Every woman out there is going to sympathize with me today. Because I don’t think there is one of you that hasn’t had a day where you have thought “If I don’t get this [insert offending, constricting, hideous garment of choice here] off of my body RIGHT THIS SECOND I am going to run screaming into the street.”

Unfortunately, whereas we do not have an overly restrictive dress code at my office, I think that they generally frown on going down the hall without pants on.

Said pants are hitting the Salvation Army bag THE VERY MOMENT I get home.

(Edited to add: It’s a sad day when you have a broken leg and the cast is NOT the most uncomfortable thing you are wearing)

I finally got in to see the specialist yesterday about my leg. After-hour clinics are basically equipped to evaluate whether you are dying (in which case they send you off immediately to a hospital with real doctors) or not dying (in which case they tell you that you are not dying and give you a referral to see real doctors at a later date). In my case, I was very much not dying, but only in excruciating pain. Which means that they didn’t get my referral until a full three days later, with a total of five days between the time of the injury and actually being seen by the real doctor.

The real doctor, an orthopedist in my case, confirmed that, yes, I had indeed broken my leg. As leg breaks go, if you really have to have one, mine isn’t the bad way to go. The fracture is in the fibula, the thin bone at the outside of the shin involved in stabilizing the ankle. It isn’t a simple break, however, since it spirals around the bone and there is some splintering involved.

The short version of this evaluation is that:

Good news – I get to have a boot, not a cast. Which means I can take it off to wash. For a person with a pathological aversion to being dirty who bathes twice a day, this was very good news.

Bad news – Even though the fibula is “not weight-bearing”, I apparently may NOT put any weight on it. Yeah. Scratched my head on that one, too. But in practical terms, this means I can ONLY take the boot off to wash, and it must stay on at all other times. And that I cannot actually walk on my “walking cast”. In fact, in an ideal world, I should be laying down “with my shin above my knee and my knee above my heart” when I am not answering the call of nature.

Riiiiiigggghhhht. I can see myself doing THAT for four weeks.

In the real world, the world I can actually live and work in, this translates to: “No walking except on crutches, no driving, and oh-by-the-way those waterpark season passes? Useless.”

I do not do helpless well. I must be the world’s shittiest patient. I see dishes on the sink or my son’s toys littering the floor and I go almost completely spastic with the need to clean them up. I do not like to ask my coworkers to fill my water bottle or get my document off the printer. I would rather put blisters under my arms from the crutches or become a slave to my office chair. I am becoming a contortionist from the complex act of putting my underwear on in the morning around the boot, because I cannot STAND the humiliation of asking for help with that most basic of personal care issues.

I have no doubt that this bone is going to be just fine in a couple of months.

But I may very well be batshit crazy by then.

1. Those motorized carts in the stores aren’t nearly as fun or as fast as they look, nor do they come close to fitting in a dressing room or between clothing racks.
2. I will never again take for granted immersing my entire body in a bathtub.  Or carrying my own coffee cup down a hall.
3. Armpits bruise rather easily.
4. Being unable to drive in rural America is a serious personal independence issue.
5. So is having control of the TV remote.
6. My next house will have no stairs at all.  I swear it by all that is holy.
7. I am eternally grateful that I am not a single parent.
8. When you are crying from pain, hearing “It will be okay, Mommy, don’t worry” makes you cry more.  But not from pain.  And kisses from three-year-old boys are great analgesics.
9. I was not born to sit still; it’s simply not a part of the programming.

Mine started with a 4-6 inch spiral fracture in my right fibula.

You?

Otherwise titled “The post in which I get all petulant and stamp my feet.”

I usually approve all my comments. In fact, there is only one non-spam comment I have ever NOT approved.

A while back, a semi-regular reader (at least from the IP address and my hit-counter) posted a comment to one of my posts that has sat in my moderation queue for some time. I didn’t approve it for two reasons.

First, it had nothing to do with the post that it was commenting on.

Second, it linked to a moderately well-known polemic blogger whose rantings I really don’t feel like giving any more exposure to.

I am not going to divulge who the post linked to, but one of his more regular spoutings of idiocy revolves around the idea is that women have brains that are not equipped for the pursuit of hard science, and by allowing entry of these “inferior” minds into the fields that we are dumbing down scientific pursuit and science is suffering as the result.

Well now.

I generally try to avoid that kind of narrow, extreme commentary. Mostly because I find it faintly ridiculous from personal experience. I have always been at the top of my class in mathematics. In NY, the tests are graded electronically, standardized across the state and are gender-blind. I have a minor in mathematics and made straight A’s through physical biochemistry and quantum mechanics. I made a perfect score on the Analytical section of the GRE, and scored above 750 on the other two sections. I was an NSF Graduate Fellow. I don’t need to play the gender card to compete.

I chose life science because it interested me, not because I am incapable of “hard science”. I started my degree in engineering, and made high marks until I decided I found it boring. I didn’t go into the fields of engineering and physics because I didn’t want to, not because I “didn’t make the cut.”

I didn’t want to enter these pursuits because, like a huge chunk of scientific academia, they generally do not allow any balance in your life. I looked around at most of the people I knew who were “successful” in those fields and I made the startling realization that I didn’t want to be like them; I have a very different definition about what a satisfying life is, and how contribution to society is measured. It is the same reason I didn’t go to medical school (and I WAS accepted [insert stamp of foot here]).

I don’t think the gender disparity has diddly to do with ability. It has to do with inclination.

I also avoid that particular type of commentator because it is impossible to have any kind of informed debate with them and pointless to try. Their minds have closed to any other options outside their own pontification, and will only accept as valid the narrow range of data that support their particular slant on life. Frankly, life is just too short, and has too much richness of experience offered to bother wasting time on that flavor of stupidity. Everyone’s entitled to their opinion. And I am entitled to ignore it. Or occasionally point and laugh.

I may be accused of being a dilettante, but I only get one pass at this life, and I want the whole enchilada, not just a narrow slice. I am not saying that the pursuit of science does not enhance the quality of life. I think it can be argued that it has benefited millions, if not billions, of people, reduced suffering and saved lives. But intellectualism is not the entire font of human contentment and scientific accomplishment is not the full measure of a life well-lived.

This is the only life I get, my one passage through this world.

It’s not that I’m not smart.

I am just not that altruistic.

Ever had one of those headaches where shoving a drill through your cheekbones for drainage suddenly seems like not only a rational idea, but a preferable one?

Except for the fact that if you do, your head might explode like a popped balloon, leaving a empty sack of skin dangling from your neck.

And I said I have no imagination…

My husband loves show tunes. If you want to make a comment about the underlying meanings of that preference, I will allow you to make those to my seven-foot, 300-pound, bald, ear-ringed, bearded hulk of a husband yourself. To his face.

What this means is that his satellite radio in his car regularly alternates between the Broadway station and Old-School Rap, and my son is immersed during his evening ride home in the best that the Great White Way has to offer.

Let me tell you, you have not seen cute until you have watched a three-year-old belting out selections from the My Fair Lady soundtrack, complete with big finish.  Next, I need to teach him “La Vie Boheme.”

I almost don’t want to say this, because I know if I do, it will jinx everything. So I am going to write it very, very tiny in parentheses and please don’t read this out loud, or I am holding you responsible for the consequences.

(I think my son is potty trained.)

I haven’t changed a soiled diaper in over three weeks, and last weekend we switched to “big boy pants” full time (except overnight), and we have not (knock-on-wood-and-make-the-sign-of-the-cross) had a single accident since. Not at school Not at home.

Like with all other things, this is a transition that Harry made on his own, decisively and abruptly.

I might forgive him his recently developed perverse independent streak (coincidence? I don’t think so).

(Shhh. This weekend I may give away the changing table)

To my son: Watch what you ask/whine/scream for. I might give it to you. And you might not like it. Apparently, training you to be difficult is a lesson you are learning all too well.

To the jackass on the motorcycle: No, I don’t think motorcycles belong on the roads when they decide to ignore the laws of traffic and cut around you to the left to turn right, and then have the audacity to be indignant when you nearly run them over making your (legal) right turn. Want a whole lane? Act like it. And by the way, that woman you flip off in a minivan MIGHT be a former biker who can kick your sorry wormy posterior.

To the anonymous food thief at the office: Helping yourself to my yogurt was one thing. Stealing my SLIMFAST truly sinks to new lows. Next piece of food I place in the refrigerator will be injected with laxative. Be forewarned.

To the client-who-will-not-be-named: The precision of my response will be directly proportional to the precision of your request. Think about it.

To the oil speculators: You know the Eight Circle of Hell is reserved for the fraudulent, right? Right there next to the corrupt politicians. Do you think the boiling pitch is a coincidence?

Oh yeah. I am all FULL of Christian charity today.

This may be the most disturbing thing I have ever crocheted:

For Diana. To go with her toast. Don’t ask, I am a little hazy on it myself.