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dragonlady7This page lets you create a map showing every US state you've visited, which on the one hand is cool, but on the other hand gives me a shockingly graphic illustration of just how poorly-traveled I am within my own country. Until I visited California the year before last, I'd been to more foreign countries than US states. (It had been a tie until I visited Germany in 2002.)
By the way, the US states I've "visited" include stopovers in O'Hare and Savannah airports, wherein I never left the airport. So. There you have that.
Successfully ate dinner last night, which pleased me. So, deciding I was cured, I went for a run this morning. God, I suddenly weigh 400 pounds. And I don't mean I'm suddenly fat (although this recent bout of evil-residing-in-stomach that resulted in three days of pretty much just not eating means I've... gained two pounds), I mean it feels like my body is constructed of some materal heavier than flesh. Like, normally I can do 20 bicep curls in a set, and this morning 10 nearly killed me. Urgh.
So, am showered and sitting in the papasan in a very heavy little lump wondering if I can get up and clean my room like I have to. Yes, I have today off! I will clean! I hope. Urgh.
Was stretching this morning, in shorts, and noticed the big white scar across my right thigh just above the knee. I had forgotten about that scar. One of the kittens in the house in Rochester gave me that scar. She was sitting on my lap while I was at my desk cutting a stencil for silkscreening. She was watching the birds out the window. Suddenly a bird hit the window. Oreo was convinced it was coming for her, and she fled, leaving me with a bleeding thigh and the scalpel I'd been using to cut the stencil embedded in my middle finger.
The scalpel didn't leave a scar. Her claw did. Originally there were three parallel scars, but only the big one is still visible.
And I got thinking about scars, and how I rather like the fact that I scar easily. Otherwise I would long ago have forgotten about that incident, but thinking of it makes me remember how soft Oreo's fur was, how pleasant the light was in that room (there was a south and an east window), and so on. The memories I have that have left marks on my body are the more vivid for it.
Seven stitches under my chin and a funny chip missing from the bone: I was two or so, and fell on a chair at the Daigles' house. Maveret Daigle held me in her lap; an EMT, she determined I needed stitches. I remember they covered my face with a blue paper drape so I wouldn't become afraid of doctors; I was upset because the blue thing bit me, but was more upset that they'd taken my stuffed animal away for the duration of the experience. Maveret died a few months ago of cancer, unexpectedly: she'd been improving, but suddenly died one afternoon. I remember her house had a bearskin rug and smelled not only of cigarette smoke but also old and wild things. There was a big hill in the backyard I remember tumbling down for fun, and a barn with silhouettes painted on it. They were the first silhouettes I'd seen and the idea fascinated me.
Four stitches in the pad of my thumb, I was in eighth grade and the band saw blade was too dull. Instead of cutting my race car, it burned at it a while until suddenly the block of wood snapped. The shop teacher sent me to the nurse without an escort, and I put my sawdust-filled thumb in my mouth to keep from dripping blood on the floor or on my new t-shirt that said Emma Willard (because I was going to go to Emma Willard the next year. Where, it turns out, people did care a little bit more.) The scar is still a ridge; I habitually rub my forefinger against it. It has changed my thumbprint. I remember the taste of sawdust and blood, and remember that the nurse told me when she took the stitches out to put cocoa butter on it so it wouldn't scar. I didn't.
A little white ridge on the middle knuckle of the middle finger of my right hand: I was a high schooler, and my dapple grey mare Sugar had a bitchy habit of shying and throwing me when we were farthest from home, whereupon she would canter off out of reach and eat grass while I slowly chased her home. It never worked with Katy, but it worked with me every time. I have never really been afraid of falling off horses. It just pisses me off. This time I didn't let go of the reins, letting the stupid animal drag over 150 pounds of angry girl with her head, if she would. Unfortunately the reins fastened in the middle with a buckle, and the buckle cut me. I eventually caught the horse, and got to my feet, and rode home bleeding to realize, belatedly, that some of Mom's friends were coming in from out of town. I greeted these long-lost acquaintances with one arm covered in blood and my whole right side one giant grass and mud stain, holding the reins in my left hand and the horse looking as dishevelled as I, with a long bit of grass stuck in the bridle bit. I offered my left hand to shake. The scar is fading now, and hardly shows, unless I straighten my fingers as far as they'll go (which isn't very; my index and pinky fingers always have a slight crook to them, and people who can bend their fingers back astound me).
There is a long, thin white scar, a second cat scratch scar, older than the first, and it extends diagonally from below my collarbone toward the cleavage of my breasts. i was holding my cat Snick, and he casually decided to climb up onto my shoulder to make his escape over my back. The scratch barely drew blood, but it left a scar. I am not so fond of that scar, but I am fond of Snick, who is very old now, and I don't mind having a mark he left me. If it doesn't fade (and I have had it more than ten years now) I shall have an excuse to speak of him long after he is gone. At least from this incarnation.
I have the obligatory skinned-knee scar. It is just a puckered bit of white skin, not very visible against the whiteness of my legs. (They're tan, for me, but nobody else can tell by looking.) This one dates from a game of Marco Polo at the Baylys' pool. Tara Bayly was my best friend. Mrs. Bayly, an emergency room nurse, was the neighborhood's mother. The Baylys' pool was the neighborhood pool. They had an annual 4th of July party that the entire neighborhood attended. Complete with illegal fireworks, usually set off somewhat drunkenly by the volunteer fire department and several members of the local police force. Their next-door-neighbor, behind the house, was the volunteer fire station. The parties there were always so much fun. It never crossed my mind until years later how much of a hassle they must have been for the Baylys. When their youngest son died tragically a couple of years ago, the funeral drew hundreds upon hundreds of people.
By the way, the US states I've "visited" include stopovers in O'Hare and Savannah airports, wherein I never left the airport. So. There you have that.
Successfully ate dinner last night, which pleased me. So, deciding I was cured, I went for a run this morning. God, I suddenly weigh 400 pounds. And I don't mean I'm suddenly fat (although this recent bout of evil-residing-in-stomach that resulted in three days of pretty much just not eating means I've... gained two pounds), I mean it feels like my body is constructed of some materal heavier than flesh. Like, normally I can do 20 bicep curls in a set, and this morning 10 nearly killed me. Urgh.
So, am showered and sitting in the papasan in a very heavy little lump wondering if I can get up and clean my room like I have to. Yes, I have today off! I will clean! I hope. Urgh.
Was stretching this morning, in shorts, and noticed the big white scar across my right thigh just above the knee. I had forgotten about that scar. One of the kittens in the house in Rochester gave me that scar. She was sitting on my lap while I was at my desk cutting a stencil for silkscreening. She was watching the birds out the window. Suddenly a bird hit the window. Oreo was convinced it was coming for her, and she fled, leaving me with a bleeding thigh and the scalpel I'd been using to cut the stencil embedded in my middle finger.
The scalpel didn't leave a scar. Her claw did. Originally there were three parallel scars, but only the big one is still visible.
And I got thinking about scars, and how I rather like the fact that I scar easily. Otherwise I would long ago have forgotten about that incident, but thinking of it makes me remember how soft Oreo's fur was, how pleasant the light was in that room (there was a south and an east window), and so on. The memories I have that have left marks on my body are the more vivid for it.
Seven stitches under my chin and a funny chip missing from the bone: I was two or so, and fell on a chair at the Daigles' house. Maveret Daigle held me in her lap; an EMT, she determined I needed stitches. I remember they covered my face with a blue paper drape so I wouldn't become afraid of doctors; I was upset because the blue thing bit me, but was more upset that they'd taken my stuffed animal away for the duration of the experience. Maveret died a few months ago of cancer, unexpectedly: she'd been improving, but suddenly died one afternoon. I remember her house had a bearskin rug and smelled not only of cigarette smoke but also old and wild things. There was a big hill in the backyard I remember tumbling down for fun, and a barn with silhouettes painted on it. They were the first silhouettes I'd seen and the idea fascinated me.
Four stitches in the pad of my thumb, I was in eighth grade and the band saw blade was too dull. Instead of cutting my race car, it burned at it a while until suddenly the block of wood snapped. The shop teacher sent me to the nurse without an escort, and I put my sawdust-filled thumb in my mouth to keep from dripping blood on the floor or on my new t-shirt that said Emma Willard (because I was going to go to Emma Willard the next year. Where, it turns out, people did care a little bit more.) The scar is still a ridge; I habitually rub my forefinger against it. It has changed my thumbprint. I remember the taste of sawdust and blood, and remember that the nurse told me when she took the stitches out to put cocoa butter on it so it wouldn't scar. I didn't.
A little white ridge on the middle knuckle of the middle finger of my right hand: I was a high schooler, and my dapple grey mare Sugar had a bitchy habit of shying and throwing me when we were farthest from home, whereupon she would canter off out of reach and eat grass while I slowly chased her home. It never worked with Katy, but it worked with me every time. I have never really been afraid of falling off horses. It just pisses me off. This time I didn't let go of the reins, letting the stupid animal drag over 150 pounds of angry girl with her head, if she would. Unfortunately the reins fastened in the middle with a buckle, and the buckle cut me. I eventually caught the horse, and got to my feet, and rode home bleeding to realize, belatedly, that some of Mom's friends were coming in from out of town. I greeted these long-lost acquaintances with one arm covered in blood and my whole right side one giant grass and mud stain, holding the reins in my left hand and the horse looking as dishevelled as I, with a long bit of grass stuck in the bridle bit. I offered my left hand to shake. The scar is fading now, and hardly shows, unless I straighten my fingers as far as they'll go (which isn't very; my index and pinky fingers always have a slight crook to them, and people who can bend their fingers back astound me).
There is a long, thin white scar, a second cat scratch scar, older than the first, and it extends diagonally from below my collarbone toward the cleavage of my breasts. i was holding my cat Snick, and he casually decided to climb up onto my shoulder to make his escape over my back. The scratch barely drew blood, but it left a scar. I am not so fond of that scar, but I am fond of Snick, who is very old now, and I don't mind having a mark he left me. If it doesn't fade (and I have had it more than ten years now) I shall have an excuse to speak of him long after he is gone. At least from this incarnation.
I have the obligatory skinned-knee scar. It is just a puckered bit of white skin, not very visible against the whiteness of my legs. (They're tan, for me, but nobody else can tell by looking.) This one dates from a game of Marco Polo at the Baylys' pool. Tara Bayly was my best friend. Mrs. Bayly, an emergency room nurse, was the neighborhood's mother. The Baylys' pool was the neighborhood pool. They had an annual 4th of July party that the entire neighborhood attended. Complete with illegal fireworks, usually set off somewhat drunkenly by the volunteer fire department and several members of the local police force. Their next-door-neighbor, behind the house, was the volunteer fire station. The parties there were always so much fun. It never crossed my mind until years later how much of a hassle they must have been for the Baylys. When their youngest son died tragically a couple of years ago, the funeral drew hundreds upon hundreds of people.
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no subject
Date: 2005-09-28 05:17 am (UTC)and a plug for my own (rather cryptic) research journal - http://www.livejournal.com/~windowbird
no subject
Date: 2005-09-28 11:53 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-09-28 06:25 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-09-28 07:56 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-09-29 12:20 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-09-29 04:38 am (UTC)I'm assuming you found it via a search. How many other links have you dropped in entries that mentioned birds and windows? Just curious. I have entirely failed to understand your motivation for beginning this discussion: it is entirely the wrong way to convert people to your cause.
no subject
Date: 2005-09-30 03:25 pm (UTC)surrender... defeat... whatever you'd like to call it