When KGAY TV does something, it may be half-assed but trust it’ll never be done by half-measures. Despite my best efforts.

To wit: I spent two full weekends on the couch.

Watching movies.

Psychotically.

In my defense, this was all to avoid watching the Twilight movies, but maybe I should have just taken a walk.

By Sunday on the first weekend, I felt bad about wasting the weekend on the couch, so I watched a pick me up movie: 13 Going on 30. That made me feel better, so I made myself a nice dinner and watched Peppermint while I ate. Disgusted by my accidental Jennifer Garner-palooza, I went to bed before I ended up watching Elektra.

The next weekend, determined to not repeat the sins of the prior weekend, I started out with a nice ride on the Peloton.

…and that’s the end of my accomplishments.

Somehow I ended up on the couch again. Wary of the prior weekend’s psycho binge-ing, I put Notting Hill on the TV while I cooled down and ate breakfast. The rationale was that I’ve seen this movie enough that I can turn it off halfway through without feeling deprived.

Once I finished the movie, I showered and sat down to write.

Nope. TV on again and equally accidentally I ended up watching Runaway Bride. It wasn’t until I caught myself thinking that I should watch the original Gere/Roberts pairing (Pretty Woman) midway through that I realized my mistake was already made: Julia Roberts double-header.

Dejected, I did some chores and then sat down with leftovers for dinner, determined to break the mold. My solution was to watch something more substantial. Not in the headspace for true crime or a documentary, I compromised and settled into the then-newly released Netflix biopic, Nyad.

I remembered Nyad being in the news when I was young. Most notably, her swim of the English Channel. I didn’t remember much about her Cuba swim other than it was an attempt. I remembered her Cuba: redux only inasmuch as it was a success.

Suffice to say, I was in for a deep dive (pun very much intended) on Diana Nyad.

Worst things first: the Nyad ‘do.

Dear sweet Jesus…get this woman a homosexual.

Next scene: Oh, she is a homosexual. Now it’s almost understandable.

We find out early in the show that Nyad and her best friend, Bonnie Stoll (played by Jodie Foster) were briefly lovers before their relationship segued into its lifelong friendship. This was handled in an interesting way, in my opinion. My experience has been the assumption of homosexuals having a close same-sex friend automatically being a relationship is usually a heterosexual presumption.

It’s a trope, don’t yell at me about it.

But here, they handle it as the same assumption, but by another lesbian…that Stoll steers Nyad toward. It’s the potential love interest that makes the assumption. Respectfully, so as not to end up the other woman or in a thruple situation – which is why this movie could never be about gay men. But let’s not get me started on those idiots.

Speaking of Jodie Foster, I was inordinately distracted by the thought, “What is up with her character’s wraparound glasses?!?” They (pictured above) are on in dang near every scene. And just what does that sartorial choice remind me of?

Turns out, though, that this is a very real representation of the actual person.

Stoll, not Bono. However, it turns out the glasses have a real purpose. For both. Bono has glaucoma, which makes his eyes sensitive to light, hence the ever present tinted lenses. Stoll, on the other hand, had been a professional racquetball player and her large specs likely started out as eye protection. I assume they morphed into prescription lenses by the end of her career and then just stuck. It’s not mentioned in the movie and I found nothing to explain it on a cursory search of the web, so I’m just assuming.

Not that I wasn’t enjoying the movie, but this was my mindset – distracted, perhaps desperately trying to feel productive after the past two weekends – as I watched. Which is how we ended up back at Nyad’s haircut. Just like Stoll’s glasses, its horror reminded me of something. Then it hit me:

Fucking Spike from Notting Hill the day before! I love that I got a pic of him in a wetsuit – even though it doesn’t show off the hair as best it could.

Next scene:

Well, I’ll be a motherfucker…the actor that played Spike in Notting Hill played a fairly large part in this movie, too. So much for free will. Guess I was meant to spend the past two weekends in movie rabbit holes. It was preordained…I’m just a victim.

Mental misfires aside, I truly learned a lot about this feat and the person and the team behind the effort. I don’t want to give away too much, but about 45 minutes in, the swim is underway and I didn’t really see how they stretched a ~70 hour endeavor into another ~75 theatrical minutes…and that’s where my learning began.

At the end, I’m not gonna lie: I was crying. Triumph of the human spirit and all.

But the experience of seeing the movie elevated Nyad to a new level for me. Instead of some obscure sports figure, she became an example of determination.

A pioneer. A survivor. An unsung hero.

Good for her.

If you haven’t watched it, maybe do. Because I’m not telling you any more – except they all die at the end.

Oh, alright…they don’t all die at the end! And as I sit here writing this, I have a heightened awareness that I have crossed the mid-point of my 50s. This movie picks up Nyad at her 60th birthday. She comes to it with a determination to finish something she’d left undone in her past.

And that’s maybe my real lesson here. Not the history lesson into something I was only tangentially aware of, no. Rather that things that I didn’t accomplish when I was younger don’t have to stay that way. That’s something for me to chew on as I careen toward the inevitable.