Not since 2013 have I cringed through the hard pinch of knee pain like I am feeling now, since yesterday. Sprain or strain, repping the 1974-born. I bet it’s from carrying those bucketfuls of 1-3/4-2″ slate rocks for side shed’s floor, top dressing the fill gravel, foot-tamping each dumpload to level it and spread it around as evenly as possible. No swelling. And no popping or grave joint instability or other evidence of slippy tendons for being torn or over-stretched or both. Bends, will heal. #ninety
Tag: pain
Have Some Soup
A friend whose dad died not too long ago just the other day statused about how the loss of a parent ((((stuns)))) you with new base time, increments reset. If it had a sound, it would be the kind of droning low-tonal yawp-hum that would make clockfaces crack, gears melt, springs and innerworkings wrench and bend, digital and analog both, no matter. How long has it been since they died? How many week-months? How many day-years? Nevermind BCE, nevermind Christ’s West.
Apropos for a Monday, today makes twenty-one years since my mom died. It’s nothing to cake about. Seven-thousand-and-some days. 183,960 hours. An e-annotation+8 in seconds. Googling these figures, I learnt too there’s a country song about this duree, “Twenty One Years Is A Mighty Long Time,” but I didn’t listen to it. The Earth flips axes (re-begin your geocoding, GISers!), but you can figure out how to walk it right-side up, footfalls alternating, gravity adequate again. Even if it takes a defiant while. There are mysteries without shits to give about them. Like, I don’t know why I mark deathday this year. Who even cares! Mother’s Day was okay. Some years you really feel it on a birthday or Mother’s Day. Some years, deathday. Probably because of the moon. Wounds long-healing have good days, good hours, bad days, bad hours. For twenty-one years and probably for longer than that.
The Toothache
I need to call the dentist.
I don’t want to call the dentist.
Hand Torque
Smashed my right hand mightily and accidentally into another player’s chest during this afternoon’s REC/IM run. Didn’t suffer jammed fingers, exactly, but something more like a severe twist and wrench–or absurdist bend-back–of digits 3+4 such that I cannot make a clenched fist now and their base knuckles are awful with swelling. I pitied myself along the way back to Hoyt, but after I settled into my office chair and watched this, my banged-up hand felt better. (via)
Benga — Baltimore Clap from Tempa on Vimeo.
Fell Off Bike
One second I was on my bike. The next second I was off my bike.
I had no choice but to ditch it. Only, upon ditching it, I also turned
my ankle.
It went like this: Riding along on the grass as we exited the Barry Park playground
last evening, D. and Is. (in the tot-seat) ahead of me, I came upon a dip–a
three-foot rise from the park lawn to the road. Crept slowly, approaching
the dip. Rode up the dip. I had the strange feeling that the front tire
was lifting too much, like I was pulling a wheelie. But it touched down
again, and when it did, the front wheel lurched just enough to create a
momentary loss of balance. I was moving too slowly! So I tried
unsuccessfully to eject: I put down
my right foot, rolled my ankle, and belly flopped onto the bicycle and then onto
the ground where I came to rest part on the pavement and part on the gravel. A
bona fide, aww inspiring wipeout.
When the dust settled, Is. was explaining to D. that I just tipped right over.
When I could breathe again,
I got back on and finished the ride. The damages weren’t all that bad. Wind knocked out of me (and
today very sore ribs) from where the bike seat broke phase
one of The Fall, a badly bruised left palm, a scrape on my right forearm, and
mildly skinned knees. I’d say there were about the same number of witnesses as
when I took a spill on the
treadmill at the YMCA back in March. No other
falls to speak of in 2009, but there was a close call on a campus visit. By
"close," I mean that with coffee in one hand and a loaded computer bag
over the other shoulder I did a hard Charleston-style step on the ice (similar to what you’ll see when the playhead is at 0:29)
spilled coffee into the air, and then caught the coffee back in the cup
without any loss, regained my balance, and carried on with the short walk. It
wasn’t a fall, but it did have all of the excitement of a fall, none of the
pain or humiliation.
I’ve written about
bike
crashes here
before, but I intend to make this the last entry on the subject.