The Luna Park Gazette

Okay, I admit it: I actually enjoyed “The Shape of Water.” This may sound like an admission of defeat, but I am happy to wave the white flag and confess that while I was all set to thoroughly detest Guillermo del Toro’s Oscar-winning film —and write a vicious post about it—the director’s incredible vision triumphed over his soggy storyline. I’ve been a huge del Toro fan ever since I saw “ Cronos ” in 1993 and “ Pan’s Labyrinth ” was so beautiful I was sobbing in the theater while the credits rolled. This probably explains why the people in my row were filing out so quickly, but I was too busy wiping the tears away to pay much attention to them. Lately, however, I’ve been quite disappointed with del Toro’s work. I thought “ Crimson Peak ” was a half-hearted hack job and his television show “ The Strain ” was so appropriately named that it hurt. It was indeed a strain to watch that dog and I eventually threw in the remote. The coming attractions for the “The Shape of Water” didn...

I used to work with a guy who had a healthy attitude about tax time. “I’m going home to do my taxes,” he told me one evening, “so if I get struck by a bolt of lightning, you’ll know why.” I could use a little bit of humor now. I’m slowly getting my tax papers together, so I can shoot them over to my accountant before an Internal Revenue SWAT team kicks in my door and hauls me off to Gitmo. Or wherever the hell they take (relatively) honest mathematically-challenged Americans. I’ve never been good with numbers, especially when it involves the government, potential prison time, and righteous streaks of lightning. Keeping track of bills and receipts is also another financial blind spot for me. Do you seriously expect me to hold on to a piece of paper from last February? And, as spring follows winter, I make my annual oath that this will never, absolutely never happen again; that I will keep track of every single tax-related expenditure and hand my CPA a coherent presentation of...

I stood on the landing outside my apartment and got ready for my big moment. I was pretty nervous even though Ayman, my physical therapist, was standing right in front of me, ready to spring into action should anything go wrong. This was an important step for me, literally and figuratively. I was about to walk down a flight of stairs. Last week I ditched the leg braces and now I was going to walk down from my third-floor apartment to the first floor by just…walking. I wasn't going to rely on the stiff-legged sideways crab climb that I've been doing since December. No, I was going to use my poor battered knees to carry me up and down. I can't begin to calculate how many times I've been up and down these stairs in the years I've lived here. I never counted the steps, I never really paid attention to what I was doing because walking up those stairs was effortless. Until it wasn't. But in my current condition, the stairs looked like as scary as Mount ...

I stood under the shower for so long on Saturday morning I wasn't sure if I'd ever come out. My doctor told me last week that I don't have to wear my leg braces around the house anymore. I've been taking full body washes in front of the sink since December, which really don't cut the mustard when it comes to coming clean. I know it's wrong to waste water, but after feeling that heavenly H2O raining down on me after all those sponge baths, I just didn't want it to end. In sports, being sent to the showers means you're being yanked off the field, but I felt like I was slowly returning to the game. So, after three months of clunking around like the Tin Man in my Velcro leg irons, I can now stand on my own two feet-literally. No more wrapping and unwrapping my legs every time I have to do my morning stretch routine. I'm free. It still feels strange, walking around without artificial support. My legs are still so thin that I was afraid they wou...