Scars

Hey.

Didn't sleep a drop last night and I'm doing all I can to stay up another five hours. Errands, housecleaning. Writing.

Funny how winter always makes your scars tingle. Cold snatches at the taut skin, smooth and bone white. Each one a lesson, a talisman worn to stave off death for another day.

Let's review three of mine (all self-inflicted)

UPPER RIGHT HAND SIDE OF MY SKULL
Size: About the diameter of a nickel
Seen: When my hair's short ( you can see it when I sing the high notes at the end of  Jumping the Shark )
How It Happened: I was about a few months old when my father took me to work ( he worked for Atari in the warehouse department)  Somehow, he was on a forklift, I was always super squirmy, and I fell. Like Humpty Dumpty.
Lesson Learned:  I wish it was "don't be squirmy", but I didn't learn that until I racked up a great many more death-defying leaps and bounds over the next few years.  I guess my father learned not to bring babies on a forklift?

ROOF OF MY MOUTH
Size: About the diameter of a #2 Pencil
Seen:  If you're staring at the roof of my mouth (you weirdo)
How It Happened: In first grade during class, I dropped my pencil on the ground. And, in that instant, I hatched a plan borne of genius.  I would pick up the pencil NOT with my hands, but with my mouth.  Gripping the metal bars of the desk with my bony thighs, I leaned over and deftly cupped the pencil with my lips, point side in my mouth.  And, on the way back up, I lost my balance, and fell.  Shoved it right through the tender skin .  I stood up, the teacher almost fainted.  Kindergarten teacher is called over, and she grabs brown paper towels to mop the rising tide of blood gushing out of my maw. I'm more surprised than anything (though that was probably due to shock)
I'm driven to the hospital, and my father is called, but they can't reach him.  They can't reach him because, at that precise moment, he's in the same hospital with my mother as she's in labor with my younger brother. Finally, the hospital administration pieces it together, and my dad finds me.
Lesson Learned: Pencils are deadly.  Also, don't do anything crazy regarding balance, Jones.  You have none.

LEFT INDEX FINGER
Size: A curved parabola of about five inches, j-shaped.
Seen: Pretty visibly, if you're paying attention.  Out of embarrassment, I tend to keep my left hand in my pocket when I'm not acting or doing things with my left hand.
How It Happened: Sophomore year of high school, Spring semester. I didn't get cast in the school production of West Side Story, so I signed on to work props.  We had a elementary school performance of the show prior to the final dress that evening.  In my efforts to get the votive candles lit in time for the Tony and Maria bedroom scene, I was burning my fingertips.  Wanted to find a smarter way to light them.  Settled on punks (long, thin wooden sticks you light and then use to light narrow glass candles).  We didn't have any, so I chose to borrow a crew member's dull Swiss Army knife and found a spare piece of pine.  While the final dress took place, I was backstage cutting thin strips off the board with the knife. Towards me.  Talking and joking. Got the blade stuck in a knot, and I pulled.  Sliced clear to the bone.  Again, no screaming.  Lot of shock and shame. Sharks and Jets from the dream ballet in their white-t's scurried past me as dollops of blood spattered the green linoleum tiles.  I had enough training in first aid to remember to raise my hand above my heart, and that (with compression) stopped the hemorrhaging.  Drama teacher calls my father. In urgent care, I'm cracking jokes with the nurse practitioner as he stitches the wound (six stitches).  It's only when I get home and it's dark that I realize how stupid that all was, and I sob.  I sob so hard my ribs ache.
Lesson Learned:  A dull knife is so much more dangerous than a sharp one. Always cut away from yourself. A tool mandates holy attention.