Bloodied but Unbowed

Your correspondent (artist's impression)

Bother.  I fell again.

Oh, I'm fine, although I came out of this one considerably more scraped up than the last go 'round two weeks ago.  I'm sporting a nice shiner on my right eye, along with a bump on my forehead that in its first dramatic hours recalled those inflicted on the unsuspecting enemies of dear Mr. Bugs Bunny or on Sylvester by that little feathered ball of evil, Tweety. Add in a nice little gash (now BandAided), and I look like I'm trying out for a musical version of Raging Bull (since I don't think I'd ever have exactly the mien required for a serious boxing picture).

I took this tumble yesterday evening just outside a Metro station, and on my return today I was actually rather pleased to see that in fact there was at the fateful spot a major piece of broken sidewalk (the cause, I should add, not the result of said fall), now garnished with a monitory traffic cone.  I don't think I've got anything (more) wrong; I've always been a tad clumsy, and now I'm both walking a great deal more, and doing so with reflexes that are slower and more than a little rusty.  Just have to be more careful, I suppose.

One thing you learn, I discovered today, when walking around looking like collateral damage in a Bruce Lee movie, is just how quickly these days people jump to dark assumptions - only half in jest - of domestic violence.  "Is there... anything you'd like to tell me?" asked one colleague (almost hopefully, I might add!), while another - and remember, this was exactly my fourth day in the new office - took a baleful glance at the framed snap of Mr. Muscato on my desk before even asking what had happened.  I'm afraid he may face a frosty reception come time for the office Christmas party...

As it happens, My Dear Sister is popping down for the weekend, so I'll be getting some sound medical advice, although I don't really think there's much to be done for scrapes and bruises but to wait.  At least, I hope, she'll refrain from stray mentions of The Burning Bed - she, like anyone who really knows the two of us, would be far likelier to assume that it would be me that would haul off with the first punch; Mr. M. may be big, but a bigger pussycat has never lived.

Tomorrow, as I dive into the office hiring practices as part of my new duties, I sit in for the first time on an applicant interview.  I can only imagine what the poor sap will think about the corporate approach to corporal punishment...