It's a Good Thing I'm Not a Model, Because They'd Lose a Fortune on the Touchups

Footwear Photo of the Day (I'm doing my best to keep Lauren happy here, especially considering...well, you'll see tomorrow):

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Those who know me well know that I'm a spectacular klutz. Add in the fact that I also bruise like a quasi-hemophiliac, and it's amazing I ever put on anything other than jeans and a turtleneck. It's less When you cut me, do I not bleed? and more When you touch me, do I not bruise like I've been attacked by a very ticked-off and muddy rainbow?

You might think this is a particular trial and/or tribulation for me during the summer, but actually I don't do too badly then. If Joe and I are still dating next summer and he gets me out on a plethora of motorized toys the way he'd like to, that may change, but so far my summers have been more of the supervising-from-the-sidelines and sunning-on-the-deck variety and less of the throwing-myself-bodily-into-active-living sort. I might have the occasional delicate coloration on my knees and shins, but nothing tragic.

No, it's during the physical hardship of the school year that the full, glorious evidence of my klutzdom comes to light. My legs take the brunt of the battering, since I apparently can't keep track of where the tables/chairs/backpacks/doors/desks are and constantly bash my thighs, knees, and shins into any solid object within a three-foot radius. Most of the year I have twin bruises halfway up my thigh from the edges of the student tables:

This was taken about a week-and-a-half after the fact, and on my cell phone. It's a little darker in reality. My bruises are nothing if not persistent.

I have been more klutzy than usual lately, however, so I have a number of hematomas gained elsewhere than in my classroom. There's the slowly fading bruise on my upper arm from bashing into the edge of the slanted ceiling in my parents' Skyhouse suite while frantically packing two weeks ago. This bruise elicted a question or two from some students, who looked rather suspicious when I told them I ran into a ceiling.

Finally I have the grandmammy of them all, added just this last Friday. It's fresh and fabulous. I was climbing out of a boat and got tangled in the mooring rope (because I'm awesome like that), managing to bash my left knee and shin into the side of the boat so hard that this was the result:

I told you. It is currently an ominous blackish-purple with a hint of olive green, sort of like an oncoming storm of the sort that requires a special shelter. Oh, and you should feel privileged that I'm actually showing you my knobbly knee. Not my favorite body part.

However, the worst bruise I ever earned was achieved over four years ago, two weeks after we moved into the house-that-is-now-worth-less-than-we-owe-dammit. Unaccustomed to carpeted stairs, I was going down one day with my new kitten clutched under my arm when my besocked feet slipped. Rather than save myself, I elected to save the kitten, with the result that I bounced down a flight of stairs mainly on my right butt-cheek. I landed on the landing (is that why it's called that?) with such force that the breath was knocked out of me and all I could do was gasp and moan and wonder if my rear end was still attached or if I even wanted it to be.

I was accused by someone who shall remain nameless of overdramatizing the incident--until the bruise showed up a few hours later. It's amazing how quickly the skepticism vanished.

I have used my mad coloring skillz to create a crayoned approximation of what this bruise looked like:

Imagine this as about four to five inches in diameter and, well, less pretty. With a dead-white lump in the center.

The bruise was like a reverse sunny-side-up egg: about the same size, with a dead-white raised "yolk" in the center and an amazing spread of purple-green-yellow-black radiating outward. Right where I usually plant myself in a chair.

I couldn't sit straight for a couple of weeks. The lump would not go down. I hied myself to the doctor's office, where the doctor looked at my otherwise attractive rear in frank amazement (and not of the good sort), hummed to himself a bit, and then called in two more doctors for a consult. They also hmmed, ahhed, and peered more closely at my nether regions than I'm accustomed to. Certainly it was the largest audience that part of my unclothed body has had since I was a kiddo running around sans diaper.

All three doctors admitted that they'd never seen anything quite like it before. Which was very comforting, as you can imagine. They then suggested I take myself to a surgical specialist (really? for an ass-bruise?) where the specialist might be able to ascertain whether the lump was the result of a fluid build-up and perhaps remove said hypothetical fluid using a monster needle.

Yeah, right.

So now, four years later, the surrounding coloration has vanished, but the lump has not. I know that's probably more information than you want to know about my anatomical particularities, but hey, whatever.

It's not like I'll be showing it off on here.

You can beg all you want.

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Tomorrow: a harrowing tale of bruises inflicted not on my own flesh, but the flesh of another.

Trust me, she asked for it.