Writing Muscle

I seem to have strained my writing muscle or something.  Usually when I sit down with a blank page I can stick something into it; many times I have an idea for something even before I open the blank page.  Lately, it’s been blank page and then nothing. 

Once many moons ago, back in the 80’s, I went out and played some b.b. in a pick up game.  I should have known better—some of the guys playing were like idiot guys who hadn’t played the game much and were trying to imitate stuff they had seen on TV.  So this one idiot guy dives in front of me as I was driving for the basket—in an apparent attempt to steal the ball—and low bridges me.  In an instinctive effort to protect my face which was heading for the black top my right arm stuck itself out and save my face OK, but my forward momentum caused the right elbow to hyperextend—i.e. go in the direction it is not supposed to go.

The thing swelled up so bad at the elbow that I went to the emergency room and had it x-rayed.  There was a fracture but way deep inside and nothing to be done about it except to keep the arm immobilized they said, which wasn’t that hard since the arm had immobilized itself by becoming useless.  If you stop to think about it—which I don’t encourage really—the only use an arm—as opposed to a leg—has is to have a hand attached to it.  If we were born without hands attached to our arms we would just have these sort of clubs we could use I supposed to beat on each other—but which would be otherwise pretty much maladaptive in my opinion.

So my arm was rendered useless in the sense that the strain at the elbow had the effect apparently of stretching ligaments and tendons so I couldn’t hold anything much in my right hand.  I couldn’t hold a pencil and make it work.  I could hold a glass but with nothing in it; and I took to using my left when it came to bathroom issues.  Over a couple of weeks as the swelling went down the strength came back and the right arm once again had a useful purpose—an active hand attached.

Right now my writing muscle is like that—I feel as if my head is stuffed with cotton.  I have cotton coming out of my ears.  When I was just downstairs a few minutes ago, I found myself envying, once again, our cat’s ability to flat out relax.  She had found a bit of sun in front of the window and she was just stretched out in that—as only a cat can stretch out.  She was so damn relaxed that even her tongue was relaxed because the tip of it was sticking out of her mouth.

 

showoffcat
Look How Relaxed I Am! (Little show off)

 

Then she saw me and decided to start showing off how relaxed she was by rolling over her back—and stretching again.  And then she started into cleaning herself, and rolled up in this sort of posture she can get into to clean her a-hole.  Both her back legs stick up in the air, as she goes at the a-hole, pretty vigorously too.  I say to her, Good cat! Good Cat! Clean that asshole!  Sometimes, I will see her around and ask her if she has cleaned her a-hole lately, just to harass her a little.

But I am just tired, and not in a relaxed way.  Maybe that’s why I envy the cat.

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