December 10, 2019

Woke with an injured right foot. It must have happened during the night, as I have no recollection of what I might have done. Feels like someone dropped a piano on it, though there’s no appreciable swelling beyond what is ordinary for me. Dizzy and sick with pain. First trip to the bathroom almost un-achievable. At the edge of what can be muscled through. It was a vision into my future, when, one day, I will wake and not be able to move and there will be no one to help me. Have been awake for two hours, and after a powerful anti-inflammatory and moving about by hanging onto walls and furniture, I am able to walk and climb the stairs to my study. Perhaps gout, but it doesn’t feel “right” and I can’t associate the pain with a joint, but with the whole blade of my foot. Nevertheless, rolled out the garbage and the recycling in the dark rain. In the mailbox was my prize check from Red Hen. My reaction was, not so curiously now that I think of it, grief, at something so small being made to be such an issue in my life, all the unnecessary frustration, all the inexplicable malice that made a small pleasure into a large, dark fury. I remembered weeping with rage and frustration about this same issue back when I was also fighting the Title IX slanders. That was thirteen months ago. Pointless and cruel, the smallness of it increasing rather than diminishing its pointlessness and cruelty.