Jenna's House of Idiosyncrasies Version 10.0 [Focus.]

This morning I woke up the first time my alarm went off.

This never happens.

I'm fairly certain it worked this time because I've replaced the squawk! squawk! squawk! of my clock radio with my new mobile phone alarm, playing my Love in an Elevator ringtone.

I climbed out of bed, did the morning thing. I had time to make French bread pizza for breakfast, take a lot of vitamins to combat the cold I am suffering from, and give some clear thought to my goals for the day. I wasn't feeling terribly chipper about going to class, but I was making good time, and if I booked it I'd only be about a minute late.

I pulled on my lucky hat, started up the iPod and bounded down the stairs.

At the second floor landing I nearly ran into a guy coming out of the hall right off the stairs. In a gentlemanly move he motioned me past him. I smiled and rushed down the steps.

I ended up going a little faster than I cared to.

I'm not sure what the liquid on the stairs was. It looked like water, but it could have been anything. Whatever it was, it was grimy and oily. I remember thinking—in the moment just before I stepped right into it, gliding across it, losing my footing and sliding down half a flight of stairs at a high speed—that I should maybe try to avoid the splotches of liquid, a trail leading down decorating a dozen steps.

The world swirled for a moment while I was airborne, and then I was swept back to reality by the pain. The lovely pain. I do know now that, despite habitual binge drinking, all my nerve endings are still working.

The young man who had ushered me past (and in light of this, I must say I feel especially terrible that I can't conjure up his face in my head for the life of me) came down the stairs and genuinely expressed concern.

“Are you okay?”

Gasp. Squint. “No—” I strained through gritted teeth, “—definitely not.”

I was still sitting where I had landed, contemplating what it was going to feel like to stand. He stood there in front of me, looking half-worried and half-obligated, and offered to stay there for a moment, presumably in case I couldn't get up on my own.

I insisted this was not necessary. “No—go ahead.” I spoke with a tightened chest and short, abbreviated breaths. I think I was trying not to cry.

The gentlemen left. I sat there for a moment, pondering blowing off class, walking back upstairs, laying down on the couch and sobbing for awhile. However, at this point, it seemed much less painful to go down stairs than climb back upstairs, so I took a deep breathe and stood.

It hurt even more than I thought it would.

Where I stood, I face a wall where someone had scrawled a too-late warning.

“Be Safe”

The final verdict? I twisted my shoulder when I grabbed for the rail, my right wrist is still throbbing from when I landed on it, and there are a few ungrateful spots on my back and spine that came into violent contact with the stairs when I flipped backwards. I'm a mess.

“Plus,” I told Neil later, “I probably have a bruise on my ass the size of Texas.”

I fell.

As if I don't have enough body pain from plain ole' stress, I now have a skinned knee, two raw hands, and a bruised ego.

I tripped over evil, evil pavement, lost my balance, then failed to regain it before being pulled down by my bag. Unlike last time this happened (outside of Park Hall, freshman year) people came over to help me, and I managed to get up without crying or feeling like I had just ruined my cool, street-wise exterior.

"Are you alright?"

"Yeah." The fall stunned me, I think. I was staring at the palms of my hands. They hurt too much to not be cut open. Plus I felt pretty exposed, sitting there on the ground all banged-up, but I faked some sense of composure. "Just a little clumsy."

"Oh no, you see that pavement?" she pointed to the cracked uneven sidewalk where I had just stepped. "All over campus! I do that all the time." she smiled and asked if I needed a hand.

I managed to gather my senses, pull myself up, thank the kind strangers and limp to the nearest bathroom to clean myself up.

The worst thing of all? I ripped a hole in my favorite pair of jeans! I mean, skin heals, but it's impossible these days to find a good pair of blue jeans.