Wednesday, August 29, 2007

I Am A Klutz

Last night I was walking idly around my apartment chatting on the phone and I looked down and noticed that my toe was bleeding. Kind of a lot.

I have no idea how that happened.

It did not startle me, particularly, because I am not a graceful person and am used to banging into things. When I was a child I would come back from every excursion dirtier than the children around me. Today there are relatively few occasions for getting covered in dirt, but I pick up stray bruises. I bump my head on things. I bang my elbow against walls. I trip, a little bit, walking down the street.

I am self-conscious about it. The ability to move smoothly through space seems like a desirable human attribute.
On the other hand, if it really mattered to me I could probably fix it. Be one of those people who takes up fencing or ballet late in life. Only some of my clumsiness is innate. Enough to keep me out of contention in competitive sporting events, but probably not enough to make me fall on my face.

The rest is lack of attention. I don't think about those things. I think about things that I'm good at, like smoking or sleeping. And lost in that haze, I knock over my coffee cup, and curse.


In some ways I wish it weren't fixable, that I could say, "well, I'm left-handed," or "I lacked proper training as a child." There seems something strange about deciding that I admire gracefulness in other people, think it a good thing in the abstract, but refuse, in the particular, to take the steps needed for me to obtain it.

3 comments:

Noko Marie said...

Hey Captian C, why not wear the klutz badge with pride? "I was thinking about something else" always carries a bit of gravitas and mystery.

Alternatively, you could go the non-fixable route with a
"cross-dominance" claim -- "I see with my left eye but I'm right-handed" or something.

I'm a klutz too, and I like to use both of these, depending on the situation.

By the way, I'm a klutz despite ballet and years of dancing so I don't think that's your ticket. Fencing never occured to me though. Now that you've mentioned it, it's an excellent idea. Just as an excuse to wear those little suits and carry a sword it would probably be worth doing.

Anonymous said...

I once read about another person who cut himself, bled all over the house, and had no explanation for how it happened. But a lot of people didn't believe him; didn't think that was possible. Tried to accuse him of things. Maybe now those people owe OJ an apology.

Captain Colossal said...

Charlie -- I am pleased to see you take such a consistently pro pro-football-player approach.

N. Marie -- It's kind of my pride in being a klutz that concerns me. Should I be reveling in my weaknesses? Also, usually the other things I'm thinking of are not gravitas-inducing.