January 22, 2004

This Day in My History

TODAY's QUOTE

It's my belief that computers aren't something you use like you would a Stairmaster. You can't get a workout on it in a half-hour. You need to have it as part of your life.

~Elisabeth Stock Computers for Youth, as quoted by The New York Times.

Yesterday's Entries

2001: For the Birds
2002: It's Not a Great Story, It's Just What Happened
2003: It's All In Your Head

TODAY's READ

Rubyfruit Jungle
(I haven't had much time to read it!)

TODAY on the TELE

Friends
Will & Grace
Scrubs
E.R.

TODAY's WEATHER

fog in the morning, sun in the afternoon

ABOUT THAT ARM...

22 January 2004

I was vacuuming the family room today and thinking about how to describe how my arm feels.

For one thing, I was using my arm to vacuum. That was new.

It wasn’t that I wasn’t aware of my arm. But I hadn’t been able to vacuum with it for a long time, and suddenly there I was, pushing the vacuum.

I’ve been discovering weird ways around the things that I do which make it hurt. For example, if I cut something with the normal knife pushed in a downward position, it hurts like hell. But if I turn the item being cut on its side, and cut sideways, blade held at a parallel to the cutting surface, it doesn’t hurt at all. It’s awkward to cut that way, but it doesn’t hurt.

You know how a cut heals? Let me see if I can describe this so it makes sense to some people. You may have a deep cut that hurts a lot and there comes a day when the hurt changes. It still hurts. It may still hurt as much as it has been hurting, but somehow it feels like a healing pain. I can’t think of any other way to describe it. But that’s how my arm is feeling these days.

Some things hurt less. When I first started riding my bike again, the worst part was starting up from a standing stop. It still is. The motion of pulling yourself up onto the seat in one fluid motion (well, as much as I am capable of creating a "fluid motion" at anything!) was a tremendous jolt to my arm and I would then ride for the next half block with the arm held down, "recovering."

Well, I’m still aware of the jolt, but it’s not as bad as it used to be. It’s bearable now, and I don’t feel the need, most of the time, to give it that "resting" position.

I can also sort of scrub plates or pots if I get the angle right. I can’t quite do things the way I did before the accident, but the skills are coming back and my body is adjusting to just doing things in slightly different positions. For the first time I’m not discouraged about the continuing pain. I’m starting to feel like maybe I will actually "heal" in time.

I even chose to go through the park this morning, on the way to work, instead of on the city streets. The park has rolling hills and I knew it would be some uphill work. These are mole hills. They aren’t even "dreaded overpass" height, but it just felt like a nice morning to enjoy the thick fog and pedal uphill. I almost kinda started to feel my legs responding to the demand for more power. That was a good almost kinda feeling.

While I was feeling all these physical feelings, Walt was off checking out the car. Not surprisingly, the CD player had been removed ("ripped out" is such an ugly descriptive term, isn’t it!) and his raincoat was gone, but there wasn’t really anything else of value in the car. A bonus is we apparently acquired a cell phone, which was left in the glove compartment. Not ours. I have a feeling we should call someone very far away (nobody that we know, so the call wouldn’t be traceable to us) and run up a really big phone bill! But we won’t.

Next step is to have the car towed to someplace which can put it back in working order for us (the ignition was also ripped out, so it can’t be driven, apparently). We don’t know how long all the repairs are going to take, but we have our rented Chevy until it’s all done.

It appears that we are on the way to getting our car back.

And I’m finally on the way to getting my arm (and my old life!) back.

There is hope.

Friday Five

What is your favorite....

....song... John Denver's "For You"

....food... Fresh cracked Dungeness crab

....tv show... West Wing

....scent... Real roses; freshly baked bread

....quote... You can only make a difference when you care.

PHOTO OF THE DAY

paultreefog.jpg (26158 bytes)

Took this at the park this morning,
on my ride into the office.
It's the theatre, with that little tree in front,
Paul's memorial tree.

For more photos, please visit My Fotolog and My FoodLog