While October is generally my favorite month of the year, this year it sucked so fucking hard that my jaw aches just trying to imagine sucking so hard.
The first week was ok, I guess. My birthday was nice. We went to see a horror movie which is always a treat. The rest of the week was chol hamoed Sukkot, so there was the Rally, which I can't really talk about because it was in a secret location, but it was pretty nice too. On October 5, we took a 30-minute plane ride to Eilat for the weekend, and Eilat is always fun, and it was, until Saturday when all hell broke loose.
That Saturday, October 7, we woke up in the morning planning to go to the beach one last time before catching the plane back home. But as we all know, shit started going down and by that point, our will to do anything at all just collapsed.
Since that day, things went from bad to worse. When we got back to Jerusalem, we had to stay at home. On the week of October 8 and the week of October 15, schools stayed closed. Our office also stayed closed. I had to try and keep my daughter busy as she was bored beyond belief. And I was also trying my best to keep her from stumbling upon any reports and videos about the war that are not intended for young audiences.
The following week, that is the week of October 22, we got word that the schools will open again on Monday. While all the parents were freaking out about sending their kids to school (and rightly so. It's fucking terrifying out there), I was looking forward to getting back to some semblance of a routine, and going back to work.
As luck would have it, the morning of October 23, enter the last installment of shit to be delivered this month. Before dropping my daughter off at school, my husband dropped me off at the bus station. It's probably a temporary station because of all the construction going on around this area, so they didn't build a proper sidewalk, and instead just placed a long block of concrete to separate it from the street. I missed that block, placed my foot on it at a wrong angle, twisted my ankle and slammed to the floor. I injured my right knee and my left ankle so that both my legs were in pain and I was limping like a complete invalid.
The whole day, I was depressed and kept flashing back to the time I broke my elbow, remembering all the shit I had to go through until it healed - two surgeries, implantation of a platinum plate, about eight months of physical therapy, permanent injury I feel until today... I burst out crying thinking what if I have to go through all that again, and this time with BOTH my legs.
That evening, my husband took me to the emergency clinic where they found I had no break (and what a relief that was, thank the Goddess), but they still bandaged my ankle and my knee. They offered me some painkillers but I refused, remembering full-well what these painkillers do to me (i.e. extreme dizziness and nausea) and preferring to take the pain like a woman with a healthy pair of ovaries instead.
I'm still in pain and the bandages are still on. I remove them only when I shower or go to sleep. I have trouble standing myself up and sitting back down. My ankle is still swollen, but less than before. I have nice black bruises on either sides of my heel. My right knee is doing better but I still can't put much weight on it when I bend it. I can walk but slowly and with a pronounced limp. I wear only my right shoe because the bandage on my left foot is too thick and none of my shoes fit over it.
So as you can imagine, with the wonderful fucking hell of a month that October was, I got no zines done as I had planned. Feeling the way I did, the only thing I wanted to do was to escape. So I spent most of my month reading Stephen King. I all but devoured his new book Holly, which my husband bought me for my birthday. Then, with all the references to the Hodges trilogy, I decided to go back and reread all three books. I finished Mr. Mercedes and Finders Keepers, and am now nearing the end of the third installment, End of Watch. I just might go on to read the other two books that feature Holly Gibney - the novel The Outsider and the short story If It Bleeds.
Stephen King, man. The only thing in this month that did not disappoint. Fucking brilliant author.
October is supposed to be a spooky month. But it's supposed to be spooky fun. Instead, it was terrifying and awful. November will probably be just as awful. Tomorrow, November 1, ZineWriMo begins. When the prompts were posted, I was still too sad and depressed to be happy about it. I still don't know if tomorrow my mood will improve enough for me to be able to do any of the prompts. Doesn't seem likely. I mean, put yourself in my shoes (or rather in my right shoe - the only one that fits), and try to function like a normal human being when sirens keep going off all around you, and running to the shelter is not an option because both of your legs are fucked up, so you waddle to the shelter as fast as your fucked up legs will allow and hope that no rocket falls on your head before you get there. Now, keeping that in mind, try to get inspired about ZineWriMo. Pretty impossible, right? Well, there you go.
Peace, love and you know what, no. No peace, no love. GIVE THEM HELL!!
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