What the Dooce?

I’ve decided to join the thousands of other bloggers and chime in on the Dooce situation. I’m not one of the mean commentators who is laughing maniacally at this, saying I saw it coming. I didn’t. Or if I did, I didn’t want to. I feel sorry for both Heather and Jon. I feel sorry that their separation is happening so painfully publicly. Of course, the fact that they have both worked from home for several years, bought their dream home, and have sponsors pay them to design their dream home with sponsor products is a result of making their lives so public. So yes, while they want privacy for themselves and their children in this difficult time, it’s hard for the public, especially their readers, to give them that luxury. Their readers are screaming, “We bought you your house! Tell us why you’re separating!!” (Those exclamation points are for Dooce. You’re welcome!)

I hate divorce. It’s that simple. I hate that it happens, and I hate that people cause it. Infidelity, conflict, “irreconcilable differences,” it doesn’t matter (I will put abuse in an entirely justified category—that’s not what I’m addressing here).

One reason it bothers me so much is that it’s so popular and trendy to say you’re “marrying your best friend.” Yes, I probably said that. Heather and Jon said that. Everyone says it. It’s cute and hip to marry your best friend. Does that mean you divorce your best friend? Or do they stop being your best friend before that point?

I’ve had a ton of conflicts, jealousy, anger, etc. toward my best friends from both high school and college. And yet, they’ve never stopped being my best friend. I don’t think we could ever have “irreconcilable differences.” If we had them, we never would have become best friends in the first place.

Back to Heather and Jon Armstrong. I hope this is just a separation and not divorce. However, it’s not looking that way. Jon is buying furniture, having their children (oh, those poor, sweet children) sleep over at his apartment. He’s looking for a new job, getting seriously into photography. Would he go back to Heather if she asked? Just for the kids—or would he want to?

The man is amazing. He’s dealt with his wife’s mental illness, book deals, travel schedule, launch into internet fame—while working quietly behind the scenes to keep her incredibly successful website up and running smoothly, while simultaneously putting up with a woman with a certified mental illness. And having their entire relationship broadcasted on her blog.

If the Armstrongs were to divorce, I would have thought it would have been after Heather checked herself into a mental hospital for post-partum depression and suicidal thoughts, way back in the mid-2000s. Instead, he brought their infant daughter to see her every day, despite battling his work for the time off. Heather was a stay-at-home mom (or work-at-home mom) then, with an infant. And she contemplated hanging herself with a dog’s leash in their garage. She had a serious mental illness and needed help. But if there was ever a time to leave someone, Jon could have made his break. She was endangering his daughter!—he could have walked away then. But he didn’t. He stayed, which is what made all of us think they really could last forever.

I’ve been reading Dooce, and occasionally Jon’s blog at Blurbomat, on and off since high school. I feel like I know them. I feel like I’ve grown up with them, and this separation feels as real as if a friend was facing this. Of course, I’m dying to know the details--any reader who says they aren't is lying. Obviously we're obsessed with reading intimate details of the lives of people we've never met--of course we're interested in your scandal!

So what did he do so wrong? They will likely never tell us, but I’m much more interested in that than Heather’s current saga of growing out her hair.

So for the love of sweaty goat balls, tell us already!!!!!!!

50/50

My personal interaction with cancer began years ago, and it’s been part of my life ever since. I was in middle school when my grandma first became sick with the disease, and she’s battled it several times since then. There have been good times when cancer remains in its small corner. Other times, it occupies almost every thought, every day. And thinking about it makes my throat hurt, makes my mouth taste like it’s full of pennies. Hearing, talking, or thinking about cancer hurts.

Despite this, the film 50/50 interested me from the first time I saw a preview. A dramatic comedy about cancer—is that even possible? Joseph Gordon-Levitt is a fantastic actor who stole my heart in 1999 in 10 Things I Hate About You. He was pitch-perfect in (500) Days of Summer. And of course, he was the true acting genius of Inception. Seth Rogen (who plays Gordon-Levitt’s best friend Kyle), on the other hand, makes me want to scratch my eyes out. I would love-hate the stars in this movie. It really would be 50/50.

And of course the cancer theme. Could it be portrayed in a real, authentic way? Would the directors, actors, producers really understand what cancer is all about—not just the disease itself, but they were attempting to capture the life around cancer—from the point of view of the person with cancer, to the best friend, the girlfriend, the therapist, the mother. Each has his own stake in this life; each suffers differently. What if they didn’t get my view of cancer right?

For the entire movie, I felt the pennies in my mouth. I wanted to cry the whole time—I wanted to break down as I watched Joseph Gordon-Levitt get skinnier, paler, with darker circles under his eyes. He lost his hair—he lost so much—and it was so real. Because he remained so calm. And maybe that’s not how everyone fights cancer. But that’s how I fought my grandma’s cancer. I never let it boil over—just kept pushing it down, just kept swallowing the feeling that there is nothing you can do.

And then, he breaks. Joseph Gordon-Levitt’s character Adam finally breaks. He gets into drive Kyle’s (Rogen) car (although he doesn’t have a license and doesn’t ever drive) because Kyle is drunk. He’s a bad friend who’s been using Adam’s cancer to get girls. And Adam drives furiously the wrong way down a one-way, driving too fast, and finally, Kyle yanks the emergency break and halts the car. Adam orders him out, and then loses it. He screams, yells, smacks the steering wheel console. It’s a raging moment, bordering on ridiculous and crazy. And it’s one of the most real moments in cinema. He’s having life-threatening surgery the next day, and he finally admits he just wants everything to be over. He’s tired of being sick.

There’s a subtle moment in the next scene where Adam gets Kyle to bed. He’s in Kyle’s bathroom where he finds a dog-eared book, with underlined and highlighted sections, Facing Cancer Together. It’s a good moment, a renewed hope in their friendship, and a look at the silent pain of a best friend.

Angelica Houston as Adam’s mother is brilliant. It’s almost painful to watch her incredibly real portrayal of a woman dealing with both a husband with Alzheimer’s Disease and her young son with only a 50/50 chance of survival.

There’s so much pain in this film, so much real-life pain, as it was developed by screenwriter Will Reiser, who was diagnosed with a rare spinal cancer at age 24. His real-life best friend, Seth Rogen, helped him cope with the disease by coming up with ideas for comedies about cancer. 

The entire movie is a play on the title 50/50, Adam’s initial survival rate. It’s half charming and funny and half heart-wrenching. Reiser had explained the film doesn't make fun of cancer itself, but instead finds humor in how people close to cancer patients react to their diagnosis.

“For myself and everyone involved, the most important thing was to be true to the characters and make it feel honest,” Reiser told Indiewire. “Anything that felt like it wasn't real, we would cut. We didn't really sit around and think about what other movies had done. We thought about what was honest in this world we created.”

And then the real-world application. Brett and I watched together, laughing out loud through several scenes, quietly inflecting during others. And of course, both pondering How would we react? Adam, as real-life Reiser, received this diagnosis at 24. I’m 24. And that’s the beauty of life—the imperfection, the fragility, the unexpected. Every day, every single one of us is living with the 50/50.