Saturday, November 22, 2003
I fell at work the other day. I was out on the roof, and I tripped over a huge cement block. I scraped my knee and got a little bruise. I made the mistake of mentioning it in joke to my boss, who immediatly asked me if I needed to go the the hospital.
I said "no, it still bends" He was insistant, "Do you need to see a doctor? Are you sure it's okay, maybe it will hurt later."
"Gosh, only if I'm lucky huh?" I wanted to tell him not to worry, I wasn't going to sue the company for letting me be dumb enough to fall over a cement block.
I'm thinking if I went to a doctor with this skinned knee, he would laugh at me.
The "Saftey Officer" came to ask me if I was okay, if I needed a doctor, and how it happened, and I had to explain why I was out on the roof (goofing off).
Mental note: Next time you're goofing off, and you skin you knee, TELL NO ONE!
I said "no, it still bends" He was insistant, "Do you need to see a doctor? Are you sure it's okay, maybe it will hurt later."
"Gosh, only if I'm lucky huh?" I wanted to tell him not to worry, I wasn't going to sue the company for letting me be dumb enough to fall over a cement block.
I'm thinking if I went to a doctor with this skinned knee, he would laugh at me.
The "Saftey Officer" came to ask me if I was okay, if I needed a doctor, and how it happened, and I had to explain why I was out on the roof (goofing off).
Mental note: Next time you're goofing off, and you skin you knee, TELL NO ONE!
In class the other night they came upon this conversation of seeing an animal being killed for the first time. Everyone had a story of a chicken or a pig or a goat.
I had a story too, but I didn’t tell them . . . they weren’t worth my story. But I think I’ll write it for posterity.
My grandfather had chickens, I may have talked about the chickens before . . . I was afraid of the chickens . . . anyway. There was this one chicken with a limp. My grandfather didn’t want it to breed other limping chickens, so he told my brother to kill it. The 13 year old gladly accepted the challenge. He grabbed his hatched, grabbed the chicken and headed down to the big boulder that stuck out of the ground at the end of the field.
Being a curious 5 year old, I of course followed the brother, the hatchet and the limping chicken.
He may have described to me what was going to happen, I don’t remember. I do remember the hatchet hitting the stone, the head falling to one side, the limping chicken falling to the other side, and the amazing sight of a headless, limping chicken with blood splirting out of his neck flapping and running in circles until he fell down, kicked his good leg a few times and then finally gave it up.
I don’t remember being traumatized by it at all. I did stop eating chicken not long after that. Maybe I was traumatized, and I’ve blocked it out. Who knows. I still don’t like chickens with or without heads.
I had a story too, but I didn’t tell them . . . they weren’t worth my story. But I think I’ll write it for posterity.
My grandfather had chickens, I may have talked about the chickens before . . . I was afraid of the chickens . . . anyway. There was this one chicken with a limp. My grandfather didn’t want it to breed other limping chickens, so he told my brother to kill it. The 13 year old gladly accepted the challenge. He grabbed his hatched, grabbed the chicken and headed down to the big boulder that stuck out of the ground at the end of the field.
Being a curious 5 year old, I of course followed the brother, the hatchet and the limping chicken.
He may have described to me what was going to happen, I don’t remember. I do remember the hatchet hitting the stone, the head falling to one side, the limping chicken falling to the other side, and the amazing sight of a headless, limping chicken with blood splirting out of his neck flapping and running in circles until he fell down, kicked his good leg a few times and then finally gave it up.
I don’t remember being traumatized by it at all. I did stop eating chicken not long after that. Maybe I was traumatized, and I’ve blocked it out. Who knows. I still don’t like chickens with or without heads.
I remembered the taste of an icicle, out of the blue, I remembered the taste . . . like the smell of cold on the wind . . . I haven’t tasted it; I haven’t smelled it for such a long time. Icicles and cold- cold cold enough to smell, they don’t come to this area often. And if they do, it’s hard to trust a city icicle . . .besides they are never big enough around here. And the smell, it was even so rare in the north. I don’t remember when I last smelled that smell, and I thought I had forgotten.
But it came to me in the middle of the day, in a tall building, under florescent lights. I was washing my hands and I tasted it . . . the very icicle that my brother and I broke of the eves of my grandparents’ house. The one that was nearly as big as I was. The one next to the one that fell when we were jiggling it. It fell and ripped my coat, a parka with a faux fur hood lining. It seems like a dream now.
Oh, I hated the snow and the ice, but I had to go out side for so many reasons. And I liked the creaks and cracks that the new, thin ice made when I walked across it. I liked the squeak of the coldest snow under my boots, and the collection on my soles that gained me up to three inches in the sticky snow. And I would watch the bubbles move under the ice before it was solid. And I liked to walk on the crusted over snow seeing how long I could stay on the surface then hearing the breaking glass sounds when I fell through. And I liked to look at a clean white expanse, and to walk across that expanse, my foot prints alone evidencing that I was the only person who had ever walked that space.
I liked those things, I haven’t thought of them for a long, long time. Or thought of the frost that painted its self across the window pane, and I would wipe it away, and I would lend it my breath, hot on cold, creating new intricate patterns unique and beautiful, and I would scratch them off again with my fingernail so I could see what the new snow again.
November 22, 2003: 78 degrees, Arlington, TX.
But it came to me in the middle of the day, in a tall building, under florescent lights. I was washing my hands and I tasted it . . . the very icicle that my brother and I broke of the eves of my grandparents’ house. The one that was nearly as big as I was. The one next to the one that fell when we were jiggling it. It fell and ripped my coat, a parka with a faux fur hood lining. It seems like a dream now.
Oh, I hated the snow and the ice, but I had to go out side for so many reasons. And I liked the creaks and cracks that the new, thin ice made when I walked across it. I liked the squeak of the coldest snow under my boots, and the collection on my soles that gained me up to three inches in the sticky snow. And I would watch the bubbles move under the ice before it was solid. And I liked to walk on the crusted over snow seeing how long I could stay on the surface then hearing the breaking glass sounds when I fell through. And I liked to look at a clean white expanse, and to walk across that expanse, my foot prints alone evidencing that I was the only person who had ever walked that space.
I liked those things, I haven’t thought of them for a long, long time. Or thought of the frost that painted its self across the window pane, and I would wipe it away, and I would lend it my breath, hot on cold, creating new intricate patterns unique and beautiful, and I would scratch them off again with my fingernail so I could see what the new snow again.
November 22, 2003: 78 degrees, Arlington, TX.
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