Howwwwwl!

"Send me in, Coach! Send me the fuck IN!" - Me.
"You know, there's a reason pro athletes retire before they're 40." - Physical therapist.
"Nothing the god of biomechanics wouldn't let you into heaven for." - Roy Batty.

It's a well-known adage among historians that civil wars tend to be the bloodiest. Well, it's official. I and my body are at war with one another. And I have no doubt that whoever can be said to be the ultimate victor, we'll both die in the end.

Yesterday I injured my rotator cuff. While swimming. Yep, that's right, swimming - the last refuge of the wounded athlete. God fracking damnit.

To say I am in a fury about it doesn't do justice to the emotion. I am pissed, sulking, simmering, infuriated, enraged, frustrated beyond belief, and losing my freaking mind.

I call to mind, in fact, a wonderful cartoon from the '80s, "The Angriest Dog in the World." It was, it turns out, created by film director David Lynch, but I didn't know that until four seconds ago. I did, however, remember, verbatim, the caption: "So angry he cannot move. He cannot eat. He cannot sleep. He can just barely growl."

When Annabelle called me to say hi earlier in the evening (I was just as angry then as I am now, and had not yet whacked things in my apartment to the minimal extent that I felt I might do without tearing my other rotator cuff), I mentioned this comic strip to her as an illustration of how I was feeling, and at the end of our brief chat, I told her I was glad she'd called, even though I was still angry. "You've cheered me up by one-eighth of a percent, which I would not have thought possible."

"So you're able to growl now?"

"Yes, I can growl now. Thank you."

I then spent the rest of the evening working (what else is new, and believe you me, that is helping nothing: not my tailbone, not my knees, not my shoulder, and not my mood), while half-watching "Deadliest Catch," which is soothing in its extremis - its raw danger, ice-laden ships, crab claws, men dying in pursuit of quick cash, and so on.

At one point I realized the kitty was hiding under the coffee table, convinced that it was she with whom I was furious.

I coaxed her out, reassuring her that she was the one creature in the world whom I do not hate at this moment. We had a little feline-human snuggling time, and I think she believes me now. Such a sweet girl.

I was hanging out with a friend and her cat (or rather, her boyfriend's cat) the other day, and the cat revealed a disturbing tendency to suddenly begin hissing and spitting and attacking while my friend was petting its head. One moment, all sweetness-and-light kitty, the next moment, wild fanged creature.

It made me realize how very nice my cat is. Sure, she likes to get into trouble, and chew my shoelaces, and sneak into places she's not allowed - just to see how much she can get away with. But really, she almost always does what she's told (eventually), and she has never bitten me, and she hardly ever hisses at anything or anyone. She is just a nice, nice creature, and I am lucky to have her.

Which is good, because if I were to go kitten-shopping at a shelter right now, in my Big Angry Human self, I doubt I'd be able to reassure a frightened little stray into coming home with me, as I did to her lo those many years ago. I guess she knows what's under the towering inferno.

Though if I can't get at least one of my sports back, I cannot answer for what will be under there in future. Look Out, Manhattan. You've been warned.