I've never been punched in the face.

Once, though, I did get slapped in the face. It was a big, painful, open-hand smack. It really, really stung, nearly to the point of making me want to cry. It happened one day after school, when I was around 15 or so. I was just standing out in front of my Chicago public high school, which is what we always did after school. Out of the blue, this big guy just walked buy and smacked me in the face. He continued walking, while I just stood there, stunnned. Maybe it was because I was an idealist, or maybe it was because it happened right in front of a girl, but I decided to approach the slapper. Scared as hell, I walked up to him. About seven or eight of his large friends stood in a group a few yards away, watching to see what would happen.

"Why the fuck did you slap me?" I asked.

"Why not?"

There was no way I was going to fight this guy. I was outnumbered nearly ten times over. He was big. His friends were big. If I had decided to deliver a slap of my own, I would have had the shit beat out of me.

A conversation ensued. I think at one point I actually asked the guy to envision a world in which people walked around slapping one another indiscriminately. I don't know what I was talking about.

Eventually, we came around to an acceptable conclusion. "Naw, man, naw. It's coo', it's coo'. I'm sorry I slapped you. I like you."

Not that it mattered much, but I had won this guy's respect, for whatever it was worth. I was still a scared, pissed off teenager who had just randomly been slapped in the face, and I didn't much care whether this asshole liked me or not. In any case, I guess I managed to save face without having to be beaten up.

But. There was no way to save face yesterday when I was beaten up by my own furniture.

I bet you didn't realize that story was a lead-in to a humorous anecdote, eh? (Don't worry about the slap from the big guy...that was over ten years ago, and I'm more than over it.)

Anyway, yesterday: I was in full on cleaning mode. I vaccumed, I swept, I dusted, I scrubbed, I did dishes. I left the crusty oven crust alone, because, hey: ovens get like that. Who am I to tamper with the beauty of nature?

So, in the midst of the dusting and vaccuming, I lifted my full-sized mattress off the box spring and placed it against the wall. I then did then same with the box spring, leaning it against the mattress. I brushed the collected dust off the bottom of it, and turned away to deposit the dust in the trash. Turning back to it, I found the left side of my face near my eye assaulted with the brute force that only a falling chunk of wood can deliver.

Perhaps not too strangely, I immediately felt a flash of anger. I actually checked myself from following through on my first instinct, which was to wallop this inanimate object with an attack of my own. Luckily, I'm a reasonable human being, and, after realizing that punching a box spring was not going to hurt it like it hurt me, and would probably do more harm than good, I went to inspect my damage in the mirror. I had been hit so hard that I expected some serious blood. All I recieved, though, was a minor bump on my eyebrow. It's visible, but it doesn't look painful enough so that I might be offered pity. Damn.

There are two things influencing my life at the moment. 1: It is bloody HOT here in Chicago. 2: My girlfriend is out of town, in Columbus, Ohio, at some sort of wedding shower, or something like that. Normally, I might seize such an opportunity to contact some old friends, but the idea of being both outdoors and doing stuff is extremely unattractive.

The plan, therefore, is to watch bad Sunday afternoon movies, maybe try to write, eat leftover pizza, and in general, be a bum.

Lovely.