Tag: nose
This Shoulda' Killed Me
Upon arriving in Los Angeles, I was greeted by clear blue skies, temperatures in the 90’s and smog so thick that I couldn’t tell where it ended and the mountains began (that changed as I rode FlyAway closer to downtown).
Yeah, I was happily back in the City of Angels and thinking about the steps ahead of me… Get to Union Station and walk down the ramp to the Metro subway terminal, take Metro to the Julian Dixon transit center, walk up Fig 4 blocks to the Bonaventure. Check in.
Easy enough, right?
Oh, some of that went off without a problem. That walk, however, proved more difficult than it should have been. I employed my cane (which I’ve basically stopped using back at home) because of how uneven the ground would be. Between uneven sidewalk (not steep, just uneven) and a backpack stuffed full (along with a long sleeve shirt stuck in the top loop of the bag), that walk was a challenge. Oh, add to it the heat and you have the makings of quite an undertaking for someone like me.
But lets flash forward. After that walk my head was clearly out of place — not discouraged but I didn’t think I was paying well enough attention to where I was going and what was right in front of me. That brought back memories over and over again of my LAST visit to Los Angeles and my last stay at the Bonaventure hotel.
Not paying attention, poor balance due to uneven surfaces, etc, etc. It had all contributed to my literal downfall.
I checked in, unpacked my stuff and was hungry. I wanted to not only get a bite to eat but maybe snap some pictures somewhere. But the only place that came to mind was on the Bonaventure property. The skybridge crossing 5th street to National City Bank Plaza.
Post lunch (which I had at Flower Street mall underneath National City Bank plaza), I take the sky bridge across Fifth and behold the scene of the crime:
Lemme use my own words from what happened to recount the accident:
So I find this exit to a skybridge — whoo hoo! — and start walking down a long corridor with skylights. I ignorantly think I am on the skybridge itself (the Bonaventure has several and ALL are uncovered) when in fact I am walking beneath the pool deck/patio of the building.
So I come to the end of that hall and find a pair of double doors saying thank-you, leaving-the-hotel, blah-blah-blah…. I can see a flight of stairs down and a flight of stairs up a short distance in front of me. I swing those doors open and walk a few steps — never observing the two steps down immediately in front of me.
Anarchy ensues.
I tumble and smash my face into a concrete-ornamental-edging at the side of the wall. I wither and moan in pain. I’m shaking, I’m bleeding, I think I’ve broken my nose.
2400 miles from home, no family in the greater Los Angeles area… The gimp-with-a-limp has worked himself ineptly into a fine mess.
You look at that edging, you look at those steps… It’s all poured concrete, that’s a two foot drop between those steps and the next solid level. I may have called myself a “gimp-with-a-limp” but that was only partially the truth. I was a gimp-with-a-limp who had a major operation just about 3 months previously. Major neurological surgery and then an accident like this where you miss two steps and smash your nose into the edge of a solid concrete curb with full body force?
That fall should have killed me. Not could have, should have.
I commented on that post from last year, saying I’m barely swollen, no black and blues or anything. Just a little tender in the shnozz but that’s that.
I’d like to say, John, that you are one lucky son of a bitch. Someone out there likes you…
Summer Colds Suck
Sore throat, head that feels like bricks, itchy eyes and a nose that leads me to sneeze over and over again….
Dining experience
Can someone tell me what the rule is when it comes to going to a restaurant and acting like a total asshole? Or totally snobbish?
It seems the last two times I went to a finer restaurant — not a fine restaurant where there is a proper dress code, but nicer, finer restaurant where sandals and tank tops still find there way into the building — I’ve been told to act like a pompous prick and seen family do just that when things go weird. My mom especailly…
Maybe a year ago I went to a restaurant in downtown Dunedin with family. Nice place, nice atmosphere, forgot the name of it though so you’ll have to forgive me. While dining I dropped my fork and family insisted that I not pick up the fork…. Well, not much family, just my mom. When other things happened, I was told that the waitress will handle it. It drove me insane to be waited on over mundane things. This wasn’t like “Let the waiter put a napkin on your lap” type stuff. This was just normal “I’m not a lazy slob” type stuff.
Skipping over that event and finer details of the event — we jump to last night and my dining experience at Sam Seltzers Steakhouse in Clearwater. Not fine dining but it was a hell of a nice place to go to and a hell of a long wait to have. We must have waited an hour and a half for seats (which I’ve always told my parents “Get reservations to that place if you insist on trying to eat there sometime”) and in some ways it was worth it because it was just a nice place to go to…
But then my mother’s pomposity came into it.
Maybe she’s getting eccentric in her age or maybe I’m just too damned sensitive to others. A waiter was trying to handle some dishes — i didn’t pay attention to the fact if they were dirty or clean plates he was handling. What happened was, he tried putting them on an assistance tray/table next to one booth and slipped — he had the plates come crashing down. And my mom clapped and applauded him.
She applauded him with the attitude of a pure-spirited “I don’t give a fuck” woman who was stuffing her face and trying to have a good time at others expense.
Rage bubbled up from within me in embarrassment. I wanted to get up and actually help the guy with the mess but the gimp known as Me can’t quite handle that. I fumed and started telling my mom exactly what I felt. “I can’t believe you did that! Lift your nose up a little higher, mom, lift it up a little higher for everyone to see you’re the most pompous person in the building.”
Yes, that was disrespectful… And who knows, maybe I was over-reacting…. But then again? I’ve been the guy who has to face a crowd after an embarrassing episode and I do NOT want other people to experience the humility of it all — especially when one prick goes off and tries to make me feel worse than I already do. Maybe the waiter didn’t care? Maybe he’d been through this a thousand times already? In any case, wrong is wrong and acting like a asshole in a restaurant is a no-no. You’re supposed to do unto others a you want done unto you right? So why do you start exploiting a persons goof / mistake in embarrassing circumstances instead of trying to help the situation?
If I was at my friends house and that happened — where my friend is the one dealing with dishes and what not, or someone who knows who I am and what I stand for is handling the dishes — I’d possibly do what my mom did and start exploiting it because it’s in jest, it’s good fun and people around me know I don’t mean any harm by it. I’d tell the person (if it wasn’t a person totally familiar with me) that I was just kidding around and teasing and try to help them out after… That’s the type of person I am after all.
I’m not going to act like a dick, however, in the company of strangers and make one person feel like complete shit…. That’s just plain wrong.
Manipulative…
I’ve bitched about people close to me — now I need to rant about someone close to someone else in my family who has truly shown herself to be a manipulative bitch…
Andrew – my younger brother — was accused yesterday of striking his girlfriends child. My younger brother would not raise his hand in anger, would not threaten the kids that he loves immensely. The only evidence on the GF’s side his her emotionally disabled (bi-polar and more) 4 year old son who ran off and got himself a bloody nose. She accused my younger brother and sided with a kid who doesn’t know right from wrong (I can vouch for this). She called the cops on Andrew…
And all I can say is that manipulative bitch
I could rant here but it gets too personal and I don’t want to go into that. I feel my brothers pain and feel a lot of anger for this situation he is in, from a girl who has always rubbed me the wrong way and now proven herself with false accusations to be the trash I always thought of her.
Six years of Silence
You know, I was going to brush off this anniversary as another one that was a major milestone but also something I could forget because my day-to-day is busy enough without having to nit-pick at the past.
But it’s an interesting anniversary none the less — one that goes from silent to booming in 4 years and applies only when I’m lazy now.
I went deaf 6 years ago to the day.
I had an acoustical neuroma (egad, did I spell that right or wrong for the umpteenth time?) removed out in Los Angeles at St. Vincent’s Medical Center by doctor Derald Brackman and company… I woke up – not sure when, can’t recall what I was told in the past – with the only sounds in my head a constant tenninus and my own voice when I spoke. Of course, I hadn’t been able to hear much before that, as I had been constantly losing hearing in both ears since 12 or 13, but six years ago — my world went totally silent.
I can’t remember all the details – I checked in the night before to the hospital. I didn’t shave my head, like I should have done, and that resulted in a gnarly haircut… I do recall me quipping about the Big One hitting during the operation (“what happens then?” I asked those who were prepping me) and I can recall the immediate aftermath of surgery – being chained to a bed and being asked to touch my nose with my restrained hands.
Of course there is more to it – my life now with sound and the Auditory Brainstem Implant has beaten deafness. There are anecdotes from when I went deaf and the immediate aftermath to regaining my hearing in 2001 with the ABI… And of course me aborting setting up the ABI in March 1998 and delaying having sound back to begin with… but alas, that is for another time because my computer is in need of help.
Hair Apparent / So I beg ya
Oh sweet Jesus, I got a haircut. .
Anyone who knows me, knows I tend to grow my hair in really long — a pretty good mop top. My hair was ratty and overgrown and not cut evenly (I had trimmed it twice myself and that was only to give me more visibility from my eyes instead of seeing hair) and generally was just a mess…
I’d give you a picture but I haven’t taken a picture in the longest time.
Now? Now I have a close cropped ‘do with no sideburns. Dear god — NO SIDEBURNS. I feel naked. I told the barber that I felt violated after I saw all my hair falling to the floor. It’s not just long hair, but it’s thick too (wonder if that will give the ladies any ideas? :tongue) and it was just… well, it was mine. Damnit, mine.
But now I am good to go another year without a haircut so :tongue j/k… I’ll probably keep things more closely cropped in the future, but who knows.
Meanwhile, I’m only 162 pages into Stephen King’s newest Dark Tower tome, Wolves of the Calla. I spent the entire day yesterday just sitting around in boxer shorts and reeding. The thing is over 700 pages long in total and that means I gotta put my nose to the grindstone with it.
I read slow though. Why? Because I enjoy it. I don’t shovel something into my brain, I savor it… Maybe that is why I am an impassioned, sensitive person? I savor what I experience — even if it’s negative. Does that make me a sadist too? :tongue I’d rather be a happy-ist, and of course those who have talked to me have seen me more like my old self lately….
Slow Day
This was a day of surprise and un-accomplishments. A day of procrastination and aggravation along with laziness and hope. It was a day of knowing what i have to accomplish and not going out and doing it — you can be shown the door, shown the path, but only you can walk it through.
I know I have to get back to writing – I have to try to contact Lou Fisher once again and just let him know I am ok and all that. Long Ridge’s website wasn’t working well for me before and after my operation and I am hesitant to try-try-again. I haven’t even looked at Assignment 5 nor have I done an edit of Assignment 4 using Lou’s recommendations but I know i will have to put my nose to the grindstone soon on that.
I haven’t heard from PIF Magazine or Glimmer Train magazine with regards to my entries to their publications from last month — one was a contest entry and I shouldn’t hear back until November (from Glimmer Train) but PIF is supposed to be a monthly publication and I have heard crap from them.
So what was the surprise? Take the good with the bad. It was sort of wacky the fact I had thought to re-iterate to Sarah yesterday (but didn’t, mind you) that she can use my journal to vent any time she wants to. Lo and behold an email from her this morning saying she had done just that after a crappy night. The other surprise — of the bad sort — is my left leg continuing to be weak as hell. Not just that but the fact fo the matter is I don’t know if the leg is there, from how it feels, and it effects my balance and everything else. Walking is a burden with it because I can’t seem to control my knee or my ankle.
Yeah, bad news folks.
And you thought all my entries were going to start being of substance and quality again? Shame on you!
Small Town Clique
Hey..it’s Sarah again…I just need to blow some steam tonight, so I’m very greatful to John to allow me to write on here when I want. Thank you John. So…here’s my steam..
I spent my entire childhood and teen years dealing with cliques. There were the popular girls, the smart-suck-up girls, the drug addicts, and then there was my group…the somewhat unpopular people who stuck together because with out each other, we had no one.
In sixth grade I started hanging out wiht the smart-suck-up girls. It was the year from hell. I was the butt of the jokes, the one being laughed at, the one forced to sit at the other half of the table when there wasn’t room for everyone to sit on one half. I hated it, and it didn’t take me long to decide not to hang out with them anymore. I felt like shit though…because I had made fun of the people who were my friends before because I thought I was better..I had moved up in the chain of popularity. But I went back to this group, and never left them out again.
I hated the cliques of middle school, and they were still very prevalent my senior year of high school. The good thing was that we all started to get along in high school, because we left the petty things behind. I thought I’d be able to leave the pettiness and cliques of my home town in the dust and be able to form new relationships with many people…and hang out with them all, not having a clique of my own or others to worry about.
I was wrong. I went to lunch today with three girls from my floor…I hardly know two of them, but they are truly nice people, like the third girl that I’ve known since she moved in. One offered to get me a drink, another recommended trying a dessert…they were nice people that I didn’t expect to be nice people.
Then for dinner I went with three people who I know very well. My roommate, Katrina, and Jozie. My roommate and I get along pretty well, so I was thinking. We haven’t fought, nor has she shown any sign of a problem with me. Katrina’s ok…kind of judgemental as I’ve gathered. Then there’s Jozie, who I haven’t had a warm feeling from since I met her. She never seems to want to talk to me..and when she does talk to me, she’s always short and snappy. So I was the last to sit down to eat, and when I sat down they were talking about going somewhere tonight (last night since it’s after midnight now), and then the conversation stopped.
They talked about a lot of things, but didn’t really include me in the conversation..and when I tried to speak up, someone interrupted me…no one laughed if I said something that i expected would be funny. On the way back, they kind of asked each other if they were going to take showers and what not, and when we into the dorm (it’s about 50 steps to get inside) there’s two stair cases, the first goes only to the 1st level, and the second goes all the way down here. Katrina, Mary and I live on the lowest level. Jozie asked if they were coming to her room, and they all went. Feeling enough of a “third” wheel (though I was indeed the fourth person), I said I was going to go down here right away.
And off they went. I went into my friend Louise’s room to see what she was doing, and about 45 minutes later, went to my room to drop off my keys and id in the room. There’s Mary and Jozie all ready to go out… They never asked if I wanted to go..never acted like they wanted me to go…and I didn’t want to go with them anyway. Not after they had treated me like shit at dinner.
What pisses me off is that I’m going to be the one to hear all about it tomorrow (today…time thing), and how much fun they had…and frankly I want to rub their nose in it. That’s how I felt in 6th grade. And in 6th grade, I just changed my group of friends.
It’s not so easy to do, though, when you don’t have people around to catch your back when you fall…When you have no history with people and they already have their friends that they hang out with…
It really feels shitty…much like reliving 6th grade all over again.
Lost that healthy feeling
I’m planning on going to Six Flags in St. Louis tomorrow and hopefully everything will go alright. If you look, there was no entry yesterday. The reason things might not work out for me going to Six Flags and the reason there was no entry happens to be the same. Yesterday I was miserably sick. Terrible sinus headaches, stuffy nose, sore, ichy throat, ichy eyes, and I can’t hear myself talk.
Last night I woke up at about 2:30, my roommate had just come home, and I couldn’t fall back asleep because my body ached and I started coughing. I ended up going and taking a really hot shower, trying to let the steam help me breath again.
When I first woke up this morning I wasn’t feeling nearly as bad. I still wish I were home in my bed…with a stove where I can make some soup…and lay on the couch and watch a tv where I know what channel corresponds to the number. I suppose I’m home sick, though, I think “at college and sick” defines it better. I’m about the only one who didn’t go home because they were sick. Everyone else’s parents picked them up or they drove home.
Anyway, I’ll most likely be laying in my bed all day again. Today I’ve got to try to do some kind of work…school work or just cleaning up…I’ll be bored to death if I don’t.
A Questioned Chance
A Questioned Chance
Thumbed nose
At the bright red rose
And vile thoughts
At the offered olive branch
A questioned chance
Beliefs are worth their weight in gold
Giving heart back to you ten-fold
And stolen heart is what she holds
I must let go
I must let go
Seeking out, not quite on a whim
Seeing doubt from the hurt within
Void of a chance
Needing escape
Bullet holes
And tempting fate
Searching far, wide and beyond
Sycophant minion, just a pawn
Secure the mast and sail with me
Rising tide upon the sea
And growing weeds surround the rose
To which, with a twitch, she thumbed her nose
I feed the flames with the olive branch
What have you done to earn another chance?
© 2003 John Fontana
