Dave is…
On a snow day.
(Editors Note: Oops, sorry seems like I missed an entry when I was posting.)
NYC got a lot of snow today. So much snow that I had to break down and leave my sandals in the closet for my much more sensible Kool-Aid shoes. (Boots? Who owns boots?)
So much snow that NYU announced its first snow day in 13 years. Of course they didn’t do it until after I had already slogged all the way into school.
So when they announced they were shutting it down minutes after I arrived there was nothing for me to do but turn around and head back home.
I stopped at the grocery store on the way to the subway and loaded up on food which ended up being a pain in the ass to deal with cause the trains were crowded with people leaving work early.
I ended up having to stand the whole 40min ride back to Park Slope with my bags somewhat awkwardly arranged at my feet.
This wouldn’t have been a big deal cept for the fact that somehow this led to be standing with my weight strangely displaced and completely unbeknownst to me my right leg fell asleep. Not in the tingly, you should shift your weight kind of way, but in the for all intents and purposes no longer exists kind of way. So when, a stop or two before mine, I went to gather my belongings my brain said “right leg move” it got no message back from the leg indicating noncompliance.
Which left me completely bewildered a split second later when I found myself on the floor of the subway car. I went down, I mean straight down.
And I wasn’t the only one surprised and baffled, the whole car was looking at me, obviously not expecting a completely non-descript guy who’d been standing quietly to suddenly collapse like one of those little toys that collapse when you push the button on the bottom loosening the string that holds them together. I thought the nice church-going looking lady across from me was gonna swallow her tongue she looked so startled.
As it was I sat there for a moment going “Wtf?” before realizing that there was absolutely no feeling or response coming from my right leg. So even after falling it was so asleep I couldn’t feel any signs of it. It felt like what I imagine a phantom limb is like.
It took me a minute or so before I could even let a guy help pull me up and swing myself over to a seat. By the time we got to my stop feeling had returned enough for me to collect my groceries and hobble off the train but it wasn’t till I had covered the four blocks home that enough feeling returned to my leg for me to realize IT HURT.
Because of how I was standing and because I thought I was going to put all my weight on this nonexistent right leg, when I fell I fell straight down on it, wrenching my knee and ankle both pretty badly and landing all my weight on top of those joints. My whole leg is messed up now. I am gimping around like I’m Long John Silver missing his peg leg.
Of course that night when I finished my work and the close proximity of Prospect Park silent and gorgeous in the falling snow at night beckoned, I couldn’t resist despite my game leg.
So I suited up in my snowboard gear (and Kool-Aid shoes) and limped (serious Hunchback style limped) the block to the Park and wandered around for a good hour and a half, taking pictures, admiring the fields of snowmen and listening to the mellowest tunes I could find on the IPod.
It was solitary and spectacular but holy fuck was I unable to walk by the time I made it home. I might have seriously done something to my leg.
So sepia works in the snow too, huh? Or is that just a lighting thing?