Tiny Slivers of Misery

Originally Posted Friday, August 8, 2014

Sometimes life seems one undeserved cruelty after another. 

The wrecking crew comes to clean the house today which means I have to spend a lot of time picking up the messes I've made since the last time they came.  I have to strip the bed and wash the sheets since either they or I ripped the second set of very expensive high count bedding.  Are sheets considered "bedding"? 

On the way from the bedroom to the washer, I got a tiny piece of glass in my foot, not much of a piece, just a sliver, one that hurts just a little when you step down and then every third step or so hurts a lot as it gets driven deeper into the skin.  The sliver is the result of a bamboo tray/table overturning when I sat a cocktail on it.  The overturning was the result of the way the wrecking crew boobie-trapped the tray/table so that the tray was sitting on the front instead of the middle of the stand.  The overturning broke the wicker lamp and the cocktail glass.  I cleaned it up right away, but I knew there would be a sliver or two left for me to step on one day.  I knew it. 

After limping with sheets in hand and getting them neatly balanced in the washer (oh, yes, I've learned my lesson for if you remember that was the reason I had to buy a new one in the first place), I sat down in the dining room to examine my foot.  Well. . . that proved to be nearly impossible for pulling my foot to my head sent an excitement of pain through my spine.  After a thousand "fuck, oh, fuck you, fuck"s, I was finally able to get my foot positioned so I could look.  I ran my finger over the thick, hard skin of the ball of my foot.  I could see nor feel nothing.

"Maybe it's gone," I thought stupidly. 

I found it when I stood up.  It is one of those little things that will last a day or two, the niggling little pain that will become sharp ever so often until it works its way back to the surface where I can get hold of it and pull the little mother out. 

Did I mention my knee today?   Or the factory?  Both are killing me. 

A number of my friends have started writing online.  O.K.  Blogs.  Such a silly term.  They are writing and telling and crafting and creating and the writing gets better the more they do it and I am happy and jealous that they get so good.  Stupid, right?  But it truly shows that people can write and that they can tell stories and be good at it if they do it all the time.  It makes me happy, but I am competitive at heart and when they do it better than I feel I am doing it. . . I feel stupid and sad.  This is just a confession.  I can't link the blogs here for a number of reasons, but they don't need me, anyway.  It is the writing they need.  Hell, look at the monster writing created over at Q's site.  Look at his first month's writing and look now.  He and the others all piss me off, of course, for they steal from me unrepentantly.  But it is a flattery, right? 

Ow!  That fucking sliver.  It is the symbol of the life I am leading right now.  Imagine.  A tiny thing like that.