I thought it might be nice to break up the recent run of renovation-related stories with some bodily harm. I don’t want people to think I only have one topic and it’s vitally important that I tell some embarrassing stories to keep myself humble.
Graceful is not an adjective that truly applies to me. I would generally not use it to describe myself (except in conjunction with laughter and an upward inflection, vis. Graceful? hahahahhahaha) but I am not exactly clumsy, either. Under certain circumstances, though, it is all but ordained that I will take a tumble of some kind. Recently I have been finding it due to cases of over-exertion.
Having a desk job results in my not getting quite as much exercise as I did when I was younger. I am, to put it bluntly, sedentary. Movement does not figure largely in my day-to-day activities beyond some movement to and from the fridge. Coupled with this (and probably counter-balancing it in terms of heart health) is a very, very low blood pressure, especially early in the mornings. Foolishly, I have been partaking in physical activity before my body has had a chance to truly awaken.
When Amy and I were camping Down East (it’s always Out West and Down East, at least in these parts), we took our bikes and we really only got out together when we were on (in?) Prince Edward Island. Amy set a pace comfortable for her which was a bit slower than what I thought I could manage, so she would get some distance ahead as I dawdled and then I would sprint to catch up. This was unwise for several reasons: 1) It’s really hard to keep up a conversation when I’m either 30m behind or totally out of breath and 2) I pushed much, much to hard on one sprint and wound up having to sit by the roadside for a good ten minutes trying not to throw up.
This past weekend I exhibited similarly poor judgement. My dad and I went out canoeing before breakfast. I sat in the bow and set a very quick pace. I am not, as it turns out, in anything like the condition I was after spending a whole summer canoeing and so about 7/8ths of the way back to the dock, I suddenly grew so nauseated that I had to coast the entire rest of the way back in (leaving my 50+ year old father to do all the work. Son of the year). I sat on the dock for ten solid minutes, once again trying to keep the contents of my stomach (such as they were before eating breakfast) from decorating the lake.
It is important, as one moves through life, to improve one’s station and even in the pre-breakfast nausea game, I have upped the ante. When I was about 14, I was staying at Gramma’s house with my family over Christmas. On this occasion, I couldn’t even blame physical activity for my shortcomings. I got up from the couch where I had slept, made it about ten steps (just into the bathroom) and collapsed full length on the floor. I came to some minutes later, bleeding profusely from beside my right eye. I still have a neat scar from it but at the time it was terrifying. I screamed, I suppose, because people came running in a hurry and I got to make the trip to the Seaforth Hospital where they froze the area around my eye and gave me stitches. Freezing near one’s eye is an odd feeling as it more or less deadens the ability to blink but one can still see so I had a really fantastic up-close view of the wickedly long and curved needle they used to install my stitches. That’s right, I was such a tall and skinny dude at that time that the mere act of standing upright was enough to knock me right out and over. I think I have progressed because now at least it takes actual activity to lay me out.