You know what? I think I have the old foldedspace groove back. All week long, I’ve been wanting to write stuff here for all my friends and family. Cool, huh?

First up, I want to complain about how old and fat and clumsy I am. As I’ve already written, I conked myself on the head at the beginning of February. I eventually went to the doctor, and he told me I was fine.

Well, a few days later, I crashed while riding my bike. I was riding with Bernie on a fine Sunday morning, and we’d just passed underneath the tram at the base of the hill. We came to a streetcar platform, and Bernie went right. I went left. I knew right away it was a mistake: The tires of my bike slotted into the groove of the rails. I shouted an obscenity and took a tumble, bashing my right knee and right wrist into the pavement.

“Are you okay?” Bernie asked.

“I’m fine,” I said, but I wasn’t. My head hurt (remember, this was just days after I’d seen the doctor about my head injury) and I was nauseated. I sat down for a few minutes. Then we rode on.

My wrist and knee hurt all week, but I didn’t think much of it. I suspected it was just bruising. But all week in Belize, the wrist ached more. It hurt all the time (though just a little bit), and if I bumped it the wrong way, the pain was intense.

“Go see a doctor when we get home,” Kris said. So I did. This morning, I drove to Gabriel Park, where Dr. Petering took some x-rays.

“Well, we’re not really sure what’s wrong,” he told me. (Sigh. This is what doctors always say, which is why I tend to not want to go to them.) “It may be broken, but the x-ray doesn’t show it. More likely, you’ve just damaged some soft tissue. In any case, I want you to wear a splint for two or three weeks, and then come see me if it doesn’t improve.”

“I’m a writer,” I said. “Will this cause problems?”

“Hm,” he said. “You’ll still be able to type, but it may be a little clumsy.” Yes. Yes, it is. Very clumsy, indeed, especially if I need the backspace…

Dropping keys
In other news, I was browsing through Chris’s site today when I stumbled upon a month-old entry, which contains the following from the Sufi poet Hafez:

The small man builds cages for everyone he knows,
While the sage, who has to duck his head when the moon is low,
Keeps dropping keys all night long for the
  Beautiful
    Rowdy
      Prisoners

Oh. My. God. This bit of poetry is so awesome, perfectly encapsulating my current world view. I’m so sick of small men (and small women) who build cages for others; I’m drawn to those tall sages who move through life, dropping keys to help set others free.

Do you build cages for the people you know? How can you stop this? How can you start dropping keys instead? The answer for each of us is different, yes? For me, I drop keys at Get Rich Slowly. You might drop keys in other ways. But whatever you do, set people free, don’t cage them in.

Powerful, powerful stuff.

A final complaint
One of the benefits about blogging here regularly again is that I can whine in all the little ways I like to do. For example, have I mentioned that I rented an office? It’s a small space (about the size of a spare bedroom) just up the street from the house. It’s fantastic: I come up here and I know it’s time to work.

Anyhow, I like my neighbors in the office building, but there’s one thing that drives me nuts about the office next door. It’s home to a massage thereapist, and she’s very nice. But she’s also chatty with her customers. As Kris could tell you, I need silence (or music) to work; I don’t deal well with conversation. (Which is one reason I hate NPR — noise pollution radio — because I can’t think when it’s on.) So, when Jeannie has a client in and they’re chatting away, it’s almost impossible for me to work!

Fortunately, there’s an easy solution: I just turn on the classic country tunes and I can no longer hear the gossip.

Ah, it feels good to whine in public again!