crap no. 44

Greetings from my bed of fire.

For three weeks I’ve been struggling with an injury to my left ass and leg. Know what I miss? Standing and walking. Who knew? I always imagined that being confined to my house would be a dream come true. Nope. Because this is the worst pain I have ever experienced — and I’m still watching Modern Family.

Losing all this time to my ass/non-functional leg has set me way behind. Writing, earning an income, holiday preparations, sanity — EVERYTHING has suffered. But I’m trying a new easy-breezy thing where I don’t freak out every 20 minutes. Now I’m only freaking out every 30 minutes.

I was hoping to get my crappy version of The Nutcracker finished in time for the holidays, but guys? Spending my days writhing in pain in bed earning my law degree watching Making a Murderer has really slowed me down. SO NARD IT. I’ll post it in July. We have something to live for!

Now that I’ve got you all wishing that I’d just shut the hell up, I will drop some less ass-related crap on you.

It’s now day 10 of NaNoWriMo and I’ve met my word count every day. If you aren’t familiar with NaNoWriMo, it’s a book writing challenge. The goal is to have a first draft – 50,000 words total – completed in 30 days. Writing 1700 words a day is bugger hard, but I’m sure it will be worth the effort. I mean, is it possible that no one will want to publish my collection of poop essays? Sure. But in that extremely unlikely scenario — because getting published is very easy and it’s not like every goddamned person I meet is also writing a book — I will have my blog posts written for the next year. And then you can print them off, punch some holes in the pages and use some yarn to bind your very own book!

I know what you’re thinking. That last paragraph is proof that I absolutely shouldn’t be writing a book.

Because I’ve been so bunged up, 2.0 decided that he would be in charge of handing out Halloween candy this year. But when I caught him skimping on treats I had to step/limp in. One bag of chips and three mini chocolate bars per kid, dude. Not one bag of chips, a mini chocolate bar, and some pocket lint.

As always, the 44 kids that showed up at our door had put little to no effort into their costumes and were happy to say things like, “Not that bar! Give me that one.” I think I exercised great restraint when I didn’t bury a single one of them alive in the backyard.

2.0 was most impressed by the costume our neighbours dressed their adorable black poodle in.

2.0: Wow! Look at Emma’s costume! It’s amazing!
movita: That’s not Emma. That’s a white dog. Emma is beside the white dog wearing a skeleton outfit.
2.0: Are you sure?
movita: Yah. I’m pretty sure they didn’t dye their dog white for Halloween.
2.0: (mumbling to himself) I don’t know why they wouldn’t…

The other night 2.0 and I were watching the local news when the anchorman started having some difficulties with talking and stuff. He pushed through but ended describing a group of refugees as “fleeing a… uh… a uh… a bunch of violence,” and we just about died laughing.

Most of the news this particular channel broadcasts is actually human interest (NOT NEWS), and sometimes we yell at the television so much that we have to turn it off before one of us has a stroke. Lead with the murder-suicide, NOT THE GUY COMPLAINING ABOUT HIS KID’S SCHOOL BUS ROUTE. In the same broadcast another reporter was talking about a snooker tournament and said, “Don’t let the casual appearance of the competitors in the preliminary rounds fool you. In the final round competitors will be wearing shirts AND dress pants!”

Sometimes when I’m teaching I divide my ballet class into groups for exercises. Often one group is made up of dancers wearing black bodysuits, the other is dancers in coloured bodysuits. Sometimes I hear myself yelling, “Coloured people first!” Or, “Blacks! You’re up!” So, yes. If this injury doesn’t end my career, this accidental act of racism outta do it.

Every day this week I’ve tried to do something to feel a bit more like a normally functioning adult. A trip to physiotherapy, for example. Yesterday I decided that I could manage the short drive to the liquor store to buy some vodka for self-medicating making pasta with vodka sauce. Even a short trek in the car results in some staggering once I get out, so when I stumbled into the store at 10 am I was looking pretty desperate.

The vodka I needed was on the bottom shelf and I had some trouble getting back up after kneeling to fetch it, so I was limping pretty good as I walked toward the cash registers. The cashier was giving me some serious stink-eye so I explained that I was injured — not intoxicated — and he was all: oh, okay, that kinda tracks.

Then, as I left store, the sliding doors closed on my slow-moving body which made me fling my car keys across the floor. I almost fell over trying to pick them up, and had to crawl to a window so I could steady myself and then lean against it to get upright. What’s my point? No one called the cops on me. They just watched as I staggered toward my car. Now I’m wondering just what it is that I’d have to do to make them think I was a hazard to humanity. (Awkward sentence much?)

If you follow me on Facebook you know that my mother has been having a rough week. First, she accidentally told our French in-laws that her dog was dead. She was confident that her French skills were “okay,” but learned quickly that she needed to clarify things. My brother emailed to say: how does your “French being ok” result in someone thinking your dog is dead?!? That would seem like a pretty strong indicator that your French was, in fact, definitely *not* okay.

Note: Rosie’s dog is alive.

A couple of days later, Rosie asked Bill Beaucoup to deliver some treats to me to help with healing and morale. Bill dropped off a big container of Rosie’s homemade chowder, some leftover Halloween candy, a box of Girl Guide cookies, and 2 kilograms of sugar.

The 2 kg. bag of sugar seemed a bit weird, but Bill seemed pretty determined to bring it into the house. Upon inquiry – and in Rosie’s words:

Oh, dear God, he took the sugar I had set out on the counter. I was going to refill the canister…