this is the somewhat less than ideal version of my face after i got vehicularly made over by some girl born in the fucking nineties over graduation weekend here in tucson. while i concur that the look is striking, it made my crazy hair and piercings somewhat pale in comparison (possibly due to a loss of whole blood). anyway, that is what i've been dealing with for the better part of the last thirty days. preceding that, i got in a bike wreck that partially tore my left rotator cuff, so give or take ten days at most, i have been out on short term disability for the best of the last two months. when my friend told me to go out and do something interesting, this was not something that had crossed my mind. i was thinking more along the lines of subversive macrame. you know, really STICK IT TO THE MAN.
i don't remember being hit. i just remember being in the ambulance for a minute, and from there, my version of chronology leapfrogs to the trauma unit where they try their even best to de-picasso-ize me into a real life three dimensional entity. thanks, vaguely foreign training doctor! they cut off my favorite outfit, except for my blood drenched shoes and my helmet (praise allah that i had been having "you should wear your helmet" juju floating (uncharacteristically)in my brain for the preceding ten or so days. i'm in the trauma and CDU for a couple more days, ever more the perfect spitting image of a post-modern elephant man, before they discharge me with a souvenir size bucket of percocets and muscle relaxers. i won't lie, they were the breath of god. i hurt every time i woke up.
my job struggled to say the right thing, to be grudgingly supportive. i just started working again the other day (last night was my fourth night back). i have to say, my back hurts like a bitch by the end of my shift, and this shit probably won't fly in ten or so years. still, i'm working poor... very poor. so what do us poor losers with limited skill do? we suck it up and keep on fucking keeping on. praise allah for my high pain threshold. or praise my blue collar alcoholic upbringing. potato/po-taw-toe.
anyway, i'm doing better-ish, but let's be marsha fucking brady real here, yeah? now i'll NEVER BE A TEEN MODEL.
They had to sew the left nostril back on, i have the broken teen in the upper front and center, i look like my nose was sluiced open by a jaguar, and the left side of my throat looks like i was the sole survivor of a nightmare on elm street sequel.
i all thought this was sort of a testament to my inherent bad-ass-ness, as i essentially walked away without so much as a broken bone (though i did suffer a mild brain bleed) and i walked around the first several weeks saying shit like "you should see the CAR!!!" you know, reassuring myself, reassuring others. i wore a helmet, thank god, and since the damage was so largely to my face and throat, i assumed that my bike- made of METAL and RUBBER must be in excellent shape. last week when i was able to make my appointment to collect my baby, i was greeted with the following sight:
so after seeing my brand new bike twisted into a four hundred dollar pretzel, and after an incident in which i rode my OTHER bike to seven eleven and laid down my helmet while i paid only to realize that my helmet- the one that saved my life when i got it- was nothing less that caked with blood. the straps, the interior helmet, the whole thing was like IT should have been in an evidence locker.
whatever, this happened three weeks ago. i'm freaked out, but that's what's going on with me.
and the super duper fun times keep on coming, right?
it's just before i saw the bike and the helmet, i was kind of laughing it off in a way. facial trauma when you get hit by a car, but not a single broken bone? kind of a slap on the wrist. when i got my bike back i was ripped from my delusion that it was minor all along. i could have gone under the car instead of hurtling away into relative safety and well being. the helmet full of dried globs of blood... i should get it bronzed with a plaque that says THANK YOU underneath it.
i almost died, and it has (of course) fried my waffle a little bit, but i tell you what, i don't fucking want to die. and apparently, it's not easy to make that happen. just saying.
thoughts, just thoughts. just trying, TRYING to process this wacky shit.
got the bill. 25 grand. gonna lawyer up here pretty quick. wish my fuckup ass all the luck you can muster.
love,
seth
