Battered & Bruised

My diet is such that I am frequently determined to be anemic during my quasi-regular medical check-ups. Anemia is a condition in which blood is deficient in quantity, in red blood cells or in hemoglobin (according to "U.S." medical standards - the same country that won't recognize my medical degree from the University of Cancun that I earned during the week of Spring Break '02, so, you know, whatevs). I often feel weak and lack the vitality one needs to walk to the fridge for an ice cream sandwich. Thus, I bruise easily. Really easily. I can't recall a day where I haven't given myself a nice bruise, knocked my hip on my bedpost when walking by, goose-egged my leg against the hardwood frame of my desk, or some other similar spastic action. My bruises are my hard-earned and well-deserved boy-scout-badges of mediocrity, marking a life of ham-handed clumsiness and benzodiazepine-induced bumbling.

Now that summer is upon us and I have brought out the sun dresses and skirts and tanks, I imagine I'll be getting those pitiful looks from random strangers again. And I know what they're thinking. They see me and they see the bruises and they see how graceful I am and they think, "Now there goes one good-looking, battered woman." Ha! You're half-right. I'm feel more abused by the assumption that I must have a person in my life who beats me, leaving my body black, blue, bruised and marked. (note: at this point, I usually trip over an crack only visible by an electron microscope in the sidewalk and all assumptions of abuse evaporate from the minds of those once pity-filled pedestrians).

Let me just say, for the record, the only people who beat me are Kelley (at Scrabble) and Nick (at Golf). The only thing 'battered' about me are the fried chicken crumbs stuck to my cleavage from dinner last night.

One of the many bruises currently covering Melly's pale, anemic, sexy body