Cuts 'n' Bruises
Apr. 17th, 2004 10:35 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
xaaraExcuse me, those are abrasions and contusions. We must use the proper terminology here, as the injuries resulted from a softball practice. And we all know that no one in sports suffers a skinned knee - it is an "abrasion of the skin covering the knee joint." No one is ever whacked in the face with a ball - there result "contusions to the facial area."
But to my point: I have a skinned knee and a whacked jaw. (And a bruised ankle and a cut pinky, but those are less important.) The knee is understandable, but the jaw is unmistakably the product of one of the most embarrassing adventures I've ever had.
We were at softball practice, warming up by throwing with gradually greater force until our arms loosened and our shoulders stopped complaining. This is usually the easy part of practice, before the drills and the running and the hitting. So naturally, I wasn't paying much of attention to what I was doing. The events, as far as I can reconstruct them, progressed thus:
I held up my glove and opened it, waiting for my partner to throw me the ball. She tossed the blasted thing straight to me, but as I reached up to catch it, a gnat flew into my eye, causing me to become temporarily distracted and lose track of the catch. The ball hit me squarely on the left side of my jaw; instantly, that entire side of my face was numb: Novicain, dentist-pulling-out-your-teeth numb. And I still had a bug in my eye.
There I was, standing on the third base line, swearing quite vocally at the gnat, the ball, the glove, the sport of softball, and myself. My coach was there at once, of course, in his usual sweet, concerned, and downright annoying way, and asked me if I was alright. "I'm fine," I said, which was a bit of a lie. "I'll be fine," I added, amending the lie to something of a fib.
Ironically, it's now the right side of my jaw that hurts, as that joint absorbed most of the impact of the softball. I wouldn't trade that ache for anything, though. Softball is too much fun.
It's Academic is too much fun as well. Although we didn't do all that wonderfully, my team came in the top 16 teams in the tournament, and we were only three people. (Usually we have four, but one of our teammates had a last-minute emergency and couldn't make it.) I answered a bunch of music, literature, and art questions, James handled the politics and history, and Will covered the science and math. We're a fairly well-balanced team, when it comes down to what each of us knows.
My best friend, who goes to a school in Fairfax, was at the meet. I was planning to IM him and tell him I was coming, but then I forgot and showed up and there he was. I wished him good luck, but I didn't play his team and I didn't see him again, so I don't know how he did. At any rate, it was an entertaining and challenging, not to mention exhausting, day.
But to my point: I have a skinned knee and a whacked jaw. (And a bruised ankle and a cut pinky, but those are less important.) The knee is understandable, but the jaw is unmistakably the product of one of the most embarrassing adventures I've ever had.
We were at softball practice, warming up by throwing with gradually greater force until our arms loosened and our shoulders stopped complaining. This is usually the easy part of practice, before the drills and the running and the hitting. So naturally, I wasn't paying much of attention to what I was doing. The events, as far as I can reconstruct them, progressed thus:
I held up my glove and opened it, waiting for my partner to throw me the ball. She tossed the blasted thing straight to me, but as I reached up to catch it, a gnat flew into my eye, causing me to become temporarily distracted and lose track of the catch. The ball hit me squarely on the left side of my jaw; instantly, that entire side of my face was numb: Novicain, dentist-pulling-out-your-teeth numb. And I still had a bug in my eye.
There I was, standing on the third base line, swearing quite vocally at the gnat, the ball, the glove, the sport of softball, and myself. My coach was there at once, of course, in his usual sweet, concerned, and downright annoying way, and asked me if I was alright. "I'm fine," I said, which was a bit of a lie. "I'll be fine," I added, amending the lie to something of a fib.
Ironically, it's now the right side of my jaw that hurts, as that joint absorbed most of the impact of the softball. I wouldn't trade that ache for anything, though. Softball is too much fun.
It's Academic is too much fun as well. Although we didn't do all that wonderfully, my team came in the top 16 teams in the tournament, and we were only three people. (Usually we have four, but one of our teammates had a last-minute emergency and couldn't make it.) I answered a bunch of music, literature, and art questions, James handled the politics and history, and Will covered the science and math. We're a fairly well-balanced team, when it comes down to what each of us knows.
My best friend, who goes to a school in Fairfax, was at the meet. I was planning to IM him and tell him I was coming, but then I forgot and showed up and there he was. I wished him good luck, but I didn't play his team and I didn't see him again, so I don't know how he did. At any rate, it was an entertaining and challenging, not to mention exhausting, day.
