Finger update

For those of you who were not there at the time and/or have not yet heard: A month ago I got the two outermost fingers of my left hand crushed in a car door. Not slammed, as in struck by the swinging side, but crushed--in the business end, right above the hinge.

The damage, currently

Anyway, this accident caused a good deal of concern at first, and not just because it hurt like hell (which it did); these are two very busy fingers for a guitarist, and even more so for a fiddler. Luckily I had a two-week hole in the schedule and that was just about enough time for the nerve damage to heal. Right about then the third finger bled out and that was that; I expect it to make a full recovery. The fourth finger, however, was so situated at the time of the incident that the nail root was crushed, and so that nail's a goner. It's just starting to loosen now (who knew you could make a noise like a rusty door hinge with your nail?); observe the 4mm clot underneath.

That's 1/8" of congealed blood. Cool, huh?

The best part of all this is that the hand that swung the door shut belongs to a certain James Dean. This is going to be that most intensely exciting life-experience story to tell one's descendants over and over and over. Not entirely certain as to how I feel about that.

Confessions of a book addict

Alright, my two and-a-half weeks of nonstop activity is over. At last I can rest on my laurels. Rather, I would have been able to so recline had said laurels not been squashed beneath the enormous pile of books I've accumulated during this whirlwind tour. It would seem that I've outsmarted myself once again, having amassed such a collection that I am now at a total loss as to where to begin reading. It's just as well, really, as I have a whole lot of other things to attend to, most notably my current epic-scale painting, which has been gestating for well over a year now. But I'll not want for reading material for several months to come. One of my prize finds: 33 current and recent back issues of Model Aviation ($3.00 for the lot- that's a 98% savings off newsstand price).

I am now going to spend the remainder of my day off gazing skyward at my insurmountable teetering tower of literature, occasionally looking out the window as the forecast 12-14" of fresh wet snow piles up on top of the only recently-exposed driveway. On the upside, if we run out of cordwood we have plenty of books to keep the fire going.