Me? I have a short(ish) Asian-American woman named Anna. Anna is my conscience. She reminds me (just about weekly, in fact) that I am a deadbeat loser and that my blog is in need of updating. I don't hold this against her, though. No. I hold it against my Catholic upbringing. Because, were it not for all those days at St. Paul's Church of the Perpetual Culpability, I would be able to give Anna the finger and get on with the business of eating chocolate chips out of the bag while watching Phil of the Future reruns on Disney.
Anyway. I am behind. I am behind and my life is boring as hell lately. But I am going to blog my way into Heaven if it's the last thing I do.
Scars are souvenirs you never lose
OMG, I SO just quoted the Goo-goo Dolls. Someone shoot me.
Maggie tells me that talking about my scars is good blog fodder. She even suggests having my readers name them for me if I am feeling adventurous. Problem is, I think Anna is my only reader and we're already WAY too close for comfort (today we ordered the same meal at Taco Bell)(Sweet Jesus).
Anyway. I have lots of scars. And each one of them has a story. Um. Except for the one on my left wrist. I have NO idea how that one got there. Or when it got there, for that matter.
It's funny. As I have been sitting here contemplating which scar stories to tell, I have come to the realization that all of my major scars involve a distinct lack of adult supervision. Well. Two of them do. The third is really more about my college roommate being unable to hold up her end of a gargantuan loft.
Case In Point
My oldest and most noticeable scar (to the casual observer) is the result of an ill-fated attempt to impersonate Stevie Nicks. I was...no older than four at the time and I remember it distinctly. My mother (who was coincidentally absent from ALL of these near-death incidents, I might note) was at karate class and I was home with my father. There was a gauzy scarf. And spinning. And more spinning. And more spinning. And then, there was a sudden collision with the corner of the bookshelf in the living room which resulted in an inch-long gash at the tail end of my left eyebrow.
Mom tells me that my father [the biological one] fainted and that she found me in the bathroom pressing a washcloth to my head. I remember being held down in the ER so that they could put a butterfly bandage on instead of stitches. And so began my life-long love affair with danger.
I bet Stevie never suffered so for her art.
Two Scars Are Better than One
Fast-forward three or four years. I am about seven and we are living with my grandmother in upstate NY. My mother's bike is parked in front of the china cabinet in the dining room and I am riding in the Tour de Scriba--even though I have been explicitly told by no less than three adults to stay the hell away from this bike.
I'm not sure what happened, exactly, but I suspect that the Swiss team threw some spikes out into the lane as we entered the mountainous phase of the race because, suddenly, I was ass over apple cart into the china.
Oh. Did I mention the fact that the cabinet had a glass pane for a front door?
Right. I emerge triumphant, but with a GIANT PIECE OF GLASS STICKING OUT OF MY ASS. And when I say "giant piece of glass" think...well...picture a turkey's tail. Big shard. BIG. And really, really close to my spine. Less than an inch.
Sidebar: Here, I would like to pause and say that I am reasonably sure that my guardian angel had no idea what she was signing on for when she agreed to watch over me for this incarnation. Poor kid.
You might assume that this incident warranted another trip to the ER. It's a reasonable assumption, after all. But you'd be wrong. My grandmother (who, for the record, had NO medical training what-so-ever) assessed the situation and...well...yanked out the shard. She then tenderly applied a cocktail of methialate and rubbing alcohol into the open wound, slapped a bandaid on there, and called it good to go.
The result is about a two inch long scar that has kept me from a lucrative career as an underwear model.
And Three for the Hat Trick?
This last story is actually my favorite, but it's also rather long. And, as such, I am reserving the right to tell it at some later point when Anna is bugging me again about not having updated in a month.
I'll tell you this much, though. The doctor who was supposed to stitch me up? He passed out in the early stages of the procedure and was replaced by a pregnant woman in the early stages of labor.
I shit you not.
