Half Nekkid Thursday

thought i might work up the stem of the leg i started with. sort of a blog striptease. you can see the tattoo i posted last week and the beginnings of the next for HNT. but it's the knee that interests me right now. lately, it's been causing me pain. not on the side you can see, but the other. it's an ache i've had since i was 16 and playing soccer all the year round for my high school team and the summer leagues. it started one day during a summer game in the under 23 age league (while i was still 16). my mostly high school team gang was battling the CSU-Fresno soccer alumni team and managing to stay tied at zero into the second half. the temperature in the shade was 114 faranheit. on the field...well, it was a bit warmer. one of the players went down with an injury and i trotted to the side lines for a drink of water. on the way there (just trotting, mind you) i felt/heard a click in my knee. i stopped immediately as all soccer players do when something with the important limbs (read: legs) seems suddenly amiss. i reached down, massaged it, felt no outside pain and resumed jogging. suddenly, the inside of my knee began to twinge each time i landed on it. i began limping a little bit and changed my direction of trotting from the water to my older brother. he had torn the cartilage in one of his knees playing high school football some years earlier. when i told him what i had felt and how it was now hurting he massaged the knee and asked if this or that hurt when he pressed on it. nope. just a pain in the knee. wait. yeah, that hurts right there. he gave me the neoprene knee brace he was wearing, i put it on, i got my water and went out and finished the match, which we lost 2-0 (but it was against ex-college players so we didn't feel so bad and my coach had me playing forward when i was a natural fullback/stopper). i spent the rest of the game pulling the knee wrap up, because it was too big for me.
the knee would continue to haunt me every now and then through the years, but not in any manner that was debilitating.
on toward today. for the last two weeks the pain is back and it is almost constant. when i go to bed at night i slather it in woodlock, which acts as a liquid aspirin. a very good alternative to bengay and the like. an acupuncturist who was treating me for bad tendonitis gave me a bunch of bottles when my insurance stopped covering the needling (might as well have, it wasn't giving me anything more than temporary relief. took me over a month to relax enough where the needles didn't hurt going in. funny, because i have tattoos and thoroughly enjoyed those experiences). woodlock smells like peppermint linament and isn't conducive to social gatherings, so i wait until i'm home for good each night. i'm now almost out and need to find a local asian pharmacy (where it's much cheaper than online).
but i digress. the reason i wanted to post my knee for Half Nekkid Thursday is i'm hoping that the knee will feel shame at being publicly exposed and heal itself or, at the least, shut the fuck up for a while. i tell my body it's okay to hurt sometimes. it's acceptable to want some downtime. i can allow a bit of joint self pity. but i'll be damned if i will put up with it for any prolonged period of time. and if it's a serious problem, then get serious. don't whine quietly. let me know i need to see a doctor. fall off or something. spurt blood in a geyser from an aorta i never knew existed. learn to call 911 your own damn self. become doublejointed and kick myself in the ass over and over until i can't ignore you anymore. stuff some of that toe fungus in my eye. go on a goddamned talkshow, bounce up and down on the couch and tell the world how much you love being in love with a scientologist who has lots and lots of money and whose ex-wives and girlfriends go on to very lucrative careers... that way i'll know to sign up for health insurance with my employer (because i'm NOT a goddamned scientologist and i don't have lots of money and i'll never be a hollywood star and i can't get a table at the Outback Steakhouse in under 30 minutes even when i claim to be an endangered species...)
pretty damn obvious i'm an ex-athlete, isn't it? treat it like it's a minor nuisance and then i'll get really pissed off when the doc tells me i have to walk on the other leg only. boing boing boing. look at me, i'm not even a kangaroo. i keep going in circles. wow, look at the lemmings-they can run straight...never mind. maybe one gimpy knee isn't so bad.
happy HNT (which is where you go to find out the guidelines and whatnot) to all who visit!
p.s. this is the HNT creator's site, which has a wonderful sidebar linklist of many who are involved.