nine days ago, i had a little accident. i've finally got things together enough to edit the msg i sent my fambly the next day,  followed by some updates. (the "yesterday" in the first line refers to friday, september 26):

so i sent the final changes to my book to my editor to be typeset yesterday afternoon, and hopped in the car for my mini-vacation: half a day off in boulder, a little hike in the foothills with my friend patrick, and whatever. i was SO happy to reach the almost-last deadline. nine-plus years, and just one step to go. so giddy to have that weight off.

i got there around 2:15. at 4:30, i broke my ankle.

once we got to the ER--a day later--patrick and i decided we needed a better, butcher story. so my official story, and i'm sticking to it, is that it was an off-roading motorbike accident.

that's the short version, which is true. barely. it was a vespa scooter, goes about 40 mph. patrick has a pair, and he lives above boulder, so instead of driving down the mountain to town, he suggested we take the scooters. sounded fun. we got a late lunch and ran around a bit: saw the jonbet house, which is for sale, rode through my favorite old neighborhood on the path i used to ride to grad school, blah blah blah. it was a beautiful day, the leaves were turning, the scooters were a blast. i was really cautious at first, but i got used to it, and started opening the throttle, giving it full speed.

i took him to my mentor lucia berlin's grave, just a mile or two south of campus, next to Chataqua Park. i never in my life had the urge to visit someone's grave until lucia died. she was special, though, and it's the most beautiful cemetary i've ever seen. it's nestled right into the rolling foothills right below The Flatirons. there's an enorous hundred-year-old oak just across the gravel road from her spot. the sky always seems to be dazzling--it's colorado: nearly always sunny and clear. and lucia still makes me smile.

she's also buried beside the great poet Ed Dorn, who was a great wiseass and brilliant guy, who let me into the U of Co program after i'd initially been rejected. he lived to nearly 80. he has the verse of a stunning poem called "The Gunslinger" etched into the back of his stone (his spacing and capitalization--it's in the book that way, and on the stone):

This tapestry moves

as the morning lights up.

And they who are in it move

and love its moving

from sleep to Idea

born on the breathing

of a distant harmonium, To See

is their desire

as they wander estranged

through the lanes of the Tenders

of Objects

who implore this existence

for a plan and dance wideyed

provided with a schedule

of separated events

along the selvedge of time.

          Time does not consent.

This is morning

This is afternoon

Only celebrations concur

and we concur To See

it gives me the chills every time i read it. lots of stones here and there have snatches of poetry inscribed, or prose, but nothing in a league with this. and how wonderful picturing ed, knowing he didn't just like the words, he wrote them. best thing in the cemetary.

to get to theit plots, you wind along a dirt/gravel road that loops around the perimeter of the cemetery, with little spurs down the middle. lucia and ed are right on the north edge, about halfway around, on the side of a hill. the road is rutty, with deep erosion cuts across it all over the place. in a car, it's a bumpy ride. not a great road for a scooter, so i paid close attention on the ride in. we'd been on and off the bikes nearly two hours, so i was feeling comfortable now, but playing it safe on this road.

then i lost myself in the cemetary and forgot. patrick was fun to visit with--he noticed different things than me. like all the giant stones with multiple names on them, some with two dates, many with only one. ugh. that would unnerve me, seeing a big gravestone in a cemetary with my name on it, and my birth date, waiting to fill in my death? very strange. suprisingly common. i am aware that i'm going to die, but i've never wanted a plot waiting for me, and i sure as hell don't want my gravestone made up while i'm breathing.

we had all sorts of fun, and when we hopped on the bikes, i felt a little guilty that i'd barely stopped to chat quietly with lucia. i don't do that with anyone else, just her. i'd been thinking about her the last couple days, picturing her great big smile at me for finishing my first book. she helped teach me to write. she showed me the way with her stuff. and she was the first person in my life outside my family or a girlfriend to say "i love you." that was before i accepted i was guy. gayguys say it all the time, but in straightland, it had never happened to me. she helped me figure out how to love a lot of people, especially myself. when i did something goofy she we giggle and call me darling. "oh darling, . . ."

god, i love her.

i was excited to take patrick to the spot, and to feel a little closer to her, too. but then i kinda forgot to visit with her, so at the end, i told patrick i needed a minute, and took thirty seconds, and felt i'd gyped her a little.

so we hopped on the bikes, to get back to the mountain to do our little nature hike, and i pushed back the kickstand, started rolling down the hill, gave it a little gas, and turned back to say goodbye. i completely forgot i'd first gotten on one of these things two hours ago. i looked back over my shoulder, and reached my right arm up to wave goodbye. i hit a deep rut, skidded around on the gravel, fought for control of it, got my right hand back on the handlebar and instictively braked with that hand, which is the rear brake on my mountain bike. i didn't know motorbikes are always the reverse. i had just about regained control when i clamped what turned out to be the front brake and that sent the reat wheel into the air, me coming off it and the bike pivoting around the front tire. it grounded me when the gas tank came down on my left ankle. i was twisted and pinned, but could barely reach it with my fingertips, and going for it shifted the weight and dug it in harder.

patrick was already well ahead, but three old people visiting their dead friends came running. patrick called back "are you OK?" and i was yelling, "No! Get off me! Get it off!" but he only heard me yelling and assumed i was saying i was fine. everyone always yells that they're fine. every other time i've screwed up like this, i'm yelling that i'm fine. a feeble old man who was truly about ninety years old and as many pounds got there first and pulled the bike off me with his bony little arms. patrick was running toward me and could not believe he lifted it.

it looked a lot worse at first, because my knee was scraped superficially, but a pretty big swath, so it was covered in blood and it was running down my leg and with all the grit and gravel we couldn't see if that was serious, and my hand was a little roughed up, and i must have touched me knee, so they thought that was bleeding, and i couldn't stand at first and both my knee and ankle were howling, so i wasn't sure what was wrong with me. so a lot of confusion at first. i just wanted to sit down, and headed for a big gravestone to sit on, and the old man said, "there's a bench, that's what it's there for," and i thought, "really? i can't just sit on this huge marble stone two steps away?" but i didn't want to fight about that just then, so i walked to the bench. (it was maybe just 20 steps, and by then there were four people helping me. i still wonder about gravesite etiquitte though. i think if you've been in a potentially serious accident and don't know what's wrong yet, you're allowed to sit on anything.)

they were all really nice. the little old lady cleaned up my knee, though not very well, because she was afraid of hurting me, and only had a paper napkin and her water bottle. i was trying to tell her to just dive in there and clean it hard and fast and get it over with, but too many people were talking to me at once. she was all upset that she didn't have her first aid kit. patrick and i both thought for awhile that she was saying she DID have it, and was cleaning the wound, because she kept repeating, "i just put the first aid kit in the car. i just put the first aid kit in the car." but she was lamenting that she'd put it in the OTHER car. it turned out to be a superficial wound, and the least of my problems. she was sweet, though. they all were.

the knee turned out to be no problem at all, which surprised me, because i've nailed it before a couple times and it swelled up and i couldn't walk for half a week. i must have been lucky with the angle or something. it's a minor bruise, which i'm not even noticing with the ankle. that's my only real issue.

the old folks offered to drive me back and one of them drive the scooter back, but i thought i was ok after a bit and we road them home.

so it wasn't quite the mini-vacation i had planned. i was thinking about taking the whole weekend off, which i apparently still am, but not quite as intended. no dancing tonight.

---

that was a week ago. i did not go dancing that night.

i guess i can't dance for six weeks. i might explode. i don't think i've ever gone more than 2-3 since i got out of the body cast. i start getting really antsy after two weeks. (same amount of time that going without writing gets to me, but completely different reaction. writing withdrawl makes me sour, irritable and cranky. dancing withdrawl makes me anxious, jittery and insanely restless.)

we assumed it was just a bad sprain because i could walk on it, with help and a lot of pain. we rode the scooters back across town and up the mountainside to his house. patrick took good care of me there, and gave me a pair of spare crutches from all his breaks. i iced it like crazy, but it swelled up the size of a baseball that night--like half a baseball was sticking out of my ankle. it was a rough night, so i called a doctor friend first thing this morning and he asked if i could take four steps. i tried one, and couldn't stand it, and he said get an x-ray. good advice. (FYI, he said the rule is: if the patient can't take four steps, get an x-ray.)

the ER doc didn't mince words. five minutes after the x-ray, she pulled the curtain back and said, "well, you broke your ankle." broken fibula, which is the smaller calf bone that doesn't bear most of the weight. it snapped clear through, but a clean break. the problem is the location: right at the ankle joint, which can cause trouble. she said surgery was pretty definite.

they gave me the x-rays on CD, and i blew up the spot that looked like the problem, though on the first view it just looked like a gray line, and i didn't even know if that was the problem.

it's the one on the right that's broken--the bottom chunk lopped off, and pushed slightly to the right of where it normally sits. the left is supposed to look like that: it's two separate bones, the big calve bone (tibia), on top of the foot bone, aka, the ankle. i think.

they put a great big boot on it, and i want to meet the guy or woman who designed that and thank him or her, because it's a wonderful little device. i stopped hurting the second she strapped that on. it just had to be imobilized.

the ER doc was wrong.

orthopods don't work on the weekends unless it's life or death or loss of limb, so it took till late tuesday to see a highly-rated guy who said it would probably heal on its own. the two pieces have a good fit, so best to avoid surgery. Big relief. He wants weight on it; he put a cast on. i chose royal blue. the crutches are gone, thank god. i do not want to thank the inventor of those. seems like someone can do better.

(Not my best look. Bad haircut--way too short--and goofy expression, but I did try to coordinate the cast with my shirt and eyes. Hahaha. I got the shades all wrong. Lovely house, though, huh? Not mine. It's my friend Tomny's. He and Jonny brought me to his place to watch the ghastly Sarah Palin Show Thursday night. I apologize for the fake plant. Otherwise I love the place.)

THE PLAN: three weeks in the cast, then three to five in a boot, then possible physical therapy; full recovery in three months if there's no soft tissue damage. He'll assess/address soft tissue when the cast comes off. He hopes the free ligament was due to the bone chunk that holds it in place being mobile.

Walking is slow and awkward. Ankles turn out to be important. Without flexing it, the knee takes all the heat. No pain, though, and so much better than the crutches: less tiring, less precarious balancing on stairs, and free hands. It was so complicated to only use one set of appendages at a time.They're kind of a team. And I can drive again, though perhaps not well. Patrick brought my car back from Boulder, but friends have mostly been driving me around.

I spent a week learning to be mostly self-sufficient within my apt. That was daunting and kinda scary. Friends were great, but I had to learn myself. What a relief to let go of that--and to chuck my crutches-training program. (Four blocks on Sunday, eight Monday, I was supposed to do twelve Tuesday, but waited for word from the doc. It was hard.)

Emotionally I've been up and down. Most of the time, I've been fine with it, but I've had a couple breakdowns at odd moments. Wednesday was the hardest, and least expected. I had gone to bed Tuesday night elated: the whole impending surgery ordeal was lifted, the bone was safely sealed in a pretty blue cast, the evil cruthces were retired, and I could use my arms and legs simultaneously again. I felt the whole thing lifted. But then I woke up Wednesday with this anchor still strapped to my leg. I got out of bed and it hurt like hell at first. That passed quickly (it hurts when I've been off if awhile), but reminded me I wasn't out of the woods yet. Everything reminded me of that: Walking down the hall, I take these short, stubby, peg-leg steps that take forever and . . . I have to consolidate trips and plan everything to minimize steps because I can only be on it so long, and everything takes forever . . .

It's not that bad, just a pain in the ass. I just had to regrasp the fact that some of it had passed at the orthopod's office Tuesday, and some was still with me. Just a blip in the grand scheme. People deal with much worse every day. I'm sure it will look like nothing in six weeks, or once it's fully back, but it feels heavier than I'd like right now.

Back to work. So much to do. I've been getting some work done, but not nearly enough.

---

OK, it's Sunday night now, nine days out. I'm hobbing around, getting used to it. Things are more tiring than they seem like they ought to be.

I think maybe it's emotionally draining, because I was all tired out from running errands with Alan (who graciously drove me around, carried the groceries, etc.), Friday, but took my first trip to the gym, anyway. I hought I might be REALLY dead there, but quite the reverse--really invigorating. Nice to be myself again and be able to accomplish things and do just as well as before. Or something.

Everything takes forever. But I've gotten used the stupid anchor, and trying to learn something from it. I think I have. Lots of things, though they're still settling, so I won't try to share them now. Feeling OK. Need to work.

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(FYI, wikipedia has an entry on Lucia here): http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lucia_Berlin