The work injury wasn’t what I wished for, obviously, but bear with me here. January came and went smoothly, hurriedly even, and I’ve been excited for my 26th birthday. Which means that although I’ve been killin’ it – working hard, working out, eating good and healthy, having as great a time the hamster on its wheel can – I’ve been secretly wishing my days away just to get to the fun parts.

I’d complained to Pete about all the ‘administrative’ tasks I have no time for during the week (much like everyone else working an 8 to 5, cue Dolly) and even expressed to him that I’d planned on taking a couple hours off work sometime this week to get them done.

“I just need a break from the hamster wheel,” I told him, referencing the jokes my coworkers and I made about our capitalist predicaments. I hadn’t meant that I wanted to slice my leg open with a fiber disk grinder and [thankfully not actually] completely f*ck up my knee.

TW for farther down the blog: Blood, gore, laceration

My 26th Birthday Party

So here’s the little flyer. We’ll have people come over during the day, provide some grub, go out into the swamp to pick up some trash, and then play board games in the evening and maybe light up a Christmas tree late at night. Friends with kids have been invited for the daytime activities.

It’s odd, I know, to have a trash pick up event for your birthday. But I find it healing to take part in cleaning our Mother Earth, so I hope others can experience that sensation, too.

Hamster Wheel

Well, I was planning on including an audio clip from a song I wrote called “The Simulation Song.” I have to confess, it’s one of my favorites of my originals purely because it’s so odd. But I guess you guys don’t get to hear it. Maybe it’s for the better, it’ll be a bigger deal when the songs are actually produced and come out and I’m famous and those of you who read this paragraph in this blog will be honored to have known about it early and then none of you will have proof because this blog will probably be shut down because I’ll have used my fame to orchestrate an arson plot against government buildings or something.

Sometimes I wonder what would happen if certain people actually read this. Whatever. Below is the first handful of lyrics of the song.

I’m thinking of calling it “Hamster Wheel” instead of “The Simulation Song” because of the joke my coworkers made about our brains. One of them said that there’s only one hamster on his wheel, and it’s taking a nap. The other said their hamster just gains existential consciousness intermittently, causing them to zone out and completely forget what they were doing. I said I had two hamsters, and one is desperately trying to run the wheel while the other is napping. I told Pete that both his hamsters are trying to do exercises on the wheel in such a way that the wheel is not meant for. Wish I had a sketch of each of these ideas.

Sliced my Knee open

Yep. Self-explanatory. Accidentally hit my knee with a fiber disk grinder at work. Thankful for my coworkers, my mom, my partner, and all my friends and family who make up my village and have made this tragic accident not a complete disaster in my life. I am very lucky. Thank you thank you thank you.

I am also very lucky that this injury happened where it did. Had it been an eighth of an inch to the front of my knee, it would’ve hit my patella. A quarter of an inch the other way, would’ve cut a ligament. Less than half an inch of clearance total for this gaping slice to have immobilized my precious left knee.

I’ve been praying each night begging my own forgiveness. I work so hard to take care of my body, of giving her everything she needs, and she deserves better than mistakes like these. I am so angry at myself and so sorry to myself. Not for myself, but to myself. My body is a temple… and here I am disrespecting it with dumb accidents.