During which I make an art form out of parenthesis and run on sentences

A couple of weeks ago, I walked past a cardboard box in my spare bedroom, and it (or something in it - lately my suspicions have fallen on my drafting ruler (why do I have a drafting ruler?) as the likeliest suspect) got very, very angry.

I was only upstairs for a few moments, long enough to pee and put on a sweater before I returned to the courtyard where Jen, Pal and I were doing that thing where we sit outside and talk until the sun goes down and we realize we've spent another evening accomplishing little more than giggling.

When I came back downstairs, proclaiming, "I cut my leg in half," I wasn't kidding, and when I reminded them to be grateful that I'd stopped taking blood thinners a week before, I SO wasn't kidding. They both gaped at my leg, unable to process their own reactions though I was to the point of giggling, and I sat down with cotton pads and a bottle of the best thing ever to lick my wounds. Metaphorically.

Also, I'm not kidding about that whole best thing ever. I know most of you are lucky enough to not be nearly so hairy as I am (have I ever mentioned the sideburns? and the mustache? and the beard? and the SIDEBURNS?), but if you've ever been (god forbid) facially waxed or, my new favorite thing: threaded by sweet indian women who give your eyebrows the most perfect god-intended arch possible, then you should probably know about this shit. Not only does it numb you, but say goodbye to ingrown hairs and/or pimples that last until all the hair grows back, so what was the point anyway?

Now, two days ago I sat in my doctor's office (and yesterday again in the ultrasound room), apologizing profusely to doctor (and ultrasound tech) about my current state of lower extremity hirsuteness, my doctor who has a tendency to say the most awesome things said, "Did you have bone surgery without telling me?"

I explained the situation, and he said, "You know in a fair fight, I would have bet on you, but you did not win." This of course, does not translate, because I can in no way describe to you the frowning state of perplexed with which he uttered this statement, in his dignified gold-rims leg fondling way (though it really has nothing on that time when I was taking two different antibiotics and he gestured, open palmed and with great valor, to his nether regions and said, "I have to ask...are you having any, uh...yeast...issues?").

I'm telling you this because there's a reason for the knee-high swampgrass on my legs, which is that I save up my shaving for special situations, because my sensitive skin scoffs at razors and lotions and makes me miserable if I expose it to more than air or sunlight in any given month, and one of those special situations is tomorrow. I'm going to visit the kind of friend for whom you make sure to shave your legs (even though said friend does not reciprocate), and I'm pretty pumped about seeing just how gnarly the mess on my leg is going to be.

You know, once you can actually see it.

I know I've said it before, but it bears repeating: I like scars. I like scars because they're proof that you've lived through something, and having lived through something just recommends you as a better person. Maybe that's short sighted or naive of me, but I'm pretty sure there's a gentleman on the other side of the world somewhere who once conned me out of my clothes by showing me the bullet scars on his back (this after even his charming Aussie accent couldn't make "I'll trade you a backrub for a backrub," less lame).

And yeah, when I go visit this friend tomorrow, I'm pretty sure that showing him the mess on my leg (which, to be honest, is sort of a hallmark of our relationship, and now that I think about it, both of us have sustained some pretty nasty injuries in the time we've known each other, and really, maybe I should find a better hallmark) is going to be exactly what we need to break the tension during that part of the evening where we feel like we ought to at least have an excuse to take our pants off.