Briefly, on Pain

I take a certain amount of pride in my ability to withstand pain. Two recent events have caused me to question this. The first was my trip to Pittsburgh’s Meeting of the Marked, a tattooing convention in which I was originally scheduled to sit for a grueling six hour session. I only ended up sitting for three. I did not feel good, although I did end up with the above lobster. (Sorry for the photo quality. Shooting my leg isn’t easy.) Eric wasn’t feeling well, and I wasn’t sitting well, and so I’m glad we ended it when we did.

The second example is more embarrassing. We have a fireplace at Sanctuary, my home. I went to the backyard to get some firewood - instead of using our pre-chopped stash, I grabbed a huge limb that had died and fallen out of a tree. I broke it up by stomping on it, jumping on it. This worked for most of the limb because the tree was dead, and thus posed no real threat. However, there were thicker sections; those I leaned against a stair and then jumped on. You can see where this is going, can’t you?

One of the pieces didn’t break when I jumped on it, rolling backwards instead, which left me grasping at air as I landed with the entirety of my weight on my left knee. Now, I can barely walk and I’m having a hard time driving. How embarrassing. The lesson, of course, is don’t break your own firewood without an axe. Or something.

-Sidenote: I’ve decided that graduate school isn’t challenging enough. So starting Thursday, I’m doing this. I’ll be posting my 2000 words per day here on the site. No photographs for a month, I fear. However, if you want to follow the creation of this “novel,” feel free.