Day 2/Week 1 of Walking Wounded

Dislocated right shoulder. 3-4 weeks in an immobilization sling.

(NOTE: Most of this account has been stitched together from emails I've been sending to concerned friends and co-workers.  For expediency's sake I'm plagiarising myself.)

I have (temporarily) joined the ranks of the disabled. This weekend, at a corporate softball game, I dislocated my right shoulder. It happened over the course of two collisions, the first of which involved a boy of ten and the other the Director of Professional Services. I was playing first base when the boy hit a single into the infield. Someone (the second baseman?) tossed me an awkward throw and I caught it but as I turned to try and tag the boy he was already on top of me and I lost my balance trying to avoid him. We went down together into the dirt, me trying to twist away from him to keep from landing on top of him. I avoided that (kind of) but the way I landed on my shoulder I must have partially dislocated it because the next collision put my shoulder out of its socket completely. A coworker drove me to the hospital where I was X-rayed and had my shoulder reset which, incidentally, was a lot less painful than the Hollywood movies make it out to be. Now I'm trapped in an immobilization sling for the next 3-4 weeks.

It's been an interesting challenge learning how to do simple things like washing and dressing (putting on socks is a piece of sophisticated performance art I could sell tickets to). I'm typing this one-handed and it's slow going. So far I'm doing okay with chores around the apartment. I have to plan in advance how I'm going to butter my toast or wash a plate but so far so good. Everything just takes longer (and takes more patience). Working is going to pose some interesting problems. Maybe I'll turn on Windows' "accessibility features" if one-hand typing loses its attraction (he says rhetorically).

Left Arm, which has had only a supporting role in my daily life until now, has really stepped up its game and taken on more responsibilities while Right Arm takes a sabbatical so Shoulder can heal. It'll be calling most of the shots for the next little while.

Here's a funny little story that happened while I was being treated.

A pretty nurse was sent in to strap me into the sling and as she worked we got to talking.

"Has this happened to you before?" she asked.

"Nah. First time."

She said, "How did the doctor reset your shoulder?" so I told her in great detail how he manipulated it back into place.

"Wow! I was watching from the Nurse's Station and you didn't even flinch."

Now in all honesty, resetting it didn't hurt at all like I said, but I didn't want her to know that so I just gave her a wink and said, "That's 'cause I knew you were watching."

Sunder: Day 29

Spent the night drawing maps of The Wheel for "Sunder".  Need to make some detailed maps of the areas where major plot points occur as well as the neighbourhoods where Callum, Niemeier, and Celia Morente live.  Tonight I managed to rework the districts within The Wheel.  There were far too many small ones before; things are a bit less busy now.  I will have to spend a couple hours jotting down some info points for particular districts where the story occurs so that I can start to build some sense of detail for those locations. 

Tired now, though.  Off to bed...

Sunder: Day 28

Not much to report tonight.  I'm (mostly) happy with the elaborations I made to the first three chapters. 

As I was making notes, I kept forgetting place names in The Wheel, which speaks to a larger need to pin down its interior layout (district names, transit line names, agricultural areas, business districts, public buildings, etc.) so that the story will have a sense of place as Colbrit and Charlotte move around.  I can work on some of that tomorrow night.

Sunder: Day 27

I got started late tonight so I didn't get much done aside from jotting down a few ideas about the trajectories that Charlotte and Colbrit take in Sunder. One goes up; one goes down. One rebuilds; one destroys.  I would have liked to have gotten a chance to revise the synopsis a bit more, but it's getting late and I haven't been sleeping well lately.  I'm happy with getting the ideas down, though.  All too often I've let it go for later and ended up forgetting the idea.  Not this one.

Sunder: Day 26

Synopsis (1st revision): Much work done to improve the prologue; will let it sit for now and work on fleshing out events in the early chapters of Sunder's First Movement.

In Other News
Not a good day today.  First, I hit a dog on the way to work.  A yellow lab.  It was running around in the middle of Walkley Rd, scared to death and trying to get across.  It started to leave my lane, and I accelerated, but a big red truck coming up in the other lane scared it and it darted back in front of me.  I hit the brakes but I slid into it.  What an awful crunch it made.  I thought I killed it, but the poor thing got up and took off across the road.  I felt pretty awful most of the morning and one person made a joke about it in what I'm sure was an attempt to try and lift my spirits.

What upset me the most about that little exchange was this person owns not just one, but two yellow labs like the one I very nearly killed this morning. 

The other bit of news that made today just fabulous was finding out someone I know committed suicide sometime Thursday morning.  I heard the news from K.M. who knows this person quite well.  The victim owns a parcel of land next to K's place, but lives in a nearby city.  Early reports indicate that he hung himself in his apartment.  From what K told me, his mother had died quite recently and he had had a fight with his ex-girlfriend on Wednesday night after the funeral. 

I knew this man.  I've had beers with him on K's back porch.  He was a small Frenchman, always smiling and telling jokes.  I didn't know him as well as K, but it still bothers me that he did this to himself, that he did this to his little boy.  I don't want to judge him, but what else was going on in his life that the last 48 hours drove him to this desperate, senseless, cruel solution? 

Today really sucked.  I mean, it really sucked. 

Sunder: Day 25

More work. Not quite so productive tonight though--wheels are spinning in the muck and I'm not getting anywhere. Think I'll quit early and get some rest.

Did manage to get one thing accomplished, though not anything literary.  I've had a concept for the cover rattling around in my head for the cover art for Sunder.  I found an image tonight that captures it perfectly.  Rather striking, I think.

"Shattered Head" (image by "morkeman")
Downloaded from www.istockphoto.com.

Sunder: Day 25

Accomplished a lot tonight. Jotted down a few pages worth of new notes to fill in some of the gaps I mentioned last night--some were rather obvious and mundane, some others were a revelation.  One of them was an idea that reaches to the very root of the cause of the Saturnalian war that rages in the background as Sunder unfolds.  "Wheels within wheels" as Frank Herbert once wrote.

Things are continuing to go well.