2006-02-25 - 10:07 a.m.
The shoe isn't on any foot, these days
Yeah, I know, I haven’t updated in FOREVER. Someone asked me recently when I was going to update, and I figured I should do it. I feel like I haven’t had a lot to say lately, even though so much has happened in the last 6 months. Briefly: I started a new job at the end of October (same field, same company, different division), and it’s going very well, even though I fuck up in minor ways at least twice a week and that drives me absolutely insane. I ended things completely with KB, because I realized that he was not my friend and I didn’t want a friend who thinks he’s the smartest, coolest person in the whole wide world and he is always right and anyone who’s hurt by anything he says needs to “lighten up”. Grr. I started a flirtation with a guy I’ve known for a while, and after two months of trying to get together, we finally did—it’s nothing more than an occasional hook-up, but damn, is he a good kisser. I joined a chorus (I have a concert this weekend, actually), and I’ve kind of settled into my life, which is good for me.
But the major story (and the inspiration for updating, I guess), is my foot. Yeah. It’s broken. It’s a stress fracture, probably coupled with tendonitis, and I’ve been in and out of a walking cast for the last 2 months. And it sucks. It royally, majorly sucks. I injured myself at the gym, of all places. (That’s not what I tell people—my usual response is that George Clooney was chasing me down Mercer Street and I tripped. Hey, a girl can dream, right?) So not only have I been lugging around a heavy plastic boot on one leg and hobbling so my hips hurt and putting extra weight on my right leg, I haven’t been able to go to the gym to get rid of the stress of it. Not a happy situation. It’s really consumed my life, actually; after about an hour of walking, I get exhausted. I can’t wear cute shoes (I know, whine, whine, whine). I haven’t been able to wear skirts. It just sucks all around. Yes, it could be worse (it can ALWAYS be worse), but it just sucks.
You know what sucks the most? The subway. My foot hasn’t yet healed because I live in New York, and I walk everywhere, and I have to take the subway. I could take cabs and cars, but that would cost me upwards of $200 a week just getting to and from work, so that’s not really an option. And it wouldn’t be so bad, really, if people would let me sit down. It is absolutely amazing to me how people don’t offer seats. I believed, naively as it turns out, that walking around in a cast would make people compassionate towards me, and they’d give up their seats. This is not the case.
I’m not an angel. I’m sure there have been times that I haven’t given up my seat on the train, mostly because I’m reading and I don’t see someone struggling. But I can also honestly say that I have given up my seat, or at least offered it, to pregnant women, injured people and elderly people. So I kind of thought I’d get the same courtesy.
And I do, sometimes. I don’t want to say that no one gives up their seats. Quite often they do, and I’m grateful for it. But there are people who stare right at my foot and don’t stand up. The first week I was in a cast, and I was in a HUGE amount of pain, I was standing on the E train. A couple, also standing, started clucking in Spanish (which I understand slightly) about how no one was giving me a seat. Nice, certainly, but it didn’t help. I was miserable. One time, also on the E, I was standing in front of two women, probably about my age, who sat there and stared at my foot. Then last weekend there was the pretentious actor guy who was also standing, and when a seat cleared, he tried to take it, even though he had also been looking right down at my foot. I don’t wear this fucking thing as a fashion statement, jackass.
Then there are the kickers. I’ll be sitting down, and someone will brush my foot. I will say, “Please be careful, I’m wearing a cast,” and 8 times out of 10, people will apologize and give me room. But sometimes they kick. They don’t necessarily mean to, but they look right through the cast and they kick. There was a girl who was standing in front of me with her boyfriend, looking down at the floor. Right next to my foot. Boyfriend left, she tapped me hard. Unbelievable.
There are the seat-grabbers. I was standing outside of a train, waiting for the doors to open. I spotted two empty seats. Great, no one has to give one up for me. Two men were also waiting to get on. They saw me limping. They noticed me leaning on the door frame. They bolted for the empty seats. Grrrrrrreat.
One might wonder why I just don’t ask for a seat, and I guess it’s because I don’t think that’s right. I’m certainly entitled to one these days, as is anyone with an injury that requires a cast or crutches or a cane. But could you imagine going up to someone on a crowded subway and saying, “May I please have your seat?” Just the, “No way, bitch, leave me the fuck alone,” would freak me out.
I should also mention that a lot of people are compassionate. A bunch of kids fought with each other because one of them didn’t give me a seat, and after I found one a ways down the car, one guy yelled at another for not standing up. A lot of young men get right up when I hobble onto the train. An older Latina stood in front of me on a very crowded train and “protected” me from the kickers. A young girl, no more than 16, saw me and got up right away. And it’s nice of them. Having a seat certainly helps me out in my current condition (walking isn’t so bad, but standing is excruciating), and these people don’t have to get up, they just do. And it’s nice of them.
In certain neighborhoods, people get out of my way. The doorman at Bed Bath and Beyond scolded me (gently!) for not resting. A couple of cops actually stopped me and asked what happened. But most of the time, people are oblivious. I’m usually hyper-aware of what’s going on around me, and this foot thing makes it worse, especially when other people seem to think I’m invisible. It’s awful. Walking around with an injury is a lot like walking with a baby in public, I guess—you’re always afraid that someone will knock into you, you think no one sees you, you’re terrified that someone will injure you. And in this city, where one MUST walk most of the time, even if it’s down the steps at the subway, healing a foot or leg injury is next to impossible. Not to mention the fact that it’s February and FUCKING COLD, and I can’t wear a shoe on my left foot. Oh, well.
So I just keep schlepping. Hopefully I will be out of the cast by next week and back to normal. It hasn’t all been horrible—I had a nice date the other night. And in the middle of all this, I went to Florida, where we drove everywhere and all I had to do was sit on the beach and read. This will be over eventually. It has to be, right?
RIGHT???
