"Speaking of Morgan Freeman...

I was writing a paper on him, and I was talking about Morgan Freeman, and describing things he had done.

But I think used the name Samuel L. Jackson."

Being Ill

You know what Jackie...

I'm pretty sure you have tubeworm.

Darling... honey... lover... sweetheart... sweetass.

Sweetass, seriously?

Yeah, I was thinking of the most inappropriate to say.

Papercut

So please tell me...

How does a papercut turn into a tourniquet disaster with the almost lost of an appendage?

Why does a papercut, even though it's quite shallow, hurt more than a normal cut?

Why do band-aids not come off easily?

Why do some people claim Neosporin stings when it really doesn't? (And why is Christine such a sweetheart/rational person that she'll scratch herself and apply Neosporin to test it out for me?)

This spot is to talk about Patricia's birthday an dher awesome roommates.

fake cripple

This is pretty old news by now but I think it still deserves telling. The story of How Jackie "Broke" her Arm.

I ripped my new gloves and the smoothies were a mess but, thanks to Jackie's quick thinking, Marvin and his new pot were fine.

But I'm getting ahead of myself.

Roy was lonely. The four of us had already talked things out and we believed that Roy needed a friend. So on Monday, October 12th (the day before that miserable rainy Tuesday) Jackie and I decided to head out and find another spiky friend. While we were out, I found a pair of gloves, Jackie got a new umbrella, we both got smoothies, and, of course, we found a new little cactus.

He's mine by the way. His name is Marvin (as in Marvin Gaye). I picked him out and paid for him and his new pot. You'll probably get to hear a lot more about him in a later post; this is just a cameo appearance.

Towards the end of our shopping, we picked up the smoothies from the Gallery Cafe (if you haven't been there, it's right across from Borders and it's the coolest cafe I've ever seen). The smoothies were cold so I decided to try out my new gloves. We had to drink these on the go because Jackie was running late for a class.

We headed off, with smoothies in hand, on our bikes with Marvin and his pot in Jackie's backpack. I was riding immediately behind Jackie. We rode from downtown and back on to campus when, in the middle of a turn-around, "it" happened. I say "it" when referring to the cause of the accident because what "it" was is debatable. If you ask Jackie, there was something wrong with her gears and her peddling went funny. If you ask me, immediately before the accident Jackie asked me what time it was. I told her I couldn't check because I had a smoothie in one hand and my watch was hidden under a sleeve and a glove and I am not cool enough to ride my bike with no hands. From my perspective, one minute she was trying to get at her cell phone to check the time, and the next minute she had somehow gone over her bike.

I was stunned. I shouted, "Holy shit, Jackie!" while all I could think was, "How the hell did that just happen?" As it turned out, I should have been doing less wondering and more braking. I hit the brakes too late and, in order to avoid running over Jackie, the bike stayed behind and I went ahead of it. I looked up at Jackie to see how she was doing. She was pinned under her bike. Her handlebars apparently had her in some kind of wrestling hold (for a description of a similar situation, look for the blog entry on handstands). I scraped my hand, ripping my glove in the process, and found a fine bruise on my hip. Jackie landed on her elbow.

We rode our bikes back to our dorm (I was in the lead this time). We walked up to our room where Suzanne and Lauren were talking and Patricia was sick in bed. At this point Jackie brought up her concern that she may have dislocated something in her elbow (the radius to be precise). Lauren calmly started to look up where we might go in this kind of situation while Suzanne ran around looking for an RA. After some time trying to figure out where to go I suggested we just go ask someone at Tercerro main.

Jackie and I asked the people behind the main desk who redirected us to the Cowell Health Center. Aside from bicycling, there was no way of getting there that would take less than 15 minutes. We set out in the general direction of the Health Center. We had walked only as far as D building before spotting a better mode of transportation. There we saw someone stepping into a golf cart. Before he could drive off, I ran up and waved him down. We explained the circumstances to the driver who then called his supervisor for permission. The driver had apparently been asked if it looked serious because we heard him say, "Well she's not crying but it looks swollen." Jackie quickly responded with fake tears. He let us in and drove us up to the Health Center.

At the Health Center, Jackie was seen immediately. I got a band aide for my hand and was sent to the waiting room to sit for an hour. When she came out, she had a half-cast on. A half-cast is exactly what it sounds like. The arm is supported by half a cast that is held on by wrapping tape around the arm. Apparently, the doctor had taken an X-ray of Jackie's arm and decided that there may have been a hairline fracture and that it would be a good idea to put this half-cast on it.

For the following few days, I helped Jackie with things like opening doors, taking care of her dishes at the DC, holding her umbrella, I even typed up a short email for her (the contents of which are quite relevant to the story).

A couple days after the accident, Jackie got an email from the radiologist saying that there was no fracture after all. No fracture and no dislocation. Effectively, she got a cast for a bruise on her arm.

Once I came to terms with this, I broke out in slightly manic laughter. I had been helping her out thinking she had broken her arm when it was quite possible that she came out of the accident in better shape than I did!

Now, fake cripple has been added to Jackie's long list of nicknames.

I Will Survive. No seriously.

Second Floor Quad Girls strike again! See video for a clip of our amazing, sold-out concert at the Hamm House lounge.

And don't worry, Suzanne totally recovered after her fall.

Watch it. You know you want to.