Crowd Control

When I started writing this blog post last week, I was going to title it "Crazy Thoughts, Part III," continuing my theme of batty things that I actually think and worry about. Over the weekend, though, I've changed my mind and decided that being worried about OTHER crazy/klutzy people isn't an irrational fear.

I think I've established on this blog that I'm really clumsy. I'm off in my own little world, contemplating the universe or at least thinking about what I'm going to eat for lunch, and I ignore tables, doors, glass walls, other people and bang into them. Since my nose job, though, I've been wary of everything that might pose a threat to the schnoz. For instance, I give wide berth to people who flail their limbs about when they talk. I take the outside when going around corners so I can get the best line-of-sight and don't run into someone head-on. I stand to the side of doors when I'm opening them, lest someone come barging out, flinging the door open.

After I mastered that anxiety, THEN I started worrying about people on the street. What if a crazy homeless person comes wielding a 2x4 down King Street (yes, walking by a homeless person AND a construction site at the same time puts these ideas in your head). It would be terrifying and painful to be whacked with a 2x4, I'd think, under the best circumstances, but when your nose aches just because you've scratched it, pain derived from getting walloped with lumber seems up there with pain you'd get from ticking off the Borgias.

What a weirdo I am, I mused! Who worries about being whacked with a tire iron walking past Banana Republic here in yuppie haven?

In case you don't live here, here's a photo of my dangerous 'hood. Yes, those are topiaries. That's how we roll.

Then, over the weekend, I ended up at at bar in Georgetown, which I will just call Mr. Smith's Ninth Edition of Hell's Tavern. The bar was crowded and masses of drunk people were flailing around to 80s music. I set my drink down and someone promptly spilled it for me. I surveyed the clientele. I'm worried about off-kilter homeless people storming the Chipotle and I get myself into this place? I decided I had to leave immediately. This was easier said than done. Grabbing my now-empty plastic drink cup, I pretended like I was taking a long drink, covering my nose, and waded through the dance floor. Who cares if you look like a spaz, no one else's nose is held together by mush.

Anyhow, so I've voluntarily commited myself to near-hermit status--except for Bachelors' and Spinsters' Ball, which I've already paid for--for the next few weeks until my nose heals. I planned on going to look at the cherry blossoms today, but look at these people! One's about to point at that building in the distance and say, "Oh, Margie, LOOK!!! It's the Lincoln Memorial*!" and guess who's going to take a chubby knuckle to the face? And see these brats over here on the left--they're pulling down on that branch and won't they get a big laugh when it whips me square across the nose?

*Yes, I know that is the Jefferson Memorial. It's a tourist joke. It's actually funnier if you've ever given tours of the U.S. Capitol Building for a living and had people ask you where the president sleeps.

Here are today's photo of me, at home, being boring. STILL with the eye hemorrage! When will that ever go away???