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blamebrampton) wrote2008-02-15 01:20 am
blamebrampton) wrote2008-02-15 01:20 am
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Meme post two
elanna9 tagged me for the seven quirky facts meme. I am desperate to procrastinate, and therefore very grateful. 1. I am an excellent swimmer. This never ceases to amaze Australians.
2. I was raised by hippie lawyers and lesbians. In terms of reading and arguing, this was the childhood from heaven. In terms of grooming and girliness, it was akin to being raised by wolves.
3. I have broken lots of bones, mostly thanks to cars, which are attracted to me.
4. I do not drive. Given 3, I see no reason to tempt fate. Also, I like walking a great deal, and usually have an interesting time on public transport. For this reason, I tend to live in cities with decent public transport. (And my next move will be to a city with good cycleways!)
5. I have very little memory of 1994 and the first half of 1995 due to my most exciting car/body interaction. I am also very vague on a lot of other events and some nouns for the same reason. It's all still in my head, it's just hideously disordered. I make jokes about being forgetful, but the truth is I will either remember something very well, or not at all.
6. I have never, ever wanted to be married. When the other little girls were playing Bride, I was playing War or Astronaut, and encouraging them to join in. That said, my current relationship is coming up on its 13th anniversary and I think I'll keep him.
7. When I was five, I read King Lear, saw it played on stage, and saw Lon Chaney's Phantom of the Opera at the cinema. During this period I remember staying awake at night horrified at the realisation that there was nothing. NOTHING. That I would die and be gone and that the world was wholly unfair, and that even if Gonerils died, so did Cordelias and nothing I did could change that. To allow me to get to sleep, I would lie there and chant "Fairies! Think of the fairies!!" This went on until I was about ... oh ... 22 or so.
no subject
You were 5 when you read King Lear? And you were taken to Phantom of the Opera? No wonder you were thinking of the fairies. :)
The longest reply ever ...
The second was that as I came up to a set of lights at which I had the green, I looked at the little white car waiting at the red turning arrow (I knew these lights) and assumed the driver was sane. Now, that driver was, but the taxi coming down the road behind him was not. He put his foot down, ran around the stopped vehicle, through the red arrow, and straight into the side of me.
In a way it was lucky that I wasn't wearing my helmet, as I was knocked unconscious when I hit the body of the taxi. It had hit me square on the pedals, damaging both of my Achilles tendons and gouging a hole in my left leg at the rear of the bike where the pedal was driven into it. I probably also broke my ribs as I bounced off the bonnet and windshield, rather than later in the piece.
From the taxi my momentum carried me in an apparently impressive parabolic arc towards the road, which I hit with my face, ripping off most of the skin and breaking my poor old nose (again), and cracking my jaw and cheekbone. Witnesses describe me bouncing disturbingly on my face and the top of my head; I had scabs behind both ears when I thought to look a few weeks later. My poor limp body was just jacknifed at these points, except for my right hand which was punched into the ground at some point, causing some very interesting fractures, and my left palm which seems to have skidded across the road but which was wearing a good gel-palm cycling glove, so the glove gave its life for me.
I was only unconscious for about a minute or two. When I came around there was a lovely lovely motorcyclist whose name I tragically lost (or he'd have received many flowers!!) who had stopped traffic around me, sent someone to secure my bike, made sure the ambulance and police were called and had used his leather jacket to wedge my head still, since he was fairly convinced I must have broken my neck.
His first and very sensible words to me were "Stay completely still!"
Mine to him were: "I hurt everywhere. But I suppose that's good if you think about it, right?"
He assured me that it was.
I told him I had a big party to go to in 10 days, and asked if he thought I'd look all right by then. "Errrr, probably not," was his quite correct assessment.
Part two
Being strapped down hurt, this was the only time I cried. They offered me gas, but I refused because it makes me giggle like a loon and I though giggling would be bad at this point.
Off to casualty we went. They did lots of X-Rays, and, after looking at the films from my neck, they did them again. And again from a different angle. And then scanned me twice. I was in and out of consciousness through this, but a few times I told them that I was pretty sure I hadn't broken any vertebrae. They told me I was very lucky, but I probably had, however it was just bone damage if I had and it would heal up in a few months.
I woke up properly several hours later down in casualty, with no restraining bits save around my hand. "You're very lucky!" the doctor said. I told him I knew. He told me that I had a bit of a skull crack, too, and asked me questions. I could remember the date, the Prime Ministers of several countries and do arithmetic. But it became clear I had no sense of time passing, now what I had done last week, though the previous 24 hours were very clear, nor sections of time from before that. And I kept muddling up some words.
That's OK, he assured me, it's pretty common, you grow out of it.
Which I did, mostly, but it took quite some time. For the next six months there was an awful lot of miming. Luckily my friends are all hilarious and good at charades. My best one ever was putting hands on either side of my head and declaring "Christmas things!"
"Oh, reindeer!" they deduced.
Some memories came back in total, others in parts, some not at all.
For the most part this was not so bothersome; I am not one of those people who lives on memories and am always good at making new ones. But there were a few dicey parts. It will not surprise you that these were to do with sex. I had a brief but apparently big fling with an American a few weeks before. I remember quite liking him, but exactly none of the sex. He's a friend these days and just assumes I am invoking British reserve when I do not discuss our fling.
Worse, I slept with one of my friends around this time, but can never recall that I did. Let me just say that sex is never a substitute for a birthday present and thinking that it is will only get you into trouble. Happily, I had previously described in great detail the incident to my darling housemate, who assured me that no, I was not having a relationship with this nice but crazy girl, no matter what she suggested.
My friends were magnificent and helped me with everything until I was back to normal. I've left out the fact that I was truly ugly for a few weeks; face just a mass of scabs, bruises and swelling. It was very interesting to be ugly, people treat you very differently, including some shopkeepers who treated me as though I was stupid. I had to laboriously point out that I was still very smart and would only look like this for a short while, so they might want to get over it if they expected me to keep shopping there.
I did go to the big party, I wore a pair of heeled boots and opaque tights, with hotpants and a cool jacket. I spent a lot of the evening talking to a friend who kept bursting into laughter. I asked her why eventually. She told me that men kept walking into the room, looking at me from behind and clearly deciding "Ooh, that looks tasty ..." sauntering up behind while prepping 'lines', then making it to the sight line where they could see my face and retreating in horror.
What terrifies me is that two boys who I sort of knew both made serious plays that night. I wasn't that grateful to be alive. NB I am also not that irresistible, I think it was the fact that I was momentarily weakened and therefore represented a moment of Brammers without sarcasm, which was clearly a once in a lifetime opportunity.
Part three
Secondly, if you wish to escape hospital early, live with a house full of medical students and nurses. They will use you as an example in their classes, but they will also be very kind and not fuss if you need a hand with bathing.
Thirdly, never cycle in Sydney, you will die.
Fourthly, disaster can be good. I met J two months later and decided that he was The One, a decision I would never have made if I was still in flightly "right, had enough, back to Blighty" mode. I was right, he was. Being ugly also taught me to care less about looks and pay more attention to people themselves. Although I was only temporarily ugly, I remember the looking away of many, and the kindness of a little girl at the pet shop who picked up a rabbit from the petting pen and held it up for me, saying "Would you like to pat the bunny? It always makes me feel better when I am sad." She's a bit of a personal hero of mine.
Fifthly, it's not all nothing. It's the people we meet and relate to and how we can all be there for each other, and remembering to be thankful when others are there for us.
Oh, and if you must go to a party the day after escaping hospital, don't wear high heels. I ached for weeks after that.
Re: Part three
It is true that people will treat you differently based on appearance, and I only notice that more as I age. In college, my husband spent several months in a wheelchair after surgery, and he said people were very condescending and treated him like a child because he was "handicapped."
Fifthly, it's not all nothing. It's the people we meet and relate to and how we can all be there for each other, and remembering to be thankful when others are there for us.
I agree wholeheartedly.