I want to talk about the two days I spent last week doing offshore dives for work. It was miserable, it was dangerous, it was wonderful, it was my first experience with seasickness ever - in spite of having spent six years in the Navy. More importantly, it was a chance to be Blue Collar Jimbo again. I missed that guy even more than I realized. I have never been entirely comfortable living a purely white collar life. But I don't want to spend too much time talking about it before I see what's on the captain's camera. Everybody likes an illustrated story.
Televisionless, bookless, playstationless, I started reading truly ancient entries of other people's journals. Sometimes it's interesting just trying to identify the feature line where you made someone's e-acquaintance, when you've "known" them for years. Have I read this entry before? Do I know the context of this story? Does this further inform my idea of the person I think I know, if it predates our "acquaintance"? You can call it e-stalking if you're feeling unkind. But if we're going to e-prefix a word to label it, I will aspire to labeling it e-archaeology. Hey, I've been a shovelbum in real life. I was there to see a derringer come out of a public outhouse in the ruins of Old Catawba at one dig, I've helped map out Mississippian amerind village layouts by exposing the features left by 500-year old postholes in others. Why should livejournal be any different? If the intimate details of strangers' lives don't intrigue you at times, you are probably a little dead inside.
But all of that is really just an extremely long-winded intro and excuse for posting a response to a question
melt212 asked 4 years ago.> What's the most painful thing you've ever felt
> and how would you rank it on a scale from 1-10?
I know this post is ancient and it's weird replying to it four years later, but hey, my TV is broken and I'm bored. And also, the honest answer to it cracks me up.
Nose smashed from a corner kick: 6
Knocked unconscious with a steel prybar: 7
Broken fingers from staff fighting: 5
Aikido wristlocks from the sensei: 8
Recovery from invasive surgery: 8
Really bad gas: 10
Seriously. It's funny, but if there is anything in life that hurts more desperately than really bad gas, I have never encountered it. I have burn scars, bone strike scars, stab scars, slice scars, you name it. But nothing hurts more desperately frantically oh-god-make-it-stop than an impacted fart.
