11/1 November Journal

November 1

Matt fished a “splinter” out of the ball of my right foot. “Splinter” sounds so slim and sneaky, just a sliver, just a thin sharp wisp that pierced between the lines in your skin because it’s just that small and sharp and it’s almost impossible to see with your naked eye.

This was not a splinter. It was thick and dark and so so deep. I pulled out the top half a few days ago, but the bottom was too deep beneath the surface so I’ve just been… I don’t know. Waiting. Waiting for my body to push it out from the inside? Waiting and lightly limping.

He dug it out with some tweezers and alcohol tonight. It didn’t actually HURT-hurt, but I was so afraid it would hurt that I squeeked and shrieked and got light-headed from breathing super hard. When I started reading aloud some Google search results about how to draw out a deep splinter, that’s when he slid it out. That’s when I least felt the pressure of the tweezers, when I was repeating just a couple basic-ass sentences from the internet. That’s all the distraction my brain needed to stop anticipating-creating pain and not even notice as these sharp metal tines penetrated their deepest yet into my infected tender meat. How annoying. It’s annoying! It’s annoying that you can circumvent your All Powerful Computer Brain with basic-ass tricks like "read aloud."

I held the “splinter” (the shank) of wood in my hand, pushing it around with my finger. It felt too soft to have broken through my skin. The tip was small enough, sure, but so flimsy. Not sharp, not stiff. It’s amazing what can pierce right through you if you give it the right velocity and angle.

I’m doing another one of my Daily Photo projects, this time just for the month of November. My plan was to compile a week’s worth of my self-timer pictures and journaling in this post and release it on Sundays, but here we are with the first entry and I already wrote a fucking novel so I’m just going to release it now and try to keep my word count lower on the next entries so I can fit more than one into an update.

There was pus, by the way. I tried to fit that into the story about my splinter, but it didn’t quite fit. But I want you to know! While Matt was digging and squeezing, a surprise thing of pus was forced out, startling him. Anyway, I told you, now you know. Yes, I’ll go see a doctor if it’s still tender later. Can’t a girl just brag about having a pus-filled splinter-shank wound without people getting on her ass to go to the doctor? It was thoroughly washed out with alcohol, I’m sure it’s fine.

Comment Request: Please don’t tell me to go to the doctor.

Comment Request: Please tell me what you wore for Halloween. Did you get trick or treaters? We got four pods of kids. Obviously, I’d love to have more, but I’m glad for getting any 🎃