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I am nothing. I am a single grain of sand amongst billions. I am a single voice within a crowd. I am human, I am god, I am here, and this is what I have to say:

Thursday, January 7, 2010

Bringing in the New Year: How to fail at life with Facebook and other Cosmic Ironies

My brain's a little fuzzy, so I'll try hard to keep this sensible and brief. So I've been getting a lot of questions as to why I deleted my Facebook profile lately. The answer to that is simple.

I'm an idiot. As such, I sometimes do really stupid things. Deleting Facebook wouldn't have been one of them, had I understood Facebook's crazy Terms of Service before attempting to do so.

No, it was what I did before deleting Facebook that was stupid, and for that I'm sorry. It's why November was erased, for all the good of doing it, and if you don't know what I'm talking about it is better off that way.

So I thought I could delete Facebook and start another profile that would be more relevant to my writing company, but apparently, that's not how things work with Facebook. I'm still trying to figure out exactly how things do work for that government run site, but I'm not trying too terribly hard, because Facebook, as personal as it was, was turning me into an obsessive, crazy person.

So as it stands, no Facebook. Maybe later. Maybe not.

Now with that out of the way, let me tell you about how I was fully prepared to start this New Year off right, and how it got twisted all around.

For the last several days before the year ended, I was really trying hard to get back to my roots. I had taken to walking barefoot just about every where I went, including a four hour hike around downtown Fort Lauderdale, just because I could.

Yes, it sounds stupid, but believe it or not, my feet felt great. I started walking over gravel and glass. I started using a trashcan as target practice and taught myself how to throw rocks and macadamia nuts by holding them between my toes. My aim was getting pretty good. I was gearing myself up for 4 mile daily runs.

On January 1st my cat ran away and got himself thoroughly stuck in a palm tree, wedged between the fronds. With some help of a neighbor and his ladder, I climbed up and saved him. He clawed me up and ran away again. I guess there should have been a lesson in that somewhere.

A couple days later, I had shoes on and was walking to the store less than a block from my house. I stepped off the sidewalk to give a bicycler more room and was instantly mugged by twelve inches of angry wood chip.

I never even saw it coming. The damn thing stabbed right into my foot right above my shoe and punctured through to bone. So much for bare feet and running. I can no longer put any weight on my right heel. According to the hospital I'm at "severely high risk" of getting a bone infection. Well, I can still walk on my toes, and I have a cane.

There's probably a lot of lessons that could be pulled out of this story. Like, don't try to save a cat because he will just maul you, and remember bicyclers should be on the street so make them yield to pedestrians. Maybe we could simplify that. Don't do anything for anyone, because it's just going to get you fucked up.

No, I don't actually mean that, but there is some beautiful irony in the whole situation. I think what really should be learned from this is that we should pay attention to our surroundings, and stop acting like we are the only people alive on this planet.

I guess all I'm saying is things don't go according to plan and life is full of setbacks. Well, I for one aim to be back wandering downtown barefoot and flinging rocks just as soon as I am able. Oh, and I'll be running too. Unless maybe, I lose my foot...

Keep ya posted.
AiGe

4 comments:

Alissa Grosso said...

I don't really get Facebook. I was probably one of the last people that I know to sign up (seriously, my mom had a Facebook account before I did) and I am always forgetting to log in and post stuff there.

Sounds like your new year has had a rocky start. Well, hopefully your foot heals quickly, and things start looking up.

AmberInGlass said...

Yeah, Facebook is ridiculous, it's actually really nice not having one. I was driven by an obsessive need to check friend's status updates, even when no one was updating anything I wanted to read.

Thanks Alissa, it has been rough, but crippled foot or not, I don't plan on being stopped. This year is going to be amazing.

Uninvoked said...

ooooooooooooooow! Hope you feel better.

AmberInGlass said...

Thanks, several trips to the ER and at least they finally got the two inches of wood out of my heel. I think I'll recover. :D