all about my toes...

Well, I mean you can't see them there, but trust me they're ugly.

In addition to my current myriad of health issues, on Wednesday night I fell down the exterior, tiled stairs of my home. Really, I flew down the stairs because I missed a step, went up in the air, and landed with my left foot mashed under my prodigious ass. I have a big bruise on same said ass too. I don't know what it looks like, but it's difficult to sit.

I knew immediately that I had sprained my ankle. I knew this because up until I was about 27 years old, I used to sprain my right ankle all the time. So much so that I have a supply of Ace bandages, and I know exactly how to wrap a sprain or twist. I hate going to the doctor for sprains and/or twists because they can do absolutely nothing for it except x-ray it, and, trust me when I tell you that in the last 6 weeks, I've had more fucking x-rays than ever before in my life.

I digress.

So I am accident prone, injury prone, and just flat out clumsy. Most of my best friends and family know this already. It's also some sort of genetic bad balance issue too because my mother has the same problem. We can be standing completely still and within a moment be on our ass for no apparent reason. In terms of serious injuries, my mother shattered her knee one morning while walking our dog. I've fallen in bath tubs and showers as well as stairs and sidewalks, but I have never broken anything. Last year I did sprain my left knee dancing though. Now THAT is some serious pain.

But this morning, after my gynecologist told me that she thought I should get my toes looked at, I asked for advice on Twitter about broken toes. Now this led to a long discussion about feet in general, but it got me thinking about my feet and my toes.

I have really ugly feet. This is also a genetic curse as my mother, her sisters, and I all had/have the same claw-like thing going on with our feet. My mother's feet are even worse because she was made to wear shoes that were too small for her when she was young and then had to spend a few years in physical therapy trying to correct her toes. My feet are additionally gross because when I was about 9 years old, my stepsister and I were running into the house from our pool and she stepped on my right foot HARD. So hard that I began to cry and blubber and be a big baby about it which then led my mother to tell me to suck it up. Trust me, in my family, you need to be halfway in your grave before anyone will pay attention to you. My second to last toe on my right foot swelled up and I was in pain, but it was summer and no one paid any attention to me.

A few years later after a growth spurt it became apparent that the toe that my sister stepped on... never grew past the size it was when it was injured. So at about 12 years old, here's my body in proportion except for that toe. At that time, no one wore sandals or flip flops (we called them thongs back in those days, kids) or open toed shoes until summer - especially if you were young and school. I didn't really care about my feet at all until...

The summer of my 13th year when 3 boys came over to my house for sun and fun and swimming. They were just friends but still they were boys. We are standing on my front porch fucking around and out of nowhere, one of them (and I do remember which one it was because I will NEVER forget his name but he's online and is egocentric enough to Google his name weekly) said, "_ _ _ _ _ _ (my real name redacted) WHAT THE FUCK IS WRONG WITH YOUR FOOT?!?!"

For the first time I saw it through a stranger's eyes, and it was deformed, horrible, ugly. As I told someone today, it took me 20-25 years to grow out of my absolute certainty that everyone could see, would judge, etc. I only ever purchased sandals and shoes that covered the toe. I never called attention to it. It was always looming in my mind that someone was going to notice especially in bed.

Actually I do have a fear that someday I'll meet one of those men whose fetish is toes because, I tell you what, they won't be able to deal with these babies. In fact, I was at a hotel in San Diego once, and, as I walked across the lobby to a conference room, this tall gentleman standing at the registration desk looked at my face and then looked down at my feet (I was wearing open-toed heels)as I passed him by. I just glared at him.

The toe was X-ray'd once (when I sprained my right ankle funnily enough), and my doctor at the time spent a good deal of time playing with it and staring at the x-ray. It was funny because he kept pulling at it and flipping it back and forth. He said he couldn't find a bone in it, but he was also very, very old. I should tell you guys about the time he fit me for a diaphragm.

I digress.

I have written a lot about nothing but toes, ankles and feet here, but I have been consumed with my left foot for the past few days, and I can't even write poetry with it (har har har). The swelling and discoloration of my toes have lessened so I don't think they're broken... this time.

Until next time.