I wish I’d gotten more stuff done this morning before I “Melia’d” my hand. This is what Darren calls the havoc I wreak with my clumsy ways, e.g. “You totally Melia’d that crystal vase!” (Derivation: the term “Munsoned” from the movie Kingpin.) I now realize that I could have been much more productive today if all my fingers were still intact.

This morning I woke up three hours earlier than I wanted to, my mind anxiously whirring as usual with all the things I want to accomplish this week. I’ve been feeling completely overwhelmed by all there is to do before I leave for New Orleans/Jackson in less than a month, including:

  • Get rid of major clutter. Decide what belongings I’m taking with me, and ship most of them.
  • Mine my copious notes to see what kind of follow-up I need to do at the schools, and arrange the visits.
  • Coordinate details for a visiting documentary director who will be filming me at the schools for two days in January. (Yes, exciting!)
  • Do preliminary research on grad schools in the Bay Area and try to meet with professors before I leave.
  • Work part-time at my dad’s office and develop an online training manual.
  • With Darren’s help, build a new website for my dad’s business, and for my freelance writing.
  • Schedule meetups with various friends to say goodbye (for now).
  • Oh, and there’s that Christmas thing. Thankfully, it’ll be a mostly no-present Christmas in my circles.

You can see why I’d be paralyzed by this daunting list and wouldn’t even know where to start. I decided that I’d eat lunch, write a blog post, then tackle some of the To-Dos before my guitar lesson this afternoon. I thought that cheese and crackers would make a quick and convenient meal. I grabbed a block of hard cheese with my left hand and took a metal slicer in my right….you can see where this is going. The slicer slipped on the downstroke and deeply cut the fingertips on the middle and ring fingers on my left hand, which bled quite a bit and had me seeing stars. Because of the cuts’ locations, I had to drape the Band-Aid over the top of each finger and encircle it with Scotch tape. Always a classy lady.

This incident taught me the following lessons:

1. Do not slice cheese in the air. It will not yield the desired results (well-cut slices of cheese, and intact fingers).

2. It is difficult to type, play guitar, or do any other manual tasks with bulky Band-Aids on your fingertips.

3.Make sure any bleeding of the hands has stopped before typing on a Mac. Those white keys are tough to clean.

4. Injuries and illness make you thankful for good health. As I said in the post about my last debilitating injury, these incidents make me realize that most of my barriers are psychological and not physical. Now if only I can remember that before I hurt myself, I’ll be golden.

I sadly postponed my guitar lesson, which I’d been trying to schedule for weeks, and am currently typing at half-speed. It’s tough to do much without bending my fingers. In retrospect, I could have accomplished things quickly this morning, if I hadn’t wasted time mooning over my To-Do list. Sometimes it takes a sudden physical limitation to remind you that most of the time, you’re perfectly capable of doing things and are blocked only by obstacles that exist in your mind.

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