my twenties, and it damaged my frontal lobe to the extent that I lost the capacity for short term memory.

So I learned to play tricks with myself to compensate. I used a pile of memory tricks, and they were reasonably effective for multiple years, however those tricks aren't working so very well these days. I write down as much as I possibly can, and that is how I manage to continue to function in my job. My iPhone tells me when I have to be places and where they are. These are the "new" tricks I need to utilize to function.

Unfortunately, I simply cannot write down EVERYTHING -- and so things drop through the cracks; through the saturated sponge of my mind and just right out of my world.

I don't know how to find words to explain how utterly frustrating and difficult this is for me. I just want to shake it off and have it go away; but that's just not going to occur. I have to learn to live with it - and it is not a pleasant thing to live with. It's no more pleasant than the agonizing pain my hands feel when I wake up in the morning; the osteoarthritis that I have created from years of non stop typing, martial arts, wood splitting and snow shoveling in the mountains. Many factors create the situation I am in and there are not many alternatives to make these things go away.

So, I try to find ways to live with this; to accept this as the way things are going to be. I try hard, but sometimes it just fails and the frustration swamps me and I begin to become angry with myself. This isn't a rational reaction - and I fight it when it occurs, but it does happen.

When I'm on a stage and doing a performance, and the lyrics of a song simply just fly out of my head - I realize that it won't be long before I won't be able to be on a stage singing, unless I am willing to sing with a lyrics sheet in my hands; and I view that as so unprofessional, that it's not likely I will do that. So I will lose singing, one of my life's greatest joys.

So aging means losses. It means your friends are dying, your body is starting to fail you and, even worse, your mind begins to fail you. Some genius decided to call these the "Golden Years" and I haven't the faintest idea why. Losing your capacities, your expectations of what you can and can't do, losing your family and friends and the simple loss of your youth -- all these things are very painful and you learn that every day, you must come to grips with these losses; to accept them as inevitable and to reach far to search for positive ways to look at this and learn to come to a peaceful acceptance.

None of this would be so damned difficult if I didn't get any backlash for forgetting something. It is that refusal to understand this situation is going to be ongoing from someone that I love unconditionally that is extraordinarily painful. I cannot reconcile that position in my mind - not that I don't realize it's somewhat annoying, but in comparison to the huge pile of frustration and pain that it causes me in the first place - the backlash just bowls me over and wrecks me. So I'm currently in a heap, and operating without the necessary information to plan something - which will force me to make a solitary plan. I guess I can live with that - but I don't view it with anything remotely resembling happiness, but rather with great sadness. This is not a condition that is going to improve with time - if anything, it is going to get worse. I can write down what I can, use all my memory tricks that I am aware of - keep trying to retrain my mind to improve my memory skills - but I fear that it will continue to degrade, and along with it will be the degradation of a relationship that I value greatly.

And THAT loss, for that one, I will be inconsolable.

On losing my mother

My mom died last month. Just two or three days before this event, she was talking to me on the phone, sort of sounding like she always did -- but, there was an elephant in the room, as I have said before and it is called cancer.

Apparently my mom didn't want to live out her prognosis of 9-12 months, or the oncologist was really off base, who knows? I just know I set out in my car to drive up and help my brother take care of her...packed with at least 1/2 a year's worth of stuff and my lovely daughter in tow - only to take a phone call in the middle of Ohio to be told my mom died.

I promptly chose "The Wall" to listen to and continued to drive and cry - I was still 10 hours away and needed to get there to help my brothers with the funeral arrangements. Like all road trips with my daughter, this one ran smoothly, even with this knot in my gut and the pain of knowing I couldn't even say goodbye to my mom -- still I drove on, needing to get to where my family was.

Yes, it was two weeks of hell - there is no other way to describe it. I felt numb and sad, my defensive walls were up over twenty feet easily - no one was getting in. I kept telling myself it was one of life's passages and I just had to get over it - but I was so angry and I couldn't figure out why.

I left there angry - and stayed that way until after I had a conversation with my daughter that provided the epiphany allowing me to understand the rage I was feeling. First of all, it wasn't really rage - that was the disguise for the sad, hurt part inside me. It was that part, the inner child, if you will, that realized that the very open conversation I had with my daughter could have never taken place between my mom and myself, because we never really knew each other all that well. We hardly got along and really only begun any level of intelligent communication subsequent to my father's death 17 years ago. But even then, my mom had a perception of what I was that I didn't feel - and, honestly, there was a LOT about her that I didn't know at all.

And now I never will.

Life is a fleeting gift - and the people you love in your life, you should treasure them. I am not reconciled to whether I truly loved my mother - it's kind of like I loved her because she was my mother, but on many levels, I didn't like her and our relationship was very superficial. I worked very hard to raise a daughter differently than I was raised, and I believe that I was successful. Not always perfect, who could be? But I think I did a damn good job and got a friend out of the deal.

I have this "rule" with my daughter - that she is not allowed to predecease me - because that loss I would never get over - my life would have to end at that point right along with hers. She is the thing that tethers me to the planet in many ways - the thing, the person that matters the most to me - the one I love the most, unconditionally - whether she is annoyed or angry or tired or cranky or the ton of fun she can be when we are together - it doesn't matter to me - there is never any feeling but love for her, always.

My mom? I did love her in a way - and I do miss her terribly - we have talked a lot in the past 17 years...although we have never lived close by each other; we did share a love for reading, for discussing politics or just whatever we were cooking for dinner. That is gone and it is in my head and my heart, but will never be manifested again in a simple phone conversation.

Not being able to say goodbye to her did hurt me terribly - I felt like she should have waited for me and I know that is irrational, but, yet, it still haunts me. Fortunately, I saw her a month prior to this event, on my annual Mother's Day visit - had I known that would be the last time I would see her - I would have stayed longer, talked to her more - something, anything to remember, to hold on to, to chase away the incredible feeling of alone that I now have, since both my parents are gone.

That is all I want to say, except never look that gift of love in the eye and turn away from it. Hold onto it, treasure it, feel every good thing about it. Some day it will be gone.

Indecision

Dr. Suess once said "Sometimes the questions are complicated and the answers are simple,".

I find myself in that position right now. I feel like a character in a Clash song .."should I stay or should I go now?". I love the summer nights exactly where I am, but I'm in this odd position where I don't feel particularly welcome anywhere I am. Tons of book and song quotes come to mind, but that's just not cutting it at the moment.

Things hold me here; things I need to get done, things necessary to put my house in order. Why am I not jumping on the opportunity to go where I always want to be? Perhaps because of the implications of WHY I have this opportunity to spend an indefinite period of time home in New England. And my so called support network is really here right now. I can toss a hundred obstacles in the way of being decisive but the fact remains that I am playing Beat the Clock and there are no winners in this round.

I feel like I'm having this strange identity crisis and somewhere a part of me got lost. Connections I thought were strong feel tenuous and help keeps erratically arriving from the most unexpected sources. So I feel sort of disconnected and there is an elephant in the room that I cannot keep from view indefinitely.

I'll step up and do what I feel I have to do. I am just extremely apprehensive about the emotional blackmail that will be coming my way shortly, and I offer up a short musing, an empowerment that will allow me to survive this situation relatively unscathed.

Me, my daughter and the Coen Brothers

Anyone who reads my daughter's blogs knows that she majored in film in college and is a sharply opinionated, highly critical movie consumer. We have had endless conversations about film in general, and in many places we are in agreement. There are, of course, places where we disagree and probably the strongest disagreement we have regarding film direction is the Coen Brothers.

Now I love the Coen Brother's body of work. I think that they approach each film using a different culture to stage their story in and with keen accuracy, peg that culture exactly every time. They have a very odd but dry sense of humor that entertains me a lot, and I'm not much of a tolerant comedy viewer. I want smart comedy, not slapstick or broad stroked sophomoric humor -- I have no patience for that. Their comedy rests in the decisions that their characters have to make throughout some admittedly absurd positions that they find themselves in. Their characters are broken people in many cases, making bad decisions that land them in the worst possible circumstances and then, when trying to rectify these things, force themselves into even worse situations.

The Coen Brothers' strength is in their choice of settings, their characterizations and in their direction of the actors; the characters carry the stories and do it well. The images that come into my mind when I think of the Coen Brothers always make me smile: Holly Hunter as the poor county detective who wants a baby so badly, in one of their early films, Raising Arizona. She falls in love with a criminal, Nicholas Cage, she is booking in the jailhouse. They devise a scheme to kidnap a baby that continues to fall into pieces with every ticking minute of the film. John Goodman, a frequent player for the Coen Brothers, climbing out of a hole in the ground after tunneling out of a prison to go visit Nicholas Cage. This enrages Holly Hunter, who sees him as a threat to the baby, when all he really wants to do is put his gang back together and get on with the business of his life of crime. John Goodman shines in the Coen Brothers films; I see him walking down the flaming hotel hallway in Barton Fink, the ruthless, matter of fact serial killer who befriends John Turturro, stuck in a fleabag hotel trying and failing to be a Hollywood writer in a time when all writers in Hollywood were scrambling to avoid being branded as a Communist. I can see the two of them again in O Brother Where Art Thou, a most amusing retelling of Odyssey, set in Mississippi in the early 1900's, where John Goodman, fronting as a bible salesman, lures George Clooney and and Tim Nelson into the woods and beats them silly and robs them of all their money. This movie was really well done, every element of the Odyssey was present in odd but interesting ways. And, of course, one cannot discuss this film without mentioning the brilliant performance by George Clooney, an actor from whom I think the Coen brothers have elicited some of his best performances. His dialogue in this film is just priceless and he plays his character in an understated but very approachable way. I actually saw this film two days in a row in the theater. After I watched it the first time, I came home, collected my boyfriend and his brother and said "you HAVE to watch this film" and I went and sat through a second showing. The soundtrack won numerous awards and was loaded with beautiful music from bluegrass to Alison Krause singing amazing spiritual songs that tied together everything from a baptism in a river to the Sirens singing on the Rocks, intentionally diverting Everett Ulysses MCGill from his quest. Every piece of this film ties back to the Odyssey, from the names of the characters to the places that they end up. If I want to connect to someone regarding this film, all we have to say is Dapper Dan, the pomade George Clooney obsessively put in his hair or "RUNNOFT", which was John Turturro's cousin's way of saying just what it sounds like when describing where his wife went and, of course, George Clooney looking nervously down at the sheriff hunting these chain gang escapees getting ready to set fire to a barn they are hiding in and saying "Boys, I think we're in a tight spot."

The Coen Brothers have used some of the best actors in the business and simply put then in outrageous positions and coaxed them along the journey to extricate themselves from increasingly more complex situations. Gabriel Byrne, the brooding and mysterious Tom Reagan, in the noir stylized mob film, Miller's Crossing; the man who you wonder whether he has any soul until the final moments of the film. Jeff Bridges, the Dude, in the Big Lebowski; a stoner who is just trying to get his rug back. I see him laying in his bathtub, smoking a joint, when he is invaded by a team of "nihilists" who drop a ferret in the tub with him. As he is thrashing around, protecting his "Johnson", the "nihilists" threaten to come back and cut it off if he doesn't produce their cash, which is in his car in the police impound lot, sans the cash, of course. Tom Hanks, in an outrageously over the top, yet convincing performance of a Southern con man in the remake of The Ladykillers. He is seeking, with a motley team of reprobates, to tunnel from an elderly African American woman's home, strongly portrayed by Marva Munson with grace and integrity, into a casino repository. Bottom line in this film, almost everybody dies. And what can I say about Tommy Lee Jones in the stark and riveting version of Cormac McCarthy's novel, No Country for Old Men. His powerful portrayal of the county sherriff, who faces some of the most harrowing situations he has ever experienced, calmly moving forward to resolve the issues, is unforgettable. This film was so absorbing, that I can honestly say, I cannot remember breathing for the entire duration of the movie.

Well, I wrote this a little backwards here, but I have to talk about the Coen Brothers use of setting. The first time I watched Fargo, I thought I would die laughing at how accurate they portrayed the upper Midwestern culture. Now, to be fair, this is where they are from, however I am a New Englander who has familiarity with this culture from a 5 year sojourn in the Minneapolis area. The image that will never leave my mind from this film is Frances McDormand, a wonderful actress who frequently works with the Coen Brothers, standing staunchly in her Sorels and parka. A heavily pregnant policewoman, calmly leveling a gun at Peter Stormare who is intently shoving Steve Buscemi's dismembered leg into a wood chipper, just doing her job. Everything from the way people interacted with one another to the types of food they were eating all spoke clearly of the place this story unfolds. The Hudsucker Proxy, set in the 50's in New York City, tells the tale of stock manipulation, conscienceless corporate machinations and a merciless plot to take advantage of a naive young mail room employee, played in a very endearing manner by Tim Robbins. The look and feel of the city was very believable, once again the attention to detail, from the clothes they wore to the places the characters went as the plot unfolds, struck me as cleanly accurate. I grew up very close to NYC; it is the city I know best and, once again, they had it nailed. My favorite quote from this film is Tim Robbins, now the company's CEO, selling the board on his invention, the hula hoop, by saying: "you know,for the kids". Their films in California settings, all set in different time periods, from The Man Who Wasn't There to Barton Fink to Intolerable Cruelty, all pick up some of the superficiality of Southern California culture in an accurate manner. Everything from the costumes to the characterizations of the people in the stories just smack of the laid back yet shallow California stereotypical behaviors.

So the question remains, why does my daughter so intensely dislike this body of work that I love so very dearly? She would tell you that all the Coen Brothers' movies are the same; that they tell the same story over and over in the same way. Of course, I always beg to differ and disagree with this assessment. We are both strong minded, stubborn people with hard held opinions,and I simply cannot get her to see the fun in the quirky characters, the incredibly bad decisions they make and the complete disasters they create for themselves. The unexpected twists and turns in the plots and the amazing strength in the portrayal of the settings are always entertaining to me, but, alas, not to my daughter. It is odd to me, because there certainly are directors whose work we both love, that also always create quirky characters in odd situations that can make one squirm while watching them extricate themselves from their situations. John Waters and David Lynch come to mind as two examples of directors whose films we both adore and bear some similarity to the oddities at hand here.

It is a debate that I have long since ceased having with her, although it continues to occupy my mind as a disconnect that just shouldn't be. We each have our likes and dislikes when it comes to the subject of film, and rarely is the time when we can move each other off dead center regarding our opinions of these works. I have quite a few people who always willingly want to come and view the latest offering of the Coen Brothers with me, but, alas, my daughter is never one of those people. I can never share with her my delight in their latest work or even broach the subject of a discussion on this topic. I could argue the point that many directors bear a similar style in each of their pieces, whether they be suspense, horror, drama, mystery or comedy, but this argument seems to carry little weight with her. Not wanting to have an ongoing argument with my progeny, I have stopped attempting to draw her into the Coen Brothers fold and accept that this is something we will never share together.