Some Damage

Another thing I've added to the list of things that I'll never do again is move a piano. I had forgotten, but D remembered that we were supposed to move a piano this morning, 10 AM, a donation to the museum for the next auction. Fine. Four of us get there, we've rented a full-bed pick-up, it's an upright piano. We have to carry it out of the house and across the yard. New truck, high bed, no choice but to lift one end in, then all lift the other end, bed is so high, I'm at the back, that when D and James lift the front, John and I have to raise the back; because the angle is so steep, the back wheels (useless little fuckers) are off the ground. Predictably it slides backwards just a little and I catch the weight in the crook of my left arm. At first I thought I had broken the damned thing, but it seems to be a muscle or tendon injury. Pegi, who deals with damaged Cirque performers all the time, goes over it carefully, not a break she says, but a muscle. No strength at all in the arm, I can't lift anything, and it hurts. I take some aspirin, and pretty much can't do anything all day, better by the afternoon, but it's going to be sore tomorrow. Pianos are heavy. I had to catch it or I would have been squashed. I don't want to be in that position again. I have to rearrange my desk so I can drink with my right hand, the advantage of being an ambidextrous drinker. The rest of the day is a wash, and I don't stay for the after hours staff dinner and party, though I wanted to, because Pegi's husband, Steve, was cooking and he's a good cook; but the driveway is still snow-packed and I didn't want to walk up, after dark, with crampons and staff, dangling a gimp arm. I need to get back to the house, self-medicate, start a fire. And there's that odd chili, and cornbread, at home. A bunch of crackers, from the weekend function at the museum, with which I stop and feed the ducks. I'm not really a 'feed the ducks' kind of guy, but I hate waste. I use too many commas, I think. I was reading myself recently, which I don't do that often (I just left out a comma); when I have a printer that's working, I often read last night's work, to see where I was going, if I was going anywhere. This is a fairly serious injury for me to have, like the muse slapping you with a 2x4. I'd just been talking about my hands, and my teacher indicates the connectedness. Sure, I see it now, the hand bone connected to the arm bone. I can achieve an almost zen state, if I'm not doing anything. Usually I'm doing something though, so we buy in, talking apples and oranges here. I have intell that indicates there was a conspiracy. I don't buy into Christmas either, I have a black raven I bring out, and add-fix to something, my reading lamp, an off corner of the stove, so there is minimal decoration. Decoration is always merely decoration.