This is what it says on my discharge form: Impacted Radial Head Fracture with Navicular Tenderness.
Basically, I broke one of the two major bones in my right arm, at the elbow & my hand hurts near my wrist (I may have broken a small bone in between my thumb & wrist). Six hours, three waiting rooms, nine x-rays, two chapters of the Cider House Rules & one Lemon Bar. I left with a regulation sling (not as flashy as the red-orange one Mary MacGyver-ed for me), something cast-like called a Spica that keeps my thumb immobilized & directions to do exactly what I've been doing: ice & elevation. Some of my pill-familiar friends may frown on the fact that I may not fill the prescription for Percocet that the ER doctor wrote me for pain.
If I said that I was going to update my website by October 1st, would you believe me? Me neither. It'll have the beginnings of half-joking, half-are-you-serious project, Pictures of Trees.
My friend Bryan (one of 3 Bryans & 7-10 "Brians" that I know), a photographer & artmaker has hisself a itty-bitty, baby weblog. He was also recently injured in a bicycle accident although his involved Jameson's & fractured ribs. Hopefully the Vicodin will induce some really long, fantastically blissed/tripped-out entries.
As a preface...
Several ways that riding a bike in Boston is different than Chicago:
1. It is not flat
2. In addition to long buses, there are trollies that run down the center of many streets.
AND
2a. Those trollies run on tracks that remain even after said trollies no longer run on said streets.
(more to come)
So...
Last night, on the way home from work, less then a block from the shop, I got my front tire caught in a trolley track & fell, hitting in this order: my hand, wrist, elbow, shoulder & head (last two at the same time I think). A nice lady who stopped to see if I was okay said that she'd never seen someone fall so hard. I broke my helmet but I do not seem to have a concussion. My right arm has however, been reluctant to work correctly, making things like undressing, brushing my teeth, tying my shoes or, um, typing somewhat painful or impossible. I have invested in Aleve gel-capsules, diet coke & candy & tomorrow morning I am going to Massachusetts General Hospital, which is on Fruit Street.
I will never not wear my helmet. Never.
And
The new Ted Leo record, which comes out in October or something is really good, I think, although I didn't like it at first.
Nobody told me but I'm telling you that you can see the trailer for the new Wes Anderson movie here.
Not much too say. Too tired to surf the internet or read the paper. I put a used Colnago Classic frame on "layaway" at the shop. Maybe I'll be riding it by next summer. The Gitane track bike above is pretty dang sweet. I want more bikes.
If I haven't mentioned it before, Oliver Wang's (O-Dub) audioblog Soul Sides is chock full of download-listen-buy immediately-type soul & funk tracks. And I still hate the word 'blog'.
I used to have more records than I do now. At some point last winter, I tried to pay off my lingering tuition bill at Columbia College by selling the remainder of my rock & miscellaneous big-ticket free-jazz LPs, probably around 350 or so. While it netted me a decent amount of money, it wasn't anywhere near the number that I needed & the situation (unpaid bill = no transcripts = incomplete grad school applications) seemed dire until my aunt saved the day.
When I went back to Reckless in January (everytime I think I get out...) I started to buy records at a reasonable clip, keeping in mind that I'd probably need to save money to move eventually. When the "new arrivals" section at home gets too full (hard to keep up) things just get filed away. The bad thing about that is that it keeps you from really being as familiar with your records as you should. The good thing is that every once in a while, when you're just thumbing through for something to listen to, you stumble across little gems that you'd forgotten about or never knew you had. The two LPs above are two such items.
The Watts 103rd St. Rhythm Band's Together is wrecked but still plays through about 90% of the time. It's a mix of instrumentals & vocal tracks that you might expect if you've heard Express Yourself but these earlier songs seem a little rawer, more to my liking. Favorites after this last listen include 65 Bars & A Taste of Soul, A Dance, A Kiss & A Song, and Giggin' Down 103rd. After checking around for a nicer copy (eBay etc), I've discovered that it fetches more money than I'll be able to throw down anytime soon so I'll deal with my fair copy. Oliver Wang waxes poetic about it here.
The other is Esther Phillips From A Whisper To A Scream which is somewhere in Millie Jackson territory but more mellow sadness than other woman anger & pleading. There are some funkier tracks on the first side including Home Is Where The Hatred Is, with drums supplied by the ubiquitous Bernard Purdie.
Through no skill of my own, charity perhaps, I have gotten myself a conditional, semi-job at the venerable JP (yes, I am calling it JP already) bike shop Ferris Wheels. After spending several hours fumbling about, changing a tire here, switching out some pedals there & receiving a ton of half-retained info from Jeffrey Ferris, we sat in his "office" in the park next door & talked about whether I was going to work there. Among the things he mentioned was Bike Not Bombs, which was started right here in JP/Roxbury 20 years ago. Wednesday nights may well find me volunteering down there, helping out & hopefully learning something about bikes.
1. We live in Boston. There are no streets that run straight.
1a. Boston is small.
2. Traveling in a truck with a cat for any length of time sort of blows. Even with the little kitty valiums or whatever.
3. Comment spam blows.
4. Showering in cold water blows. (Actually re-learning this one)
5. Looking for a job blows. I have a college degree. (Also relearning.)
6. Even though it has some stumble-y moments, Garden State is doesn't blow. Subtle acting, nice camerawork, Method Man, Princess Leia's eyebrows. I sort-of hesitate to say that it's one of a handful of post-Rushmore movies. People are channeling Wes Anderson's influences, straining them down to the bullet points.
+ semi-underground soundtrack flourishes. (Nick Drake)
+ the wide-angle lens
+ wacky, wacky bit characters with wacky backstories
+ slow-motion walking sequences
+ probably some other stuff
7. I have to go to grad school.
Even though I (or Chuck at the Apple store Genius Bar) fixed what was wrong with this here computer (which kept me awake & sweating in the 90 degree heat last night), I'm still going to have to take a week off from the weblog so I can concentrate on not fucking up our move east. I'll be back with hopefully longer, better observed entries overflowing with the sights, sounds & smells of our new town.