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Cranes & Pains
Oct. 29th, 2025 10:20 amThe crane came back! And this time, I managed to snag a photo before I scared it off:
Other than that, yesterday was pretty sucky.
I couldn't shake the memory of that Middletown mall, those ugly, ugly storefronts, those ugly, ugly people, the certain knowledge that by swearing vassalhood to Big Soulless Tax Prep Company, I was now a part of this ecosystem, a cog in the machine, just as hopeless & desperate as any of those other inhabitants of that peculiar level of hell called End-Stage Capitalism. This revelation was deeply, deepy depressing.
To assauge this feeling of powerlessness, I decided to go on a tromp, and this was absolutely the wrong thing to do because gastrocnemius injury, which is still quite acute.
Yes, it throbbed while I tromped. Malingerer! I jeered at myself. Pick up the pace!
And when I got home, my left calf and my left ankle were swollen up like balloons.
I could barely walk.
This is an issue because I am leaving on a road trip tomorrow.
###
This morning, I am much, much better. Ankle swelling is gone. Calf swelling is almost gone. I still feel the knot of pain deep inside the calf when I move—although at this point, I have recontexturalized it as something other than pain, it is merely a neurological signal—but I can walk well if slowly.
I've got compression stockings on—they help—and I'm keeping the left leg elevated today. Limited movement is planned.
The weird things are (a) that I would ignore my body's signals so completely and (b) that I still don't know how I incurred the injury. I woke up four days ago, and there it was. I assume I slept on it funny. Bent the leg at a peculiar angle. For a little while, I wondered whether it was some kind of thrombosis—I do spend long hours sitting at my desk—but no red streaks, no hot spots, no shortness of breath. I'm confident the injury is mechanical, a gastrocnemius tendinopathy.
Rest it, and it will heal.
Pretend it isn't happening, and it will not heal.
Duh!
###
Other than that, I wrote a few hundred words on the Work in Progress. We are now at March 14, 2020, the day before the COVID lockdown began in New York State, and I am trying to capture the peculiar liminal quality of the day. I am not succeeding particularly well—hint: If you have to use the word "liminal," you are not capturing the quality of liminality—but that's okay. It's a fuckin' first draft.
Also I got a large Remueration assignment and in response to my modest prodding, the client wrote, I am never going to use AI for these white papers.
So, that was reassuring.
Other than that, yesterday was pretty sucky.
I couldn't shake the memory of that Middletown mall, those ugly, ugly storefronts, those ugly, ugly people, the certain knowledge that by swearing vassalhood to Big Soulless Tax Prep Company, I was now a part of this ecosystem, a cog in the machine, just as hopeless & desperate as any of those other inhabitants of that peculiar level of hell called End-Stage Capitalism. This revelation was deeply, deepy depressing.
To assauge this feeling of powerlessness, I decided to go on a tromp, and this was absolutely the wrong thing to do because gastrocnemius injury, which is still quite acute.
Yes, it throbbed while I tromped. Malingerer! I jeered at myself. Pick up the pace!
And when I got home, my left calf and my left ankle were swollen up like balloons.
I could barely walk.
This is an issue because I am leaving on a road trip tomorrow.
###
This morning, I am much, much better. Ankle swelling is gone. Calf swelling is almost gone. I still feel the knot of pain deep inside the calf when I move—although at this point, I have recontexturalized it as something other than pain, it is merely a neurological signal—but I can walk well if slowly.
I've got compression stockings on—they help—and I'm keeping the left leg elevated today. Limited movement is planned.
The weird things are (a) that I would ignore my body's signals so completely and (b) that I still don't know how I incurred the injury. I woke up four days ago, and there it was. I assume I slept on it funny. Bent the leg at a peculiar angle. For a little while, I wondered whether it was some kind of thrombosis—I do spend long hours sitting at my desk—but no red streaks, no hot spots, no shortness of breath. I'm confident the injury is mechanical, a gastrocnemius tendinopathy.
Rest it, and it will heal.
Pretend it isn't happening, and it will not heal.
Duh!
###
Other than that, I wrote a few hundred words on the Work in Progress. We are now at March 14, 2020, the day before the COVID lockdown began in New York State, and I am trying to capture the peculiar liminal quality of the day. I am not succeeding particularly well—hint: If you have to use the word "liminal," you are not capturing the quality of liminality—but that's okay. It's a fuckin' first draft.
Also I got a large Remueration assignment and in response to my modest prodding, the client wrote, I am never going to use AI for these white papers.
So, that was reassuring.
