the ocean

I've been walking around with a black eye all week. I'm workshopping lies about how I got it because the real story isn't very flattering. I was trying to get a metal desk organizer off the top shelf in the storage room at work and I accidentally dropped it on my face. There was a significant amount of blood and swelling and I had to attend a full afternoon client meeting covered in band-aids and lightly oozing. I am sure everyone was very impressed. After a few days of gentle icing and anti-inflammatories, I have lost my resemblance to  Disney's Hunchback of Notre Dame, but there are still some interesting color changes going on around my eye. It's like the northern lights, but less attractive and more embarrassing.

Because the universe has it in for me, this was also the week that I had to go present about careers in white collar criminal law to a program for youths. They certainly found my eye diverting. They said they thought I was wearing makeup, which even in this somewhat more enlightened age they did not mean as a compliment. Fortunately, I was able to distract them with stories of horrific murders. I've found that everyone loves to hear about the mail bombers and hammer murderers I have kept in jail. And no, I am not suggesting that says anything positive about our society. But I'm not the one who broke it; I'm pretty sure that was MTV in the early '90s.

Now the big question in my mind is if my appearance will be back to normal by Wednesday, when of course I am required to have a new building ID photo taken. It's not so much vanity that drives my concerns as the thought that I myself would certainly not allow anyone who looks the way I do now enter into any respectable office building. Although I guess that begs the question of what respectable even means these days. I did once work with a woman who got fired for running a bedazzling business from her desk during office hours.