Being the samurai on the wide screen seems like an amazing life, but it takes a lifetime of devotion and practice to get to that ninety minutes that builds to the dramatically structured fight scene on that majestic hill.   The movie culminates in your death by sword, a death you don’t fear, a death you face with honor.  Then the credits roll and they ship your organs to recipients within a helicopter ride of that hilltop in ancient Japan.

For guys like me, though, the closest I come to being that samurai is trying to remain stoic after a blade has slashed my abdomen.

“Oh please!” says Sekhnet, flashing her eyes, then rolling them.

Easy for her to say.  She’s never felt that stitch across the abdomen where there never was one, three weeks after the surgery to correct what was once a minor annoyance.

“Please,” she says, “I’ve had more surgeries than anyone you know.”  And she’s right, I don’t know Dick Cheney, and my mother, who probably had as many, passed away in 2010.

But if you will excuse me, I have to get back to practicing.  And remaining stoic.