insomniaville

22-jun-04

6/16/04 -- Penalty for Tripping.

i've been falling down in public more often lately and it's getting really old. The latest splat happened on Monday morning; I was walking to work clutching my coffee and minding my own business, and then bang! my toe caught something in the sidewalk -- a crack, a loose brick, who knows? And I tried doing that silly stagger-tiptoe-stagger maneuver that never works to stop me from falling, and I finally stopped fighting it and went down on the pavement. Gravity, she is a harsh mistress. I didn't think I'd hurt myself too badly; no skinned knees or palms. But by Tuesday morning, my left thigh was killing me; every step I took was painful. It's better today, but I still feel it if I've been sitting down for a while and then stand up too fast.

One thing I have to give myself credit for -- I've gotten really good at saving my lattés if I happen to be holding one when this happens. A nice man who helped me up after one fall even complimented me on my ability to keep from spilling my coffee. Those damn things are so expensive that I'm not about to let the sidewalk have them. At least the skin on my knees will grow back eventually.

I occasionally wonder if a recent string of falls means the MS is starting to manifest itself again. But in all honesty, I doubt it. I'm a horrible klutz. I've always been a horrible klutz. I don't have to think for very long to remember some spectacular falls from my past. Like these:

It's the early 90s and I'm walking down Columbia Road on the way back to my apartment in DC. It's a really hot day and I'm already in a piss-ass mood about something (probably the heat), and then some asshole yells a lewd remark at me. I whirl around, flip off the asshole -- and promptly trip over the curb that somehow snuck up on me, smashing knees-first into the pavement and tearing a hole in the leg of my favorite pants.

I'm probably ten or eleven, and school is letting out for spring vacation. I go running pell-mell down the hill towards my mom's car -- and my foot catches in a little hole in the ground that I didn't see and I go tumbling. I spend the whole break with a sprained ankle. It's not like spring breaks are terribly exciting when you're that young anyhow, but it was still a sucky way to spend time off.

So while it could be the MS, it's probably just me.

So What Am I Doing Wrong?

For reasons I don't quite understand, I've spent much of the day reading about the latest kerfuffle to hit the blogging/Metafilter universe: Yet another blogger may have been making a lot of shit up. (In other shocking news, the sun came up today!) I never read either of the blogs or journals that may or may not have been written by this person or persons who may or may not be making shit up; I have a vague memory of Acanit getting on my nerves in some web forum, but couldn't even swear that I'm remembering that correctly. So I have no dog in this fight. I think more than anything, I'm just fascinated to watch people catching the scent of scandal and suddenly tearing up the Internet to try to settle the matter once and for all. Fights between the True Believers and the Skeptics are fun, but optional.

And after a whole day of reading that, I've decided that I'm very hurt that when I stopped updating my journal in 2002, people didn't form an angry torch-bearing mob and show up at my door to demand that I prove my existence. Phooey.

Next.

Previously.