Radio Silence

I know, I've failed at keeping you abreast of life in the desert this week and for that I'm sorry. I took a long break from life this weekend, for no reason in particular. But it was nice.

Friday's shindig came and went. It was lovely and quiet, and filled with food. Your absence was palpable, but we survived. Currently we're drowning in leftovers.

We went shopping at midnight Thursday for Black Friday which was great fun. We spent an hour, maybe two in line to get in, got everything we wanted, and then spent another hour in line to check out. Totally worth it by the way.

Saturday I had to work all day. It was lame and there was a lot to do. I went home and spent the evening parked on the sofa with Goose. Later that night, as I watched the sweet puppy sleeping on her chair, it occurred to me that her nails needed trimming and now was the perfect opportunity. She was asleep, practically drunk on turkey, and she wouldn't even notice.

Goose got up and brought me the nail clippers, which are HUGE, in case you haven't seen them, because Emery has feet like a Great Dane. Goose wandered off into the back of the house somewhere and I did my best to sneak up on the dog. Somewhere along the way I lost my footing, twisted my ankle and crashed to the ground.

I felt a sharp and distinct pain.  A sort of meaty feeling. And then looked down at my hand. Somehow I had fallen onto the nail clippers which had in turn removed a quarter of my fingernail. It took out a whole quadrant. The rip goes straight down the center of my nail and then sideways across the half way point.

It took what seemed like forever to start bleeding, but bleed it did. I sat on the floor, mostly in shock, pinching the crap out of my wounded digit, waiting quietly for Goose to return and/or for it to stop bleeding.

Then something strange happened. As I looked down at my mangled finger the world started to spin. Life got all swirly and unbearably warm. I started to sweat. My stomach started to twist around and my vision started to fade out.

Goose returned and all I could manage to say was 'help'. I don't know how to impress upon you what a strange experience this was. The wound itself didn't hurt AT ALL, aside from the initial sharp pinch. Once it was done it just felt....meaty. Not painful at all, but gross in that way that only ripped off fingernails can feel.

Goose went and retrieved the first aid kit. She went to clean my hand up and I decided that was probably a bad idea. Missing fingernails feel gross enough without other people touching them, plus control freak as I am, relinquishing control of the situation was not high on my priority list. She opened the alcohol wipes and as I went to put it on my finger the room got hot, my head got all spin-y and I desperately needed a puke bucket.

I don't know why this particular injury bothered me, I've ripped entire nails off before and survived without needing to pass out, but this one, for whatever reason was not jiving with conscious Little Foot. I spent the next 20 minutes or so alternating between throwing up and lying on the bathroom floor praying for death. I really really loathe vomiting.

I returned to the living room, looking more shell-shocked than ever, and notified Goose in the creepy calm voice that I was, for whatever reason, unable to look at my finger (let alone clean or bandage it) without passing out. I don't know why, it wasn't even that bad, it made no rational sense, but nonetheless here we were. And so I sat quietly while she cleaned my finger as best she could. The nail, while totally severed from the nail bed, is still connected at the far side and there was no way we were going to trim it that night.

So my finger remains bandaged. It is gross. It feels all meaty. And I bump it on everything.

Also, for the record, I've had a lot of gross injuries, and the only other one that ever made me throw up/pass out was when I was in the seventh grade, riding on the rack on the back of a friends bike and I got my foot stuck in the tire. My foot was really grossly mangled all the way down to the bone and bits of my shoe were stuck in it. But even that reaction wasn't as bad as this. My brain was not happy about this fingernail business.

Not at all.


Lots of love.
I'll have songs for you later.
Hope your weekend was lovely.