I pulled a muscle in my calf.

It hurts, but more so in the mental area. It takes me forever to get anywhere, and you never realize how awesome two working legs are until you're dragging one of them across campus to get to class. All these healthy kids blazing around you, some casting glances at the destitute dude with a limp. And that's the thing, if I were younger, like real college-age young, then there would be a better chance that I hurt myself doing something awesome. They'd see the road rash on my one leg and the limp in my other and just know it was something extreme. But I think I've crossed the extreme threshold, and my limp has me somewhere between a pirate and that old creepy guy who always shows up in horror movies to warn the stupid kids that they shouldn't go camping in those woods. He dies, btw.

My biggest issue is that the slower I walk the more time I have with myself. Now if it were quality time, like beer-by-the-water kind of time, then I might be less dangerous. But in a matter of seconds I go from "you're not that old and you'll rebound with positive thinking" to "what the hell is wrong with you, you gimpy bastard?" And then I scold myself for calling me a bastard. That's all in between the double doors.

I'm very, very slow. I have this kind of truncated country shuffle that methodically rocks me forward, maybe a bit like a metronome, but without all the advancement of a pendulum. I have crutches, but, and this should be no surprise, I have trouble with the rhythm. I've hurt myself more with the crutches than without. Something goes wrong and I get out of the step-lift-step combo and end up flexing the very muscle that doesn't want to. You may have seen me slowly spinning out of control...step--lift--step-stepstepste-shit, you bastard!

So now I just want to heal so I can lift the boys again (although that has been a welcomed side effect, "I guess you'll just have to walk because your dad can't") and take Paco to the park and frolic and play. I'd also like to play flag football again. That's how it all happened. I was in the throes of thirty-something glory whoring when I found I couldn't get off the ground. I wanted to get up and offer a hand to the quarterback I'd just sacked, but he ended up standing over me asking me if I needed help. No, I was fine, and able to crawl off the field without any assistance. I did some stretches and some light yoga on the sidelines, and I know that had to empower the other boys, me doing Lamaze in the downward dog, but it did get one of the refs to ask if I was OK. I tried to pretend I could play, but they sent me packing. It was kind of sad how the referee used the snarkastic "really" laced with the unspoken "there comes a time when every man must go home," when he said, "you really should just go home."

I'm here now, my leg levitated and on ice. But my head is doing big things. One of them being how to walk with crutches.