Tag: lalochezia

“The only thing sadder than a cripple… Is a hobbled cripple!”

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Some things are bound to happen. Even if you don’t want them to, you know they’re coming. And so it is with a sense of inevitability that I write this post about the time that I fell down and actually hurt myself. I was trying to pick up a pile of laundry off the floor to carry it to my bed – THREE FEET AWAY – and went down like a rock in a small space and sprained my stupid ankle.

After every fall, every misstep that almost results in a fall, there’s a period of reflection and reconstruction of the events that led up to it. How could I have prevented that? There was no period of reflection this time, there was me, writhing in pain in the hallway screaming FUCK FUCK FUCKING FUCK OW FUCK OW OW OW OW WHAT THE FUCKING FUCKHEADED FUCKING SHIT FUCK

See also: Lalochezia.

Right about when I ran out of swear words and began repeating myself, it occurred that I’d probably done something bad this time. The swearing went on longer than usual and the pain wasn’t going away. Now the swearing and OW OW OW was joined by YOU STUPID BITCH WHY DIDN’T YOU BE MORE CAREFUL TRYING TO LIFT THE FUCKING LAUNDRY WHAT IF WE BROKE SOMETHING FUCKING OW GODDAMMIT FUCK SHIT FUCKING STUPID BITCH IT WAS THREE FUCKING FEET AWAY YOU COULDA JUST PUSHED THE FUCKING CLOTHES ACROSS THE FLOOR WHY DID YOU TRY TO PICK THEM UP HOLY FUCKING GOD OW OW OW OW FUCK

Eventually, the pain let up enough that I could breathe, and I tried propping my foot up against the wall to elevate it as I lay on the floor, whining a monotone mantra of ow ow ow ow ow the whole time, but my leg didn’t even have the strength to keep my foot up. So I did the next best thing! I curled into fetal position and sobbed my eyes out! With a whole lot of feeling sorry for myself and fuck this disease and it’s not fair and ow ow ow and do I need to go to Urgent Care or not. I eventually got myself up, found that I could in fact put pressure on it but if I turned it any way from there it was suffering city. I fetched an ice pack from the freezer, a soda, and made a little nest out of my bed with my ankle elevated on ice and cried.

It sucked a lot, is what I’m saying. It has been a super shitty stressful week, and it was just the icing. And I lost my shit for awhile, took ativan, made contingency plans to work from home the next day if I needed to, and went to sleep. Eventually. Sort of. In pieces.

So today my ankle is twice its usual size and very tender, but still has full range of motion, even if some of those motions are owwie. So I don’t believe it to be broken, so I decided I didn’t need urgent care to tell me what to do, and took anti-inflammatories, iced my ankle and elevated it and stayed off my feet as much as possible. Cause that’s what they’d say and then charge me money after costing me hours of my life and having to put on real clothes.

And despite all of the crying and hurt and bullshit, I am grateful that I had an army at my disposal at all times. Even though I never reached out to them. If I’d decided to go to the ER last night, I’d have had a handful of available rides. If I’d needed anything today, I’d have had several people willing to bring it to me. Once I announced my stupidity to Facebook, I had many offers of help. At no point did I feel helpless and alone. I was very crisis-management mode once the writhing was over, and even in the writhing I was mentally giving myself a time limit before I called someone for help, and I knew it would be there. That’s awesome and can not be understated. GO GO GODZILLA SQUAD.

I’m giving it another night, and tomorrow I’ll see if I can hobble along with the walker or something. Cause I favor my right foot when walking with the cane, so of course I hurt the left one. And walking with the cane on my left hand feels weird as it’s not my dominant hand. So maybe the walker for a bit. We’ll see. But for now, I have a nest, an ice pack, chemicals for the pain, warm cats, Good Eats on TV, and a friend bringing me dinner later. I’m sitting pretty.

Even if my ankle ain’t so pretty.

You can blame Jack for the title. It’s how he reacted when I told him what happened.

Lalochezia

tragerstreit1 Comment

There’s something magical about swearing.

Lalochezia means relieving stress or pain through swearing. La-Lo-KEE-Zee-Uh. It derives from the Greek words for ‘speech’ (lalia) and defecation (chezo). It is literally Greek for ‘talking shit’. That, too, is magical.

If you’ve been paying attention, you know it’s not just a word, it’s a way of life for me. There are times that swearing IS appropriate, thank you. I’ve always used it to promote catharsis and relief when angry, sad, or stressed out. I swear casually too, but I wish I didn’t. My casual swearing isn’t nearly as profane as my lalocheziac screeds, but I would prefer to keep the swearing to important times. Overuse of the words diminish their power – a mouthbreathing stoner kid using the word ‘fuck’ doesn’t have nearly the same punch as say, a priest using it.

I’m sure you’ve known the relief. That day everything went wrong, your alarm didn’t go off, you missed the bus, you were late to work, the coffee was cold, you realized halfway through the day your underwear was on backwards, the printer jammed, they were out of your favorite thing in the vending machines, your boss griped at you for something out of your control, it suddenly started raining when you left work and you weren’t dressed for it; just, a thousand and one small insults piled up on top of each other all day. And then you got home, kicked off your shoes, grateful to be home and safe, and banged your toe on the couch which made you drop your mail all over the floor. All of the microfrustrations of the day exploded out of you in one vocal outburst.

I bet you didn’t say “darn it”.

There are times when it just isn’t enough to say, “she wasn’t very nice”. “Mannnn, FUCK her.” It doesn’t convey enough of your frustration with the problem to tell someone, “I couldn’t get the door open to get the cat out of the room before he barfed on the carpet”, but it works perfectly when you tell them, “I couldn’t get the fucking door open in time so the cat puked on everyfuckingthing.” And many times I am betting a mental FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUCK!!!!!!!! brought you a little relief.

And it really did! Studies have proven that swearing brings pain relief. Here’s one, from Scientific American. Mythbusters proved it. And here’s an article in Time that explains why it works best if you don’t normally swear a lot.

SCIENCE IS ON MY SIDE, BITCHES.

I’ve loved that there is a word for it. It delights me when there actually is a word or a term for that thing, like ‘esprit de l’escalier’ for the devastating comeback you think of after the argument’s already over or “semantic satiation” for when you see/hear a word so often it ceases to mean anything. Language is amazing, even if it’s foul. Sometimes, ESPECIALLY when it’s foul. I found out about the Greek meaning a handful of days ago, and was delighted all over again.

I felt a connection to that word, and specifically to what this site is. ALS:FTS has brought me vast relief through swearing about the things that suck, and proclaiming the things that don’t. I get very articulate and sweary when I’m angry, and babbling incomprehensibly when I’m happy, and honestly kind of boring when I’m neither of these things. I like lalochezia as a word, as a concept, and as a therapy. On a whim yesterday, I checked to see if lalochezia.com was available. It was. I toyed briefly with the idea of moving this blog over there, but a bunch of logistical reasons made me leave this alone. Like, domain redirecting and I’ve got cards printed with this URL and all of my email addresses and then what the hell do I do with gifhy.com? I’ve already got two other domains that are just old sites parked somewhere because I can’t bear to bring them down.

And then I had a thought. (It’s rare, but it occurs.) One minor complaint I’ve had about this site is that someone couldn’t freely share it because of the swearing. And I often get people self-editing themselves when they tell me about a bad day, “I feel stupid ranting about this to you when you’ve got real problems”. And that? That is a rant on its own. Which you’ll see. Because it occurs to me that there are a million and one little complaints that we have, all the time, and we don’t feel like we’re allowed to express it properly. We have to be calm and collected instead of just screaming FUCK FUCKFUCKING FUCKER FUCKHEADS!!! at the top of our voice. This site isn’t meant to be nothing but sweary rants, but being allowed to DO that here has brought me peace and catharsis. And I think more people could use that.

I don’t know if it will be a thing people use, but I’ve registered lalochezia.com and I’ve created a safe space for us to vent. Create an account. Prove to me you’re human. And then write about what makes you angry. Use as many swears as you like. The more the better. Complain about everything. Your shitty boss. The barista that shortchanged you. Your vague sense of discomfort and displacement in a dispassionate universe. Or just write the word FUCK 270 times if that makes you feel better.

Let’s fuck shit up.