hannah.ananas

Interview time

First interview tomorrow!!

I am not exactly nervous, but I am about anxious. I want to do well, but I more want the company and me to be a match for one another, and it, therefore, to go well, such that I am hired by them, and we have an awesome time working together.

As with any job interview these days, I am going into it comfortable in myself and trusting the Universe that all will go perfectly, whether I notice it at first or not.

Now, since this is one about which I particularly care, as I feel we at every likely to be big deal matches for one another, I have just a bit more research I will be doing in the morning, before the interview, because I am very sleepy right now, and I think it is best that I sleep for a while to make my efforts count best. As Echo said, sleep is a weapon. Not that I am fighting here, but I always think of the phrase as being applicable in the use of “powerful tool” instead of “weapon”… sleep is a powerful tool. And I shall use it.

Wish me a positive experience, whether we match up or not, please! ;D

Post-a-day 2020

Today’s checklist

… involved stretching my back and sitting down. And I checked off the bin of them. 😛

Today, I exhausted… Yes, as a verb… exhausted…, but not in the traditional sense. I spent the entire day being absolutely exhausted. At any given moment, I was on the brink of taking a nap wherever I sat or stood. And my lower back was really tight and sore today, quite similarly to a day or two after doing heavy lifting workouts in the gym, but worse. Menstruation has really bucked my butt this time. I’ve been so suddenly inactive in my physical fitness since my ridiculous fall last week that my body has begun to struggle in ways it hasn’t in a very long time while menstruating… I had kind of forgotten how utterly exhausting it can be.

And add to it the fact that my body has been working hard to heal these past ten days, including during the menstruating ones, and then that I was out and about the whole day and evening yesterday, getting important but energy-consuming things done. It is no wonder that I have been so absolutely wiped today.

I just hope I can and do sleep hard tonight and wake up rested in the morning, especially since I have a rather full day, followed by a rather full week ahead of me this week…

Post-a-day 2020

All in three hours’ work

Well, today, something amazing happened(!!!)!

As we sat in the car, which was freshly parked by my dad, I told him the final detail of what I wanted him specifically to know before we went inside. ‘I only want to work with someone I like, someone with whom I feel comfortable doing business. So, if I don’t feel comfortable with whoever comes up to us, I’m going to tell him to go help other customers and that I want to be left alone, please. And then I will find someone I do like and trust to help me. Okay? I just want you to know that, because I am not working with someone with whom I don’t want to work.’

He surprised me by not saying or suggesting anything in disagreement with or contestation with my words, and just saying a genuine and semi-excited, “Okay.”

Not quite three and a half hours later, we drove out of the lot in separate vehicles, my having leased my first car (and that included over an hour of just sitting in the finance department, waiting for an agent to become available to let me sign paperwork, after we had already settled everything with the car salesperson).

My dad was blown away. While we were waiting on the final bits of negotiation between our saleswoman and her manager, my dad kept commenting on how he had never gotten a car on the first time he had walked into a place. He once bought a suburban on the same day he first saw it, but he had test driven it, then gone home and discussed things with his then-wife, and they had gone back later that evening and purchased it. Other than that, though, he hadn’t gotten anywhere near purchasing a vehicle on the same day he first saw it.

But I was prepared. I had been looking at used cars for so long, to no car-providing avail, and I was sick of them all. When I had looked deeper into leasing and discovered that I just might be able to lease a vehicle all on my own, despite my annual salary being iffy, so to speak, and my being self-employed. I had enough money to put down, after all, and my credit history is amazing, despite my work history being wonkers the past few years. I’ve had a credit card that I have always paid on time and usually paid in full for over eleven years, and I paid off all my student loans within three and a half years of their first being required to be paid upon. Do someone with so little money going back and forth in her life, I’ve done a great job of building a positive credit history and credit score, greatly due to my father’s initial step of having me open a credit card in order to begin that process. And I had a back-up plan, if needed, for a co-signer on the lease, but it didn’t sound like a likely necessity. I just had to make sure the car price (MSRP) was under my yearly salary last year.

What’s more, I did some research on car salespersons’ commissions (I suggest reading the basic info and a personal account I found in my research), and I knew I wanted to take as little of a salesperson’s time as possible. And that would benefit me as well as the salesperson – win-win. And my dad… win-win-win! 😛

So, we walked into the showroom this afternoon, I , in a comedic way, found myself kind of loving the energetic older Chinese lady with a very strong Chinese accent who greeted us right near the door, handing us her business cards from her blue-gloved hands, and reminding me of Japan and their business card culture, as well as the shamelessness often found in Chinese culture (ironically enough). I told her why I was there, and she took me to her desk to figure out some details of what vehicles were available for lease that matched what I was seeking.

While sitting there, she comments to me that I have very pretty eyes, and I thank her. I happen to agree, so I determine that I will accept the compliment despite its potential aim at being falsely friendly in order to get a sale. After a few minutes, she says-asks that I’d been there before, right? I told her that I had not. After an Oh exhale, she says that I just look familiar. Another possible “move”, but it doesn’t bother me. She could also be being genuine. It wouldn’t be the first time for me.

After a few minutes more, she asks me again, asking if I’m sure I’ve not been there before. I tell her that, no, I have never been in here before today. She genuinely seems a bit bugged about this, and tells me that I just look so familiar. I smile.

When we get up and start walking to go outside and “Pick the color you like,” she says suddenly, “Well, do you dance?” still looking at me quizzically. I stop and look at her more carefully.

“Yes,” I tell her.

Within a few more sentences, we have both worked out that we know exactly who the other person is. She wasn’t anyone who did dance classes, but she was friends with some guys who did, and often would go out dancing with them, and that sometimes meant with a group that included me.

When I ran into dance friends at dinner tonight, I relayed this story to them. Brows were crooked and eyes were rolled at first, but everyone laughed and sighed when I said the, ‘Do you dance?’ line – they know exactly how that works in life. You can’t place a person, but dance is mentioned and it suddenly all clicks into place (and you sometimes have to evaluate what side of you this person has seen in the dance world before moving forward). One of the girls at dinner knew just whom I meant when I described the car saleswoman. The dance community is like that – we kind of all know each other, even if only distantly or in passing of sorts.

Anyway, tangent ended…

So, I introduced her to my dad at that point, and explained the connection to him. He was surprised and obviously a bit more at ease. We then chatted about dance stuff while walking out to the cars, and it was just kind of really cool.

Once at the cars, we got down to business. My dad and I browsed details and asked questions, both agreed that the dark gray was not only a good-looking vehicle but also the best-looking one out there.

We test drive it. 2.0L versus 1.8L engine made a huge difference for this little car. We were impressed by the pickup and by the interior quiet and vehicle stability feeling on the highway. Really impressed, actually. This car was much better than I remembered from the oneI drive in college that belonged to a friend of mine.

I liked this car.

And so, after the test drive, I said a clear yes to wanting to see about leasing it, and the saleswoman got to work. Tentative prices were shown, and I approved a credit check in myself. When they approved my credit score, real negotiations began. My dad helped me with the bargaining part – I’m not the greatest with that, which was part of why I wanted him with me in the first place – and the saleswoman was actually really awesome throughout it all. Frankly, the directness of her Chinese culture was a huge relief to both my dad and me. It is just utterly annoying having to deal with the excuse and BS nonsense I so often hear from salespeople from US-born culture. We don’t need to come up with excuses for why you are offering this versus that. Just say your offer, and I’ll say mine, and we’ll continue easily that way, with no one getting offended on either side. And that is just what we did.

And it was so easy, I barely even felt any stress at all. My only actual stress, really, was when I realized I needed to go to the bathroom, but I kept having to read or do something or wait for my dad to come back from the bathroom and then an important time-sensitive thing he had to do on his phone for a few minutes (sign up for his lap swimming at the pool as soon as the registration room opened at 3:00 for Tuesday, that is)… literally the only time I felt actual stress at that place.

When our offers were getting pretty close to being met, my dad started to retract his statement of waiting to call back until Monday or Tuesday. “We might be able just to do this all today,” he said, slightly amazed. And then repeated every so often, when a new price drop had occurred.

Eventually, our exact number request was met, I signed a tentative proof and filled out some further information, and we were walked over to and dropped off at finance to sit and wait to sign the real papers.

We had spent roughly twenty minutes doing the initial desk stuff, then just over half an hour on the colors and test drive, just over half an hour on negotiations, another ten finalizing , and then over an hour just waiting for finance, and not quite half an hour in a finance room, signing papers.

Then, after one last bathroom break, I met the saleswoman and my dad in a certain covered vehicle area just outside, and took a few pictures and connected to Bluetooth and played around with the keyless start (my dad was quite delighted by that part, actually), before driving on out (and then immediately calling my mom on the car phone system…, which turned out to be quite decent, actually).

And so, now, I have a car that is reliable, super covered under warranties and full maintenance coverage, high-tech, handsome, and, really, quite fun to drive.

I am grateful for such an awesome turnout for today. Thank you, Life and World and Dance. 😀

P.S. One of the photos the saleswoman took while I was talking to my dad for his photo.

Post-a-day 2020

Vroom….?

Well, I might end up with a car of my own tomorrow. Kind of a really weird thought, actually. However, I’ve checked it out a bit, and found that I could potentially pay off the entire lease up-front, and then I only would be required to pay my grandmother back each month for her borrowed money, as opposed to doing that and paying the car company leasing organization each month. That idea has really lifted something from my stomach. It hasn’t happened yet, of course, so I’m still in that space of a bit of stress and discomfort about it all. However, I can see how doing that would relieve an immense pressure for me. So, I would like to make that happen. This is a car that I had wanted back in and after college (before I met the VW, of course). I have read much about its handling etc.. so I am hoping that is just in comparison to, say, the Porsche 911 I was driving today, with its four-wheel drive and all the rest of its engineering. If they are comparing to the best, we’ll, I know it isn’t the best. However, this car gets an average of 30+ miles per gallon. That lovely Porsche has an engine that eats gasoline at absurd rates for such a small vehicle size. Anyway…, I hope this all works out easily and beautifully tomorrow.

Fingers crossed and intentions real 😉

Post-a-day 2020

Unprepared

I don’t really want to write about this right now, but here we are and here I write.

I am taking care of myself like a mother to myself, because my mom is on the other side of town, likely long asleep for the night, and I am up here, house-sitting on my own. Even the dog is wiped out asleep.

But I am sitting on this bed, preparing to go to sleep – for as long as my menstruating will allow at once, or course – with eyes burning from the tears shed during my shower… my throat just a little sore from the sobs released… my brain struggling to see straight with this potential upturn of its outlook world. I have myself a glass of ice water, and it has already helped with my burning eyes and shaky throat and hands, soothing everything like a balm…

You see, I watched the film Remember Me tonight, the one with Robert Pattinson wearing the same bracelet watch he wore in Twilight. I didn’t know anything about it but that it had him in it, it was some sort of romance, and, due to the title, this romance clearly was going to end before the film did. Usually, it is death of some sort, but this film was giving vibes that it potentially could be just that death brought them together and they helped each other heal and move on in life, though now without one another.

…. Yeah…

(*****Spoilers coming up here, so stop reading the post, if you want to watch the film without a super major spoiler.*****)

Okay, so, the moment they showed the date on the board, I was stressed. I was already stressed-annoyed at the film in various ways at this point, how there just wasn’t enough of anything. But, at the date, I was beginning really to stress. I was extremely grateful there was no footage or re-enactment or anything of the sort of the buildings or the smoke-dust-rubble clouds. There is that. However, I was actually angry at the turn of events. At the obvious phone call. At how it no longer felt like a poorly done feature film I had just been watching, but like a small glimpse into what could have been someone real’s real life. And that that was how it actually might have gone for someone real.

And it just felt so real, I couldn’t let myself face anything other than anger at such an ending being sprung upon me like that – how dare they? This was supposed to be a film, not a sop story about our misery that day… and forward…

I was only a kid at the time. I didn’t remember that it was a Tuesday, but I remember that we were coming back to our classroom from gym class, and Kristen and Trish-Anne and I stopped to look at the television that was on in the ESL classroom – the televisions were almost never on, except for a rare film. But it wasn’t a movie.

What is it?? we all wondered and asked each other and no one in particular. Kristen had seen the longest view of the television. “Someone bombed the twin towers,” she said as she turned back to me. I quickly reviewed what I had glimpsed on the television: tall buildings, smoke and fire somewhere in the middle near the top. Her words make sense in such a way that they do not. She was wearing overalls that day. With her words, I didn’t understand how to feel, nor how I felt anyway. But I knew none of it was good.

Our teacher sat us down and explained what had happened. So far.

The buildings still stood at that point in time. That’s why it had looked just like a bomb had gone off. Not what had really happened.

I only remember near the end of the school day onward, now. There is nothing after the beginning of our teacher telling us what had happened. I don’t remember if we had the live news coverage on or not, but I know I saw it somehow… it is brandished in my brain, so I know I saw it eventually.

(**** Another warning: Graphic references coming, so be careful.*****)

While it was difficult to see such beauty disappear so suddenly, like a game of Godzilla at home with our massive cardboard building bricks, although more effectively, as they even went to ash instead of merely falling down everywhere, what probably hit me the most was – and this is difficult for me even to write right now – the people…. It was seeing those people, desperate in their last hope for physical salvation, jumping, as the building shrank toward gravity’s command. That and knowing how so many people had been able to phone their families and friends to share their verbal love one final time while living on this planet… knowing one’s impending doom, and having to say goodbye while still so seemingly whole and safe and well.

……

We have a few major incidents in our lives, ones that give us a kind of foundation to our ways of being going forward. Something happens, and it is mentally significant for us – we are usually extremely disturbed by it – such that we decide then and there that we never want to have to feel that way again, and so determine never to be such-and-such again. Therefore, to avoid such-and-such, we will do this or be this going forward. I have never been able to figure mine out. Not ones that really stand out above the rest. Not ones that show me the source incident for my desperate need to be right, or, at least, to know, whatever it happens to be.

But, in my shower tonight, as I gave in to the rising emotions within myself, and allowed them to surface and release, I began to wonder if one of my incidents just might have been somehow around September eleventh. Around that footage of those people, falling…. falling… hopelessly falling. It wasn’t exactly anything that happened directly to me, but seeing that footage happened to me. For days and weeks, and possibly months and years afterward – actually, yes, years, because I still do it today, both in the original way and in other ways – I would have these visions and thoughts of how people could have survived, what they would have had to do to get out okay, to make everything okay again in so many ways…. to make it just buildings and lost architecture. I had so many plans, mentally tested to every degree. Not everyone would make it out, I knew, but I would. Even if I had been on the upper floors, I would have. Because, perhaps in that moment, I became a sort of MacGyver. I had to have a way out of there. I had to…

I even had one idea – and this is big for such a little kid, I think – that involved rappelling myself down after Spider-Manning it to some nearby buildings and careening down a makeshift zip line… possibly even making several back and forth between the two towers, having people work together to get more of us out of there, and fast.

But why did I have to do this brainstorming? I didn’t lose anyone directly in the event, so I had an odd connection to it all to be so strongly enveloped by this idea. For me, though, it made life suddenly real, the danger of it real. I had recently been in New York City. We had gone into those buildings. But it was raining that day, and hard, so the observation decks were closed. So, we didn’t go up all the way. But we could have. And we could have gone later.

Why did those people die? Why didn’t they find ways out, or ways out in time? My answer back then, whether I ever said it aloud or not, was, “They weren’t prepared.” And, so, I would be. This was my wake up call and the beginning of my own preparations.

Preparations for what, you ask? For life. I was saying today how I kind of have a rough ten backup plans for any specific thing. And, though I was slightly joking, I know that I could start listing and probably reach ten rather easily. And that’s for anything I do or intend to do. And, also, for things I have done. I have evaluated them, too, and determined how I could have done them better… in myriad ways.

What’s more, to this day I take any scary scenario I see in a film or show, or just hear about, and end up going through, in the side of my mind, the best ways to get out of it safely… even though it has nothing much to do with me and my life. I cannot face a scary scenario in anything without automatically doing it. I just have to figure out how to get out of it, get out of there, and survive, stay alive, be safe again.

Anyway, my stomach is hurting in an achy, sleep-needing type of way, so I’m going to close this out and get to sleep already. All of this has been just some brainstorming on my part. I have always held a weird space with this event, especially in that whole reliving the crashes and shrinkings of the buildings and how to get out of them safely and effectively… in my fear to accept that there might be nothing that can be done when it is truly one’s time… in my desperation to make sure I am ready to face whatever comes my way. There is a shaking terror within me at the idea of being unprepared, caught off-guard… a life-threatening terror. And seeing this in this new light has shaken me somewhat tonight (and also a lot quite physically).

We didn’t go up all the way that day. I had figured and intended to go back and go up another time, on a clear day. I would be like in the Godspell film.

Except, now, I never would be. And neither would anyone else be…

Instead of crying myself to sleep, though, I determined that I wanted to be held and taken care of and loved and accepted. So, I am doing that for myself, instead.

At that, goodnight. 🙂 ❤

Post-a-day 2020

Scars and cars

Two things:

1) These scans are at the point that they have dried out so much, they now keep cracking when I move, ripping themselves open anew, sending immediate and searing pain through my hands or knee, when it does happen. I finally managed to drive okay, but it was an old stick shift today, and putting it into third gear was quite difficult with my right hand situation. It ended up busting open my scabs more than once, and drawing blood from them… yippee… haha

2) Speaking of driving that car, it is a ’97(?) Porsche 911. That means the speedometer only shows numbers in increments of 25 (up to a very high number), the engine feels very comfortable at around 80mph, and driving it is like a party for the senses in a way they always seem to forget that they adore. Driving such a car makes driving fun. A long drive into town, while mentally seems miserable, ends up being no big deal at all, and, in fact, a kind of total meditative experience as I am one with the wind and the glorious German engineering and power of an engine. I don’t even have the need for speed, myself – it really is the car. But, since I’m driving it, I tend to take it easy for the most part, and chill with traffic at safer and much slower speeds than one likely would expect from a driver of such a car. Nonetheless, that car makes driving fun. Really.

Now, I’m curious how this idea could affect my search for a reliable, responsible – both for me and for the planet – vehicle this weekend. The plan is to lease a Nissan Sentra, after verifying that I still like the vehicle, years and years later…, but that will be a hard comparison after driving this car again… oops. 😛

Wishful thinking, y’all. 😉

Post-a-day 2020

Physical healing

Well, further healing happened last night and today, but I am ridiculously exhausted tonight. By about eight o’clock I was already ready to go to sleep for the night, though I wasn’t even halfway to the house where I am house-sitting for a week. Now, hours later – because I had to be shown certain things by the owners before I could start getting ready for bed – I can barely think, my eyes burn, and I can’t even seem to keep myself from folding forward in a hunch while sitting. I am wiped, yet again. And I didn’t even get that nap in again today… bummer, right?

There only seems to be another couple or few days of recovery needed for my injuries from Friday evening. Though, I could see my knee needing a bit longer. My hands are doing really well, and only seem to need another day or two to be able to work almost entirely normally again.

For now, though, I rest and I sleep and I let everything heal. Then, after healing, I can jump right back into the exercise and the running on which I am getting very behind(!!!). (I never imagined having such a setback on this 100-mile goal… oops.)

Post-a-day 2020

Exhausted Healing

It is really rather amazing how, when the body is healing itself, one’s overall energy level seems significantly decreased. Without any conscious effort, most of our effort is going to our injuries, cell by cell, drop by drop, healing. I reached the end of my day, and I didn’t even have 4000 steps today, though I usually average over eight by 6 p.m., and sometimes reach over 14,000 before bed. However, I found myself already exhausted, and, now, lying in bed, I can barely keep my eyes open to write this. I am just so wiped.

And, by the way, I even took a two-hour nap this afternoon.

(!!!)

Frankly, I was already wiped only eleven hours after I awoke this morning, which is only nine hours of being awake.

It seems utterly ridiculous. And yet, after that amazing nap this afternoon, I noticed a significant improvement in my knee. I have a feeling that I will sleep even better tonight because of it. Though I likely won’t have any muscle growth happening, since I can’t really exercise anything on my body right now, I think a lot more healing will happen tonight, while I don’t even have to expel the energy of those nine waking hours and 3800 steps…

It is just fascinating, this body. And I am ever grateful for it and its glorious magic and skills and determination to work beautifully. 😉

Post-a-day 2020

Another day dawns

Tomorrow will be the first day of testing out a new position. I always have high hopes about all of my new endeavors, and this one is no different from the rest… I hope it goes magically well and that all the people involved live better lives because of my involvement, myself included.

Tomorrow, another day dawns, another path begins, another adventure strikes to flame… And I am so terrified, so excited, I can hardly sleep. It feels like a very good sign. 😉

Here’s hoping… Cheers!

Post-a-day 2020

The Fall

So, here’s the short but sweet – well, you get the idea – version of what happened yesterday evening around 5:30. I had a pretty bad fall at approximately .68 miles into my run. I was supposed to do a little 5k to be in a sort of solidarity with a student I tutor, because we had to miss tutoring yesterday due to her mandatory participation in a 5k with her school. (She is neither fan of outdoorsy things nor of running.) I had already run just over that on Thursday, and I didn’t necessarily feel like getting out to run and do a whole workout (core upon return to the house, of course), but I’d told her I would do it on Friday, and I knew I always felt great after such a workout anyway. So, I headed out. It was an amazing start to the run, and the weather was great.

However, when my eye was caught by a mother doing a sort of super-protective stance between the road and her small child, possibly as a means of preventing his sprinting suddenly to the street when a truck was passing, that great feeling changed quickly. Since I was caught off guard by her stance, and, of course, I had to process what I was seeing before moving on in life, I was mentally focused on the mother, even though I turned my head back to the road ahead of me. And, though, I was looking at the road again, it was not quite enough time to process that one of the manhole covers a step and a half ahead of me, while it was supposed to be flush with the road around its rim, and concave for the actual cover, the indefinite-looking roadwork of the street turned that flush edge into a lip.

And yes, I did trip on that lip.

Put simply, I flew forward. I got another step and a half-ish under me as I began to fall, but I was already turning Superman, and I knew I was not going to recover my feet. I had a brief thought of not wanting to fall simply so as not to freak out the poor onlookers – it has to suck to witness someone fall hard or be part of some accident… I regularly think of how terribly frightening it must have been for that angel driving behind me when I went down on my scooter on the road that night last year. Nonetheless, I saw before the thought even finished that, oh, well, they were just going to have to witness it, and I was just going not to worry about it, and to do what I needed to do for my own health and well-being.

And so, I went down, and I went down not just hard, but with a hard forward slide. Man, it was like I were Speedy Gonzales or something, because there was no way I could have been running very slowly to slide that hard and that far, and so quickly. And I always thought my longer running was slow. Good thing I’ve been working on improving that for myself… it really paid off yesterday evening. Not.

(Note: I’m not at all bashing improving one’s skills or athletic abilities – not at all. I am merely having a fun thought and play at how, in this particular instance, being better at the sport actually made for a worse situation. Think, I might not even have fallen, if I hadn’t been going so fast. However, that changes nothing in my plans to continue to improve in my running.)

Anyway, so I went down, and I knew people saw, and I had slight concern for them, but also didn’t care and didn’t have the mental space for almost any thoughts aside from dealing with my own body’s safety and survival at present.

It really sucked. I immediately rolled to my back. I was just lying in the street then, tears pouring from down my temples and upper cheeks, as I quickly examined my hands. They were a total mess. Gashed terribly, tissue fluid and blood already everywhere, and grainy gravel bits of all sizes and dark colors everywhere on them, mixed in with the blood and peeling skin and tissue fluid. My knee was stinging slightly, and I had a feeling it was much worse than it was letting on, hidden beneath my spectacular running pants – I could look at that more later, perhaps when I got home… it only would get worse once I let my attention turn to it. The pants had held up, so I knew they would hold in most of the bleeding that likely was underneath. Not that I spent more than a moment of thought on my knee… I just glanced and moved on mentally.

My hands… oh, my hands needed help.

While I was dong this self-evaluation and feeling growing intense pain, crying somewhat calmly yet entirely uncontrollably, the mother was talking to me from her spot back on the sidewalk.

Was I okay? Did I want them to call an ambulance? Did I want them to call somebody else for me? I answer with obvious shaking of my head to all of them. I was grateful to hear, when the husband was trying to move along, the wife (mother of the little kid) said pointedly, “No, she’s not okay. She’s really hurt.” Though, I only slightly processed it, what with the pain and my own mental focus at the time. When she asked if they could get me anything, I managed, after another several seconds of gasping-like breathing, to ask, “Do you have any water?” After which I resumed the intense breathing. The crying, of course, never paused.

I was still lying on my back in the road, and it had been at least a minute at this point. Granted, I was to the side of the road, but I was definitely entirely in the road, at least a yard or two from the curb. So, I ask again about the water, figuring out how to get water, if these folks don’t have any, and she answers to me that they do. A few moments later, I hear someone begin to approach, and a hard plastic cup being set on the driveway next to me. I say next to me, because it was perpendicular to the road, st the specific spot where I lay. It was not, however, actually very near to me. It was at least three yards away from me.

“Honey, just bring it to her, ” I hear the wife say, followed by the husband’s hushed, “No.” Her response was borderline furious, and something within me felt like there would be a rage in their house tonight.

Alas, there was water, and I needed it for my hands. There was no possibility of my getting up from my spot in the road, so, I stuck my hands above my head, Superman-y again, and rolled two-ish turns toward the driveway. I then forced myself to sit up – though I’m really not sure how, seeing as my hands were no real use at that point. But I grabbed the little blue sippy-type cup, and started carefully tipping the limited, precious water onto one hand at a time. And it hurt. And I knew it wouldn’t be enough – there was far too much blood and dirt that wasn’t going to come off by just dripping a single cup-full of water onto it with no real rubbing.

Not that I wanted to rub my hands…, but I needed to do it.

A truck driving past as I fell, – the one from which the mother had possibly been”protecting” her child – backed all the way up the block, and stopped even with me in the road (in which I am still sitting, of course, but I’m by the edge now). It was, for lack of better descriptors, what I would call a Mexican work truck. Likely, the guy had been working on building a house somewhere down the road – one of the new builds I had passed on my way there, perhaps. The driver exited the truck and was doing something with the truck bed for a minute. I was almost certain what would come next – it’s just a part of the culture, you know?

After a few moments, I finally comprehend that the guy is standing near me, setting down a bottle of water. He then hands me a white piece of cloth and says, “Clean. I’s clean.” (That’s “it’s” without the t, by the way.). I could barely form any words in any language, though I knew he spoke Spanish and possibly almost no English. I believe I thanked him then. I set down the sippy cup back on the driveway, and picked up the icy cold bottle of water. This will hurt, I think, but I know I need to do it.

I struggle for a few moments in my efforts to open the bottle, but I cannot manage it – this simple task is impossible for me in this moment – and so I set the bottle back down on the ground. Within seconds, the guy was back at my side, picking up and opening the bottle for me. He then holds it out in a way that I know he is offering to hold it and pour for me, and so I extend my hands and allow him to pour. I cough out some tears at the pain of it, but we can both see that it is helping clear away the mess. When I’ve wiped away as much as I can tolerate, I nod and thank him a couple or few times, as I press the white cloth into my hands, absorbing what excess still remains, and shooting pains into my hands at every press. I was barely able to see his upside down face through my tears. But I saw him and thanked his face, even if I couldn’t see his eyes.

Meanwhile, the couple stood with their child on the sidewalk, watching, mumbling. As the Mexican guy stepped back into his truck, a white Mercedes that had been briefly waiting, with the guy and me in full view on the side of the road, and his truck parked in the middle of it – keep in mind, this is a neighborhood road, not some throughway or anything – decides to squeeze between me and the truck, now that the guy isn’t standing next to me anymore. When the mother on the sidewalk commented with fury at the fact that the woman had seen us and easily could have just gone around the block – and these are tiny blocks, by the way, in a traditional square arrangement – I genuinely agreed with her. Though, I also felt sad at the driver of the Mercedes. How miserable must one be to be such an a** during an obvious “situation” of someone sprawled in the road?

Anyway… I really liked the wife/mother. Not so much the paranoia of the husband, though. Which, by the way, he picked up that cup after I set it back down to give it back to them… Just saying.

Okay, so everyone moves on. I have my keys and my phone again, and I roll myself the rest of the way fully onto the driveway. I lay there a handful of minutes, still crying. I hear a dog collar approaching on the sidewalk behind me, and am unconcerned. Minus the tiny hope that the owner won’t be too distraught at the sight.

It turned out to be an older guy, out walking his dog. He asked if I was okay, and I carefully told him that I wasn’t but that I would be – I could talk now. Kind of. He offered to bring me bandages, saying that he lived just right nearby, and I said that that actually would be really great. His walk turned into a cautious jog of concern, as he raced around the corner, heading to his unseen home. I hardly even knew how he looked. I still couldn’t process such details.

And so, when her returned a couple minutes later, I sat myself up again, and got to work. I poured the hydrogen peroxide on my knew first, then my left hand, and both were okay. It hurt a bit, but it really just foamed and mostly was okay. The guy was surprised at this. He’d even said he would look away while I poured the peroxide, clearly indicating that he didn’t want me to be embarrassed at my likely reaction of intense pain. An old man had approached at this point, and was asking questions. I had already worked hard enough to answer them for the first guy – what happened; yeah, I’m definitely hurt; I’ll be okay, just not yet; I live about .62 miles that way – so I let him answer them for me. He didn’t seem to mind, once he saw that I clearly wasn’t up to it. Then, while they chatted, I poured the peroxide on my right hand. And that, my friends, was the exact memory I had had of hydrogen peroxide from my childhood, and the reason I was terrified of it as an adult. I had used it a couple times recently, and couldn’t understand why I’d been afraid of it. My mom had given it to me last year (?), saying that alcohol burns, not hydrogen peroxide. And it had been true so far in my adult life. Until this moment, in a stranger’s driveway with two older guys chatting about me and my present situation.

My body took over control as I convulsed and wailed, and even more tears poured from my eyes, the rate increased significantly from the original fall’s. I felt bad for this pour girl on the side of the road. I couldn’t imagine how the onlookers felt. (There was a secret onlooker across the street in the apartments, who had clearly been considering off and on whether to come help. She, too, looked hispanic, and I fear her concern was one not only of COVID-19, but mostly of a fear of not being able to communicate. I don’t exactly exude Spanish (or any language other than English, really), so I get it.

Anyway, so that really sucked, and I had to pour the painful cold water on it to make the pain go down at least somewhat – I couldn’t take it anymore. Funny how that cold water was suddenly not so big a deal anymore, right? Eventually, I blew my nose a bunch more with the rest of the paper towels the guy had brought, and I put a compress on my knee. I had raised the pant leg while still in the street, and, aside from the clear layer of skin that was plastered to the fabric, my knee didn’t look like it needed too much immediate attention. So, after the quick rinse of water and the peroxide, it was good to go, in terms of germ-prevention and safety until I made it home.

Now, all this time, I had been evaluating how I would be getting home. No family lives anywhere near me, so that was out as an option, if I couldn’t walk it. I considered a high school acquaintance who lived nearby. I was rather sure he would come get me and drive me home, if I really needed, but I didn’t want to turn to that except as a last resort. So, my options were really either to walk or to run home. If I ended up being able to run, I knew I would end up finishing the 5k. It was a slim chance, but it wouldn’t’ have surprised me. However, walking was the most likely of the three options. And, at this point in time, I noticed that I still had not felt that moment of, Okay, let’s get up, that we always get at some point after a fall. And, so far as I could tell, it was nowhere nearby either. I wasn’t going anywhere for a while. I mean, I hadn’t even fully stopped crying at this point, and it had been ten minutes already.

I had started “chatting” with the younger of the two older guys, during the times that I could use my words, and, after I had finished all my dressings, he offered yet again to drive me home – “We can put the windows down, be safe…” – I said, at last, “I think that would be a very good idea,” nodding and speaking with obvious effort, pinches of tears falling. He hopped into action, and took his first aid kit and hydrogen peroxide and, even, the trash back to his home. A couple minutes later, a Jeep came roaring around the corner, windows down.

I struggled to find the least painful way, and managed myself to my feet without too much disruption. But, oh, did it hurt to use my right leg/knee… The guy opened the passenger door for me, and I struggled my way into the seat. I fumbled for a while, throwing in involuntary cries of pain, getting the seatbelt on myself and shutting the door… I just couldn’t use my hands almost at all: no pressure on them from the outside, and no muscle flexing within them.

We chatted on the brief drive back that almost-three-quarters-of-a-mile path, exchanged names, and wished one another well as we arrived and I struggled my way out of the Jeep. I thanked him over and over again, both during the ride and at the end of it. And also before it, too. And then I slowly and painfully stumbled up the walkways and stairs, managed to unlock and open the door, and get myself inside.

I had sent my mom a couple photos after the first group had left, before I lay back down on the driveway, and then had called her when the guy had gone to get his Jeep. I had known that she was driving before then, so I waited to call when I knew she would be able to see the photos. At my first, “Hey,” she knew something had happened. “What happened?” she asked, concerned, but not freaking out. She probably had figured I’d had some terrible interaction with someone mean – that’s usually the answer to What happened?. I told her to look at the photo I’d sent her. She looked, and understood immediately. I told her the present situation and that I thought I would be okay. Now that I was home, I called her again, just to let her know that I was there, and also to see what she recommended I do to help myself at this point.

She prescribed me some time with an ice pack of sorts and an elevated leg, a shower, and then just before bed, rubbing gently hydrogen peroxide into my wounds with a Q-tip (cotton, you see), since I couldn’t get all the dirt off my hands.

The shower was long and hot and extremely painful at first, but it helped significantly by the end of it. The hydrogen peroxide left me, yet again, wailing involuntarily in pain, pouring tears, and practically shouting half-comprehensible phrases and annoyances. By the way, blowing your nose with a tissue and non-usable thumbs sucks. That’s to say the least.

When I woke up in the middle of the night with a need to pee, I not only had to detach my palms from the sheets (painfully, of course), due to sticking tissue fluid, but hobble down the stairs, squat down to the toilet seat, and then attempt to wipe myself with a clumsy and burning left hand (the right was a solid no-go). This repeated itself when my alarms went off at five forty-something to get me up for test proctoring today.

Today, my knee hurts. More like my upper shin than my kneecap, but it still hurts. It’s kind of like a super bruise feeling, but the skin doesn’t really hurt. My hands, however, have been bad. I still have no opposable thumbs for the time being… if I try to use them, I involuntarily wail from the instant pain in my lower palm. The right is the worst. The left, starting this evening, has actually started to come around a bit. They were both still producing tissue fluid 20 hours after the incident, but have since mostly ceased. But any sharp movements or pressure, and they resume it. They felt like fire last night period. Tonight, they only get that feeling when they are either bumped or wet. Or, of course, I attempt to use my thumb for any kind of grip, or clench my fingers in an attempt to grip anything. (I almost couldn’t get out of my room this morning, because the doorknob is very thin and takes a lot of pressure to get open…) In fact, it is extremely difficult even to type this right now.

All in all, that totally sucked, and it still sucks now, but I am mending safely, it seems. And I am grateful for that.

On that note, I shall sleep. But first, the photos:

This was yesterday, after rinsing off and rolling into the driveway.

This was the darned manhole cover with the “lip”.

This was after my shower last night.

I had to set the phone timer for this one.

And these were this evening, about 25 hours after the fall. I had to set the timer on these, too, because I couldn’t both hold the phone and click the shutter button… no thumbs, remember. (I tell you, it is one thing just not to have opposable thumbs. It is something else entirely not to have them in a world designed for opposable thumbs. I am having to learn drastic new ways of completing the formerly simplest of tasks[!!!].)

Post-a-day 2020