More Distractions

Let's continue in the same general direction as yesterday and discuss a specific kind of distraction that can submarine one's efforts to write. This is a big one, and while it may not be familiar to a lot of younger people, it's basically the only thing on my mind right now.

Pain. The pain that comes from a really stupid injury. Here's what happened:

Last night, somewhere in the general vicinity of about 9:00 pm, I decided that it sounded like a good idea to go down to Neighbor's (the Exxon station/convenience store close to our house). The six wooden steps that lead down from my front porch to the gravel walkway below were icy. Like a skating rink, that kind of icy. The first thing I remember thinking as I stepped onto the front porch was, "Easy, Diane...the steps look pretty icy." The next thing I thought was, "Oh, shit... I'm falling," followed shortly thereafter by, "Okay, I'm not falling anymore, but I'm pretty sure I broke something." Turned out that it was my toe that was broken. The orange Croc on my right foot flew off and out into the snow when I started to fall, and about three steps down, I managed to somehow hook my toe onto one of the vertical supports for the handrail. Needless to say, my toe stopped while I continued to fall. It was one of those physics lessons where momentum was stopped by an immovable object, and the only variable reaction that could take place was the breaking of a bone in my foot.

Ouch!

So, this morning, my foot looks as if someone smeared it with a whole palette of bruise-colored paints, mostly purple and dark red. While it may fall into the category of too much information, there is a similar collection of bruises elsewhere, mostly on my lower back and butt. I'm not sure how it happened, but I did managed to cut my finger too, but that seems pretty insignificant in the whole collection of injuries. Fortunately, Emma (Chris' daughter) and her friend Ryan, were right behind me, and quickly went inside to get help. Ryan later declared that I was "badass, like you were so calm and all. I would have been all (insert all of the gutter, truck stop colorful epithets that you know), but you were just like...." Well, more just like that. Ryan has somehow decided that I'm the coolest thing around, and it was important to me to be cool for him. Believe me, every colorful epithet that I knew swirled through my brain in that instant, but I just gritted my teeth and asked Emma to go inside to get her mother to help me up. Once inside, Chris pulled the sock off my right foot, and I was greeted to the sight of toe number three, as it pointed decidedly toward the east while my other, uninjured toes pointed happily to the north. That's when I almost lost it.

Anyway, here's what greeted me this morning:

Yes, it's still pointed the wrong direction, but more toward the northeast than true east now. And yes, it hurts like hell. As does my lower back, but I'm grateful that my injuries weren't more severe. I'm lucky that my knee didn't blow out or something to that effect. I didn't go to the hospital, because broken toes usually require little care, and I didn't want to pay for an x-ray to tell me that, yes, my toe was broken. I think you can clearly see from the picture that it's broken.

So, to sum it all up, I might or I might not write today. I'll most likely sit in my big comfy chair and watch football with my foot in a bucket of ice water and take lots of ibuprofen. We'll just have to see what the day brings.