just a quick note to say thank you
for all the kind words and advice - I have decided that I will probably *not* be macho and tough it out and go in today, even for a couple of hours, since I have been assured that they can get by and I shouldn't feel guilty, and another day with the ace bandages, aleve, liniment and cat sounds like a plan. There is also Ye Olde Analogue Notebook, if I can't sit up and type comfortably today, how primitive!
Seriously, though, I do think that anyone who wants to write action-adventure for hollywood should at least go and take part in a safety-controlled crash test, and then asked to perform a number of simple mental and hand-eye excercises in short order, before daring too much to write in the vein. Much reading *was* helpful, in that I *knew* from all my history and nonfic (and listening) that to be zoning out and dislocated wasn't abnormal, even without any head injury or blood loss. --It's still different when it's happening to you. And being together enough to retrieve my ID from the vehicle for the police, to remember and to make certain that several hundred dollars of time-sensitive cargo wasn't lost in the wet and the shuffle, and to be able to intervene helpfully and correct the police report by finding the quickly-fading skid tracks for the officers who were looking for them (helping that I knew this road too damn well, in all weathers, having been broken down on it on one memorably snowy occasion) and pointing them out before the snow covered them completely, *before* ceasing to be able to read and experiencing an aphasic spell (it felt like I was drunker than I've ever allowed myself to be) and not able to recognize local landmarks en route home with any coherence, and being able to pull myself together after about an hour of catnapping enough to have calm phone conversations and so on - well, okay, so I wasn't able to do anything else useful other than stay out obediently of the way while other people worked, that still isn't so bad for an untrained civilian with some pretty bad bruises, I guess. But it's not exactly action heroine quality, and having been raised Eldest High Vor, to measure myself against combat-decorated officer relatives, there's a just-shoot-me defeat feeling that comes, especially when I realize that it's basically within my ability to push myself to go to work and stay on the console all day, and I don't want to, and the part of me that thinks "Dammit, just do it! Wimp! Never give in, it just makes the giving-in easier next time!" and the part that says reasonably "You will make more mistakes and take longer to recover and not be very much help if you drag yourself in," are both accusing the other of being stupid and dishonest...
I mean, basically, if my ankle wasn't aching, and if I could just not feel like screaming every time I a) take a deep breath, 2) sit forward, 3) lean back, 4) turn sidewise, 5) move my arms sideways, I'm *fine*, dammit!
...Only, of course, not so much. The whole problem of getting back on the horse/riding in cars again is, I can tell, going to be *real* fun - my logical-optimist side is going "well, you've been increasingly afraid for over a decade of having outrun the statistics, and now you haven't, so it should be okay, right?" with the pessimist going "There's no *law* against lighting striking thrice, is there?"
Any way, a happy, or at least tranquil, and especially safe, Thanksgiving to my fellow Yanks out there, if I don't get back to y'all before then, and a good weekend to everybody else around the sphere.
Seriously, though, I do think that anyone who wants to write action-adventure for hollywood should at least go and take part in a safety-controlled crash test, and then asked to perform a number of simple mental and hand-eye excercises in short order, before daring too much to write in the vein. Much reading *was* helpful, in that I *knew* from all my history and nonfic (and listening) that to be zoning out and dislocated wasn't abnormal, even without any head injury or blood loss. --It's still different when it's happening to you. And being together enough to retrieve my ID from the vehicle for the police, to remember and to make certain that several hundred dollars of time-sensitive cargo wasn't lost in the wet and the shuffle, and to be able to intervene helpfully and correct the police report by finding the quickly-fading skid tracks for the officers who were looking for them (helping that I knew this road too damn well, in all weathers, having been broken down on it on one memorably snowy occasion) and pointing them out before the snow covered them completely, *before* ceasing to be able to read and experiencing an aphasic spell (it felt like I was drunker than I've ever allowed myself to be) and not able to recognize local landmarks en route home with any coherence, and being able to pull myself together after about an hour of catnapping enough to have calm phone conversations and so on - well, okay, so I wasn't able to do anything else useful other than stay out obediently of the way while other people worked, that still isn't so bad for an untrained civilian with some pretty bad bruises, I guess. But it's not exactly action heroine quality, and having been raised Eldest High Vor, to measure myself against combat-decorated officer relatives, there's a just-shoot-me defeat feeling that comes, especially when I realize that it's basically within my ability to push myself to go to work and stay on the console all day, and I don't want to, and the part of me that thinks "Dammit, just do it! Wimp! Never give in, it just makes the giving-in easier next time!" and the part that says reasonably "You will make more mistakes and take longer to recover and not be very much help if you drag yourself in," are both accusing the other of being stupid and dishonest...
I mean, basically, if my ankle wasn't aching, and if I could just not feel like screaming every time I a) take a deep breath, 2) sit forward, 3) lean back, 4) turn sidewise, 5) move my arms sideways, I'm *fine*, dammit!
...Only, of course, not so much. The whole problem of getting back on the horse/riding in cars again is, I can tell, going to be *real* fun - my logical-optimist side is going "well, you've been increasingly afraid for over a decade of having outrun the statistics, and now you haven't, so it should be okay, right?" with the pessimist going "There's no *law* against lighting striking thrice, is there?"
Any way, a happy, or at least tranquil, and especially safe, Thanksgiving to my fellow Yanks out there, if I don't get back to y'all before then, and a good weekend to everybody else around the sphere.