Tuesday, March 16, 2010

Balancing On One Wounded Wing/ Circling the Edge of the Neverending

It's been nearly a week since I sustained my wrist injury and, yes ladies and gentlemen, I'm already pulling out melancholy New Pornographers' lyrics to capture my mood. If this keeps up, you're going to find me writing rhyming poetry about the state of my soul in my "Emily the Strange" notebook that I got on sale from Hot Topic (My heart is red/ my soul is black/ I walk like a zombie/ addicted to crack).

The bottom line is that my wrist still hurts and my wrist splint is starting to get that swampy cast smell and because I can't walk with my cane, I have to do the zombie-lurch around town, and twice today people have stared at me aghast and asked, "What happened to you?" When I responded that I'd injured my arm playing basketball, they looked at me with this expression that said, "No, I mean...in life." Of course, the zombie-walking has thrown off my back and my shoulders and I am basically one red-hot ball of cranky.

You'd think I'd be able to take this shit in stride (well, maybe "stride" is too graceful a word to describe what I do). I mean, last summer someone cut the ball of my hip off, replaced it with another one, but (whoops) forgot to reattach my ass. After that, you'd think a little wrist sprain would be par for the course: like, "lay it on me, life! A sprained wrist? That's all you've got? A few short months ago, I watched in an opium-induced haze as my surgeon showed me the detached ball of my femoral head." (That concision I was hoping I would learn from this wrist injury? Not so much).

Instead, however, one little sprain has earned me a first-class ticket on a fast train to Whiny-ville. Turns out, my right arm is a pretty useful appendage. In addition to that cane-carrying, it also helps me do the 8 hours a day of typing my job requires, as well all those life skills like dish washing and driving and being able to walk down the street without people thinking you were involved in some horrific car accident. Oh, right arm. I will never take you for granted again.

To make matters worse, for some reason this week I keep getting introduced to new people (and really awesome people at that) and let's just say that I am not exactly making a good impression. You want to know what doesn't exactly make all the gentlemen swoon? The whole "please to meet you, allow me to lurch forward in your general direction to shake your hand, then realize that I cannot shake your hand because my hand is in a splint and so stare nervously at the few inches of space between us" routine. When you add this to the fact that meeting new people is not exactly my strong suite and it tends to exacerbate my normal elaborate-hand-gesturing, train-of-thought-losing, over-caffeinated-ness....yeah, not the greatest of impressions.

So, if you met me this week, allow me to offer this message: "Please to meet you. I would like to clarify that I am not, in fact, a meth addict and that it is possible for me to speak actual words that make sense. I hope that you will find that when you get to know me, I'm not as ridiculous as I first present myself. Can we please find some way to blame this on my sore wrist/ damaged hip? Sincerely, Arley."

Now if only I could get that printed on a business card.

3 comments:

  1. Dude, I hope your wrist heals soon. In the meanwhile, you're everyone's favorite crack zombie (c:

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  2. Meh, who needs new people? :-P

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  3. Arley I highly advise getting that printed on a business card. Some enterprising print person would manage to make it look fashionable.

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