Better than chances of winning Powerball

[winterkoninkje]

Between 18.27 and 18.32 PST yours truly was struck by a car while crossing SW Harrison at 4th Avenue. Worry not, no major damage, but let this be a lesson. Bless not every day, but every minute of your life. Let every conversation end as it were your last, because it will be.

Comments

[jennekirby.livejournal.com]

gah! *hugs*

[winterkoninkje.livejournal.com]

Thanks, <hugs back>

[snowcoma.livejournal.com]

O_O *EYES BUG* Gods, sweetie! No major damage but what about minor? *sends good vibes*


And I was on the phone with Zeo while I read this, and after listening to me squawk in horror, he sends get-well wishes.

[winterkoninkje.livejournal.com]

Bloodied a couple knuckles, wore a hole through one layer of the knees of my carhartts. Other than that just water damage to the essays I was carrying and wetness all around. Nothing twisted, sprained, strained, broken, or banged. For what it was I got off with the trivial wounds of a narrowly non-trivial slip/fall. Effects were mostly psychological.

[konomaigo.livejournal.com]

Glad you're ok.

[winterkoninkje.livejournal.com]

Thanks.

Complete tangent: what was I supposed to email you about other than CS book recommendations?

[paracelsus626.livejournal.com]

Just one more reason that being such a large fellow has probably been advantageous to you...unless the you were a target...but truly, I am glad to hear that you escaped unscathed.

[winterkoninkje.livejournal.com]

Uninjured but not entirely unscathed. There's nothing quite like getting in touch with your own mortality. I heard the screech of breaks locking what seemed precisely one second before it happened. It was dark, it was raining, the reflective stripe down my backpack --the only bit of visible attire that wasn't black-- was facing away from him as with the metal buttons. Bright white walk sign or no, if he didn't see me when he did, things could've been much worse. One second is a very long time.

Later, when the void of response had started to pass, I got to thinking of how it could've been, about my signoff message on irc before heading to class, about the discussion I had with Adam today re B-trees, about the discussion with Dr York about one potential topic for my thesis, a discussion which had just ended one minute before as he left to catch his bus home and I to catch mine. I thought how those last words would have held up were the worst to transpire. I think, banal as they may be, that I would not have minded those to be parting words.

Again, don't live as if every day were your last because there's one you won't finish. Live for the minutes. Make every conversation in passing as if those are your last words before you have one minute to reflect and one second to consider. What's the Yiddish saying? the one about never ending a conversation angry? These are good words.

[antayla.livejournal.com]

That sucks :(

How did it feel? (I've always wondered.)

[winterkoninkje.livejournal.com]

In truth I can't say as it really felt like anything. That screech one second before you're used to tuning out, you might ponder briefly, then when first contact is made it all makes sense. You feel your body moving of it's own volition as if someone very even-pacedly tackling you, or as the harness kicking in at the end of a bungie cord but without a jerk; the force is strong but perfectly smooth, even. And then everything goes away. Thoughts. Emotions. Words. Actions. All is void. Even to consider the void is something and so cannot exist. The profundity of void does not exist. All is self evident and needs no consideration or explanation. There is no enlightenment, for enlightenment exists. Things do not happen, action does not exist, and yet change occurs. All is... complete.

Later, slowly, time coalesces, motion is created, reaction bubbles into existence, thought begins but cannot be completed, action exists and form is given to motion, emotion weakly is told by emotion's lack, words exist but cannot be used, the concept "shock" appears but is unaccompanied by "surprise" due to emotions lack, cohesive thought's lack, words give form to thought but they still have no meaning. An action, you look at your watch, time is quantifiable, the mind forms motivation, the world falls into being disjoint, words have meaning but meaning is useless. You've boarded the bus three blocks away. Your knees feel weak. Realization sets in.

[altrus.livejournal.com]

yes, glad to hear you're not dead...

[winterkoninkje.livejournal.com]

Thanks. Yeah, it's really strange to think about one's death not in terms of the dying, but in terms of how everyone's lives continue. Reminds me of the end of Donnie Darko, which for me at least is one of the most touching experiences in cinema.

[silmaril.livejournal.com]

....
Glad that there is no major damage.

[winterkoninkje.livejournal.com]

dankje :)

[alese.livejournal.com]

So, I just finally saw this. I'm terribly terribly glad you're alive, and with more food for thought. I've been hit by a car while biking twice now, and neither time really believed/internalized that it could have been serious (in one case, because I saw the car before it saw me, so I perceived it as me hitting the car, and the other because I didn't see the car at all til it bumped me and I was in the street. In both cases the car drivers were far more distraught than I was.)
[big hugs]