Monday, January 28, 2008

baby toe blues

So, as most of you are now aware, i have been incapacitated by the absolute smallest digit on my body: my baby toe. well, technically, it's not the smallest any more, as it's swollen to goliath proportions, making the new smallest digit the baby toe on my right foot. the worst part is, the story's not even very good. but i'm going to tell you anyway. here goes:

saturday was the infamous Idiotarod Race, an annual January event in New York in which teams sign up to dress up like absolute fools and race with shopping carts. The idea is that they steal the carts, and then decorate them according to a "theme." they then wear as little as possible (especially if they're men, eg, the "chip and dale" team last year who sported only black bikini bottoms, bow ties, and running shoes), and show up at the starting line, without a clue about where the checkpoints or finish line are. they are given this information one step at a time, that is, the location of the first checkpoint at the starting line, the second checkpoint at the first check point, and so on. Don't get your hopes up. I was not in the race, wearing skimpy clothes, or run over by a shopping cart. As a jeerleader for the local roller derby team, i was at checkpoint one, forcing these excited, drunk voyeurs to do dizzy lizzies while they waited to be released from the checkpoint. The whole thing started when my friend, Lady Copafeel, dressed as a cop (as usual) and soliciting bribes for a free pass outta jail (erm, checkpoint), sauntered over carrying two red plastic cups.

"Mystery blue juice or beer?" she asked, a baby doll with a hole drilled through it's belly tucked under her arm. All bribes.

"Hmm," i said, contemplating. "Gimme the mystery juice."

Several "bribes" (swigs out of airplane booze bottles, a beat up can of PBR, and a slightly dirty jellow shot) later, i found myself, Miller Lite in hand, slightly intoxicated.

"Let's go grab a drink before we head home," another jeerleader suggested cheerfully. She had a legit reason, yes, besides drinking, so we headed to the nearest drinking establishment and had another beer.

By the time i got home around 5, i hadn't eaten all day and was relatively liquored up. My roommate was about to start watching "Sweeney Todd" as I walked in and took off my shoes by the door.

"Oh, oh, wait for me!" I yelled as i ran into my room. That's when it happened. i misjudged the space between my bookcase and the wall and SMACK, ran my baby toe full force into the corner of the solid wood bookcase.

"Fuck. fuck. fuck. fuck." i limped back to the living room. Now, i am no stranger to running into furniture. i currently have two rather large bruises on my legs of unknown origin that appeared after i went out for beer, tequila, and air hockey last wednesday night. i assumed i had jammed my toe. after all, i've been informed by a medical professional that i have "benign hypermobility syndrome," which basically means i'm uber-flexible--good if you're my boyfriend, bad if you're my joints and you're attached to my clumsy self. that is, i've been spraining ankles, toes, and fingers for practically as long as i've had them.

now, i would like to say, for the record, that i did not cry. i put ice on my toe. i watched it turn red, then blue, then purple. i grimaced and took a percocet when the pain reached astronomic levels. i was vaguely morbidly interested in the weird way it was bent and in the interesting swelling (more on one side of the toe than the other). When my boyfriend arrived that night, he took one look and said, "It's broken. Let's go."

"Where?" i said.

"The emergency room. Come on."

"No. No, it's fine. it's just, it'll be better tomorrow."

"You can't even walk on it." This was true. i was walking on my heel.

I convinced him that i would go to the doctor on Monday, and we settled in to watch "Elizabeth: The Golden Age." It's a good thing we settled in; that bitch is like three hours long. good, though. very good. Sir Walter Raleigh is hot.

Sunday morning I woke up in pain. This pain wasn't the sharp, stabbing, "i want to cry but i'm a big girl" pain of the night before. this was more of a throbbing, aching, "make it stop or i'm going to cut it off" pain. I was calm as i tried to walk to the bathroom and realized it was not better, but worse. I looked at this purple, swollen mess objectively, noting that my baby toenail was almost completely obstructed by the swollen flesh surrounding it. I got online to see if there were any 24-hour clinics i could go to. Zero. In the largest city in the country. Zero clinics. Fuck. I was at the end of my rope. I did what any independent 25-year-old professional would do. I called my mom.

"Hey, baby doll," she answered cheerfully. I immediately started crying.

"I hurt my toe," i practically wept into the phone.

"Oh, no. What happened?"

I told her, feeling stupid for crying. She gave me the sympathy I was looking for and the direction i needed.

"Honey, go to the emergency room. That's why you have insurance."

"Okay," i sniffled.

Off we went.

I guess i knew all along that it was broken. I just didn't want to admit it. I thought if i ignored it, it would get better on its own. The boyfriend was a good sport, keeping things moving by tracking down doctors, xray guys, whoever, and saying "You gonna take her now?" It was very sweet. It "only" took 4 hours. And the PA on duty confirmed what I already knew: broken. Across the bone between the knuckle and the foot. The bad news is that i'm on crutches. The good news is that i've now got one of those stylish blue booties i see all the cool kids sporting. I took it out for a test run this morning. Hot. Hot. Hot.

I feel kind of like a pussy gimp. it's a toe, for crissakes. that's not to say that i'm not milking it a little. my boss agreed to let me work from home. i promised not to mix the vicodin they gave me with work, too much anyway. a couple of good friends are coming over tomorrow to keep me company. that should be fun. and i've got a couple of days to lay around in sweats. always good.

and hopefully, the pain will run out before the vicodin does.

Thursday, January 24, 2008

YAY, we love blogging!

hi. me again. YES. AGAIN. THREE DAYS IN A ROW*, Okie, who hasn't posted a new blog in as long as i can remember (generally 24 hours, but sometimes as many as 146 hours). Whheeee. Here we go.

I have made a list of things i would like to discuss today. I also think i'm going to add a "Question of the Day" section at the end of each blog, to kind of make this interactive (and ensure blog comments [!], the number of which i receive is directly proportional to my level of self-esteem. today: good [2 comments]. yesterday: better [3 comments]. see how this works? great! go comment!)

1. The movie Atonement. i will do my best not to ruin anything for you except to raise your expectations to completely unfulfillable levels by saying that this movie is brilliant. BRILLIANT. owing to, in no particular order, the directing, the acting, the music (which uses the SOUND OF A TYPEWRITER AS PERCUSSION. brilliant.), the writing, the use of several very deeply felt but rarely talked about emotions (eg, the regret we feel as adults only when we realize the import of an action in childhood), and finally, the ending. Especially the ending. which i will say nothing about until you have seen it and you come to me privately and ask, "Lizzie, what did you think was so brilliant about the ending?" (on a completely unrelated note, my lemonade kind of smells like pot.)

ALSO, the movie Atonement gave me a very profound revelation: Someday i will be dead and i will not be able to write anything else ever again. Ever. And the only thing that will be left of me (besides a mound of rotting flesh, of course) will be what i've written. woah. heavy. nothing like mortality to get your ass in gear.

2. Heath Ledger. after conducting copious amounts of research regarding Heath Ledger, his acting career, his private life, and his general temperament in the days leading up to his death (ie, one article on MSN Entertainment), I have concluded that perhaps my comments of yesterday were a) a bit misguided and b) a tad harsh. i NOW believe that Heath Ledger was just one of those beautiful tortured artist types who took himself too seriously and had trouble sleeping because he was busy thinking about his roles and accidentally overdosed because all he wanted was a little sleep, dammit, and all he could think about was being Batman's Joker. Tragic, really. Accidentally overdosing because you're worried about pretending to be people who don't exist. or silly. i haven't decided yet. anywho, i HAVE decided that the life or death of one beautiful famous person has no bearing on whether or not my own should proceed. so, regardless, i think i deserve to be here, gorgeous and talented or not.

3. So, here's a story about what happened last night.

I left work around 5:30, and, missing my boyfriend, decided i would pick up some of his favorite cookies and take them to him at work. Also, he's always talking about the 19-year-old girls at work, and i like to pop in every once in awhile so they can see how pretty and better than them i am so they will know that my boyfriend is VERY lucky and would NEVER prefer them over me. Right. so, i walk in, and my boyfriend (hmm, we need a code name for him. let's call him...Bud), Bud, is helping a customer. As the customer walks around the counter to look at something on Bud's computer, I hand him the bag of cookies, proud of myself for doing the "spontaneous present" thing, which is something i would LIKE to do more often but rarely remember to do. Bud smiles, and the customer says, "That is a good woman." I beam proudly. Me: 1. Stupid 19-year-olds: 0. The customer leaves, and Bud walks around the counter to kiss me.

"Thank you for the cookies," he says. "But you really should have texted me to tell me you were coming."

"But the whole point," I say, dejected, "was to surprise you."

"Awwww," he tilts his head back. This is what he does when he realizes he has a) said something stupid or b) said something that upsets me.

"But I don't like to be surprised," he says. "What if Sheniqua was sitting on my lap when you walked in? I would like to avoid that." He says it with a twinkle in his eye. This is how he jokes with me, pretending to be serious about something that would anger me if he were serious. I laugh. THAT was exactly the point.

***********************************************************************************

Okay, it's Friday, and i had to leave off writing this blog yesterday because work is ridiculously busy and i don't get on my computer at home much. so, this is as far as i got. i was going to write more, but i didn't. okay? more later, babies!

bye!

*though it appears as though this was posted on Friday, it was actually written on Thursday, making this a mostly valid claim.

Wednesday, January 23, 2008

baby naming

If you're reading this, you most likely know me, and if you know me, you know that i like books. I was thinking the other day (yesterday, at work, actually. yes, instead of DOING work) that should i happen to procreate, the chances of which i give myself, at this point in my life, maybe a 37.62% chance of doing*, I might perhaps like to name my children after certain literary-type things. The probability of me procreating 3 separate times is exponentially less likely (twice, 13.31%; thrice, 0.45%); however, i've come up with 3 names i would like to use on my literary spawn, so we're going to go with 3. I've also decided to go from largest literary-related thing to smallest, because everyone knows the baby gets the most attention, so i figured in a handicap for her so that she won't be quite so spoiled. I plan on having a girl, a boy, and a girl, in that order (i'm not even going to attempt the probabilities with this one). The eldest, of course, would be named Paige. The middle child would be Colum (a name shared, incidentally, by a favorite writer of mine, Colum McCann). The youngest would be named Tilde.

~

And should I, God forbid, accidentally procreate a fourth time, it would be a girl and i would fulfill my childhood promise to my 8th grade science teacher by naming her Inertia.

that's pretty.

On a related note, i would like to discuss my amusement with names that constitute a full sentence. Tom Waits, for instance. Or a guy i used to date named Justin Blewitt. i like that one particularly a lot because it's not just a subject and a verb, but also an, um, you know, predicate. Names are so funny. Julie Seals. What does she seal? Who knows?!

Yeah, yeah, i know i'm a nerd. But if i wasn't, i would probably be hanging out with my friends blowing coke instead of blogging. you didn't think about that, didja? DIDJA?

SPEAKING of drugs, I'm sure you know by now that Heath Ledger is dead (good segue, huh?). Without getting too philosophical about it, i would just like to say that IF YOU ARE 28, GORGEOUS, FAMOUS, AND HAVE A 2-YEAR-OLD DAUGHTER, YOU HAVE ABSOLUTELY NO REASON IN HELL TO FUCKING KILL YOURSELF. If your life is so bad, i should have been dead years ago. possibly aborted. okay? seriously, grow a pair, perhaps try to consider for 2 seconds that it's not all about you, and realize that pretty much everyone else on the planet is doing WORSE than you.

ugh, what a waste of a pretty face.

Of course, i would be down for starting some kind of "Michelle Williams killed him and made it look like a suicide because..." conspiracy theory.

Okay, that's about all the time i have today. tune in tomorrow for more excitement.**

*All statistics are completely made up. Like all other statistics.
**I make absolutely no promises to actually blog tomorrow or that, in the event i do blog, it will be in any way exciting.

Tuesday, January 22, 2008

and baby makes four

Yes, this is the fourth blog I've started. Well, the third, actually, but I'm a member of another, so we'll just go with four. if that's okay with you. actually, i don't care if it's okay with you. it's my blog. i can do what i want.

so, anyway, the first blog was an angsty "i hate my life in pittsburgh, everything sucks, my boyfriend doesn't love me, and i have no friends" whiny, ranty piece of shit that no longer applies to my life. so, i've let that one mist off into the ether of the blogosphere. good riddance. the second started off as a "writing" blog, but the only posts i made to it were updates on how my "novel in a month" project was working out, which, coincidentally, only lasted for a month. i never actually posted anything i've written. because everyone i know has that blog address. and i just don't feel comfortable putting myself out there like that. especially when my mother and grandmother can read it. not that they do. but they could. the third is a group blog, like i said, that sort of counts but that i'm not going to post anything personal or non-writing--related to (how do you do en dashes on this thing?). So here's lucky number 4.

I decided to start this new, improved blog because A) a certain Okie has been *loudly* complaining of late that i "never" post anything to my blog and B) I keep having weird, funny, crazy, existential, terrible, and/or deep-thought--inducing (en dash, again) experiences the likes of which i feel i should somehow document so that when i'm married with kids and live in the suburbs in a few years, i can look back and be marginally solaced by remembering that life used to be worth living. also, we've all seen how the writing-themed blog worked out. right, not so good.

so, here's to me possibly writing something on a blog that has more to do with my life (which continues whether i think about it or not) than my writing (which resembles something more like a petulant child that is prone to running away and attempting suicide).

Enjoy yourself. That is, if I actually blog on this thing.

Oh, and thanks for reading. Your comments are welcomed (unless they're mean. in which case, keep it to yourself unless you want the equivalent of WWIII via blogosphere. seriously, i mean it. i'm a badass.).