Loved this movie.

It was just so good.

More inappropriate blogging.

The results:
Just to be clear: “There are no signs of breast cancer.”

Yesterday I experienced two significant milestones in the life of woman. (No, they weren’t making out with a girlfriend “just to try it” or breaking into my husband's e-mail account to find what needs finding ---check and check.) The first one is a matter of life and death and the second is an issue of sperm and egg.

Last week during my appointment with Jodi I showed her a lump on the side of my breast---it felt more like a jelly bean than the pebble I was supposed to be looking for---and after she felt it she sent me to get a breast ultrasound at the York Hospital Breast Care center (since I’m still too young for mammograms…and anal). We both agreed that it was probably a lymph node (after the appointment I found a similar “lump” on my other breast) but since it has been there for more than a year she decided I should get it checked out.

Yesterday I went in and, as expected, it was indeed a lymph node. In the week leading up to it I wasn’t worried at all and when Dan asked if I wanted him to come with me I told him it absolutely wasn’t necessary. (I don’t worry about big things like this; they are way too far out of my control. Instead, I focus on my attention on little things like am I sure I turned off the stove? and was that store clerk scowling at me because I somehow offended her with the way I said “plastic” instead of paper?) I wasn’t going to waste an ounce of energy worrying about breast cancer and in the end I didn’t need to.

I went into the exam room, asked “Diane” if I was supposed to tie the robe in the front (which made sense but still caused a moment’s pause), laid down on the table and got a breast ultrasound. (They really love that jelly don’t they? We were dealing with a particularly small area, and still I needed two hand cloths to wipe myself down.) Within minutes she was able to see that it was a lymph node and all was well…

Except, the room had a sadness to it. All I could think of was that on that examination bed, in that tiny room, many women had received very different news. I’m sure many women hate that room. (I, myself, was grateful that this ultrasound was taking place in the Breast Care center and not in the radiology department where I first learned I was miscarrying.) Though Diane was very warm, this room was small and there was sad daytime radio playing. A husband or partner would barely be able to fit in there to hold a hand. I’m glad I don’t have to hate that room.

As uneventful as the breast ultrasound was (thankfully), it was still an event; my first beyond-the-hand breast exam, my first “lump.” Sitting in the waiting room, Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s words “Light tomorrow with today” on the wall, I realized just how significant this moment is for a woman, particularly for the one woman in the U.S. being diagnosed with breast cancer every three minutes and the one women who will die of breast cancer every 13 minutes (according to Susan G. Komen for the cure ®). I am fortunate that things went as they did, though keenly aware that I’ve entered a phase of life where statistics such as these resonate a bit more.

The second event, well…I wasn’t going to write about this one. I mean I really, really wasn’t going to write about this one because I’m pretty sure it falls under the category of TMIPBV (too much information promoting bad visuals), plus it's pretty effing embarrassing (even for me). But I can’t help myself. Too ripe.

Yesterday, I got sized for a diaphragm.

Rim Shot sound bite Cool Sounds sound bites

I told Jodi when I went in yesterday that my sisters had been busting my balls about the whole thing (Mattie said, “How thick is this thing---is it like a tire?”) and she said, “Were they calling you June Cleaver?” (No, they had not made that particular joke. Thanks, Jodi.)

I have always been anti-diaphragm for a reason based in staunch feminist principles: my mom had one. There are just certain things you don’t want to have in common with your mom.

But I was out of options. I loathe condoms and last winter when my estradiol level registered at below 10, the level of postmenopausal women, I hurried off my birth control pills and swore them off completely. Plus, I don’t buy organic, hormone-free meat and dairy products so I can ingest the hormones directly. I’m getting crunchy in my old age and I just want my body to perform at maximum capacity and have it do what it does without altering its natural processes. That said, I don’t want my body doing what it does with Dan’s body, to create a baby. I know that some would argue that my not having a child during these “child-bearing years" is going against my body’s natural processes. I understand this and will take the risk---and as I’ve read it, there are risks--- to settle what needs settling before baby-making.

I actually went into Jodi’s office last week planning to ask her about getting an IUD. While waiting, I sat in her office playing with the plastic Mirena uterus and trying to figure out how a miniature pogo stick could prevent pregnancy. I wasn’t crazy about the idea of an IUD. I don’t know much about it but the risk of a punctured uterus frightens me a bit, especially since my uterus has already been put through the wringer so to speak. I also don’t dig the idea of the heavy bleeding and cramping associated with the ParaGard IUD or the synthetic progesterone released from the Mirena IUD to combat those side effects. (These are the only two IUDs available in the U.S.)

But I had made up my mind to go for it anyway (what choice did I have?) until Jodi told me that getting an IUD was a good option if I was sure I didn’t want children for the next two years since it’s more of a long-term birth control solution, and I felt a surprsing pang of sadness. I know right now I want to wait to have children; I don’t know what I’ll want next year or even next month.

Jodi (being Jodi) understood my ambivalence and pointed me in the direction of the diaphragm. (“If you can get over that mom thing it might make sense,” she said.) The pros: It’s not a mood-breaker since it can be dealt with hours before and hours after, I’m not messing with my body’s chemistry and there’s a third reason but it involves the word sensation so I’m going to leave it out.

Another benefit is that there’s still a potential element of surprise associated with the diaphragm. MayoClinic.com says that it is 84% effective though this increases if used properly and consistently. I like the idea that the possibility exists that something could happen without my planning it---that’s part of the fun of getting pregnant, the buzz of being late and wondering what if. (Jodi also said that it takes the decision out of my hands a bit; there’s some element of the “universe” telling me what is supposed to be. This is exactly what I wanted---though I couldn't articulate it---and exactly why I love Jodi. She also said that the world wouldn’t be populated without these types of birth controls---“when it fails, it's because people aren't using it”--- which made me laugh.)

So I went and got sized which is something I could only ever do with Jodi (and maybe Justin Timberlake). For the most part she stayed out of the room while I got acquainted (though she did offer to take a picture for the blog). She also had me stand up and walk around to be sure it was comfortable which felt like when you take those awkward mini-walks in a shoe store to see if a shoe fits properly. (I was looking for the shin-high mirror.) Awkwardness out of the way (and I think we're mostly past that part of the blog as well), she went over the facts with me.

You use it with spermicide (a word that cracks me up as it conjures images of sperm genocide…and who doesn’t like a little genocide humor?) so at least there’s another line of defense. Plus, I’m going to do a little research on the whole “Family Planning” approach (sounds very Suze Orman) which involves things like Basal Body Temperature and knowing when the moon is in the seventh house and Jupiter aligns with Mars, I think.

While it is so very hard to admit that I will be using a diaphragm (I haven’t picked it up yet), I’m hoping that maybe I’m at the forefront of some cool, retro trend that is making a comeback like stretch pants and cocaine. At some point people are going to realize birth control pills (and store-bought meat that contributes to girls getting a set of Double D’s at age six) are not good for them. (Though this will be the end of profit-driven medicine---swine flu vaccinations, anyone?---and thus the end of life as we know it, but that’s another entry.)

Maybe I’m a trend(re)setter. Maybe soon women will be knocking down their gynecologists’ doors for diaphragms and lining up at midnight for the latest models. They'll be available in lots of neat colors and will come with jewel-encrusted cases! Apple® will introduce the iPhragm!

I’ll just sit back fanning the flame of a “pregnancy epidemic!” and lining my pockets. Just thinking of it gets me in the mood (for something to happen up to 6-8 hours from now).

The opposite of a case of the Mondays.

The World Trade Center Boston and part of Boston Bay. Not the best photo but all I had was my phone.

It’s 7:15am and I am in a Boston hotel room, seated in a chair which I’ve turned to face the window, my feet on the ledge, looking over Boston Harbor. We slept with the curtains open since the water is most of what’s out the window and all evening and into the overnight watched planes take off and land across the bay at Logan. I am watching Monday morning air traffic now; the planes of business travelers heading diagonally up into the sky and onward. Last night we watched all the little specks of light coming from each direction of the night sky make their way to the same spot in the air where the planes would line up and take turns landing. We watched as the specks, a common sight on any night, lowered and turned from indiscernible dots to winged planes as they sped down the runway. (A less common sight.)

That’s what happening out and across and up. Below me, trucks bearing company names like The Clam Man, Atlantic Coast Banquet and Constitution Seafoods are heading onto and parking along the fishing boat-lined piers. At first I thought I had missed the morning boat traffic (arriving late as I did at 7:15) but now I realize that this is a delivery point for the boats and these trucks are coming to pick up their share of the catch that came in overnight (hence all the boats that that weren’t docked when we went to bed last night being there now) to bring to restaurants and markets and wherever else fish is sold. A swarm of Seagulls gather in the sky over men driving forklifts, moving giant crates and packing the trucks. Whether there is an open-air fish market or some sort of regulatory process going on inside the long brick buildings which line the pier, I am unsure, but I would like nothing more than to go down and poke around. Out in the bay, fishing boats of all sizes are passing through, heading out to the Atlantic or wherever fishermen go on a Monday morning. (How I would love to observe the Monday morning routine of a fisherman.)

In the hotel lobby, travelers are getting their morning coffee and across the street suited men and women are heading into the World Trade Center Boston.

I am at this window, computer in my lap, latte on the table next to me doing one of my favorite things; watching a city wake up.

Dan was scheduled to stay in Boston last night in order to make an early conference at the Seaport World Trade Center this morning and when his co-worker bailed on staying the night, he asked me to join him. We arrived here in the late afternoon yesterday, still able to enjoy the 70-degree weather. We happened upon a Christmas Festival and sampled soups and dips and shared a cranberry pistachio scone as we walked the aisles of artists’ booths, homemade jewelry, food stalls, Christmas crafts and more. For dinner we had clam chowder, calamari served with hot pepper relish, sweet and spicy chicken lollipops and pulled pork sliders served on cornbread with a glass of wine (me) and a Dark ‘n Stormy (Dan). We ate early watching the sky darken over the water and caught the end of the Patriots game on TV. Tired from travel (we jaunted down to RI the day before and got the car fixed, my hair cut and saw relatives from both of our families in less than 24 hours), we headed up to our room and marveled at the fact that 5:15 feels like 10pm with the darkness coming so early. We both worked for a bit, watched a movie (Angels and Demons not Debbie Does Dallas), ordered a brownie sundae to the room and spent a night in a hotel Dan and Lola style.

I almost didn’t join Dan, feeling like I needed the night at home especially since sisters #3 and #4 and GBFFE (gay best friend forever extraordinaire, Mattie for the new readers---did you notice the member count is up to 18?!) are coming up today for a few nights. But I am so, so glad I didn’t pass up the opportunity to live a night and a morning and a day (I’m working here until 2pm) totally differently than every other. A Sunday night and a Monday morning are typically spent the same way, week after week. When I looked out the window last night and this morning, everything felt different and was different. I love that.

I love hotel living---new cities, sampling new shampoos, new views---and I would like it to make up a larger percentage of my life. Last night as Dan and I worked---me on my laptop, Dan on the hotel desktop---a Sunday night lineup of classical music on the radio, I realized I was living one of my fantasies for just a night. Part of the dream for me is that Dan and I travel around city to city on book tours, romping around by day, attending book discussions in the evening and having hotel slumber parties and writing by windows at night. Last night I got a taste of it. Glad I didn’t opt to just clean the apartment instead.

Dan and I headed down for breakfast before his meeting. When I got back I made the call, asking for a later check-out so I didn’t have to rush out. I’m planning to hang out in the room (it really is a great view) writing for the day. Maybe I’ll order some coffee, a little lunch. Maybe I’ll even see how Debbie’s doing in Dallas.

My favorite day of the year!

I so wish those were my legs.

Fill in the blank:

“Every time I go _________...”

“You fall more deeply in love?” Dan asked, correctly finishing my thought.

A) out to dinner with you
B) to the mall to visit that sweater I can’t stop thinking about
C) to the gym to visit that meat head I can’t stop thinking about
D) to get a Pap smear

I think you know the answer. Seriously, who walks out of a Pap smear appointment feeling this happy? I do, that's who. It's better than Christmas. I honestly walk out of the office smiling (and sometimes I even do that up-in-the-air heel clicking thing).

The reason for all this speculum-induced joy: my Nurse Practitioner, Jodi. (There are a lot of letters: CNM and MSN which I think a nurse practitioner, these make.)

During my many pre-marriage and uninsured years, I paid out-of-pocket to see Jodi---my only medical appointment of the year---because I loved and trusted her so implicitly at a time when I loved and trusted nobody implicitly. She is, quite simply, everything you would ever want in the person who will know you so intimately (and almost biblically). She is earthy and wise, she is kind and smart, she is respectable and respectful, she exudes peacefulness and compassion, and her hands are almost never cold. She can also take a good yoni joke (should you awkwardly and compulsively make them in times of unease) which is more than I can say for my dentist. Jodi is the reason I will only ever see Nurse Practitioners for any health-related issues (if I can help it) for the rest of my life. I feel a deep sense of gratitude, admiration and abiding warmth for her that I certainly never anticipated feeling for the person who brought stirrups into my life. In the beginning I had a crush; what I feel now, the majority of my twenties and a miscarriage behind us, is adoration.

After waiting for her in the exam room yesterday---fully dressed, no unnecessary nakedness or awkward paper gown time on her watch---we greeted each other with a kiss on the cheek and the warmest of hugs. One of Dan's most poignant memories of the day almost two years ago when an ultrasound told us that the baby I was carrying had stopped developing, is of the tender and lasting hug that Jodi gave me after we got the news. I hadn't even hugged Dan yet---I was in shock and unready to concede the circumstances hug-worthy---but I sank into Jodi's arms.

We sat down to talk yesterday as we always do at the start of these yearly appointments; both of us in chairs so there’s not that swinging-my-feet-off-the-exam-table, child-like feeling that sitting high up on deli paper always elicits in me. It felt like we talked for almost a half-hour---my life, hers; marriage, sex; IUDs, diaphragms; lumps, lymph nodes. I've never sensed a minute of condescension from Jodi despite my anatomical ignorance and naiveté. She listens and guides with warmth and calm.

"We've known each other a long time now," she said.

“10 years,” I said, though I realize now it’s only been eight. (My Jodi and Danniversary are the same. Coincidence? I think not.)

I was 20 when I first went in for an exam after a dear friend insisted I do so. She was stunned and a bit hostile about my not having had my gynecological cherry popped (sorry…couldn’t resist) despite the fact that I’d been having sex for a few years and was over 18, two of the markers which usually bring a girl in for her first lady-bits appointment. (Most girls who came of age in the 90s, as I did, made their way to the gyno or clinic early on because of the chance to score free condoms and hear an adult say 'oral.' The only time I had ever even heard the words Pap smear though---and by the way, doesn’t that sound like zit yield a Midwesterner wipes on the mirror?--- was during a strange interaction with my high school guidance counselor who asked me if I had had one yet. I was so freaked out to be having a conversation pertaining to my vagina on school grounds---not quite the stuff of college applications---that I just squirmed out of her office and hastily returned to class. After that, nobody ever brought it up so I figured I could just go about my business without anyone going about my business.)

I thought Pap smears were one of those things that you start doing after 40 like mammograms and anal. As far as a below the waist exam, my plan was to go when I…never. My plan was to go never. Nakedness (other than in the instance of airbrush spray tanning) is not good for me for so many reasons. This has always been and will probably always be. (In third grade, my mom told me that she would be taking me to the doctor to have a cyst on my chest looked at. My response was to cry hysterically and hide in my bedroom closet.) I honestly thought I could get through life without ever having a pelvic exam.

But, maturity and responsibility (and my bossy, loving friend) having their way with me, I ended up making the appointment because---why else?---I wanted to get on the pill. Jodi was recommended to me (as strongly as one would recommend a brownie sundae or taking a Latin lover) by my friend, Jenni, who had her as a midwife during her pregnancy. (She, too, was in love with Jodi and told me that although she would give me her number, “I’m still Jodi’s favorite go-go.” Jenni no longer sees Jodi, having left the immediate area, but I often call her after my appointments to rub it in express my gratitude to her for having shared Jodi with me.)

I sat in my car for a while before that first appointment, my stomach and chest sick and stiff with tenseness. My limbs were heavy and I felt anchored in my seat. I almost didn’t go in. I almost called from the parking lot to cancel. I remember being on the phone with Dan and getting totally irritated with him for wishing me good luck before the appointment. ‘Good luck’ is for lottery tickets and foot races, not for wishing someone well who is about to be invaded in the most personal way possible by a stranger. I truly thought that I would not be able to part my legs---like they would be stuck together in some sort of rigor mortar-esque way---or that if I opened them and Jodi started in, I would close them quickly, catching her hand between my knees like a bear trap. I didn’t think I would make it. I was fighting tears as I walked in, deeply fearful.

And then I met Florence Nightengina. Jodi was so gentle and sensitive to my obvious discomfort; so warm. She talked me through the whole thing, told me exactly what she was doing before she did it, and repeatedly asked me how I was doing. She has children around the same age as I and (being the mother-lover that I am) I immediately sensed and so appreciated her maternal vibe at a time when I felt so vulnerable. In the middle of the examination, my feet in the stirrups, Jodi needed to leave the room for a minute to get something. Rather than leaving me there exposed, she took my feet down and made sure I was well-covered. That care and seeming protectiveness pervaded the entire exam.

“Jodi, I’ll never forget the first time I came to see you,” I told her yesterday. “It was my first time. I was so terrified. So horrified. You made me feel so comfortable and safe.”

“I remember that day, too,” she said.

(Love. Her.)

That day and for years afterward, she sent me off after my visit with a small brown paper bag full of birth control pill sample packs, knowing that I didn’t have health insurance. A couple of years ago when I was thinking about becoming a mom and looking for ways to break through anxiety in preparation, Jodi introduced me to the work and ideas of Jon Kabat-Zinn. A year after that when I needed to get out of my head, she told me to take a hip-hop class, something I’ve always wanted to do (and still haven’t). Yesterday, she reassured me that I was making a wise decision when I told her that I wanted to wait for a firmer sense of readiness before having children despite the (mostly self-imposed) pressure that I feel about it. Though I rarely see her more than once a year, Jodi's effect on my life is rich and far-reaching.

I’ve often thought about becoming a nurse practitioner or going into midwifery because of my experience with Jodi. I would love to be in the position to pass the guidance and care that she has given me, on to other women. (Ultimately my strong sense of smell and the fact that I don’t really like touching people dissuaded me.) Still, I hope to live a life that allows me to comfort a scared 20-year-old now and then. Maybe for me, the pen is mightier than the speculum.

Maybe not…

Mellowsky Spew:

The Bookish?

Fuckish.

Dodgeball: A (really) True Underdog Story

Sent: Tuesday, November 03, 2009 12:42 PM

To: Dan Lederer

Subject: Exeter Parks & Recreation-ADULT DODGEBALL CANCELLED

Dear Participants,

Unfortunately we only received a small amount of registrations for the Adult Dodgeball program so we have had to cancel the program. We will try again for the spring session.

Thank You!

Exeter Parks and Recreation Department Staff

32 Court St

Exeter NH 03833Phone: 603-773-6151

Fax: 603-773-6152

http://town.exeter.nh.us/rec

Dan and I were both signed up for "Adult Dodgeball." Last night would have been our first session. RIP dodgeball dreams (and all that rich, rich blogging material). I guess we'll be taking that naked yoga class after all.

Due to the hour time change, it's not too late for a Halloween recap.

Every year, Dan and I spend Halloween night doling out candy at Bec's house so she, Jeff and Mol can go trick or treating as a family and don't have to be the one house in the neighborhood with the lights out. Usually Dan and I have a couple of beers and watch a movie---last year it was Young Frankenstein---in the breaks between doorbell rings. This year, however, it was a par-tay. While Bec and Jeff went out trick or treating with their friends and a gaggle of costumed nuggets, Dan and I stayed home again but this time enjoyed the company of Cherie and bro-in-law Pete, Katie, Gary and Savvy and nieces Sammy and Alex (who were the most mature ones there). It was a laugh 'til you hurt kind of a night.

After the kids got their candy and got past us



they then had to make it past Cherie, a Halloween spaz if ever there was,



who sat, limp like the stuffed dummy (Frank) next to her, and would then jump up and scare the shizzle out of every pirate and Sponge Bob who crossed her path. As the kids bent over the candy bowl digging through the pile of sweets for Reese's Peanut Butter Pumpkins, Pete would push a little button on a remote control and from a little speaker hidden behind the dummy would come the wildly realistic and unmistakable sound of a gigantic fart. The kids would just look at each other and then at us giggling as we would feign stomach pain and crack up under our masks.

A few times we put the candy bowl on the Frank's lap and Cherie would grab the kids' hands as they reached in for a piece of chocolate. It was pretty funny when some 12-year-old slasher boy would make Cherie and shoot a cocky, "I'm not afraid of you," barb her way. Cherie would then throw her body forward and give a simple, "Boo!" and the kid would literally jump back thrusting his candy bag forward as a shield. When you frighten kids like this, especially boys, their fear triggers this pissed off effect which is funny but also sort of sweet. Still vulnerable, those little guys.

(Last night when A-Rod got hit with the ball on his first at-bat and seemed totally pissed, Dan said it was the same reaction as those boys getting scared on Halloween. A-Rod was hurt---it was a friggin' fastball to the back---but rather than show hurt, he showed pissed. Interesting to me. Recently I hit my head so hard on a desk---while coming up from underneath it, don't ask---it made me cry but as Dan was right there and let out the slightest of laughs, this frustrated fury rose so quickly inside of me that I didn't talk to him for like 20 minutes. Maybe it's not just little boys...)

Scaring the tweens cracked us up but then we had to also laugh at ourselves, a bunch of 30-year old kids, giggling and pointing at 12-year-olds in fear. "Haha! You're scared!" we were basically saying. At some point a mother started marching up Becky's driveway and we were sure we were about to get our asses handed to us. Immediately I was 15-years-old again, heart beating out of my chest, ready to get in trouble and to try to talk my way out of it. We took off our masks and readied for it as the mom picked up her pace and headed towards us. (It was all I could do not to point at Cherie and say, "She did it!") But when she finally reached us she smiled and said her kid was too scared to come up so she just wanted to pick up his candy. "Oooooh," I said, feeling badly. "Take five pieces!"

Then as the mom walked away, Pete pushed his little button, a long fart stretched through the quiet night and the group of us of buckled over in laughter.

Once Bec and friends and all the kids (cracked out on sugar) came home, we all continued to gorge on both buffalo chicken and spinach and artichoke dip, chili, a cheese and cracker platter, cupcakes, apple pie (my contribution---homemade crust---holla!), and of course lots and lots of candy. (Dan's candy corn infused vodka was apparently pretty tasty straight-up but I only tried it in a cordial with Grand Marnier and sour mix.) It was as fun a Halloween as I've had in years.

(The last Halloween party I went to was when I was 19---really?!---and the guy I liked ended up hooking up with the party's host. Distraught, I had to get out of there and for the first and last time in my life, drove home drunk. (Not crazy drunk, but drunk.) Of course, I got pulled over. When the cop came to my window I started frantically talking to him about how I'm not from around here and I'm not really sure where I am and is this Rt.155? and I'm sorry my car is such a mess---empty cigarette packs everywhere---and it's been a rough night so I'm sorry if I was speeding.

He laughed at me and said, "Well it's clear you're not drunk so..." and he let me go.

That officer was so nice. I still feel badly about it.)

I'm glad to have replaced that memory, though.

At the end of the night Dan and I snuck out and took the golf cart---which they had procured for schlepping the kids through the hilly neighborhood---out for a spin. The dark streets were emptying and the rain and heavy winds were picking up. The piles of leaves were blowing around, hitting the golf cart windshield and the clouds parted to reveal a full moon. We heard a growling in the distance and it grew louder and louder until we realized it wasn't growling at all. It was...





a giant, juicy fart. Happy belated Halloweenie!

Chirl always made Halloween more fun. I think it was only a matter of months before she moved on to real cigarettes. (This is one of my favorite pics---the hand on the shoulder kills me---and what I hope will be my author picture in The Bookish. Can that count as my Melliterary Spew progress for this week?)

She still does.

"This is It" was finally it.

I can't believe I'm posting this.

With the grotesque media explosion that followed Michael Jackson' death in addition to all the legal controversy and money being made from every possible aspect of his passing, I was not much interested in seeing the movie. The fact that it came out so quickly did little to assuage my skepticism. Even terrible movies take years to make. How could this hastily produced film possibly be anything other than a sham tribute and a thrown-together mess? And could I really participate in what I perceived to be a we're-not-even-gonna-bother-veiling-it plan to capitalize on his death (by Halloween, lest the buzz of death fade!)?

However, Dan put it best when he said if we were willing to travel to London for the concert (as we of course planned and did …except for the concert part), we can certainly travel to Newington (20 minutes away) to see the movie.

At best I thought it would be a trashy E! True Hollywood Story deal hyped with a promise of NEVER BEFORE SEEN FOOTAGE which would undoubtedly disappoint. I didn't expect to lose my breath listening to Michael Jackson sing Human Nature as I’ve never heard it before at the movie’s start. I didn't expect to be in something like pain as I saw what this concert would have been. I didn't expect to be overcome with gratitude that this footage was captured.

Rather than the ever-pervasive faux reverence and manufactured Ta-da! effect which I’ve grown to expect whenever anyone brings up MJ’s name, mercifully, the movie strips the story down. It husks and discards the thick layers of controversy surrounding his childhood and his adulthood; his life and his death. What is left is the story of a man. He is a musician, a dancer, an artist. His talent is Divine. His faith is not in art but is art itself, which enables (compels?) him to realize visions beyond the imaginable. He's taken lovers of music to this beyond. He was planning to take them there again with a 50-concert series in London during the summer of 2009. “This Is It” is only that; 40 hours of the rehearsal footage boiled down to the length of a feature film.

The movie is a look at how he does it; an artist's process. It is watching the work, the actual labor behind Michael Jackson’s brilliance. Songs like Billie Jean and Man In the Mirror weren’t just born out of him in perfect form. The movie shows him shaping his vision. It is watching Michelangelo paint the Sistine Chapel. It is seeing Shakespeare, pages crumpled on the floor, scratching out the words, “O Romeo, Romeo, wherefore art thou Romeo?”

While we’ve grown accustomed to pop stars held up by teams of talented producers, musical directors, vocal coaches, and choreographers, whose output is as much these artists’ as it is mine, Michael Jackson’s work is Michael Jackson’s. There is no Michael Jackson machine---a staff of musicians who arrange everything and he need only show up. He is the machine. Though the aforementioned team of players is present, MJ is the one running the show. In fact, many of these music professionals working by MJ’s side admit that Michael knows his music better than anyone and it’s their job to keep up. He gently leads his musical director to the perfect tempo and key. When concert director Kenny Ortega (who also directed the film as well as MJ’s Dangerous and History tours) asks Jackson how, without a visual cue, he will know when to start a song that is to begin after a film introduction, Jackson says he’ll “feel it” and both Ortega and the audience has every confidence that he will. It is so evident that he is a channel; obvious that he has a clear vision but must patiently and tenderly lead his cast of dancers and musicians through its execution. He is direct, but he is also humble and polite as those around him agree.

It is exhilarating to watch him work. He beat boxes his way to a perfect arrangement. When dancers half his age are out of breath after a particularly energetic dance segment, Jackson wants to try it again. 45 years of performing under his belt and Jackson emphasizes the importance of rehearsal. (Is Britney Spears doing that?) From the look of it, the concert would have been incredible. Amazingly elaborate sets and 3-D technology. Accompanying films for Smooth Criminal and Thriller (the latter of which would have had Michael emerging on stage from the belly of a giant spider). Dancing that, even in this day of dance programming on every channel, I had never before seen. (When bits of this footage first started airing---a clip of him rehearsing “They don’t care about us” with dance steps drawn out in such a way so as to appear like MJ and his dancers are in slow motion--- I felt the deep throb of the loss of this concert I never saw.)

Michael says more than once that he is doing it “for love.” The work is all “for the love.” In an age where artistry is often second to celebrity, it is great to hear an artist of this magnitude still doing it for “the love.” Certainly reports have said that this concert series was MJ’s ticket out of financial ruin, but one need only watch this film to see that art, not money, was Michael’s driving force. Money is not fuel enough for what he was planning to do.

One of the most interesting parts of the film is watching Jackson’s transition from the shy and awkward man the world is used to into the self-assured man who becomes him when the music starts. His posture changes. His walk strengthens. He hears one note and he's in it. He can't help himself. His shoulders broaden, he grows taller. (I was shocked by how tall he seemed despite my knowing he was only around 5’10.) I’ll even say this: There is sexuality there. Like most great musicians and performers, there is passion and sensuality. There is a confidence that even I had forgotten Michael had.

Though the movie certainly depicts talent as close to magic as we’ve ever seen, I hesitate to call it a "celebration of his life," that red bow of a phrase with which exploitation is often wrapped. Did it allow me, a life-long fan, to celebrate him? Certainly. But it allowed others in the audience to snicker at his perfectionism; to laugh at the way his body contorts, how it throws him around the stage even as he only half-sings a song during rehearsal. (The power and energy that runs through him seems so strong at times that it pulses through his body causing even his wrists to buckle and his hands to flail into dance.) A less enamored eye than mine might have interpreted his “saving” his voice during run-throughs or his stopping mid-song to firmly explain how a certain pause must be held (in order for it to "sizzle,") as prima donna-esque. (I saw it as an artist’s commitment to himself, to his tool, to the music, to his fans.) In the film, Ortega is not showing a good or a bad side, just Michael Jackson at work.

I saw the movie on a night in which I was particularly consumed with doubt and it was absolutely restorative. It is nourishment for any artist or any person with a goal. With everything that has transpired in his career and life over the last 15 years, I was grateful to be able to feel what I first felt when I listened to Michael Jackson. His ballads are soul piercing and evoke a sense of togetherness and love and respect for the earth that were so much more accessible to me as a kid. Watching this movie I was transported the way I used to be while listening to him. I felt the hopefulness I used to know so well; when it all seemed as simple as talking to the man in the mirror in order to heal the world.

This Is It would be no less relevant, no less powerful, had Michael Jackson lived. Save a brief scroll of words at the movie's start, were MJ alive, the film could stand as is. It is the story of This Is It, the concert, without the tragic ending. But of course, outside the theater, the ending is tragic. The Michael Jackson principle dancers, a handful of gorgeous and exuberant young men and women who cheered at the foot of the stage during MJ’s rehearsals, lived their dream but only to a point. Dan and I never saw the concert (and gawd, did it look like it was going to be incredible). And the world never got to see Michael Jackson’s comeback.

I’m not so naïve that I’m unaware of the forces other than art that were at work in Michael’s life. A life has many influences. But it was nice for those two hours to see only his musical genius depicted because before anything else---before his death, before the drugs, before the scandals, before the Grammys, before Thriller, before Motown, before he was a five-year-old frontman for his brothers, he was art. He was born art.