I have become a lizard

Today I shed a foot, or at least a few toes. They came off almost as if I was wearing a skin-sock over my real toes, which are now quite soft and pink, instead of pale and scaly. It turns out that putting your foot down helps slough off extra skin, so when you can't put it down for a while, the skin just sort of builds up.

I went looking for support sites for people with broken legs. They were depressing. The psychological effects of limb trauma are strange. You would think that doing nothing would be very relaxing, but its not. There is a lot of thinking that goes into doing nothing.

Here's today's quiz, name the movie, then connect the actor to Kevin Bacon in 6 degrees: "I did nothing, and it was everything I thought it could be." Should be pretty easy, no googling the quote.

So, nothing grows on, but not like an irritating neighbor you invite to every party, more like a layer of skin that isn't getting sloughed off. I've told my school I'll be back on the 31st of March. In some ways, I'm so incredibly bored and starved for human contact that it isn't soon enough. In some ways, though, I seriously dread being back in school while in a cast. Every movement requires thought. Going to the bathroom becomes as complicated as driving to the mall.

This is easily the worst part. Can you imagine waking up in the middle of the night, realizing you have to go to the bathroom, and getting in your car to drive yourself to a gas station so you can go? It's not difficult, or painful, but it requires so much thought, and so much light (literally), that it wakes me up completely every time.

A colleague recently reported that teachers are second only to Air Traffic controllers in terms of the number of decisions we have to make in a given day. Not life and death decisions, mind you, but still, there is a lot of focus required for being a teacher. Of course, knowing that there are at least three or four doctors on my friends list makes this seem blowhardy, but what worries me about going back is my lack of concentration. I thought it was the painkillers, and boy were they some great painkillers, but I haven't taken any painkillers in about a week, and I'm still unfocused. I am unfocused doing nothing. Will I be focused again when I'm back at work? I hope so.

A cobra is most dangerous while it is shedding. The extra scales can cloud its vision, making it more likely to strike at the blurry moving objects in front of it. It will be good to be back in a classroom again.

A good friend of mine recently discovered he has contracted Lyme's Disease. Before then, when his knee was swollen and he couldn't walk, he said to me (I'm paraphrasing): "I just hate feeling betrayed by my own body. I hate asking my body to do something and it won't." To which I replied: "your body does what you ask it to do?!?!"