Back to school. And ethernet, which should facilitate my not being stupid. Stupid being a code-word for afraid-of-going-on-the-internet/lazy/ignoring changes in myself/anything else. To make it easier. Which I just negated.
Back to wondering how I just got microwave Indian food on my shirt from the full distance of one foot. (I am never really away from this kind of experience, actually.)
Back to doing things with my days other than selling shoes and sleeping and occasionally eating with my boyfriend.
And hopefully back to writing. I was so proud of myself for having actually kept a diary for more than a week. I hope I can be proud of myself again.
The big news around here is that one week ago today, precisely a day after I'd moved back into dorms, and while I was feeling exceptionally mature and self sufficient, I managed to break my ankle. So now I'm on crutches, exhausted and in pain a lot of the time, and exceptionally un-self-sufficient.
See, I bought these skate shoes. You know, the shoes with the skates in them? So you can wear them as shoes or as skates -- exercise, speed, and fashion too! You've seen them on kids. Or at least on commericals aimed at kids. And so had I, priced at around eighty dollars. So when I saw them, then, at the grocery store, of all places, staring out at me for a mere twenty-five, I figured this seemed like a pretty good bargain. This was the answer to what I was going to do about having to walk twenty minutes every time I wanted to get to my car. This was the solution to the problem of having to walk twenty minutes to get to the performance space As You Like It will be in later this year. It was gonna be great. So I bought them.
Later that day, I've dropped my groceries off at home, driven my car back to outer siberia (otherwise known as the twenty-minutes-away parking lot), and, skate shoes tied on my feet, I'm ready to make a go at learning to use these things. I'm pretty unsteady, but I make it around the parking lot a little, down the hill beside the lot, and to the nice, long, straight strech of sidewalk that will, basically, take me home. At which point my right foot slips onto the grass, my right ankle twists back and around, I hear a horrible, terrible cracking sound, and I'm flat on the ground hoping to god it's just twisted.
It wasn't, and after trying to stand up and hearing and even more horrible grinding/bone-moving sound and realizing that I was close to fainting, or throwing up, or both, from what turned out to be an incredible amount of pain (I hadn't previously realized that's what it was), I accepted the help of an incredibly nice girl who drove me to the hospital. (Or rather, to get a nice guy named Mike to fetch my wallet from my room and then drive me to the hospital.) She turned out to have trained as an EMT, so was a good person to have along in such a situation. Nick came to the hospital, they did what they needed to do to me, and I came home at around one a.m.
Incidentally, my near neighbors in the ER turned out to be interesting. One was a man who was apperantly in custody, judging by the two officers, the handcuffs he had on at one point, and the police van outside. What was interesting about him, though, was that during the hours that I was there, he took no less than seven showers. I guess showering seemed more interesting than just waiting around. The nurses would come calling for him and someone would say "he's in the shower." And they'd ask "again?" And the answer would be yes.
The other man, whom they eventually moved me away from, came in shouting about having had three heart attacks. He thought he was having another. The doctors came in and gave him some medicine and then left again. He began shouting for a nurse, but no nurse came. I got worried that something was happening to him and called someone who I think was a doctor over.
"I think the man next to me needs help," I said.
She shook her head. "No. He's drunk. We've seen him before."
"Oh," I said. "I was just worried he was having a heart attack or something."
"He probably is," she said. "But he gets beligerant, so we leave him alone until we're ready to do something with him."
I thought it was sad. He wasn't beligerant while I was there. Just drunk.
So now I'm on crutches and in a cast. Which isn't easy. For someone of my strength, or rather, lack thereof. The first day I really went out I thought I was going to die. It's probably the most physically demaning day I've ever undergone.
I live on the third floor, for one thing, in a building with no elevator and very steep steps. Which is about the least convenient place for a person on crutches to live, unless it's the fourth floor. So every trip up or down the stairs takes five minutes and extreme exertion.
Besides which it's been very hot, and though I'm not normally succeptible to heat, I haven't dealt well with it in this situation. I've been getting better, and I'm praying for the day when I realize those muscles have really kicked in and I'm not ready to collapse after every trip somewhere, but it's still really, really hard. I'm exhausted every time. There's no way I can get anywhere much farther than a ten minute crutch-walk. Tomorrow is my farthest-away walk to class.
So I've been kind of discouraged. I know I shouldn't be. Thousands of people use crutches every day. They're born needing to develop the extra strength to deal with bodies that aren't like other people's. Besides which, people I know break their bones all the time. But I've never broken mine, and not being an athelete at all, I think it is pretty hard for me. But I'm trying not to just write off doing things. And not to want my parents too much. But it's hard.
I'm going forward with the play, of course. Auditions are Friday (eep!), and I've got to get a space for us to rehearse in. I've got a set designer now (hooray!), who's already giving me wonderful ideas, and a script printed up and an audition sheet and, of course, lots of ideas. But I still get the feeling I'm going to be flying by the seat of my pants a lot. But I'll deal. I hope.
Back to wondering how I just got microwave Indian food on my shirt from the full distance of one foot. (I am never really away from this kind of experience, actually.)
Back to doing things with my days other than selling shoes and sleeping and occasionally eating with my boyfriend.
And hopefully back to writing. I was so proud of myself for having actually kept a diary for more than a week. I hope I can be proud of myself again.
The big news around here is that one week ago today, precisely a day after I'd moved back into dorms, and while I was feeling exceptionally mature and self sufficient, I managed to break my ankle. So now I'm on crutches, exhausted and in pain a lot of the time, and exceptionally un-self-sufficient.
See, I bought these skate shoes. You know, the shoes with the skates in them? So you can wear them as shoes or as skates -- exercise, speed, and fashion too! You've seen them on kids. Or at least on commericals aimed at kids. And so had I, priced at around eighty dollars. So when I saw them, then, at the grocery store, of all places, staring out at me for a mere twenty-five, I figured this seemed like a pretty good bargain. This was the answer to what I was going to do about having to walk twenty minutes every time I wanted to get to my car. This was the solution to the problem of having to walk twenty minutes to get to the performance space As You Like It will be in later this year. It was gonna be great. So I bought them.
Later that day, I've dropped my groceries off at home, driven my car back to outer siberia (otherwise known as the twenty-minutes-away parking lot), and, skate shoes tied on my feet, I'm ready to make a go at learning to use these things. I'm pretty unsteady, but I make it around the parking lot a little, down the hill beside the lot, and to the nice, long, straight strech of sidewalk that will, basically, take me home. At which point my right foot slips onto the grass, my right ankle twists back and around, I hear a horrible, terrible cracking sound, and I'm flat on the ground hoping to god it's just twisted.
It wasn't, and after trying to stand up and hearing and even more horrible grinding/bone-moving sound and realizing that I was close to fainting, or throwing up, or both, from what turned out to be an incredible amount of pain (I hadn't previously realized that's what it was), I accepted the help of an incredibly nice girl who drove me to the hospital. (Or rather, to get a nice guy named Mike to fetch my wallet from my room and then drive me to the hospital.) She turned out to have trained as an EMT, so was a good person to have along in such a situation. Nick came to the hospital, they did what they needed to do to me, and I came home at around one a.m.
Incidentally, my near neighbors in the ER turned out to be interesting. One was a man who was apperantly in custody, judging by the two officers, the handcuffs he had on at one point, and the police van outside. What was interesting about him, though, was that during the hours that I was there, he took no less than seven showers. I guess showering seemed more interesting than just waiting around. The nurses would come calling for him and someone would say "he's in the shower." And they'd ask "again?" And the answer would be yes.
The other man, whom they eventually moved me away from, came in shouting about having had three heart attacks. He thought he was having another. The doctors came in and gave him some medicine and then left again. He began shouting for a nurse, but no nurse came. I got worried that something was happening to him and called someone who I think was a doctor over.
"I think the man next to me needs help," I said.
She shook her head. "No. He's drunk. We've seen him before."
"Oh," I said. "I was just worried he was having a heart attack or something."
"He probably is," she said. "But he gets beligerant, so we leave him alone until we're ready to do something with him."
I thought it was sad. He wasn't beligerant while I was there. Just drunk.
So now I'm on crutches and in a cast. Which isn't easy. For someone of my strength, or rather, lack thereof. The first day I really went out I thought I was going to die. It's probably the most physically demaning day I've ever undergone.
I live on the third floor, for one thing, in a building with no elevator and very steep steps. Which is about the least convenient place for a person on crutches to live, unless it's the fourth floor. So every trip up or down the stairs takes five minutes and extreme exertion.
Besides which it's been very hot, and though I'm not normally succeptible to heat, I haven't dealt well with it in this situation. I've been getting better, and I'm praying for the day when I realize those muscles have really kicked in and I'm not ready to collapse after every trip somewhere, but it's still really, really hard. I'm exhausted every time. There's no way I can get anywhere much farther than a ten minute crutch-walk. Tomorrow is my farthest-away walk to class.
So I've been kind of discouraged. I know I shouldn't be. Thousands of people use crutches every day. They're born needing to develop the extra strength to deal with bodies that aren't like other people's. Besides which, people I know break their bones all the time. But I've never broken mine, and not being an athelete at all, I think it is pretty hard for me. But I'm trying not to just write off doing things. And not to want my parents too much. But it's hard.
I'm going forward with the play, of course. Auditions are Friday (eep!), and I've got to get a space for us to rehearse in. I've got a set designer now (hooray!), who's already giving me wonderful ideas, and a script printed up and an audition sheet and, of course, lots of ideas. But I still get the feeling I'm going to be flying by the seat of my pants a lot. But I'll deal. I hope.
Labels: being dumb, bodies, theatre
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