Medium Short: Skid, Drop & Roll

Bruising, barfing, and staying the course

This is the toilet in the building where my bike got tuned up. That would be the bike I dove off, not the toilet I was barfing in. It’s been a strange week. (Photo by me.)

Welcome to the latest Medium Short, a weekly accountability practice highlighting what I am reading, writing, and doing along the unmarked trail towards #IndustrialHealing. This is a personal update — my more professional writing is, as with all of my articles, freely available through this link.

[Parental advisory: This week’s update contains graphic language which may concern parents who thought their grown children had their acts together. Reader discretion is advised.]

It’s been a strange week. A cat substitute-writing for me would have been par for the course, frankly. I’ll get to that in the writing section, below. Staying on course here. On course. Course.

For context on the strangeness before diving into the usual reading, writing, and doing:

I was biking along the river path, headed home from the wilds of Lasalle where I had gone to update my health card per the Quebec government’s instructions (which I couldn’t complete because the system went down shortly after I arrived — oh well) when the spikes on my winter bike tires were no match for the deep icy ruts on the bike path. I skidded, lost control, and dove into the rather hard ground.

I lay face down, starfish-like, for…