Piss me off

There are two things that piss me off about this whole deal:

- Given what happened, you are really lucky to be alive.

LUCKY??? Fuck YOU. I'm lucky to have my legs broken? To be a crippled person, who can't even shit without needing help? To hurt all over my body while my body heals? And I'm lucky... because I'm alive?? Consider the alternative, if I had died. What would have happened? I would've died, and I would have never woken up on that street, or anywhere else. I would've disappeared, vanished, not felt any pain, any broken bones, and my last thoughts would've been about riding to Indianapolis, my last image that of a beautiful sunrise, no regrets and no unhappiness. No pain, no woes, no hospital bills, no surgeries, no pills to take, no FUCKING parents to stay with forcedly for months. Yeah, lucky, thanks a lot.

You know what would've been lucky? If the car had JUST missed me, maybe. If half a centimeter away from my handlebar, the air current pushed me off the road onto the grass and made me fall, and I had scraped my knee. Yeah, that would've been lucky. Real lucky. Right after falling, I'd be thinking "WOW, lucky me! ALMOST got shattered by a car, but not quite! Must be my lucky day!" Not a good event, but I would've continued my travels. Broken bones? Metallic hardware inserted for life? Probable arthritis on my right ankle forever? Not too lucky, I think.

Everyone fucking assumes I want to stay alive. Fuck. If I had just been given the chance to choose. "Hello Mr. Juarez. You broke 7 bones, and we can fix them, but it will hurt like hell and you will take at least a year to recover fully, after we bill you 6 digits only to be able to approximate your previous healthy condition. You'll be pretty screwed up for life. Instead, we can also provide you with a complimentary mercy kill. Which one do you prefer?" Which one would YOU take, huh? People assume they want to stay alive for something. What the FUCK for? I don't see much to look forward to. I wouldn't mind either way, but given my situation, I would've gone for death.

You know what I think, doctors? DO NOT fucking say "you're very lucky to be alive" UNLESS you've been through that. If you haven't yet woken up to half your body being broken and to months of recovery from a crippled existence, you don't have the right to say that. I'd respect it from someone who's been through it, yeah. But not from you, who only assume that life is better than death under all circumstances.

- I hope you get better soon!

Soon? And do you really hope so? Please. Does it really make a difference to you? I die... what difference will that make in your life, huh? Will your life fall to pieces? How important am I to you, really? Hell, I'm not blaming you. I'm not saying you're an asshole for saying that - I'd say that too if I were in your place. But the fucking cliche is almost as annoying as my mother's obsessive need for control, and it really doesn't help much in my actual recovery.

During the first days after my accident, when I was in my hospital room getting a few visitors, I felt cheerful. Sincerely so. I thought "oh well, an accident, what am I going to do? Make the best of it, right? I have no legs, but maybe I'll get a computer, and learn a language, write, get an online job... I don't know, something." But as time's gone by - 6 weeks since the accident now, I don't feel like it. A language, maybe - but here in my house environment - uggggh. I'm trapped in the fucking environment I wanted to get away from for so long. And then I was away from it - free, happy, fully unaffected by it, and WHAM! I get sucked back in here with my parents.

So now I'm recovering at their place - slowly... my body feels a little less pain, a little more strength, more flexibility with time. Not every day is better than the last, but I can see a difference every week. And you know what I have to look forward to? There is only one thing I look forward to doing in life after I recover. Sex. I really want to get some sex again. In view of the whole world and of all the possibilities, having sex at the top of the list must mean something. I think it means I just didn't get enough of it before. That's the one regret I would've had if I had died. No others. And I really can't wait to be able to use all my four extremities and my hips fully again so I can fuck girls in more positions I've ever had before. That's my fucking goal in life. So, I'm lucky to be alive?

Broken

In the hope of killing some time and of getting some distraction until my pain medication starts affecting my nervous system, I will now write about the events I have narrated at least a dozen times during the past two weeks, ever since I came to Indianapolis.

After taking a leave of absence from my Ph.D. program, I began to indulge in diverse activities I had been postponing for some time: piano, parkour, python, android, dj'ing, dance, and physical workouts were on my list. I re-learned the Moonlight Sonata 1st movement, I began to learn the 3rd movement, I read through the entire python tutorial without ever producing an actual program, I began developing my own test android app, I downloaded and played around with tracks and clips in Fruity Loops and Ableton Live, I attended another dance class at The Space Upstairs, and for a few days at least, I woke up early and worked out in my room and in the neighborhood to get an early start. I painted a few t-shirts, I rode my bike everywhere, I learned more and more about its parts and how to fix them. I was doing anything I wanted to, but nothing too much in particular. I felt happy, developing skills of different kinds and takes, and I hoped to become a more well-rounded person, rather than the super-specialized programmer or researcher that my recent past life and Ph.D. program suggested I would.

Though I enjoyed doing anything I wanted, I realized after one or two weeks of this routine that I was advancing fairly slowly in most of my "trainings". Piano was my main focus, and I learned to play almost half of
the 3rd movement's timelength, albeit slowly, but my workout routines rapidly decayed, my parkour runs were less often than I would've wanted, and in general, I thought I might've been doing too much. I remembered a favored phrase of mine: "Whoever
chases two rabbits catches neither", so I began to think that perhaps I should discard some of my goals - maybe let them degrade naturally, by lack of my own motivation, or think of one single goal that I would feel really, truly
excited about, and follow that one with zeal. I started to think of the latter option.

One of the properties of the modern world that I find quite amazing, though objectively obvious, is its connectivity. Every road is connected to every other road in each continent/island/archipelago. If people
can connect two roads with a third, they will. There exist lengthy bridges and tunnels everywhere. Pittsburgh is a prettty good example of this, Venice also, and one of the most amazing ones: the underwater tunnel
between the UK and France.

But engineering wonders aside, what astounds me the most is the amount of possibilities this allows a traveler. Every road is connected to every other road in continental America, so if I were standing on the CMU parking garage and I felt like I wanted to go to the Atacama desert or to the center of Buenos Aires or to Machu Pichu or to the Strait of Bering or to the doorstep of my childhood house in Guatemala, I could begin traveling the roads and eventually get to any destination I wanted. It would require patience, yes, but the possibility is always There. Latent, waiting, open to anyone daring enough to attempt it. And that possibility really excited me, inspired me. It made me feel that if I opened up these possibilities, I would learn much of the world by connecting two places that in my mind are distant and different, accessible only through expensive passage and others' vehicles like airplanes.

Anyway, a few days later, I visited a farmer friend north of Pittsburgh, in another attempt to find a great goal. Farming didn't seem exactly my kind of work, noble and rewarding as it may be, so my road-traveling idea filled my mind more and more. I was almost sure that one of those days, I would just take off with my bike and wander through many cities, meeting all kinds of people and places. I felt confident in my recently-acquired abilities to repair my own bike and on my ability to pedal fairly long distances, so I decided to try it out. Coincidentally, as many other things in my life, I found a way to jumpstart my trip. Stewart, a couchsurfer friend was heading west for a new job and asked me for a place to stay in Pittsburgh the night of Thursday, Oct 14th. I offered him my living room, and also asked him for a ride west to Chicago, where I could start my bike ride with much less danger of tiring out and going back too soon. He had a bike rack on his car, so it all worked out. I hosted him on thursday night, we left Pittsburgh friday at noon, and arrived in Chicago at night. There I met some of Stewart's friends, I was hosted by one of them
in a big room, and then I woke up early on Saturday morning. I got dressed, picked up my stuff, put on my helmet, and began riding.

My parents live in Chicago, but I wanted no one to know of my trip. And not my parents - they - my mom, especially, would surely disagree with my idea, attempt to persuade me to change my mind, put in their opinions. And in my self-centeredness, I considered this goal, this grandiose project of mine, to be mine alone and no one else's. And I wanted it to remain pure and untouched.

So all day Saturday, I biked south and east towards Lafayette, IN. I had never pedaled such a long distance on a single day before, but I managed the best way I could. My butt hurt, my "natural" (non-exhausting) rate of travel was slower than I had thought, and I would have never made it before dark, were it not for the kindness of a couple who picked me and my bike up on their truck and drove me about 30-40 miles on the same highway I was riding. I reached Marcelo's apartment tired but happy, and I surprised him with my new "project": riding through as many cities as I could - getting to know the cities, meeting random couchsurfing hosts in each one, and getting good exercise done in the process.

Sunday, the next day, I woke up late and made pancakes with Marcelo and his brother Eduardo. I also went to Walmart and equipped myself and my bike with some things I thought I needed, such as a gel pad, a side mirror, a flashlight, and sunblock. Then I went back to Marcelo's apartment, ate some grilled sausage and steak, and talked more with Marcelo about anything we thought of. A few hours later, we went to sleep.

I woke up early - at 4:00 am, to avoid getting caught in the road at night like I almost had during my previous ride. The road to Indianapolis was shorter, but I would more rather have too much time than not enough of it. I said goodbye to Marcelo, I finished prepping up, and I was on the road by 4:50. It was still dark, but with my night lights, and still in the city, I felt safe enough. It was cold though, so I stopped at a McDonald's to warm up my hands and to get some breakfast. I got an apple pie and a pumpkin pie, and I waited to feel a good moment to ride. Once I felt my body nice and warm enough again, I took to the road with my bike, and rode on.

A steep uphill and a few traffic lights later, I was on 52-E, slowly but steadily pedaling on towards Indianapolis. I got temporarily lost on a detour, but eventually got back on the road. It was already past 6:30 by now, but the sky was not yet entirely clear. I could see dawn coming along, and the green/cyan aura of sunrise facing me, and I hoped that it wouldn't be long before the sun's warmth acted on the surprisingly cold morning. I even made up a chant to rise the sun up: "Rise, Sun, Rise Sun Rise, Please Sun Rise, C'mon Sun Rise, Please, Rise, Rise, Sun, Rise, Warm us with your warmth, Shine on us with your light. Turn, Earth, Turn Earth Turn,...." and so on.

This is where it gets very fuzzy. After the chanting and the pedaling, my memory finds a gap, and the next thing it remembers is waking up from the street, confused, unsure of where I am, what I am doing, and what just happened. Initial sensations were very dull and fuzzy, and as my brain rushed to put together a mental concept of the cold rough street on my face, my body's awkward position, my inability to move, my slowly but surely focusing pain, and my own confusion, I realized a vehicle must have hit me from behind, and I felt very sad. This probably meant the end of my trip, which was almost all I cared about at the moment.

In the next few moments, I heard some voices behind me asking questions, and I answered as coherently as I could. These voices took off my helmet and my backpack, asked where it hurt, and turned me around. When I turned, my eyes went from seeing nothing to a pair of yellow headlights and a couple of women kneeling and looking down into my face, asking me questions, trying to keep me at me,

**UNFINISHED DUE TO BLOGGER NEGLIGENCE**