'tis not so deep as a well, nor so wide as a church door

[desperance]

I sit here fresh from the bath, and swathed in a soft black towel. Ordinarily I'm a bathrobe man, but tonight there are special circumstances: viz I'm bleeding from the shoulder, and I wouldn't want to get blood on any of the robes.

Actually, I'm quite glad to be bleeding; I was starting to worry. This is just residue from my curious fall of a few days back; I barked & bruised myself all over, blacked my eye and broke my glasses, all that sort of thing, but I also skinned my shoulder and the knuckle of my thumb. Nothing, just grazes - only those grazes have been the harm that didn't heal, that got more sore by the day and looked kind of pusy in the middle and streaked redly outward. I've read enough novels to know that this is Bad, that Infection has Taken Hold, that untreated I am now Like To Die (you can tell the kind of novels I've been reading - and, hell, writing. When I want to worry a character, as often as not there's red streaks coming from an infected wound). So, this last twenty-four hours, I not only look like a refugee from a childhood playground scuffle, I smell like one too; I am a child of my time, and I dug out the TCP.

And after some vigorous daubing and much stinging, I am happy to say that the wound in my shoulder is now running with good red blood, which - if I am to believe what I read - is a vast improvement and it should now Heal Cleanly. If anything's going to kill me, it's the wee little puncture in my thumb. Which would be ironic, and therefore mandatory in the kind of novels that I read. And, yes, write.

But meanwhile - not wanting blood on the sheets - I can't go to bed till I'm solidly scabbed over; so I guess I get to do another hour's work. Joy, joy. I have unwritten five thousand words today already, and it's exhausting. Wish I'd written the damn thing better in the first place, y'know? Or even just shorter, shorter would be good...

Comments

[farwing.livejournal.com]

Ouch! Did someone push you down the stairs? (Did I miss the entry regarding the Terrible Curious (or would that be Terribly Curious?) Fall?) How came you by these Terrible Wounds? Er...I am clearly having Too Much Fun at your expense.

[desperance.livejournal.com]

How can there be Too Much Fun?

Clearly you read my precious texts with insufficient focus. Sigh. 'Twas ever thus. (James Joyce is apparently on record as asserting that a true Joyce fan would read nothing but nothing but Joyce, and devote their literary lives to his study; I do think other people could learn from this, y'know...?)

I just fell over in town last week. I was standing up; I was on the ground. Like that. No idea why. Except that then I came home and became quite ill for a few days. Which is one reason why this rewrite is going slowly. Tho' I have also been hacking out enormous quantities of text, which does take time and is exhausting. Pity the poor author, dragging his tools to the wordface...

[farwing.livejournal.com]

Well, I was sort of making fun of you, which isn't Nice. I don't know you very well and I was not sure if you would be Offended. I did experience brief Twinges of Guilt. (It's just so much fun to add capital letters to things. It makes everything one writes seem so much more Important.)

Oh, yes. I see. I may have even read that entry but, well, um...I'm a space cadet? Maybe you were sick before you fell down and did not know it, but the sickness upended you onto the sidewalk.

[desperance.livejournal.com]

Well, I was sort of making fun of you, which isn't Nice. I don't know you very well and I was not sure if you would be Offended. I did experience brief Twinges of Guilt. (It's just so much fun to add capital letters to things. It makes everything one writes seem so much more Important.)

Yup. It adds irony, or other inflexion; which is, to be frank, dead handy on the internet, where people fall out so easily over misunderstanding a comment, just because it doesn't have a tone of voice or they've missed the sarcasm markers or whatever. Of me personally, you can make as much fun as you like, and I shan't be offended - I'm out here making a target of myself, y'know? - but in order not to be misconstrued by others, do by all means pepper me with capitals and toss me to the cats. Wit With Security, that's the way to go...

(Actually, I think Barry miaows with capitals. He doesn't say much, but when he does, it's imperative.)

[spaceoperadiva.livejournal.com]

One of the Tsars of Russia (I think Ivan the Terrible's grandpa) died from an infected mosquito bite. So it could happen to. . .well, probably not you because antibiotics are not useless yet. :-P

[desperance.livejournal.com]

'Zackly. One significant figure in the Crusades pricked his arm on a thorn, and so died (can't remember who, because I pinched that for my Outremer books, and how shall we tell the dancer from the dance?). I was only waiting for my whole shoulder to swell up the size of a pauldron, and I was off doctorwards. With any luck, this contingency has now been averted...

[xnamkrad.livejournal.com]

You do need to be careful with these (but be careful to avoid paranoia). A few years ago, I got a blister on my hand working in the garden, and the blister burst during the day. It got a bit sore, but I thought nothing of it. About a week later, I got an emergency call into work (computer bureau at that time) and when I had the problem sorted it was about 4:30 am so I decided to do some more work in the office and go home mid-morning. So while typing up some stuff, I noticed that the knuckles had disappeared as my hand was swelling. Cue phone call to Doctor. Upshot was it took nearly two years to fully get rid of it, ended up in hospital for a week, avoided major surgery - twice - by the skin of my teeth. And the slightest cut or bump would trigger it all again.
And that was with antibiotics.
So like I said, take care, and if in doubt, get it checked.

[desperance.livejournal.com]

Will do. And thank you. I can avoid paranoia, but largely by lapsing into heedlessness; a word to the wise is always welcome. In all honesty, I was operating on the assumption that what with Modern Medicine and all, those days were behind us. Sheesh...

[xnamkrad.livejournal.com]

When I was checked in the hospital (where they drained the infection) they were checking red lines on my lower arm. They faded in a few days, but I found out these were a sign of the infecttion, and had they reached the top of the arm (and hence the lymph node there) I would have been facing several months (sic) in hospital, including a long time in intensive care. Lucky it was spotted in time.

[pennski.livejournal.com]

I'm just glad you went for the stylish black towel which will

a) go with everything and
b) not show the blood.

Don't die - you haven't written all your books yet.

[desperance.livejournal.com]

I'm just glad you went for the stylish black towel which will

a) go with everything and
b) not show the blood.

Everything's black in this house, for exactly these reasons. It does just make the laundry so much easier...

Don't die - you haven't written all your books yet.

Ah, but the sooner I die, the fewer books there will be that I haven't written. Every year the list gets longer, the obligation to stay alive more burdensome, the potential loss to literature greater. I think there's an irony here somewhere.