You don’t know what you have ‘til it’s gone. I’ve never had any diseases or compromising ailments or chronic issues, and I don’t have a damn thing wrong with me now except for what happened five days ago. I’ll maybe succumb to a fever now and then, but otherwise I’m bullet-proof. Been that way all my life. But now, right now, I’m living in a kind of prison, a recuperating-from-surgery purgatory. First-rate digs, all the comforts and I love my Sony 4K HDR 65-incher, but I’m still behind bars in a sense.

I can walk around and drive and do whatever, but I’m saddled with plastic drainage tubes, a potato-sized neck swelling under my left-side jaw, surgical staples, a certain amount of stiffness and pain, etc. And I have to carry around a Prevena 125 device and a plastic liquid-deposit balloon. Some of the staples are being removed on Tuesday, the 11th; the remainder will be removed on Tuesday, 12.18. This too shall pass and blah-blah but for the time being it’s a trial.

At least I’ve got imminent Manhattan screenings of The Mule and Amazing Grace — that much to look forward to.