Stairs 1, Karen 0

The other day I finished Cracks in my Foundation by Marian Keyes while at the emergency room at St Vincent's. Why the emergency room, you ask? Well, I'm not quite certain myself. One moment I was hauling my work bag, my lunch, a bag of books, and myself down the stairs, and the next, I was slowly going head over heels, and landed on my back. I still don't know what happened. Although I managed to get myself back upstairs with some assistance from the cabdriver who lives downstairs. I dumped all nonessential items, made sure I had some reading material. He then took me to the hospital.

Note: When whacked on the head, it's hard to fill out those forms at the hospital. I'll be creating a little business card thing that contains all that information I needed for that form so the next time I have it handy.

I'm very glad I grabbed the book, because the tv in the room was too loud, so I turned it off (by the way, I didn't have to wait for my room -- filled out that form and got whisked away in a wheelchair). Anyway, I'm fine. I'll probably have a headache for the next 6 weeks or so since I got hit, or hit my head on something on the way down. (It looked like someone had placed a Grade A XX large egg under the skin on my forehead.) And I have some amazing technicolor bruises. And the one shoulder that didn't hurt was given a tetanus shot, so it's sore, too.

What you don't see in the movies, though, is that when someone has a black eye in real life, it usually is accompanied by some major swelling. My eyelids are so swollen I feel like I'm squinting. And my left eye looks like someone took red and purple eyeshadow and smeared it all around. But it's difficult to see because the swollen eyelids kind of hide the bright colors.

As for the book, I enjoyed it. She had some good points about travel. The essays on shopping got a bit tiring after a while, though. And the short stories weren't as engaging as I think her books are.