Bursting into Color

Ever since I realized I needed major surgery (I had a tumorous kidney removed on August 1, pathology showed that the tumor was stage 1a cancer originating in the kidney, all indications are that post-op I am cancer-free), I've been telling myself that, if I get the chance, I will change my life. I've been trying to do that.

Decades ago, I was reading a film review, and the reviewer -- it wasn't Pauline Kael, I'm pretty sure, but with my memory, hey, maybe it was -- said that this director -- I don't remember which director exactly, sorry -- specialized in movies about (I'm reconstructing the quote from memory so chances it's not word-for-word accurate) "grey people who suddenly burst into full color." My determination is to burst into full color.

Some of you who've known me for a while may think I'm already pretty colorful, but I assure you, you ain't not yet to have seen nothin yet before this thing here.

You heard me.

Part of the planned burst into color will be sharing more -- much more -- about myself. The way I'm doing in this post. The way I've asked for help after coming back home from hospital to my home all alone, asking neighbors for help even though I barely knew them and was terrified.

As another colorful fellow once remarked, "I don't know what you expect staring into the TV set." You and your TV set are your own business, and I'm not here to criticize the two of you. But I was a major couch potato before the surgery, and now I've turned off my TV, and how has it been? It's been very difficult so far, thank you, but that's in part because my mobility is severely limited and will continue to be for a few more weeks. But I can still step outside, and watch sparrows and doves and cardinals and robins and squirrels including some black squirrels and chipmunks and wild rabbits from right outside my house.

There are other things to look at besides TV, is what I'm saying. I've done this no-TV thing before with good results.

I can try to make more eye contact with people. This is risky for me, a 57-year-old autistic person not used to normal levels of eye contact, because it can lead directly to overpowering emotions. But that's okay. Bursting into color can be risky. Bursting into color is supposed to involve strong emotions.

I'm not going to get louder and more obnoxious and pushy and unpleasant, in case you were picturing that. The goal is precisely the opposite: to become much more pleasant. To become good for something.

I don't have a lot of concrete details yet. I have a lot of general things in mind, like writing even better than I already do, and dancing, and losing lots weight by means of taking lots of long walks (5 to 45 miles or so. That would be 45 or so in one day.) I'm picturing myself with longer hair, even if it is turning greyer and greyer.

And these colorful changes may or may not include public office, but I don't see how politics can be avoided altogether, and if Donald Trump can be President, I certainly can be too.