one for the ages

    An outstandingly bad day. Can I call it that, if it began last night? While taking a bath, I set out to perform regularly-scheduled miscellaneous ablutions (read: to shave my legs). Because one of the lights in my bathroom is nonfunctional, I arranged myself in the reverse direction in the tub, for improved lighting. Nearing the end of the task, I leaned back to examine the progress. At that point, some speck of airborne matter made its way into my nose...and I sneezed. Which brought my torso forward. Which brought my shoulder, or, more precisely, my left collarbone [clavicle], into contact with the tub faucet. It was only a glancing blow, but it hurt like a son of a bitch. Amazing amounts of pain shot from my shoulder down my arm, and also up my shoulder and into my neck and head, and across my chest. It was shocking. Needless to say, the bath was rather abruptly ended and a nice, non-slippery (and non-sharp) location was secured immediately thereafter: bed.
     I woke up this morning after a very fitful night's sleep, feeling like I'd been shot in the shoulder. Perhaps that's not accurate (never having been shot, how would I know?), but it was alarmingly, hideously sore. I could raise my arm to the side (i.e. "chicken dance"), but not to the front (i.e. "Stop! [in the name of love]"). Nonetheless, I dressed and made my way to the parking lot to scrape my windows and head to work. Why my car windows are always frosted over is beyond me. Must be the shape of the vehicle or something, but it's fucking annoying.
     I'd just finished scraping and was ready to pop into the car and drive to work—with some hope of actually arriving on time—when one of my landlords arrived at their business (which is below the apartments). She called across the parking lot to me, a question about some donations that she would like to make to the place where I work. We'd discussed it earlier, and I'd agreed to take the items to work with me..."someday." Which had apparently arrived. Only I needed to wait for her to take her toddler indoors, find the items, bring them outside to my car, and then—while I stood, now holding two reasonably heavy boxes of donated items—with my arm visibly trembling I politely listened as she told me about the items. Again. As she had done last week, when I dropped off my rent check and was late getting back to work after lunch. Only this time, I was 15 minutes late for work. That means that I stood there holding those boxes for about 10 minutes. I thought I would collapse in a faint if I couldn't set them down soon, but it seemed rude to just say, "Must go. Shut up. Bye." Or whatever would've come out then if I'd said anything at all.
     So I went to work. And carried those damned boxes inside, but not upstairs. That I left for an underling. (Thank God for underlings!) Once safely ensconced in my office, I explained the shoulder story to Fluffy. She palpated, and pronounced the lump to be the size of a gum-ball.
     George came in a half-hour early, all dressed up (which for him is khakis built for a family of four and a shirt with no holes and without the world "hell" printed on it) and wanting nothing more than to sit next to me and fawn. My back was to the door when he came in, and he did the grab-the-sides-to-tickle thing to get my attention. I jumped and squeaked but didn't scream or faint. He laughed and said, "You didn't yell at me." I replied, very dryly, "No, I try not to scream at work." He wriggled his eyebrows and said, as lasciviously as possible, "Hmm, wouldn't I like to know more about that?!" I tried to give him the death stare, but he just looked so silly that all I could do was laugh.
     The day progressed. My arm/shoulder/neck felt increasingly stiff and sore. The bump was, around noon, the size of a Queen olive.
     After Fluffy returned from lunch, we had a rare visitor to the office: someone from the outside. I discourage the Outsiders from entering the Zone, because I think it blurs the line between Us and Them, and it makes for uneasiness when we're talking about them. (Read that however you'd like.) But some of my officemates, particularly the more sporadic types, feel less inclined to kick the Outsiders out. And so I acquiesce (as I often do. Or, too often do.) and allow them to remain. Today's visitor was a man I shall call "Scooter." A few years older than me, about a foot taller, and firmly in the category of guy that I would call "spooky," Scooter is, for no apparent reason, a favorite of the (front-line) staff. When I am forced by my employ to mingle with the public, he often attempts to engage me in conversation and whatnot. I guess I'm not very adept at hiding my freaked-outed-ness, because he said, today, while standing right next to my desk, "What's the deal with the death stare? Why do you act like you don't you like me?" Fluffy, sitting next to but slightly behind where he stood, nearly busted a gut laughing. Ed, the computer guy, snorted from behind his monitor. I copped a superior tone but said, "That's not my death stare--that's barely a death glance!" Everyone laughed, all tension was dispelled, and he began talking with Fluffy again. Little did he know the truth that I told.
     And then it happened. Fluffy had warned me that Scooter likes to write, and share, poetry. She warned me that he once shared a poem that was, in her words, "Too...familiar." He mentioned his writing and I made the merest encouraging sound, a bare 'peep' of positivity--and he flipped his notebook open and lay it in front of me. As I began to read, he said, "You might not like it. It's pretty sensual."
sensual? No. Not sensual. Not explicit. Not even graphic, or vulgar. It was indescribable. I'm serious: I cannot explain it. All I know is that I read all 25 or so lines, and looked up at him, at his expectant face (with Fluffy's laughing/horrified/knowing/apologetic face behind), and said, "Well, it doesn't rhyme. But, then again, given the subject matter, I guess it doesn't have to."
     He said, "I'm surprised to see your face that color."
     Um, yeah. Someplace between magenta and burgundy, I would guess. It wasn't 'hot,' though, as I think he believed it was--it was 'turned off of poetry and sex for the foreseeable future.'
     Scooter left a few minutes later, after promising to draw a Stewie Griffin cartoon for me. Yesterday I might've been pleased, given how nicely it would've fit with the Silly Gifts motif. Today, I just shuddered. Another thing, another layer, more with which I am apparently ill equipped to deal.
     After he left, I stomped to the door, which I closed. "No More [Outsiders] Today." Fluffy and Ed agreed, still laughing over what had transpired. "No, I'm serious. That was horrible!" More laughing. "No, you won't understand. That poem...it involved the word 'ram'!"
     I thought that Ed, who is one of the most mellow (read: sober but stoned-seeming) people I've ever met, was going to fall off his chair with laughter. Fluffy was rolling. She made some pointed comments about me 'attracting all kinds' and being a 'weirdo magnet.' I decided that prehaps I need to get a ninja costume and wear that to work. I can pass stealthily through the halls, no one will know I've been about, and I will be enormously productive because there will be no botheration from the Outside. Guh--ducks!
     Somewhere around there, I made a hand gesture while talking (imagine, me!) and nearly cried from the pain. Fluffy looked at the lump again; it was now roughly ping-pong ball sized. She started on her guilt routine, but I'd already pulled out my phone to call the doctor. I refuse to see anyone but my regular physician, and the earliest that I could get in was tomorrow morning at 8:00. If I thought it was dangerous or detrimental to my overall health, I would have gone to urgent care or the emergency room. It's just painful, not dire.
     So I drove my five-speed home (not without some twinges) and, since then, have endeavored to do nothing that involves my left side at all. Easier said than done. Never realized how often I use it for leverage, if nothing else. But I'm learning. It really fucking hurts. I feel like an idiot, but in the end, it doesn't matter how it happened, just that it happened.
     I'll let y'all know tomorrow whether I get to keep the wing.