BYE, NENITA
Fletch and I went to brunch with friends on Sunday and once we completed the gauntlet that is moving me safely from one place to the next (which includes two scooters, one set of crutches, and a half a dozen grab bars), I realized I had nothing to tell to anyone.
Apparently an important component of living one's life in an interesting manner entails occasionally leaving the damn house.
What's so ironic is that every time I'm crushed with a deadline, or whenever I'm on the seventeenth city of a twenty-two stop tour, I fantasize about "the ultimate snow day." I envision myself warm and cozy at home, with nowhere to go and nothing I need to do. I never picture myself infirm, per se, but there's always some factor that makes it necessary to stay in without the inherent guilt of being idle, say, with a terrible cold. In my dream, I spend my days reading as the snow gently falls outside, with intermittent hot chocolate and cheesy movie breaks.
Now that this is my reality, I realize the fantasy is WAY better because I've been bored and frustrated. I'm not a go-fast kind of person, but I've since realized I'm not predisposed to standing still, either. While I can leave the house on my own, and have been doing so, this takes so much energy that I've found I'm only capable of accomplishing one outing per day.
(This afternoon's outing is a trip to the med spa for fresh fillers, which is super-exciting! The downside of losing sixty pounds is that I've turned into one of those shrunken apple-headed dolls and I need to fix that shit, stat.)
Fortunately, my new garage ramp arrives soon, which will make leaving/returning exponentially less difficult. Fletch installed one last week, but as he's not terribly "math-y," he didn't properly estimate the angles. As I gazed upon my new safety feature, I commented that the ramp had the same slope as that of an Olympic ski jump.
When I speculated I'd be safer flying out the garage door Thelma and Louise-style, he said I was exaggerating. So, I had him attempt the maiden run himself, fully aware that I might be too risk-adverse. (I've been hyper-cautious, knowing that if I reinjure myself and have to start the recovery clock again, I WILL go all Dick Cheney.) He mounted my scooter and rocketed down the incline lightning-fast, a human soap box derby, only managing to stop himself millimeters from splatting cartoon coyote-style into the car's door.
Ashen and shaking, he quickly disassembled and re-boxed the far-too-steep, thirty-degree-grade ramp.
Point? I'm uninspired, so I've been creating little challenges for myself around the house. I'm currently competing in what I call The Mind-Body Regatta. This entails playing a round of Soda Crush, followed by a vigorous, timed lap around the house on my crutches, which is one hell of an ab workout. I'm only allowing myself to play as long as I include the physical element.
Speaking of Soda Crush, this game is exactly why I should never have access to so much free time. Recently, the game's makers decided to add an interactive element. Now, instead of competing against myself, I can see how others are doing on my level as well. This would be of no interest, largely because I'm terrible and can never see any move beyond what's directly next. But the upside is I can request lives from other players without having the app connected to Facebook. (BTW, everyone on your timeline gives your gameplay the side-eye. Telling you this as a friend.)
As a player, I'm happy to give as many lives as requested since there's no limit or penalty. Other players seem to reciprocate, which is a lovely bit of Internet karma.
Everyone in my smallish, randomly assigned network is allowed the option of adding a screen name. Most of us have clicked "enter" on this box, so there are dozens of "Your Names" in my league. One player named Nenita began to ping my radar because he/she was always getting him/herself stuck in the Chocolate Canyon. And each time Nenita was stuck, I'd happily honor the request for another life.
Again, karma.
Thing is, I noticed that Nenita refused to reciprocate. Nenita was fine taking lives, but ignored any requests to give them.
As a person with NOTHING BETTER TO DO, this bothered me.
Deeply.
Of course, this was Nenita's choice. But it's a shitty, anti-community, bad karma choice, and, with the aforementioned nothing better to do, I've since appointed myself the Sheriff of Shitty, Anti-Community, Bad Karma.
I decided to let Nenita know this aggression would not stand, so I changed my user name to NENITA ISN'T NICE and promptly laughed myself into an asthma attack. Then I Baby Army Crawled up the stairs to inform Fletch of my evil plan.
(Mostly he was just confused, largely because he was trying to do the calculations to order a different sized ramp.)
Having to request a life from NENITA ISN'T NICE didn't stop Nenita from perpetually making requests and forever denying them, so I upped my game.
For a week, I crafted a new Nenita-centric name every day. I didn't want to make pejorative, bullying-type entries, especially if Nenita is twelve, yet as he/she still refused to share, I channeled all my creativity into creating short, not-quite-insulting monikers.
The name that finally made him/her stop the non-reciprocal requests?
NENITA EATS KALE.
Point?
I really hope my new ramp arrives today.
