Two minor health-related incidents this week; one that could have been a lot worse, had I not possessed the lightening-fast reaction times of a ninja, and one that could have been miles better had I just done the sensible thing and put some trainers on.
Re the one that could have been a lot worse: it would have been a ridiculous way to lose a nipple tip and I’m incredibly glad it didn’t happen. No doubt it’s the sort of body part that they can quite convincingly reattach, these days, but still, the humiliation would have been devastating.
And I wasn’t even doing anything extreme or exotic in order to almost lose this nipple tip - no climbing of sheer cliff faces, or sitting in cryo chambers (a friend of mine did actually almost lose a nipple from going into one of those and it being too cold) and certainly nothing fancy in the sexy-kinky arena. No nipple clamps here! I doubt I’d be able to feel a nipple clamp anyway, thanks to the two solid years of breastfeeding that rendered them sensation-less. They may as well be made of teak.
No, all I was doing to very nearly lose my nipple tip was carrying a heavy box down the stairs. A very heavy box filled with items to take up to my cabin; mostly framed certificates of achievement, work trophies and an empty magnum of very, very expensive vintage champagne that was presented to me in my early social media days as a prize for “best blogger” or “best vlogger” or some other now-defunct accolade.
Anyway, I had stacked all of these items very unwisely in the large box, with all of the weight sort of balanced to one end and all of the framed pictures stacked against one another like big dominos.
You could say that there was something very symbolic about this whole situation: that I was almost a victim of my own pride, what with it being a box filled with tokens of my achievements and success. A box of boasts. But the truth is, the only reason I was transporting this box of things is that I had unearthed it from the back of the spare room wardrobe and didn’t think it was right to throw any of it out. I’m not the sort of person to toot my own whistle - I’d never have my degree certificates out on display, both of them, one a First Class Honours and the other a Masters - no, I’m not one to ever really talk of achievements.
But the fates had other ideas and obviously thought it was time to take me down a peg or two, because as I stepped down onto the first stair, tipping the box ever so minutely, all of the very heavy framed photos and certificates suddenly clattered backwards towards me, closely followed by the empty champagne magnum and one of the writing trophies.
All would have been fine had one of my tits not been poking over the side of the box, unbeknownst to me (because I never know where they’re putting themselves these days!) and had the very tip of it not become trapped between approx 7kg of picture frame and the side of the cardboard box.
I flipped those frames away from me faster than I’ve ever performed any other manoeuvre, let me tell you. Woo!
It was a close one. There was bruising. Not enough to go and seek medical attention, obviously. Having to explain that you nearly chopped off your nipple with a framed Youtube plaque that was sent to you for reaching 100,000 subscribers (circa 2013, I’ve barely moved on since then, so it would have been particularly galling) is precisely the sort of humiliation we could all do without.
The second minor injury involved my feet and I did feel particularly silly about this one because after it happened, I suddenly remembered that I’d made this drastic error three times before.
I was doing something called a “low intensity cardio” workout on my Peloton app, which is basically like old-school aerobics really, but without so much “jumping jack” action. I was attracted to this sort of class because they seemed to be relatively easy on the knees (mine are still a big dodgy from overdoing it on the spinning front for the past six years) with no sudden jerking movements or heavy jumps.
Now usually I do these classes on my roll-out yoga mat but on this particular day I thought, I’ll just do the class on the rug. The rug is soft. What harm can it possibly do?
I’ll tell you what harm it can possibly do, if you like to participate in these classes with no socks and trainers on, aka IN BARE FEET: it can basically burn the entire layer of skin off so that you end up spending the next week walking like someone who has accidentally stepped into a bonfire.
The big toes were the worst! It was as though I had sandpapered them down to bare flesh! All of that grape-vining and box-stepping and whatever else I had done at a million miles an hour. (My nine year-old son had been half watching me do my exercises whilst eating his cereal, and I have to admit that I’d done a lot of the moves at double- or even triple-time to try and impress him.)
And I could feel the soles of my feet and the bottoms of my toes starting to heat up - I’m amazed there were no sparks flying - so I should have known that trouble was ahead.
If only I’d worn trainers. But I’ve just realised that the only trainers I own are Fitflop ones or Stan Smiths, neither purpose-built for mild aerobics and working out. How crazy is that! I don’t own a single pair of trainers that are suitable for the one thing that trainers were originally invented for!
What is the world coming to?
That is why I have gone on an internet spiral despite being on an informal kind of personal spending ban. In a final heroic push to get the new cottage finished, I’m supposed to be concentrating all of my efforts on sourcing and buying the finishing touches. The best throws. The loveliest lamps. Garden furniture fit to sit next to a gorgeous, 400 year-old thatch. I need to stay focused - Oka! Neptune! Graham & Green! - but now I’ve gone down a right old rabbit hole and it’s one with rubber soles and breathable uppers.
Which trainers are cool, these days? I don’t think I’ve bought a pair of shoes to work out in for about twenty years! Point me in the right direction. They do not need to serve two purposes, I shall be wearing them strictly for my grape-vining and perhaps some light running, if my knees ever pull themselves together….
Want to know what I’ve been watching, reading and eating this week? Sure you do.
Watching:
We’ve been steaming our way through East of Eden. Is anyone else/ has anyone else watching this? It’s a beautifully shot saga set in turn of the century (1800s/1900s) America and it follows the journey of a number of characters, but mainly that of Cathy Ames, played absolutely brilliantly by Florence Pugh.
Spoiler alerts.
Cathy is a beautiful, clever woman but turns out to be a) hugely damaged and b) a total sociopath. It’s a great storyline. I keep finding myself cheering her on, which I think is telling of the times - she would have horrified the readers of the original Steinbeck novel, I’m sure, because “women just aren’t supposed to be like that”, but (cold-blooded poisonings and child-abandonings aside) there are moments where you do think, GOOD FOR YOU CATHY!
Or at least, treat a woman like an animal, or an object, and see what you get in return. I wonder how many women reading at the time, in the 1950s, thought, YEAH, YOU DIRTY OLD PIMP! YOU WANTED TO KEEP HER LOCKED UP AS YOUR MISTRESS SEX-SLAVE AND NOW YOU’RE SURPRISED SHE’S BEEN STEALING FROM YOU?
There’s definitely a bit of kick-assery about the way Cathy has been portrayed in this adaptation of the novel, especially when she becomes Brothel Madame Extraordinaire and wears these amazing steam punk glasses underneath the black veil! Even though she’s (currently, maybe she redeems herself, I have an episode to go) an absolutely cold hard psycho, you still find yourself rooting for her.
By contrast the husband, Adam Trask, is a complete potato. I mean, really. He sees nothing coming, he’s almost insert, it’s borderline hilarious. He’s as limp as the vast quantities of lettuce he tries to transport to New York in a train carriage filled with ice. In summer.
Part of the tension is that it’s not a level playing field between Trask and Cathy Ames: she has more spirit in her little fingernail than he has in his entire being, but it’s supposed to be this whole “good and evil” portrayal and I suppose if that’s what good is supposed to be, a total numpty, and that’s what evil is supposed to be, a very damaged woman trying to forge a path in life when she has no idea how to love or connect to other humans, then on a basic level it sort of works?
Overall, an excellent romp of a series, thoroughly enjoying it. There is, of course, more to it than the above - family relationships, generational angst and trauma, war, politics - but I don’t want to give everything away. It’s on Netflix here.
