It was a great trip, but a little exhausting, coming off of 2 weeks of singing, singing, and more singing. I just finished my second year of singing at a temple in New Jersey for the Jewish high holidays, so most of the last two weeks was spent either working, commuting to work, singing at the temple, rehearsing at the temple, commuting to the temple, singing at my church, rehearsing at the church, commuting to the church, or sometimes all of the above all in the same day. All of this would be fine, except for the fact that my church is in Westchester, the temple in northern New Jersey, and my work in another part of NJ, and of course, all public transit in the metro area is designed to go to and from NYC, not between cities outside NYC, so sometimes a trip that would take 20 mins in a car would take 2 hours or 3 bus transfers to do. Luckily I have a friend who loans me her car sometimes, so that made things a bit easier, at least this last week when my arm was well enough to drive again. Not very Green, and really, almost more stressful than taking 3 buses, as street signs are not really New Jersey's forte (at one point, I came to a fork in the road, and my destination was printed on a sign in the middle of the fork with an arrow pointing straight ahead, as in, exactly in between the two forks. WTF, New Jersey??), but it did save me a lot of time.
Which brings me to my last topic: my recent interaction with the pavement on River Road. As you know, I've been being a good little boy and going Green with my new folding bike, biking across the bridge to work a few days a week. About three weeks ago, I biking to work on a normal sunny morning, and as I got almost to the bottom of the gigantoid hill that is the first mile of River Road after the GW bridge when I skidded on a gravelly patch and wiped out. It was partially due to the steep incline, which meant I was going a little faster than I normally would have, the shitty, shitty condition of the roads, and the fact that my tires were just a tiny bit under-inflated that morning, something I was kicking myself for afterwards, because I had noticed this and thought I could make it without stopping to inflate and making myself late to work. Luckily, there were no cars around when I fell, and I had time to get up and move the bike before any traffic passed. My bike basically dropped where it was, but I unfortunately skidded a few more feet before I came to a stop, leaving me pretty banged up. My friend Angela whom I work with was kind enough to come get me and take me to a nearby emergency clinic, and she didn't even laugh or anything. Despite it being the most inefficient clinic in the entire western hemisphere, I got my X-rays which confirmed that I had broken no bones. They did manage to put me through a great deal of blinding pain while they scrubbed all the dirt and gravel out of my wounds with a scrub brush without anything to numb it, though, so that was nice. I also sat there for two hours before anyone bothered to bandage up my wounds, so I had to sort of sit at a weird angle in a patient room such that I would not bleed on anything, but accomodate the fact that I couldn't really move my shoulder much. In fact, some chick tried to hand me a sling and dismiss me after my X-rays were done despite the fact that a large amount of the skin on my elbow was missing, covered with dirt, and open to the air, until I mentioned that the doctor hasn't actually come to see me yet and it might be a good idea to have someone look at this - truly a great group of professionals.
I had to go back the next day for a follow-up, which meant somehow getting to that clinic again, but this time by myself on the bus, immediately after which I had to get to a rehearsal at the temple. I got there fine, but of course then getting from one New Jersey neighborhood to another for my rehearsal meant taking 2 different buses, and when i got to the place where I was supposed to catch the first bus I discovered that that bus didn't actually, um...stop there. I tried to walk around looking for another bus stop with the right bus number on it, and even called Nate to see if I could just walk, since it was only 3 miles to the temple and I had 2 hours to kill, but all Google maps could give me were directions that involved me walking on the NJ Turnpike. So to recap, New Jersey is not so good at: Providing adequate medical attention, maintaining safe road conditions, providing useful public transportation, providing accurate bus maps for pedestrians, providing accurate directions for drivers, parenting children, and basically, not sucking in general. Do you all understand even a little bit now why I fucking hate the entire state?
Anyway, I'm mostly healed now. I just have a little bit of scab left on the elbow, and my shoulder is vastly better after not being able to move it at all for about a week, and having very limited movement for another. I can almost, but not quite, raise my arm over my head again...progress! I still have some remnants of the larger bruises, and just a little bit of achiness in the ribs when getting in and out of bed, whereas at first I had to have Nate literally pull me out of bed in the morning. My bike survived mostly intact; the seat is a little torn, there's a few scratches, and one of the quick-release clamps for the folding mechanisms is completely bent and will have to be replaced. All very minor things, I should be able to get back on (yes, I will) very soon. Also, for those of you who were wondering, I was wearing my helmet, and it survived without a scratch on it (thanks, Ann! I told you it would make the blog)! I've included some pics of my injuries - warning: these are not for those with weak constitutions. Enjoy!
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