Δαφνη Ευτυχια Αρθουρος

"The one thing I always remind people -- because they get discouraged, they say, 'you know, people around the world, they're expressing hatred toward America' -- you know, people outside of this country are expressing disappointment because they've got high expectations for America, and they want America to lead. They want America to lead through our values, and through our ideals, and through our example. But they have high expectations of us because, I think, that this country is still the last, best hope on Earth." -- US Senator (and Presidential candidate) Barack Obama (D-Illinois), on the CBS television show the Late Show with David Letterman [I'm not sure what date; I think it was 2007-04-09. Can anybody confirm or correct that?]

Ow ow ow ow ow and yuck.

I just sliced open the tip of my little toe. (When it happened, I thought I'd just munged the toenail. Nope, a flap of skin, meaning a larger (but still fortunately small) quantity of blood to wipe up.) I'm really not sure how I managed to do that, since it didn't feel like I whacked it that hard (enough to burst the skin, that is) and I can't find a sharp edge on the thing I kicked (I was trying to step over it, off balance). The big issue isn't really the yuck or the ow so much as its being a tricky spot to keep pressure on if I want to be able to do anything but sit here and hold it for the next however long it takes to close. Feh.

Might make wearing shoes to go out later interesting. Took a bit of jiggling to fit the improvised bandage into a slipper.

Of course, silly me, before I put my slippers on I tried to pick something up off the floor -- I hadn't realized how much I use my little toe for that, but having a big, clunky, poofy bandage on it interfered with my ability to grab something with my first two toes. I'd never really paid attention to the mechanics of picking things up with my feet; I'm going to have to analyze just what it is that I do now that my curiosity has been piqued.

And in the meantime, remind myself to use the other damned foot. Er ... and to check the bandage in a while to see if the toe has stopped bleeding yet.

Now to go check the floor between here and the bathroom for blood to wipe up. Feh.

{ETA: I'm having a major attack of the clumsies today. Since slicing up my toe, I've also been knocking things over and dropping stuff left and right. :-( I wonder whether this is related to how badly my arms and legs were hurting last night carrying instruments and groveries into the house, and my arms feeling kinda weak this morning. (The pain is less now than it was last night but it still hurts to lift my arms even if I'm not holding anything.)]

The theme of the afternoon was "Ouch!". The dominant concept for the evening will be more pleasant: 'new-guitar-case smell'.

It almost (important word, that) seems a shame to toss out my old brown guitar case with the orange lining after it has served me for so very long. Thing is, it's pretty much used up.

The new case is ordinary and black, would be boring except for being so ShinyNew!1!, but it's whole and solid and does not need to be held shut with a bungee cord. And I have a silver Sharpie marker and paint-pens in a few colours, so when I feel like I've got the patience and coordination I can fix the "ordinary" part easily enough. (And it'll acquire battle-scars over time, regardless.) It's heavier than the one it replaced; it seems heavier than the blue one as well but I haven't weighed them ... and it's well documented that black objects feel heavier than light-coloured objects of the same mass (to sighted humans). It also looks a lot bigger, until I line it up right next to the blue case. I think the Shiny!!1 takes up an extra centimeter or two in each direction, or something, and it'll seem normal sized once it gets enough scratches and dust on it.

The new case is reassuringly solid.

Now I just have to get used to not looking for the brown one when I'm fetching my cases to pack up at the end of a gig.

Toe still hurts, but I guess it stopped bleeding as expected after not-very-long, since it didn't soak all the way through the bandage. I haven't removed the bandage to look at it yet. Methinks I'll want to rubber-band a baggie over it when I take a shower.