Thursday, June 6, 2013

Dear Teacher, please excuse Sarah from blogging. She was busy falling (apart, and also down). Insert forged signature here.



So, here's what happened.

Well, not all of it. I don't feel like talking about the Thanksgiving divorce or the lonely Christmas or the creepy spinster attic apartment or the hours spent learning how to decoupage, which are the root reasons I haven't been blogging. You just do not need to know all of that. It's possible I lived on little else but tea and honey and Kleenex and Brandie Carlisle songs for over a month, and it's not something I'm proud of.

 But I do feel the need to at least make an attempt at explaining why I have completely neglected everything writing-related, including but certainly not limited to this blog. So what I will tell you is that, back in April, I pretended to be Superman. That isn't to say that I jumped into a phone booth and popped out wearing tights and a save-the-world expression. No. What I did was, I attempted to run. Tripped. And sailed into the air like I knew how to fly.

What I didn't know how to do was land, so I came down full-force on my right knee, on a floor that is nothing more than thin carpet over concrete. And of course, being the super-sharp thumbtack that I am, I hopped right back up and kept running. It wasn't until twenty minutes later, cutting my pantleg up the seam to reveal a right knee roughly the size and color of a rotten cantaloupe that I realized: Crap.

Seven weeks, one surgery, one obnoxious knee immobilizing brace, and the development and frequent employment of a colorful vocabulary later, I still can't do a straight leg raise, or, more importantly, kick people. And, boy, oh boy, are there people I would like to kick. Namely, myself, for forgetting that I am not graceful enough to run, for any reason, ever.

My weirdo friends keep asking to see the photos, so I'm going to share them.Warning: the link you are about to click on is extremely gross!


 WARNING: Here be yucky-looking kneecaps!


That's where we are now -- seven weeks post-injury, four weeks post-op, and scheduled for a second MRI and an EMG to figure out why I still can't perform a straight leg raise -- or, as I've mentioned, kick people.

So that's what happened. And between surgery, recovery, and having to move out of my now-inaccessible creepy spinster attic apartment, I haven't been writing a whole lot. But I have collected all sorts of medical terms and unsettling hospital observations and weird nurse characterizations and colorful sailor vocabulary to use when I do get back to it!
 
Also, here's a completely unrelated classified ad (cue innocent hum):

WANTED: Someone I don't like. Your job duties would consist of standing in front of me until my right leg remembers how to kick. Volunteer position, no pay. Would look kick-ass on a resume. ;)

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Oh god. I'm sorry. I can't volunteer for the job as I'm a few states away and hopefully not someone you dislike, but I could send you funny poems (you've made me laugh so hard my mom heard from across the house so sending you funny stuff seems fair) or tragic stories (misery loves company?) or posters or a really great Mary Oliver poem, Dogfish, you'd love it, or a notebook (you do have a lot to write about) and a partly used four-color pen (and then I'd brag for the rest of my life that I shared a pen with Sarah Dooley) or a real honest book review (Livvie made me cry, I give her four stars, or four and a half stars, I give Ember four and a half stars, those both mean really great, I'd like to give them five stars but that wouldn't be fair to Katherine Paterson, or six but that's not allowed and it's cliched, I give your blog five stars because I laughed so much and that's probably my favorite thing to do when reading something, but I'm not sure I can write a blog review). You seem to be awesome even with gross knees, at least from the outside, though you probably don't feel so great, though I hope you feel okay, or good. A psychiatrist I know, one of my adult friends, says there should be a box for "sense of humor intact". Yours is intact.
- Olive (My temporary pen name, since my parents say I should use a pseudonym on the internet.)

Sarah Dooley said...

Olive, your entire comment is awesome! Thanks for making me laugh!

And I love that you use four-colored pens. Those are on my top ten list of Best Things Ever. (Katherine Paterson is also on that list.)

Granny Kate said...

I hadn't read this yet. And here it is September. You're back to riding (horses) as well as writing, and fully able to kick anyone who needs it. I'm glad it's here.

The writing is awesome, as usual. As is the writing in the comment from "Anonymous". : )