Bloody Nose, Bloody Knee

Tonight in softball practice, I was trying to catch a ground ball that took a nasty bounce and it hit me right in the nose. Hard. The first thing I felt was total stupidity. I mean, who gets hit in the face with a softball? Children. Goofballs. People who can't play softball. I felt embarrassed because I thought I might start to cry, so I just covered my face with my hands and started walking towards the outfield. Then I looked at my hands and realized they were all bloody. Yikes!

I was really hoping my nose wasn't broken. I kept thinking about how your nose is always growing because cartilage keeps growing forever, and that people who get hit in the nose a lot (like boxers) end up with bigger noses because all that pounding to the cartilage makes it grow more. (It's definitely possible that I made that last part up.) But I really don't need my nose any larger. The Davis family has a history of large schnozes. My grandpa had a big ole crazy nose, which I remember as being constantly red. When I was a kid I had a pretty fat nose. Apparently my Dad used to say to me, "Don't worry, Courtney, we can always get you a nose job." I don't remember this at all, but I'm sure it scarred me internally somehow that I'm still working out. Thanks, Pop.

But my nose isn't broken. Or at least doesn't appear to be. Although the bridge of my nose is currently swollen, which I think makes me look like I have fetal alcohol syndrome.

Or like Rocky Dennis from Mask.

I made Brian take a picture of my face all bloody so I can at least remember that I'm 2% tough for having a bloody nose (98% ridiculous).

I also bloodied up my knee in last Friday's game when I attempted to slide into 2nd base. I was running to 2nd and I saw the shortstop catch the ball and I thought, well I might as well try and slide. I didn't want to just run right into his tag. (I should note here that I've never slid into a base before in my life.) Anyway, I stuck my feet out in what I thought would be the start of a slide, but somehow ended up tumbling forward onto the ground on my hands and knees, and then kind of rolling over. I can't really explain the physics of it, but I can say that after I tumbled to the ground and skinned my knee, I realized that I wasn't even near the base. Sigh. The shortstop was pretty horrified.

I have never been coordinated. When other girls were learning how to do handstands and flip-flops in gymnastics class, I couldn't even do a cartwheel. A front roll was the about the best I could muster. I am not well-balanced. I like to blame it on my tiny hands and feet, which are too small for my body. It's the reason I don't wear high heels very much. (Okay, one of the reasons.) I used to wear heels more often and I would fall down all the time. I've fallen down just crossing the street.

The upside to all this is that our rag-tag softball team is on a 3-game win streak. This Friday, we play for the championship of the losers bracket. Yeah!!

Signed,
Rocky Dennis