Don't Try This at Home

Not even judicious cropping
can disguise this truth.
This is me, last week.

I fall down. A lot. Last year, when I fell and broke my hand, my physical therapist suggested that some people don't have any sense of their "edges"; they're bafflingly unaware of their physical boundaries.

A light went off. That's me! I crash into doors jambs, furniture, and even people -- well, all the time. I bash my head when I enter cars. I break my toes walking past the corners of couches. When I'm the last one into a crowded elevator, I get my northern-most girl bits caught in the closing doors.

If I were a featherweight little thing, perhaps none of this would cause injury.

But I'm a Big American Girl.  I mean Kirstie Alley big. The real Kirstie Alley, not the imaginary one who tells magazine writers that she once weighed -- gasp! -- 180 pounds!

When I crash into furniture, the furniture moves. When I hit a wall, I dent the drywall. When I trip down stairs, the banister falls with me.

So when I tumbled down two -- count 'em! Two! -- stairs six months ago, I didn't float. I Titanic-ed. Asscan over teakettle. Skirt up around my waist. And left leg...argggh. I've broken bones more than a dozen times so far. I didn't even have to look.

My first thought: Yes! It's my left leg! I can still drive!

Second thought: Drugs! Bring me drugs!

Third thought: Um. Maybe y'all could call me an ambulance?