Welcome to Albuquerque (again)

You know how you always try to make a good impression on the first day of classes? Or at least I always have. I think it goes back to when I was little. My mom would always get us dressed up in our nice new clothes and brand new school shoes. We'd have our shiny new lunch box and backpack, and an unbroken, unused box of Crayola Crayons.

In college, a lot of my friends would show up in pajamas for the first day of class. And even though I'm not known as the fanciest dresser, I'd be sure to at least be wearing an ink-free set of clothes to my first day of art classes.

So here I am, 28 years old and about to begin my second semester at Tamarind. I have an Art History class this semester with an actual teacher. Plus, we'll soon be meeting our grad student collaborators for the first time.

And while I have a new pair of jeans and a brand new notebook to take with me to class, I somehow think those things are going to go unnoticed...

BECAUSE I HAVE A F*#$*#*ng BLACK EYE!!!

No seriously.

I. Have. A. Black. Eye.



I'm sure you want to know how this could happen to someone as graceful as me. Click below to continue reading the account of this unbelievable feat.

It all started this afternoon as I boarded my plane in Saint Louis. I thought to myself... "Geez... I've got two bags, one of which weighs 50 pounds. And I'm planning on taking the BUS home? That's going to be annoying. I should just see if I can get a cheap rental car for the night. That way I can go grocery shopping and stuff and not have to worry about the bus or asking for rides."

So as soon as I landed in ABQ (a long boring flight surrounded by three babies and Santa Fe loonies), I called Carrie and asked if she could check on rental car prices for me. She found me a good deal with Enterprise and off I went to the rental car facility.

[SIDENOTE: Not before running into my Tamarind friend Yuli at the baggage claim. Apparently her ride had forgotten about her, so she used my phone and found someone else to come and get her. At this point, I still thought I was taking the bus or else I would have offered her a ride.]

The enterprise folks were nice and professional and walked me out to the KIA Spectra I had waiting for me. After doing a dent-check on the car, the nice gentleman started her up and directed me out of the lot. Now all I had to do was get in the car and drive away. Easy enough, right?

Apparently not.

I start to get in the car, but it's unfamiliar and the door is higher than I'm used to. I swing the door towards me as I lower myself into the car and the next thing I know I've smacked myself under the eye with the car door. I winced and grabbed my eye. There was an agent walking toward the car who may have seen it happen, but I pretended like nothing was wrong and continued into the car. I adjusted the rear view mirror so that I might see out the back window and also see my throbbing eye at the same time. There were two small scratches under my left eye and a small bump starting to form.



I kind of figured returning to Albuquerque would suck, but not this much.

The only cold thing in my fridge was the Mountain Dew I'd left for my arrival home. I "iced" my face until my skin stuck to the can and the pain went away.



I made a grocery list, went to Wal-Mart and just got home... only to discover my newly forming black eye. I bet it's going to look even better in the morning, on my first day of classes.

Running into a car door really isn't the best excuse. If you have any better ones, let me know. I'm thinking I might tell everyone I took a hockey puck to the eye. Or that I got in a fight with a Giants fan during the football game last night.

So many possibilities.