The Other Cheek

Last night the Cherry-Wheelock family, visiting from Tokyo, dined at our house. Six-year-old twins Nina and Lianne needed to know exactly where Winnie and Tess were every 15 minutes, so at one point I raced downstairs with them to see if the cats were there, hiding from the sweet but grabby girls. I had only ankle socks on my feet, and I slid down the stairs, bouncing off three or four of them directly on my hindquarters. As I stumbled to upright myself, Nina complained that I’d brushed against her head on my way down, and Lianne noted that I’d scared her with my noisy careening. (It’s OK, kids! I’m only in intense pain!)

Later that evening I sensed a disturbance in my ass-ular region, right cheek zone. I then touched my hand to what felt like a baseball in my back pocket. Only, it actually was a huge, solid protrusion. Its size rather alarmed me, so I asked Lynn to feel it through my shorts as she was busily preparing dinner. Strangely, she declined and suggested the timing was vastly inopportune. I literally sat on the edge of my seat through dinner, and not from suspense as to whether Lianne and Nina would eat Lynn’s vegan meal. (They mostly did not.) In fact, at this very moment I’m sitting on the edge of my office chair during my lunch hour, trying not to place direct pressure on the huge black-and-blue bruise (I prefer to call it a “hematoma”; it’s graver-sounding and somehow more dignified) on my gluteus (now-even-more) maximus. I iced the affected area last night and again this morning before work, but it retains the heft and solidity of a good-sized rock. I was unable to ride the stationary bicycle this morning, and a sore left foot also sustained in the fall is making my ability to run this weekend look dubious. So, as if to add fat-joke insults to injury, I’m doomed in my mind to physical inactivity and spiraling weight gain. (This in addition to having an ass cheek the color of eggplant.)

I know: “Thanks for sharing!”

So, OK, let’s take a stab at transitioning this tailbone tale into something a bit more socially relevant. How’s this for a ripped-from-the-headlines—if admittedly awkward—segue? Another thing that’s giving me a major pain in the ass this week is the national idiocy over the proposed “9/11 mosque.” You know, the building complex “at” Ground Zero that’s actually two blocks away, that isn’t so much a mosque as it is an education center, that’s the dream of a Muslim who preaches peace and tolerance and is endorsed by the US State Department, and that would appear to present a shining opportunity to spotlight values our nation purports to hold dear? I’ve so had it with the right-wing jingoism and fear-mongering of the Glenn Becks and Sarah Palins, and I’m nearly apoplectic that increasing numbers of Americans are telling pollsters President Obama is a Muslim (as if that should matter, anyway).

The fact that the conservative blogosphere is going nuts over this issue does not compel me to meticulously counter their arguments in this, my own very obscure forum. But it does make me want to do something. Something positive. I therefore have decided to act on what I consider a somewhat related issue: The failure thus far of Americans to show anything close to a Haiti-like response to the flood-related devastation in Pakistan.

Now, I know people have a variety of reasons—in addition to Pakistan’s predominant religion and its reputation as a terrorist hotel—to hold that country at arm’s length. The government is famously corrupt, for example, and there’s reluctance even by some Pakistani ex-patriots to give money except to family members for fear the cash will be funneled into the pockets of crooked bureaucrats and military men. But the simple, overriding facts of the situation, to me, are that 1) millions of people are suffering, and 2) reputable aid organizations exist that can help those people. One such group, an Islamist organization dedicated to relief efforts in Pakistan and among needy populations worldwide, has its US headquarters right here in Alexandria and is very highly rated by Charity Navigator. I either will hand-deliver them a check or donate online before heading home tonight.

Now, I’m not saying I needed the mosque controversy to compel me to donate, but the vociferousness and willful ignorance of the anti-mosque contingent certainly added to my motivation. My piddling donation won’t make a tremendous difference in Pakistan, but I figure it beats doing nothing. It’ll help at least a little. And I’ll feel, in a sense, that I’ve put my money where my mouth is in the wider fight against stigmatizing all of Islam.

The literal pain in my ass will take a good while to subside, but I can do something positive today to help smooth the figurative one.