Injury, Love, Turkey

I may have just irreparably ruptured the thigh muscle I pulled Saturday night. I've been babying the injury all day, but tonight it hit me that no one--not even my dog--was home, and that it might be a long time before I had this kind of solitude again. So I turned the CD player up insanely loud and sprang all over the apartment singing like a crack-head at a rock concert. I did the Egyptian. I did the twist. I head-banged and played some mean-mad air guitar. I did that weird ska step and smashed into the breakfast bar while skidding across the linoleum in my socks.

My vocal cords will heal. The neighbors who might have passed by the kitchen window and seen me gyrating in my bra will also (probably) heal. My leg might not. I might have to hobble around on a House-like cane for the rest of my earthly days.

But God--if a body can't sometimes spaz dance alone to the Decemberist's "July, July," what's left in the world? Not a goddamn thing worth having, is my take. Times like this--when you're taken with joy for no reason and there's no one around to tell you you're making an ass of yourself and destroy that perfect, initial moment when you're making an ass of yourself--are what I might be most thankful for this year.

Happy turkey day, everybody.