Days slide like scoops from a cone in the heat of Marin, and nights are cloying vanilla milkshake blue. From sheets, to car, to work, shedding layers of clothing, to courts, to dinner, to drinks to bed again, from tendrils of damp to blinding sunlight.
At least, until Saturday.
On Saturday B and I were on the courts, I in my pink skirt and he in his wristband, the heat rising at our ankles and forehands a flurry, and a pair of matching hang-overs. We are hitting, hitting hard and the heat bites, and bites hard and good, just as the salt and sweat soaks through my shirt and stings my eyes. I am just hungry enough to push my poor body into physical oblivion when I reach for the ball, the one I wouldn't usually pursue, but I am competitive overdrive and I want that ball, I want that lob, I am going to fucking drill it right fucking past him and it is going to feel righteous. I want it at the expense of everything, I want it like Eve wanted the apple. And I did, and it did.
But for the funny thing that happened on the way down. My left foot hit flat, but racket flailing overhead post lob and arms in mid-flap I set the bulk of my weight on the outside of my right sole and immediately curled over it. Then there was that disconcerting SNAP, SNAP, SNAP, SNAP as I hit the ground and I knew that all was not well in right anklesville.
B of course, was chasing after my perfect shot and didn't see me go down, but the eagle eyed granola ranger with the long braid saw me go ass over tea kettle mid court and came running with an icepack, one of those mysterious otter-pop blue things that you shake wildly and it turns icy cool. B and I giggled for a bit about if you have to go out, best go out in style. I got the shot in.
I knew that the ER was order, but not before I had sucked down several cold margaritas and twice as many cigarettes, and some peaches with goat cheese. And a few more gulps and one last cigarette and off we go.
D, B's boyfriend escorted me to the ER (I have never met a more lovely and gracious couple, they are two twining angels, and Rick Santorum I will fight you to the death for saying otherwise)
never been a big fan of hospitals, how did the child's book published in 66 wind up in the ER, and has it been there since '67. And since we were in marin they advised us to follow the peach tiles to radiology, and as D pushed me and my now ginormous ankle towards the xray machine we griped that not for nothing those goddamned tiles were more pink than peach.
so I got to see all three-hundred something bones in my foot, which only made me think of leg bone connected to the thigh bone, and how elementally undressed bones are, and how banal and uncomplicated a frame in at it's almost marrow.
And so D and I waited in the industrial teal waiting room and he told me tales from his amazing history and we watched the clock tick past the hours and watched my ankle swell, we speculated on the others propped in chairs, clinging to compresses, twitching in chairs. We tried to establish camaraderie amongst the waitees by cheering when a name got called mind you I am still in my little pink tennis skirt and D is a phenomenally handsome man of a certain age and all ears are cocked in our direction when he starts telling about gay porn in the late seventies.
in walks the sketchy lepruchan.
He is huffing and twitchy and I don't like the way he looks at me.
After what seems a lifetime in that glacial teal purgatory they call my name and the big ole lesbian wheels me at mach speed through the ER and summarily parks me in the hallway. The twitchy lepruchan gets the room next to where I am parked.
Now d and and I are very thirsty and not for water and also food and my good soldier attitude is being surplanted by an agrravated case of the angries when the good, harried doctor shows up and waggles my ankle and tells me that I have torn the tendons attaching my foot to ankle and presents me with a hideous boot and tells me to sleep with it. I ask for a prescription, I get vicodin, when I wanted percodin and a nice pair of crutches.
And then, in rapid succession, D excuses himself to the loo, the twitchy lepruchan huffs and hovers over me, he is naked from the waist up, pale freckels and rage. D comes back as they bring in a woman flanked by cops, gagged and bound with tape over her mouth so she can't bite, and she is screaming bloody fucking murder and it's all I can do to clap my hands over my ears and cry. They won't let us leave, and I can feel the undercurrent of ugliness clutching at my thighs, I can hear her when the door is shut, I can see the cops confused and commiserating, I can smell the drugs, I am waiting to be released, my skin is starting to itch, all D and I want is a hot blast of settling summer and sweat on the car seat, anything to get away from the screaming junkie and colorless elderly cluttering the hallways and way beds in that terrifying place.
outside in the heat D has gone for the car. The twitchy lepruchan is cruising the parking lot, furtive and bent double he hovers over me. He sits down, he stands up, he is twitching over me, he smells rancid, and I have the first of many ass slapped revelations in as many days, I realize I am essentially captive I can't run, I might be able to deliver a pretty solid thwack with my crutches and every cop in Marin is hovering with disinterest over the screaming lady. That said I was really unnerved, I have never been this kind of injured, and I am pride myself on being lind of a tough old broad and not asking nobody for shit if I don't hafta. And all I can think is who is going to shave my right leg, and how am I going to disable the twitchy lepruchan.
so it turns out I am helpless, hard thing to be when you are a loner, hard to figure to out to get into the bath, and harder to figure out how to put on your drawers. So my angels swept me out to the sweet herealmostafter of San Rafael where I could gimp around and admire the stars, and love on their dogs and maybe wish for three seconds that for all of my good graces I might have a partner as fluid and as hot as lava and as sharp as obsidian to call my own.
That said, I have a date, the first set date I have had in months and months, of course it's at 9:30 in the morning with the orthoscopic surgeon, but it's a beginning....
I could be wrong, I could be right
At least, until Saturday.
On Saturday B and I were on the courts, I in my pink skirt and he in his wristband, the heat rising at our ankles and forehands a flurry, and a pair of matching hang-overs. We are hitting, hitting hard and the heat bites, and bites hard and good, just as the salt and sweat soaks through my shirt and stings my eyes. I am just hungry enough to push my poor body into physical oblivion when I reach for the ball, the one I wouldn't usually pursue, but I am competitive overdrive and I want that ball, I want that lob, I am going to fucking drill it right fucking past him and it is going to feel righteous. I want it at the expense of everything, I want it like Eve wanted the apple. And I did, and it did.
But for the funny thing that happened on the way down. My left foot hit flat, but racket flailing overhead post lob and arms in mid-flap I set the bulk of my weight on the outside of my right sole and immediately curled over it. Then there was that disconcerting SNAP, SNAP, SNAP, SNAP as I hit the ground and I knew that all was not well in right anklesville.
B of course, was chasing after my perfect shot and didn't see me go down, but the eagle eyed granola ranger with the long braid saw me go ass over tea kettle mid court and came running with an icepack, one of those mysterious otter-pop blue things that you shake wildly and it turns icy cool. B and I giggled for a bit about if you have to go out, best go out in style. I got the shot in.
I knew that the ER was order, but not before I had sucked down several cold margaritas and twice as many cigarettes, and some peaches with goat cheese. And a few more gulps and one last cigarette and off we go.
D, B's boyfriend escorted me to the ER (I have never met a more lovely and gracious couple, they are two twining angels, and Rick Santorum I will fight you to the death for saying otherwise)
never been a big fan of hospitals, how did the child's book published in 66 wind up in the ER, and has it been there since '67. And since we were in marin they advised us to follow the peach tiles to radiology, and as D pushed me and my now ginormous ankle towards the xray machine we griped that not for nothing those goddamned tiles were more pink than peach.
so I got to see all three-hundred something bones in my foot, which only made me think of leg bone connected to the thigh bone, and how elementally undressed bones are, and how banal and uncomplicated a frame in at it's almost marrow.
And so D and I waited in the industrial teal waiting room and he told me tales from his amazing history and we watched the clock tick past the hours and watched my ankle swell, we speculated on the others propped in chairs, clinging to compresses, twitching in chairs. We tried to establish camaraderie amongst the waitees by cheering when a name got called mind you I am still in my little pink tennis skirt and D is a phenomenally handsome man of a certain age and all ears are cocked in our direction when he starts telling about gay porn in the late seventies.
in walks the sketchy lepruchan.
He is huffing and twitchy and I don't like the way he looks at me.
After what seems a lifetime in that glacial teal purgatory they call my name and the big ole lesbian wheels me at mach speed through the ER and summarily parks me in the hallway. The twitchy lepruchan gets the room next to where I am parked.
Now d and and I are very thirsty and not for water and also food and my good soldier attitude is being surplanted by an agrravated case of the angries when the good, harried doctor shows up and waggles my ankle and tells me that I have torn the tendons attaching my foot to ankle and presents me with a hideous boot and tells me to sleep with it. I ask for a prescription, I get vicodin, when I wanted percodin and a nice pair of crutches.
And then, in rapid succession, D excuses himself to the loo, the twitchy lepruchan huffs and hovers over me, he is naked from the waist up, pale freckels and rage. D comes back as they bring in a woman flanked by cops, gagged and bound with tape over her mouth so she can't bite, and she is screaming bloody fucking murder and it's all I can do to clap my hands over my ears and cry. They won't let us leave, and I can feel the undercurrent of ugliness clutching at my thighs, I can hear her when the door is shut, I can see the cops confused and commiserating, I can smell the drugs, I am waiting to be released, my skin is starting to itch, all D and I want is a hot blast of settling summer and sweat on the car seat, anything to get away from the screaming junkie and colorless elderly cluttering the hallways and way beds in that terrifying place.
outside in the heat D has gone for the car. The twitchy lepruchan is cruising the parking lot, furtive and bent double he hovers over me. He sits down, he stands up, he is twitching over me, he smells rancid, and I have the first of many ass slapped revelations in as many days, I realize I am essentially captive I can't run, I might be able to deliver a pretty solid thwack with my crutches and every cop in Marin is hovering with disinterest over the screaming lady. That said I was really unnerved, I have never been this kind of injured, and I am pride myself on being lind of a tough old broad and not asking nobody for shit if I don't hafta. And all I can think is who is going to shave my right leg, and how am I going to disable the twitchy lepruchan.
so it turns out I am helpless, hard thing to be when you are a loner, hard to figure to out to get into the bath, and harder to figure out how to put on your drawers. So my angels swept me out to the sweet herealmostafter of San Rafael where I could gimp around and admire the stars, and love on their dogs and maybe wish for three seconds that for all of my good graces I might have a partner as fluid and as hot as lava and as sharp as obsidian to call my own.
That said, I have a date, the first set date I have had in months and months, of course it's at 9:30 in the morning with the orthoscopic surgeon, but it's a beginning....
I could be wrong, I could be right
posted by emma at
8:54 PM
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