This post is in honor of last night - when, in a spurt of something, I attempted to recapture my feelings of youth and freedom by leapfrogging a security baten and instead fell hard on my left arm, which is now possibly broken. As I wait for my dear friend Christ Holst to wake up from his night of Redskin loss induced drinking in order to ask him to drive me to the doctor, which I'm not actually sure I can do on my own, I have no choice but to sit here and reflect on other foolish choices I have made throughout my life, often seeming like fantastic ideas at the time, and often involving me trying to jump over things at great heights to achieve goals that can in NO WAY actually be achieved by jumping over things at great heights. I have no idea why in my head I translate this particular skill as the barometer of all the good I can achieve, but apparently I really like jumping over shit.
I can also take a moment to say Ha! I never learned how to type with two hands - so while I may look absolutely insane sitting at a computer rocking back and forth muttering to myself while I slam on each individual key with a hunt and peck speed that defies the expectations of anyone who took the time to actually use PAWS in the third grade computer lab, I can still write even with one hand utterly immobilized by shooting, searing pain. Take that computer culture!
There was the time in High School when I was running on the sidewalk to meet Ari Levin for a Weezer concert. I happened to look across the parking lot to see Rachel Pasternak, the girl I had a crush on at the time, standing a ways in the distance. I don't think she was even looking at me but suddenly, I knew. If I could jump over the rapidly approaching bike rack, I would be the coolest kid alive and she would love me forever. It seemed so simple at the time. And so I went for it, passion driving my every move as I launched breathlessly into the air to score my surely soon to be beloved.
And then my foot caught the steel rail and I tumbled back to the earth where, as I watched my dreams die, my ankle snapped on impact with my foot tilting inwards towards my body for a brief moment creating a perfect 90 degree angle to my leg.
I don't think she even saw.
So I ran back to meet Ari and didn't even look at my leg until later that night at the show when we all had to sit on the floor before the opening band came on. After half an hour I could sit on the floor no more. I stood up to get sweet relief and was promptly berated by Patriot Center security. "I'm injured" I cried, and pulled up my jeans to prove it - seeing my tennis ball sized ankle for the first time.
I ended up not seeing a doctor for it, because I'm awesome, until I reaggravated the same injury a year later - and now it's a chronic reoccurance, most recently flaring up after a particularly intense jump rope session in movement class two years ago.
That's right, a particularly aggressive jump rope session.
Ye gods, but I am lame.
But for sheer, abject stupidity little can beat the time I decided to protest what I considered my parents' absolutely dictatorial regime by biking a mile in the snow in shorts. I was all set to go to my friend Seth's birthday party. Now the weather outside was terrible by any standard - high winds, freezing cold, and snow that was giving way to a massive hail storm. But Seth only lived like five minutes away. And I was wearing shorts. Sure, I'd be outside for a second on the way to the car, and again going into the house, and back out of the house and then going into my house - but that couldn't amount to more than 42 seconds of total cold time. Plus, I had a jacket! And rights.
But I was told in no uncertain terms that I had to change if I intended to attend this party. I refused, on the principal of the thing. I was going to be in a climate controlled house, I'll wear shorts if I damn well please. I was in high school, by god. And I'd wear what I wanted to wear - ride be damned!
As power struggles over utterly inane things often do, this quickly got out of hand. The yelling, recriminations, the forceful nature by which I demanded my rights as an American citizen, the clear cut way in which I had no driver's license or car of my own. The choice - face defeat, change out of my shorts and brave the cold in long pants and a car - or be me, man of righteous principal.
And so I ended up bike riding with two flat tires over a mile in a hail storm in a pair of shorts to a birthday party sparsely attended due to bad weather.
But for all the stupid, stupid things I've done, I can rest easy.
Because Elan once broke his hand punching a couch.
And I have never done that.
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And so we witness the end.
10 years ago
2 comments:
as painful as that sounds, you write really well about it. i feel for you and your bike-rack-jumping, shorts-in-the-winter-wearing ways =/
ooph, well look on the bright side:
if i had a nickle for every time i did something retarded, i'd still have no money due to my reckless spending habits. which are in themselves retarded. so they'd give me more money, and i'd enter some sort of elliptical lapse in space-time where i have infinite amounts of money and no money at all simultaneously, forever. so take solace in the fact that you still exist in three dimensions. oh yea, and visit http://errordactyl.wordpress.com all the time (please excuse the shameless blog promotion).
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