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Last night, Kristin and I headed down to the city to hang out with Sara, Tim, Sharon, Anthony, Mags, and Curt at a little gathering hosted by Sara & Tim at their nicely renovated apartment. We all had some good sushi (except for Anthony who had pizza) and a good mini-celebration for Sharon’s new business and Kristin and Sara’s completion of the dance recital.

I forget sometimes how invigorating a weeknight out with good company can be, even if it means a few lost hours in the habitual weeknight sleep schedule.

UPDATE: I forgot to mention one bit of this: last night, after a modicum of encouragement, large, yet surprisingly spry, me decided to re-enact key dance moments from the recital for everyone present. This had everyone crying tears of laughter, and Mags at one pointed exclaimed to Kristin: “Thank you for marrying C.K.!”

Good. Fun. This is what I’m here for…but, I have a bad knee, you see, and I twisted it slightly (as it is wont to do) during the performance of aforementioned dance, so today I have been feeling it. My knee is just a bit overly sore. I think rather than doing the full boxing workout today (which can be a bit erratic with hoping around the bag I’m working), I may just do an extended cardio-workout on one of the stationary bikes. Need to do something knee-friendly.

And for those of you who aren’t entirely bored with this story already, I provide for you here a brief history of my knee:

• Age 0-17 Great knee. Wonderful.
• Age 17, while playing football (I was a tackle and I played both offense and defense) and on a punt return play (such a lame play to injure oneself on), my cleats caught in the grass when I knocked a guy in my lane on his ass, my knee twisted, I heard a pop, felt a sharp pain that was quickly gone, and I fell to the ground unable to stand back up. The next play began with no one realizing I was still on the field until they started tripping over me as I lay there waving my hands in the air yelling, “Hey, I can’t get up.”
• Age 17-18, I had torn my ACL (anterior cruciate ligament) and underwent surgery (from the same guy who repaired Andre the Giant’s knee after a similar injury) to replace the now defunct ligament with a bit of tendon removed from the front of my kneecap. I now have 3 screws in my knee.
• Age 18-27ish, Knee went through physical therapy and was good, more or less, but every once in a while, I’d do something odd without wearing the special brace I am supposed to wear when I do activities particularly hard on the knees, and, as a result, the knee would swell up with fluid and I had to get it drained. This was maybe a once a year event for a while.
• Age 27ish-late 28, I decided to start boxing. No idea why. Just did. I enjoyed it and I was surprisingly pretty good. The guys at the gym called me “The Professor”, because I taught some English classes as an adjunct instructor at Illinois State University at the time, and we joked about getting me custom gloves that read “Learn This” across the knuckles. I was in training, sparring with one of my team mates, not wearing my special brace while I was bouncing around the bouncy ring, and again I stepped oddly, twisted my knee and went down. The doctors thought that I tore the ACL again, and this time they were going to go in and replace it with one from a cadaver. Ick. Anyway, I go under for surgery, then several hours later when I come back up, the doctor informs me that it wasn’t torn after all, just stretched slightly and I had some torn cartilage that they repaired. So, no cadaver ligament needed, but the knee is looser than normal, so do these exercises. That was the end of my boxing career. I tell you, I could-a been-a…
• Age 28-present, the knee is a little loose still and as a result the whole right leg is a bit weak and I tend to twist my right ankle very often for little explicable reason. Things like stepping half on carpet, half off with that foot can send me tumbling. It’s to the point where I refer to it as my “trick ankle.”

So nothing is damaged, but post last night’s dancing my knee is feeling a bit sore and tired and I am hyper-sesitive to the possibility of a “trick ankle” incident. Time to go work out.