Bar Wounds

My friend Harley used to call them “bar wounds”—those little bumps and bruises you get that you can’t remember where you got. His assumption—and a reasonable one at that—is that you’d incurred them at some time after a drink or three, falling off a stool, or bumping into a wall, or, as I did once, banging your head on a coat rack reaching for your hat.

Of late, I haven’t been knocking myself about in taverns, but I do find myself unexpectedly injured here and there in ways and places whose source is unclear.

Today, for instance, I’ve got this bruise on my right forearm that, while it isn’t incredibly painful or anything, does make it difficult to rest my elbows and wrists on the drafting table as I write or, as I discovered this morning, set up and go into headstand.

I can’t recall getting this injury; my conjecture, therefore, is that I must have sustained it over the weekend, in all likelihood during the evening of the “La Furia de la Calle” Race.

I’ve also got a fairly fresh scab on my calf, a couple inches long, but not too wide, a cut I have no recollection of receiving; maybe it’s a bowling injury from Mimi’s party on Friday.

I don’t really mind these little bar wounds; in fact, there’s part of me that appreciates them in the name of not becoming completely old and stodgy; I guess it’s my little approximation of the “Fight Club” spirit. The first rule of bar wounds, then, is never to talk about bar wounds.

But see, I’m so hard core that I even break the rules of the rule-breakers. Nice.

As a kid, one of the merit badges of summer was skinned knees; when both were scabbed over, you could count yourself as officially on vacation.

I may not have torn through my jeans to lacerate my kneecaps; but I am occasionally bleeding from unexpected places.

Party on!