Saturday Afternoon Report

Let me preface this by saying I am well aware that (a) most people who come to this site care about few things less than they care about my knee problems and (b) I have a pretty minor medical concern compared to what some folks are enduring. But since I am getting a lot of e-mails asking how I'm doing and since it saves time to say it here rather than over and over in private messages…

I'm doing okay. I had the surgery on Monday and went in yesterday so the doctor who did it could inspect his handiwork. It's healing a lot slower than I'd hoped/expected and today, it's a hair worse than yesterday. But overall, I think it's moving in the right direction and I start Physical Therapy as soon as the Physical Therapist can wedge me into his schedule.

Basically, my knee just hurts. On a scale of one-to-ten with "ten" being having each of the Rockettes high-kick you, one by one in the crotch and "one" being watching Peter Lawford perform "The Age of Aquarius," I'm at about a four, occasionally trending to a five. But that's really only when I put any weight on it. Sitting here at the computer, I'm fine as long as I don't flex too rapidly. Going down stairs is like a six but doesn't last long. I have Norco but I refuse to take it until the Rockettes come by. I have taken a few doses of Ibuprofen or the generic version of Aleve. That's about the limit of my drug-taking and I'm not even all that comfy with that.

I'm sure it will get better. Right now, the big question is if it'll impair my Comic-Con International experience. I still intend to be there July 18-21 and to preside over 72,000 panels or however many they have me doing. I just don't expect to hike as many miles as I usually do and may even have to call upon the con's squadron of dedicated wheelchair-pushers to get me from hotel to convention center and back again to hotel. The goal is to not need that.

I keep thinking of the late Julius Schwartz, the great comic book editor who left us in 2004. Julie loved being at the Comic-Con and I'd thought nothing, but nothing could keep him away. Then in June of 2003, a month before that year's San Diego get-together, Julie called me. "I don't think I can make it to the con this year," he said. "I'm having too much trouble walking and that convention center is so big. Just to get anywhere…"

"So we'll put you in a wheelchair," I said. "The con has volunteers who love to push people around and wait on them."

"I don't want to be in a wheelchair," he proclaimed. "Old men are in wheelchairs."

I said, "Julie, you just turned 88. You are an old man! What are you waiting for? Your bicentennial?"

He laughed but spent the next ten minutes telling me it was undignified to be in a wheelchair. A wheelchair meant you were helpless. A wheelchair was unbecoming. A wheelchair made you seem like some feeble sick person, dependent on everyone around you. No, under no circumstances, would Julius "Living Legend" Schwartz appear at the convention in a wheelchair.

I said, "How about if we check out all the volunteers and get you the woman with the largest breasts to push you around?"

He thought a second and said, "That might work."

A month later, it worked in that it got him there. I saw Julie, I saw the wheelchair and I saw the woman with large breasts they'd selected to push the wheelchair…but I never actually saw Julie in the wheelchair. Several people, however, told me they saw him pushing the wheelchair and the large-breasted woman was seated in it.

That's my Saturday Afternoon Report. Tune into this space tomorrow for another Tale of My Father — the story of how he helped break up one of the largest car theft rings in Southern California. I'll be posting it tomorrow morning. That is, if my computer and I don't melt.  It's about 90° here…obviously the result of letting gay people marry.